As I never get tired of telling people, I’m one of the few drivers who can claim to have won both LeMons and ChumpCar with completely different teams — Flat Rock ’07 and Buttonwillow ’13, respectively. In fact, I’m not aware of anyone else who has done it. Maybe because nobody else bothers to brag about it.
The photo above demonstrates one of reasons why LeMons has become so popular: the “Ranchero” and “Plymouth Fury” above are both actually E30 BMWs.
“There’s a right way and a wrong way,” Keith Sweat once sang, “to love somebody.” There’s also a right way and a wrong way to solve technical problems — and the definition of “technical problems” we use here is very broad. For the purposes of this discussion, we will consider two technical problems. The first one is avoiding a cost of nearly a million dollars for a potentially unnecessary computer program. The second one is appointment scheduling for hairdressers. The method we’ll use to address both problems is identical.
Warning: there are no cars, racing, music, or sex in this post. Sorry about that.
The story of TheTruthAboutCars will make for a fascinating book some day. It has it all: sex, violence, ego, backroom dealings, threats, cowardice, and more. With that said, it’s the characters behind TTAC that make it interesting. Most of the car blogs are either some undifferentiated group of default-liberal hipsters-for-hire or a crocodilian coterie of cynical codgers. TTAC’s had the most diverse group of idiots you could possibly imagine. Some of them arrived with a bang and turned out to be useless, others are just using the site to attract the attention of someone who will put them on the buffet-and-business-travel plan.
Then there’s Steve Lang.
The longest civil trial in British history pitted a part-time bartender and an unemployed ex-postal worker against McDonald’s. The defendants, Helen Steel and David Morris, faced a $20 million legal team with the pro bono assistance of human-rights attorney. At issue was a couple of hundred copies of a pamphlet that made various allegations against McDonald’s. Some of those allegations were later found to be correct by the court; some were determined to be libel. McDonald’s eventually won the case, although by the time they did so neither defendant had a penny to pay the $120,000 judgment.
This all sounds like some typical hippie stupidity, right? Except for one thing: the “McLibel” pamphlet was written by undercover police officers.
On the night of Tuesday, June 18, I was unable to sleep so I cranked out a variety of content for different outlets. Two of the stories I wrote went up on TTAC the next day. As you can see, although the number of comments on the stories was very similar, the number of Facebook shares certainly wasn’t.
What’s up with that?
The image above is taken from beneath the waves, a slideshow of underwater photographing featuring female surfers “duck diving” beneath incoming waves. The shots are compelling and beautiful and if I could get away with it at work I’d set up a 32″ LCD screen that did nothing but display the slideshow over and over again, just to keep me on a stable emotional keel during the occasional rage-filled day.
The question I’ve been pondering for an hour or so, however, is this: “Would it be just as interesting if it featured male surfers?”
Today’s been a real champ of a day, in the most sarcastic sense possible; my mother, who has been fighting a mostly losing battle with sarcoidosis for a few years, found out that she’ll have to retire early from work. That poses some challenges for us that will require some inventiveness to overcome. I’m also in the process of moping over something about which I shouldn’t mope, and like Forrest Gump that’s all I have to say about that.
But just when I figured the best way to handle the rest of the day was by finding the bottom of a bottle of Ketel One Citroen, a package arrived from St. Louis. Let me see. Do I have the “Best Of Ratt” tablature book around here? Yes. Yes, I do.
This past Sunday I went skydiving on a whim with my old pal Martin “El Jefe” Larrea. My participation was vital in order to get the $15 discount for a group of ten, so I went along with a bunch of pretty young Spanish-speaking ladies and their put-upon boyfriends/husbands to try jumping out of a plane. I was alternately fascinated and terrified by the experience. I have a nontrivial fear of heights and this was the first time I’ve been genuinely frightened in a long time. Sure, every once in a while I’ll get a car too far sideways or miss my braking point on a track and I’ll be concerned, but I’m talking about authentic fear here. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to grind this fear into the ground, so I’m going to get my skydiving license, or at least qualify for solo jumps.
Anyway, the email, as sent to a friend who asked:
While I was in Asia I drove a few cars that we’ve never seen on these shores. The first review from those drive experiences can be found at TTAC. I’ll continue to link to them as they appear.
I didn’t expect to like the turbocharged Silvia as much as I did. I suppose all the JDM YO hype had prepared me for disappointment, but instead I found it to be an attractive, rapid, fun-to-drive four-seater. Too bad we didn’t get them here!
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