Bakersfield’s 2nd tallest building, as seen from the Kern Counry Superior Courts building across Truxtun Ave. (Taken with instagram)
R.I.P. Carroll Shelby.
We’ve just received the sad news that today - 11 May 2012 - Carroll Shelby has passed away at the age of 89 after being hospitalized for pneumonia.
He was the mastermind behind the AC Cobra, the Dodge Viper (with Bob Lutz), and influential in the development of the Ford GT40.
In tribute to one of the undisputed kings of American muscle cars, here is our story from Top Gear magazine published only one month ago, dedicated to a true automotive legend.
Acura’s one off NSX-ish spyder for The Avengers movie
This is a one-off built specifically for the upcoming move The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble over here). We first saw this drop-top with Robert Downey Jr - aka Tony Stark - behind the wheel a few months back, but now Acura (Honda’s luxury US arm) has revealed this new pic on its website. No fanfare, no party poppers, no dancing monkeys with hats on: just a small note to say fictional S.H.I.E.L.D. agents get to drive a range of Acura vehicles, including a “convertible sports car”, that looks an awful lot like a new NSX Spider.
This tickles us greatly because the new NSX promises to be a proper TG car. Sans roof? Fine by us. Naturally, there aren’t any details on this, and considering the real thing - the coupe version - is still a few years off production, expect many lips to be fastened.
Day 71: “Bright Side of the Bad News” by Jack and White. Keeping with the theme of duets, here’s another one to add to the collection. It’s not as deep as Gotye and Kimbra’s “Somebody I Used to Know,” and also nowhere near as negative (not being a break up song helps with that). There’s a definite dark side to the lyrics though:
Where would I be without you by my side?
You by my side in a freefall
In a landslide you’re the first call
On the bright side of the bad news
You’re the shoreline of my dark blues.And later:
Strip my identity,
Without you I’m not me.This isn’t simple devotion, this is a relationship that’s become so codependent that neither one could function without the other. They’ve each built up a persona that uses the other as a foundation. It’s not the healthiest approach to love, but damn if it doesn’t make a rather catchy song.
Via HighCastle
March 17…
What do you do for St. Patrick’s Day? Drink green beer? Eat haggis? Throw a telephone pole across an open field? Oh, wait…those are Scottish, not Irish.
I was reminded of a St. Patty’s Day shindig that I went to in Tempe, AZ back in 1996 (I was living in Phoenix at the time). My roommate and his girlfriend had been pestering me for a week beforehand to go. They had someone they wanted me to meet. I’m not much of a big crowd person and this event promised a big crowd of drunken frat-boy types. Reluctantly, I went. The girl they introduced me to, Rachel, seemed nice. Recent ASU grad, worked at some big real estate company in downtown Phoenix. Smart, funny, bookishly cute. I was kinda smitten…for a while anyway. Then she got a shit-ton of green beer and a half-dozen shots of tequila in her. Three hours later, the smart, funny, bookishly cute girl had transformed into a loud, obnoxious drunken idiot. She got us kicked out of the club that was hosting the party after she threw a pint glass at a girl who bumped her and kicked the girl’s boyfriend in the junk. Total Jekyll/Hyde situation. Killed my buzz in record time. Roomie’s girlfriend wound up taking her home.
I did see her after that night. She apologized profusely for her behavior and swore it was an aberration. We went out a couple more times for drinks and to see some local bands but the initial spark was gone.
I laugh about it now, 16 years later. Just one of those little memories that creep up to the surface of my brain from time to time. Enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day celebrations everyone.
I would contend that the greatest change effected by digital photography is not the way we take photographs, but how we store and look at them.
I have thousands on my phone. There are some of my wife and kids, a couple of my home and one, for reasons best examined elsewhere, of James May and Jeremy Clarkson bending over a sofa together while a South African nurse bears down on their exposed backsides with a syringe.
Jezza Exasperation Face #4,675
Lamborghini introduces it’s latest desktop wallpaper: The Aventador J.
Lambo may have stolen the Geneva Motor Show with this. It’s real, it’s a one-off and it is stunning:
It is, in Lambo’s own words, a “radically open automobile”, and they’re not wrong. The Lamborghini Aventador J - so named because of the FIA’s ‘Appendix J’ referencing the tech spec of race cars - dispenses with the roof and windscreen of the hypercar for a unique driving experience.
It’s based on the standard Aventador LP700-4, replete with that 6.5-litre 700bhp V12 and permanent four-wheel-drive. Top Gear’s Supercar of the Year, no less. But for the ‘J’, the carbon fibre monocoque was significantly altered to adjust for the lack of anything above the doors. It’s made of woven carbon fibres soaked with epoxy resin that apparently stabilises the structure but keeps the material soft - almost like a high-tech fabric.
There are two safety bars behind the seats, which themselves are made of forged composite with carbon fibre fabric inserts, and because the Lambo ‘J’ is sans roof, air conditioning and windscreen, it’s lighter than the 1,575kg Aventador coupe. So expect an improvement on the standard Aventador’s 0-62mph time of 2.9 seconds.
Via Top Gear
Internet Face.
I enjoy the fact that this is the very first image result, when I search the phrase “internet face”.
“Top Gear” AND “Doctor Who”? Together in one magical post? YES!!!!!
Doctor Who’s Matt Smith to race on Top Gear track
via Radio Times:
Matt Smith is swapping the Tardis for the test track this Sunday as he becomes Top Gear’s latest Star in a Reasonably Priced Car.
Following in the skid marks of former Time Lords Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant (watch their laps below), Smith will don a crash helmet and drive the fastest lap possible in a Kia Cee’d, hoping to top a celebrity leaderboard that this series boasts such famous names as Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Michael Fassbender.
The real question, though, is whether Smith can win the battle of the Doctors and beat Eccleston and Tennant’s times?
In 2005, ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston set a lap time of 1:52.4 in a Suzuki Liana - at the same time becoming the only celebrity to drive the car with an automatic transmission, as he wasn’t qualified to handle a car with manual transmission.
In 2007, Smith’s predecessor, David Tennant, drove 1:48.8 in a Chevrolet Lacetti, controversially losing out to his co-star, Billie Piper, by just half a second.
Stereotypical Romantic Shit That Rarely Happens In Real Life #5
When a guy and girl meet at and record store or coffee shop, and he doesn’t get her name or number, so he waits at that spot everyday at he same time until he sees her again.
Oh please.
That’s called stalking.
The New York Times interviews Richard Hammond’s new show ‘Crash Course’
Mr. Hammond, 42, is the boyish third of the cast of the BBC’s car-obsessed “Top Gear.” He is here on a blazing September day, wearing a flight suit and learning to operate the Abrams tank for his new TV show, “Richard Hammond’s Crash Course.”
The show, which will make its debut on the BBC America cable channel on April 16, is produced in America for an American audience. That makes it something of a test of how far Mr. Hammond can push the popularity he has earned — but in this case, without the interplay of his “Top Gear” co-hosts, James May and Jeremy Clarkson.
“I travel a lot with work, obviously,” Mr. Hammond said. “Because of the shared language, as far as that sharing goes, America seems in some ways more foreign that many of the other places I go.”
Mr. Hammond is part of an international phenomenon: a TV show about cars that has evolved into a comedy cavalcade of motorized mayhem — and one of Britain’s most beloved cultural exports. It has also become a touchstone for the worldwide automotive culture, and it is widely followed in YouTube clips….
Read the rest: The British Are Coming - Mayhem Sure to Follow - NYTimes.com
About me
There’s a lot of things you need to get across this universe…you know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold.
