Meme Dump...

Squirrel!

These were snapped with the Olympus OM-D E-M1X using the M. Zuiko Digital 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 superzoom. That lens is one of the great things about the Micro Four Thirds format, as it has an equivalent focal length range to a 24-400mm lens on a full frame camera yet is smaller than a soda can.

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Midweek Memes...

Upside-Down World racing news...

So Cadillac is going to be fielding an F1 team and intends to design their own powerplant for the series, but it's going to take a couple years to get from the drawing board to race-ready.

In the meantime?

Ferrari has announced a "multi-year agreement" with Andretti Formula Racing to supply the Cadillac Formula 1 entry with power units upon its entry to the championship in 2026. The team, led by TWG Global - which recently took over the running of Andretti Global - and General Motors, was provisionally accepted onto the grid from 2026 by F1 last month, though full confirmation must yet be given.

This feels so Bizarroworld: A car sporting big GM logos and a Ferrari motor..

That must have been a rush...

Most journalists go through their entire careers without an opportunity to write a headline like this.

10/10. Perfection. No notes.

Parenthetically, while "Stylish But Illegal Monkey" is a bit of a mouthful for a band name, you could always call yourselves SBIM. Throwing this idea out there for free if anyone wants it.

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On the upside, and on the downside...

On the upside, I am vindicated for all the times over the last couple days I've had to explain to people that "No, I don't care what the NYPD spokesperson said, it's not a B&T Veterinary Pistol, it's a regular recoil-operated nine. Probably a G19 or clone."

On the downside, now I have to brace for a tidal wave of derp about so-called "ghost guns" and 3D printing.

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Meme Dump...

Monday Memes...

Well, this is a lot of fun!

Someone has come up with a cool little website that allows you to add your own text to some legendary video game screens. It's a fun little time waster. I hope Wing Commander gets added.

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer...

In case you, like me, were ever wondering who buys those weird blingy 'Special Limited Edition Gold Plated Commemorative' guns, the answer appear to be "people who do a lot of drugs and then fly to Australia to attend clown school".

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Meme Dump...

Traditionnnnn!

I'll tell you the real reason it's important for kids to learn to read cursive: So they can understand and honor our traditions. 

 Click this link and tell me I'm wrong... 

Life comes at you fast.

Syrian government resistance has completely collapsed, people are wandering through Assad's palaces and posing for selfies with the Maybachs in the garage, there are rumors that Assad's getaway plane got shot down. It disappeared from Flight Tracker after making a precipitous u-turn and nobody knows where he's at.

Meanwhile, RUMINT is that remaining Russian forces in Syria have bailed and left the remains of Assadist forces to their fate.

While a lot remains unclear about the future in Syria, watching a brutal dictator get toppled and his torture prisons emptied will always warm the cockles of my heart.

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Recent Car Write-Ups...

• 1963 Pontiac LeMans coupe with a 326 V-8


• 1967 Plymouth Barracuda convertible


• 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Holiday Coupe

Also, photos of a Corvair Greenbriar van and some classic MGs in motion...
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Saturday Meme Dump...

 

Well, that was an awful dream...

I had a perfectly horrible acrophobe's nightmare last night.

We were living in an apartment in a high-rise that was part of one of those big mixed-used developments they're always using to revitalize downtowns. To get home, depending on which entrance you used off the street, required traversing rather a lot of three-story indoor mall, taking escalators and then a grand staircase to reach an elevator lobby on a balcony overlooking the big atrium of the mall.

It must have been a swank place to live because I saw Hoda Qutb and Ellen DeGeneres chatting on their way to catch a cab from the elevator lobby.

Anyway, I'm standing there waiting for the elevator going up and one comes from below. The doors open and all of us start to step forward to get on, but the car is full, so everybody stops to wait.

The doors start to close, but this one guy at the very front is absorbed in his smartphone screen and, as he realizes the doors are closing, he sticks his foot out to cause the doors to reopen. Only something's faulty and the car is already halfway to the next floor.

Dude realizes he's about to step into several stories of thin air, tries to backpedal, drops his phone into the elevator shaft, attempts to lean forward and grab it, overbalances and goes face-first into the elevator chasm (I say chasm because all the elevators in a bank share a single shaft).

There's a Wilhelm scream, cut short by a sickening thud as he caromed off the back wall of the shaft. I blurted "My God!" and just sat down there on the carpet, lightheaded.

The dream went on for a while longer as I kept doing normal activities, but now I was noting that the whole shopping center was one giant falling hazard: Decorative staircases with too-large gaps in the treads, soaring walkways with way-too-low railings, that sort of thing. I woke up with sweaty palms.

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Memes for Friday...

Meme Dump...

QotD: If Everybody's Special Edition...

From Bobbi's post about Emergency Alerts:

"As a practical matter, all that is needed are alerts for "lost child" and "lost adult." Details should go in the accompanying text message, to tell you and me if we should be looking for a four-year-old Native American child or a 60 year old law enforcement officer: it's supposed to be way to help out, not an overloaded "thin blue line" flag with a special stripe for each and every sliver of the population who might be at risk."

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Midweek Memes...

Eras?

When you say "the Malaise Era" in reference to cars most people know what you're talking about: that period of time when cars were slow and awful. It came after the "Muscle Car Era", but when did it end? And what was the period before the "Muscle Car Era" called?

This is the sort of thing I'm pondering at the moment. I have some ideas, maybe a pretty good post's worth.

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Memes to Amuse You...

Floating Home

So I'm tooling around the satellite view in Google Maps, as one does, and I'm scrutinizing Presque Isle up there in Erie, Pennsylvania and I see what look like a bunch of cottages in the middle of Horseshoe Pond.

"Huh," say I, "I wonder what's up with these?"

So I grab my little Street View dude and drop him on the Coast Guard Road that runs alongside the pond and sure enough, those are houses on pilings or floating homes of some sort.

Quick! To the Google!

And there I found this neat little story...

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Monday Morning Memes...

Anti-Sleep Cat

Holden started out the evening curled in a ball at my feet, which meant I couldn't stretch my legs out full length.

Eventually my knees were aching enough that I sat up and picked him up and set him on the bed next to me so I could straighten my legs. I carefully set him so that he was stretched parallel to me, leaving me the maximum amount of room to toss and turn in comfort.

Somehow, in his sleep, he rotated himself through ninety degrees on the bed until he was stretched out across its width, about at my waist level, leaving me barely enough room for the width of my hips if I lay on my back. If I lay on my left side in any position other than completely straight as a board, my butt would be hanging off the bed.

He's lucky he's so cute.

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Alleged Jaguar

So artist's renderings of what is allegedly the all-new Jaguar EV have leaked.

It looks like an unlicensed Barbie Cullinan trying to dodge a trade dress lawsuit from Rolls Royce.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, we regret to inform you...

...that it is, in fact, one of the Monday-est Mondays of the entire calendar year today.

The National Weather Service forecasts that it is likely to remain Monday all day long. 

At least there are Cyber Monday deals to take the edge off the day. Retail therapy can help!

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Undergeared...

Me heading out the door to lunch on Friday: “It’s 28 degrees out there. I won’t be doing outdoors photography. The 17-55mm/2.8 will be plenty.”

Me five minutes later slowly creeping up on a squirrel with the camera in front of my face:

With the 1.6x crop factor of a Canon APS-C sensor, the lens has an equivalent field of view to a 27-88mm zoom on a full frame camera. That 88mm is on the short end of telephoto length, fine for portraits but way too short for wildlife. 

Starting with that upper photo from probably a dozen feet away, I had to slowly inch my way up to maybe double-arm's-length to get the lower shot.

Meme Dump...

Local Sportsball...

The Indiana University Hoosiers took on the hapless Purdue Boilermakers in the annual Old Oaken Bucket cross-state rivalry game and dismantled them 66-0, to wind up with an 11-1 record. First time they won the contest since 2019.

This apparently might not be enough to get them into the playoffs, despite the fact that they beat Michigan at home, which Ohio State was unable to do...

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