fotD23

Sunset on my old campus. If we'd had flickr and teh webs when I was there, I would have gotten even less actual schoolwork done. I also liked this one in the same pool.

"a disastrous success"

(posted for Dougie, the big dumb animal, who seems to have lost his password - an email to me describing beer and other behavior illustrating why he'll be going to hell)

2 things…..the beer making was a disastrous success. I was able to bottle 29 out of a possible 53 bottles. I had to mop up 24 bottles after the bottling bucket came crashing to the floor. The concoction seems to be fairly tasty too.

I was flipping through my most recent bicycling mag…The Black Eyed Peas are headlining a concert following "the buddy ride" or something along those lines. I didn't think too much of it until I flipped back a couple a pages and found the ad for this ride…it's to benefit people with diminished intelligence. I laughed.

UPDATE: Doug gave me a couple of bottles the other day - the first one was for tasting, but the second one will be for hoarding. Bubba Pugly Brewery is off to a great start; the beer was distinctive and mighty tasty at the beginning and finish, lots of character and all of it good.

jet engine in a hummer?

Read a very cool article today that's been waiting for me to get to it for almost a year. Motorhead Messiah, in Fast Company.

The byline:

Johnathan Goodwin can get 100 mpg out of a Lincoln Continental, cut emissions by 80%, and double the horsepower. Does the car business have the guts to follow him?

*snort* No.

Guys like this show us what's really possible, and it's so much more than we're reassured as the Big 3 (I've noticed a few instances of them being called the 'Detroit 3' lately - is that due to loss of market share, or have I just missed that nickname in the past?) plod toward yesterday's ideas.

Seriously, biodiesel Hummers with twice the horsepower and half the emissions? I'd have to stop giving them all snarky smirks.

UPDATE: A friend from work forwarded this article to a GM engineer friend of his. Here's the engineer's dazzlingly insightful reply:

There is alot of people (sic) these days claiming to be genius (sic) and create a vehicle that gets 100MPG. Give our engineers one minute and they will tell you several vehicle (sic) that can do this but we did it back in the 50's (sic, but debatable). Its (sic) when you start applying all the safety features, creature comforts... government standards.... (a sic on all his ellipses, and 'damn guvm'nt!') export requirements.... corporate legal requirements.. oh and you better have a staff of lawyers.. we have several hundred on staff and half again that (sic) on retainer and they are all top of the line lawyers... this all changes the game and if you have a couple BILLION to spare we can build you anything you wish that will work in any corner of the earth under any condition (sic) and come with a 100,000 mile 10 year warranty or if you can go to a LOCAL dealer and chose one of several we have already done for you some for under $12,000 in any color or option configuration you can imagine. If you can only see what goes into these cars or if the average Joe who is knocking the big 3 could see what we do... they would have a whole new outlook and start buying American cars... there is an advantage out there for the offshore companies but the day of that advantage is soon gonna end then we will see who really has it together.

...riiiight.

This man was last seen in the middle of the Detroit River on a sinking boat, claiming it was all the water's fault and that really the boat was fine anyway and we should all just shut the hell up and buy boats just like his.

I guess I'm the average Joe of whom he is speaking, though I remain unconvinced by his biting argument. The most obvious and telling point that he neglected to comment on was that much of the article refers to Hummers, which GM still (for now) owns, and which presumably are still safe, unless Mr. Goodwin is in the habit of cutting out the seatbelts to make room for his supplemental hydrogen tanks. Whatever. Look, though I say a lot of bad things about those big, stupid dinosaurs, I really do hope they evolve into leaner, sabre-toothed versions of their former selves. It would be good for the car industry, Detroit, and the country. If the above retort is any indicator of the general attitude in their hollowed (not sic) halls, though, I have serious doubts about whether they will. Seriously, click away from this paltry blog and read that Motorhead Messiah article - it's fun and inspiring.

UPDATE: Neil Young test 'drove' his Lincoln - check it out.

tl8

"...over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, 'Too late.'"

- Dr. Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967

One of the cooler things he said that hasn't been over-recycled and diluted.

the first victim of nanotechnology?

I think I have a brain tumor.

Since Sunday I've been smelling something that isn't there. I know this isn't real because my wife, who has the nose of a bloodhound, has verified that she's not smelling the thing I'm describing, and I couldn't be smelling the same thing in all the different places I've been in the last few days.

The tumor must be pushing on a part of my brain that is holding some fifteen-year-old memory because though I can't quite put my finger on it, I think the smell has something to do with drinking - a lot - and possibly drugs or a rave or other questionable party location of some sort. The weird thing is that while there's nothing even remotely pleasant about the smell, it doesn't evoke any of the things I'd catalog in that subset of bad smells: stale beer, hangover sweat, bar smoke, scorched hair, broken-open glo-stiks, rotting buildings. It's reminiscent but elusive and oddly foreboding, chemical almost, as if cigarettes and vodka were made with iron and formaldehyde.

The only other thing I can think of is that the nanomaterials used in the kitchen paint I applied this weekend have coated my respiratory system and are slowly transforming me into a carbon-based life form... Oh wait...

No more dynasties, please.

The apple doesn't rot far from the tree.

Cheeks: "I will be your congresswoman... until I decide to retire."

Little Cheeks: "I believe I'm on an assignment from God in this position."

I don't know if there's a word to describe their level of arrogance.


Incidentally, that second link leads to a good article about the cult of personality applied to CEOs and other 'leaders.'