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“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 333

Saturday, February 27th, 2021

After last week’s storm ended and the ice melted sufficiently, both Lawrence and I had trouble getting our cars started.

In my case, the car was sitting from Friday the 12th to Saturday the 19th, so a little more than a week, and it seemed like the battery was basically dead. I have a jumper box: when I hooked it up, though, the car would respond (dash lights, etc.) but it didn’t seem like my jumper box was providing enough power to kick the starter over.

I ended up calling AAA, who arrived within 30 minutes of my call (!) and brought their giant jumper box. The car started right away: I let it idle and drove it around for about an hour total, and didn’t have any problems with it starting after that. (Knock wood.)

What brings this to mind?

“Can We Make This FROZEN Truck Run During A Polar Vortex!?” I have to say: this does not look entirely unlike my situation. I was in a suburban driveway instead of a field next to a barn, but other than that…

Bonus #1: “Costco Boost Pack: Electrician vs. Truck Starter”. Somehow this reminds me of standing outside in the cold with that jumper box…

AvE has a separate video on the “stupid design” of the Costco boost pack.

Bonus #2: My dad used to go around to various places in the winter and cut wood for firewood. What we didn’t burn in our own fireplace, he sold to friends and neighbors. Dad had side hustles before there were side hustles.

I was never able to talk him into doing anything with explosives, though.

Bonus #3: 60 Minutes Australia visits “the coldest town in the world”, Oymiakon.

If it’s warmer than minus 55 degrees Celsius, then it’s a good day.

Posted in Cars, Explosives | 1 Comment »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 318

Friday, February 12th, 2021

I kind of enjoy motor sports. I’m not an obsessive NASCAR fan, but I do kind of follow it from a distance. I’ve kind of lost track of IndyCar (though when I was younger, the Indy 500 was a big deal for me), and I never really got into F1 (but I do have a general passing familiarity with it).

As my regular readers know, I’m also a student of failure. So today’s videos…

“The Worst NASCAR Race Ever: The 1969 Talladega 500”.

“The Worst Formula 1 Race: The 2005 United States Grand Prix”.

There are a couple of others that I considered plugging into today’s slot, but either they were long and boring, or they involved people being killed in racing accidents. Nobody needs that (stuff).

Posted in Cars, History, Sports | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 300

Monday, January 25th, 2021

I was thinking today we’d go for a ride.

“Operation of the Motorcycle” from Honda, apparently in 1966.

Bonus #1: “Welcome to the Murderdrome: A Brief History of Board Track Racing”.

Bonus #2: Okay, not related to motorcycles, but posted for the coolness factor: vintage video from the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring.

Mario Andretti finished first. The second place finisher? Steve McQueen.

Posted in Cars, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 295

Wednesday, January 20th, 2021

There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to post this because it feels like unpaid advertising for Blade HQ.

But there’s a larger part of me that likes the idea of going around asking people who know, and deal with knives, what they are carrying. It is sort of like asking a professional photographer “What’s in your camera bag?”. At least for me.

So this is a compromise: I’m posting the video, but I’m not linking to Blade HQ or any other online knife shop. If they want promotion, they can buy some advertising. My rates are surprisingly reasonable.

(What do I carry? The knife in my pocket right now is one of the smaller Victorinox Swiss Army knives. I prefer to carry a Swiss Champ, but I’ve set mine aside for the moment: I need to send it in and get it serviced.)

Here’s another one of those in the “what’s in your (x)?” vein: “Racing Team Tool Box Tour – With Specialty Tools”.

I found this mildly interesting: “Knives you don’t hand to people”.

For some reason, “Matt’s Off Road Recovery” has been popping up a lot in my recommendations. I’ve always had kind of a vague general curiosity about how you get your off-road vehicle back if you have a mechanical breakdown or some other problem, so I guess Matt’s answers that question. Although I’m not sure these people really want it back, but it seems like one of those “can’t leave it here, unless you want a major fine” situations.

Posted in Cars, History, Knives | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 275

Thursday, December 31st, 2020

New Year’s Eve, the night when all the amateur drunks are out on the road. These seem fitting. (We’ll do Travel Thursday on Friday again this week.)

Shot: From the Laphroaig Whisky channel, a tour of the Laphroaig distillery.

Chaser: “Space Driving Tactics”. This has nothing to do with Star Wars (though if you want that, I assume you’ve seen Ian’s video) but is instead a 1971 driver’s ed film about the importance of allowing space so you can react to the drivers around you. This seems especially important on a night like tonight.

Posted in Cars, History, Mixology | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 274

Wednesday, December 30th, 2020

Another thing I’m trying to avoid using too much is the “Timeline – World History Documentaries” channel. But this popped up in the feed, and is relevant to my interests:

“How The Germanic Barbarians Annihilated Rome’s Legions”, a semi-short (49 minutes) documentary about the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest.

Episode 55 of “The History of Rome” podcast (which I can’t pull up right now, but you should be able to get it through the podcast app of your choice) covers the Teutoberg Forest. There’s also a book that I’ve read, and liked: The Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest by Peter S. Wells (affiliate link).

Bonus: To give folks a little variety, here’s a documentary about “The Black Ghost”, a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE with a 426 Hemi that was a street racing legend in Detroit.

I’m not a huge gearhead, and definitely not a big Mopar guy, but I have to say: that is one nice car, with a great story behind it.

Posted in Books, Cars, Food, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 257

Saturday, December 12th, 2020

Today: go fast. Don’t turn.

I’m fascinated by the history of land (and water) speed records.

From the “Scarf and Googles” channel on the ‘Tube: “George Eyston’s Thunderbolt – Land Speed’s Missing Monster”.

Between 1937 and 1939, the competition for the Land Speed Record was between two Englishmen: Captain Eyston and John Cobb. Thunderbolt’s first record was set at 312.00 mph (502.12 km/h) on 19 November 1937 on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Within a year Thunderbolt returned with improved aerodynamics and raised its record to 345.50 mph (556.03 km/h) on 27 August 1938.
This record only stood for a matter of weeks before John Cobb’s Reid-Railton broke the 350 mph (560 km/h) barrier and raised it to 353.30 mph (568.58 km/h) on 15 September 1938, as Eyston watched. This inspired him to take Thunderbolt to a new record of 357.50 mph (575.34 km/h). Cobb had held the record for less than 24 hours.

Bonus #1, from the same channel: “Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons – The Land Speed Battle Of Bonneville”.

Bonus #2: It seems to me like a lot of folks talk about Breedlove and Arfons, and rightly so. But it doesn’t seem like folks remember Gary Gabelich and the “Blue Flame“. I actually do, because the American Gas Association took out full page ads in National Geographic promoting it. At the age of (mumble mumble) I thought a rocket car was incredibly cool.

“Break The Record”.

Bonus #3: Throwing in one more, because these are all short-ish: “The Budweiser Rocket”. Also, this is a little more contemporary than the others.

The vehicle, like its predecessor, was owned by film director Hal Needham, driven by Stan Barrett and designed and built by William Fredrick (Died in 2020). Neither the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme nor the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the official speed record certifying bodies, recognise the record attempt, the speed purported to have been reached or that the vehicle ever attained supersonic speeds. The original Budweiser Rocket was donated to the Smithsonian Institution and a modified version with a narrower track, is in the Talladega Superspeedway Museum, Alabama. The original is no longer on display and is now in storage at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 360, National Museum of American History, Office of Public Affairs and Records.

Posted in Cars, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 247

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020

I’m going to be a little self-indulgent today.

I know I’ve said in the past that I don’t want to post a lot of “Forgotten Weapons” stuff, because I figure if folks are interested, they already subscribe. I’m making an exception here because:

a) This is a pretty recent entry.
II) Smith and Wesson.
3) Australia, Australia, we love you, amen.

Specifically, a Smith and Wesson pistol-carbine made for the South Australian Police.

Bonus #1: I actually thought about posting this yesterday, but couldn’t find it in my recommendations. It popped up again today, and this is some real history: “Hannibal’s Elephant Army – The New Evidence”.

Bonus #2: For some reason, I’ve been getting a lot of car repair videos in my feed. Especially ones from “Precision Transmission”. I thought I’d post this one because I shared it with some other folks privately and it seems like they enjoyed it.

“Nitrous doesn’t play well with others! Especially when you have pretty much stock unit.”

Posted in Cars, Guns, History, Mammals | Comments Closed

Badger Badger Badger Bad…

Monday, November 30th, 2020

…never mind.

(Nikola’s earlier shenanigans.)

(Mushroom mushroom.)

Posted in Cars, Mammals | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 182

Monday, September 28th, 2020

Today’s historical video is dedicated to Iowahawk and his fans. Iowahawk may already be aware of this one.

“Wonderful World Of Wheels”. According to the YouTube notes, this is a cut-down version of a longer documentary about car culture in the 1960s. Among other things: Fabian racing go-karts, “Big Daddy” Roth and George Barris, John Derek, and narration by Lloyd Bridges (whose lungs were apparently not bursting for air).

Bonus:

Okay, not really. I just threw that in for giggles.

“Rubber For Industry”, a Firestone propaganda film from the 1940s. After all, you can’t have wheels without rubber, can you? (Well, technically, you can, but they have limitations.)

Posted in Cars, History | 2 Comments »

When a drawbridge comes along, you must whippit…

Thursday, September 17th, 2020

Seemingly taking his Dodge Stratus’s “cloud car” nickname literally, the unnamed 26-year-old went airborne and cleared the gap, but managed to burst all four tires and smash his windshield upon landing and crashing on the other side of the bridge.
“Over he went, blew out all four of his tires, and then he crashed into the other gate,” said Locke, who likened the jump to a similar flight by a Dodge Monaco in 1980’s The Blues Brothers. “That’s a first for me.”
Police immediately received a call reporting a car had “Dukes of Hazzard-ed across” the bridge, and on response, found the driver with a canister of nitrous oxide in his car. Known as “whippits” due to its common use as propellant in canned whipped cream, NO2 is a dissociative sometimes inhaled to experience a “floating” sensation, per Australia’s Alcohol and Drug Foundation.

Based on the story, I think the police did try to detect it, but they didn’t have to try very hard.

There is no word so far on the status of the cream.

Posted in Cars, Law, Stupid | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 88

Friday, June 26th, 2020

This isn’t actually a random YouTube recommendation. I ran across this by way of a post from McThag – I thought it was a while back, but apparently it was earlier this year. Time flies when you’re locked down.

I’m not a big car guy, and I was never much of a “Motor Trend” fan. As I’ve written before, “Car and Driver” during that late 1970s – early 1980s period was my jam. “Motor Trend” seemed to be “Who Spent the Most Money On Advertising With Us”, and “Road and Track” was the magazine for 50ish guys who drove MGs painted British Racing Green while wearing tweed jackets and dapper little caps and looking down their nose at the rest of the car world.

But I digress. “Motor Trend” apparently had a YouTube channel. One of their features was “RoadKill”, where, as I understand, the two hosts bought crappy cars, fixed them up to the point where they were minimally driveable, and then went on road trips with them. Hilarity frequently ensued.

This particular video amuses me: in this case, they bought the world’s worst Corvette, with the intention of driving it from Florida to Bowling Green, Kentucky…

…and having the staff of the Corvette Museum drop it into the sinkhole.

I think even my non-car people readers should get some amusement out of this, as the Corvette in question is astonishingly bad. The fact that it doesn’t have a windshield is only the start of the troubles.

Bonus video: according to the person who re-uploaded this video, “Motor Trend” moved their content off of YouTube and on to “Motor Trend On Demand”. But other people have uploaded more “Roadkill” videos, if you find the idea of two guys patching up crappy cars and going on road trips oddly appealing. Here’s a playlist.

Posted in Cars | Comments Closed

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