Automotif DCXXVI...

This 1965 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport, complete with rumbly 396-cube big block under the hood, was absolutely eye-catching.

Photographed with a Canon EOS R5.

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Everybody's Meme-ing for the Weekend!

Everything from beer cans to party balloons...

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, to say nothing of damage to some of the world's largest smelters, has aluminum prices skyrocketing.

Aluminium prices are at a four-year high, up more than 25% this year, as war in the Middle East and a blocked Strait of Hormuz choke off nearly a quarter of the world’s seaborne metal supply.

Not just aluminum, though. The global helium supply has been kneecapped as well, which will impact everything from microchip manufacturing to MRIs.

The war has also upended markets for products extracted from natural gas. Among the most critical is helium, an odorless element produced as a byproduct of natural gas extraction. Before the war, Qatar supplied roughly one-third of the world’s helium.

Chip manufacturers use it to cool machines that etch circuits onto silicon wafers. Pharmaceutical companies rely on it for quality checks of their products. In magnetic resonance imaging machines, helium cools superconducting magnets.

I've already had a couple people tell me that even though prices on everything from portable electronics to memory cards for cameras is up, if I have any I need to buy, I shouldn't be waiting for Christmas because it's going to be a year minimum once the shooting stops for things to even start getting back to normal.

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Meme Dump!

Answers to name "Lucky"...

"The pilot of the F-15E Strike Eagle shot down April 3 over Iran was also the pilot of one of the three F-15Es shot down by a Kuwaiti F/A-18 in a friendly fire incident less than five weeks previously, making him “almost certainly” the first Air Force fixed-wing pilot to be shot down twice in the same conflict since the Vietnam war, according to current and former Air Force officials."

This is how you get given a new callsign by your peers.

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Automotif DCXXV...

A tasty Nova with an SS hood. The grille says '69 but it's modified enough that it's hard to be a hundred percent sure.

It's got aftermarket disc brakes on all four corners and the fat dual exhausts dumping out just aft of each rear wheel were emitting a noise advertising that this car had something serious going on under the hood. It was definitely ready to party.

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Memes for the Mid-Week!

Meme Dump!

Tab Clearing...

• Big tech data mining is endangering US troops, but big tech dollars own too much of the government to do anything about it.


• Was your country at war with Japan for 102 years?


• Skyrocketing beef prices endangering famous Texas BBQ joints.

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Is it Monday? It Must Be Time For Memes!

Back at it...

After a lengthy hiatus, I decided it's time to get back to morning walks around the block.

I'm not getting any younger and I'm sure my cardiovascular fitness will thank me later.

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Automotif DCXXIV...

Here's a 1965 Electra 225 convertible in the color that Buick called "Bamboo Cream". It's in really nice shape; obviously not a garage-dwelling creampuff but a regularly driven car with which the owner's happily battling entropy.

Snapped with a Sony 𝑎77.

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Meme Dump!

Saturday Memes!

Automotif DCXXIII...

Spotting MG TD kit cars built on a Volkswagen Beetle chassis is pretty easy from behind, as the exhaust system of the little rear-mounted air-cooled VW flat four is a dead giveaway.

From the nose end, you have to look at the front suspension. The coil springs and lower control arms let us know that this one's the real deal and not a replica.