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Funny Stuff

Zachary Disease

Checking the internet this morning I found a photo gallery of new production and concept cars being shown at the North American Auto Show.  This one seems to be getting a lot of attention:

It's a Toyota FT-1.  They say this will be their new design template, enabling them to break out of the Boring (capital B) rut they've been in for the past 20 years.  They make good cars, no doubt.   They're just....meh....to look at.  

But not this one.  Unfortunately, as seen from this angle at least, it seems to have a serious case of Zachary Disease....its face looks Zachary like my ass.

And here's the new 2014 Audi S8.

No, wait, it's the old 2010 Audi S8....or is it the 2003 Audi S8?  Or a really cherry 1999 Audi S8?  Remember when cars were redesigned every year?  (If you do then you're "mature" like me.)

Hold on....better angle.  We're good.

And the hot, new Testarossa.  *bang!*

And finally, my favorite, this really slick 2007 Audi "Paid For".  :)

S

The greatest invention of all time

What is the greatest invention of all time?  I suppose that depends on where you are and your circumstances.

If you go back far enough it might be the wheel.  Think about it....without wheels we'd probably still be walking.  No carts, wagons, stage coaches, cars, nothing.  We'd spend our lives just dragging stuff around.

Maybe the bow and arrow, and later gunpowder?  Then you could defeat those pesky 'ol Huns trying to storm your castle without having to ruin you nails in hand-to-hand combat.

The telegraph / telephone?  Then you could communicate with friends or do business with people hundreds of miles away.  The common man began to understand there was a big wide world out there.

The harnessing of electricity?  Then we could see and do things after dark.

Oh....these were huge!....trains and automobiles.  Where they were originally rich man's toys, Corny Vanderbilt and Henry Ford put us all on wheels.  Now we could work and play and make stuff for people far away from where we lived.  Until then most people grew up, married and raised families, worked and eventually died within maybe 25 miles of where they were born.  Easy transportation opened up commerce, created jobs, and raised the living standards of the masses.

The airplane?  A personal favorite of mine, it did the same as the automobile, but over longer distances.

Personal computers and the internet?  Now we had the knowledge of the world at our fingertips.  

And of course there are probably regional favorites, too.  I'm sure If you live in the Mid-East you're probably still amazed by toilet paper.  And judging by the way they like to throw them, rocks.  

NOTE:  This is NOT me, although the resemblance is striking.

But for me, a guy who grew up in the South and has become increasingly intolerant of heat, my personal favorite invention of all time is air conditioning.

Definitely, air conditioning.  ;)

What say you?

S

High tech pooping

Presenting...*drum roll*...the iPotty.  TaDa!

Really?  Most people will just look at this and chuckle or maybe shake their head and think "whatever."  I look at it and think, "The little fucker has his own iPad?"  So now even 2-year-olds have blown past me on the technologically savvy scale.  OH....THE SHAME!  And does the little tyke have one of those Bluetooth thingys stuck in his ear, too?

Whatever happened to that universal fixture of every well furnished bathroom, the magazine rack?  For that matter, what's happened to magazines?  Have you bought a Newsweek magazine lately?  No?  That's because they don't print it anymore.  Pfffft!  Gone.  Online only.  Every month my magazines seem to contain a few less pages of reading material and a few more pages of ads.

But back to the immediate crisis in my life.  The annual Consumer Electronics Show is now underway in Lost Wages...er...Las Vegas.  Nerds from all over have assembled to show off all their newest gizmos, things that to me look like more nails in my low-tech coffin.  They've even taken over that most holy of passions in my life....cars.

Nowadays most mainstream cars (the kind that I can afford, ie: no Ferrari's or Maserati's or Aston Martin's) no longer talk about performance.  All buyers care about today is a car's iPod connectivity or it's Bluetooth capability or it's ability to electronically parallel park itself.  And getting 60 mpg from their 3-cylinder skinny-tired hybrid "mobility device".  Where's the fun in that?

I read somewhere that a majority of kids these days don't even get a drivers license until they're pretty much forced to.  They just hole up in their rooms with their iThis and iThat and text back and forth to each other, avoiding personal contact (and daylight) at all cost.

Is this what the Apocalypse looks like?

S

Cars are back!

In response to the multitude of requests that I show more car photos....OK, it was only Doug....I present some interesting finds from today's Cars and Coffee event (always the first Saturday of each month):

An especially nice mildly customized Mini Cooper.  The guy who brought it, and fit in quite comfortably, was at least 250 pounds.

The Mini's contemporary, an East German Trabant.  Says volumes about the virtues of communism, doesn't it?  It looks like the English Bulldog is about to give his opinion of it, too.  ;)

And from across the other pond Datsun sent us this 2000.  It was quite a hot car in its day.

Here's something I might actually be able to afford to both buy and maintain....a super-clean Karman Ghia.  It was actually just a slick body on a plain vanilla VW.

Here's a tiny English-built Metropolitan.  My dad bought one of these for my mom thinking it would be the perfect little car for her to buzz around town it.  She wanted none of it, however, so he drove it for a couple of years until he could buy something better.  This is the type car I learned to drive in.

Side note:  A gorgeous 20-something woman was showing this car to her boyfriend who I think was Italian.  She was pointing out the food tray with the fake hamburger/fries/root beer on it, explaining how in the days before drive-thru's a girl known as a "car hop" would bring it out to the car and attach it to the side of the car.  She said she learned about it from listening to her grandmother.  After hearing that I gave up and exhaled.  ;)

A Triumph Stag.  I was surprised to see this as I thought they had all self-destructed 20 years ago.  "Durability" was just another word at British Leyland.

The Stag's little brother, a TR-6.  This one was very nice, although I was never very fond of the Baby Diaper color.  I sure would like to have one in British Racing Green, though.

Of course there was all of the modern hardware there, too, but around here they are almost passe.  (As you can tell I prefer the old, odd relics, probably because I'm an old, odd relic myself.  Well, "odd" anyway.)  The newest star there was this Lamborghini Aventador ^.  ("Nice car.  Sorry about your penis.")

Gotta go run a few errands before more college football this afternoon.  Y'all have a great day.  :)

S