Well…if you’ve watched any type of racing in the past 20 years or so, you have seen the explosion of rules that have taken all of the innovation out of the sport. Watch any Indy car race for example…every car is a Dallara that looks exactly the same as all the rest…and all of the engines must meet a rule package that is tested all season to make sure that no one figures out how to make more power or reliability…when I started following this series, there were every kind of car imaginable and they only had to have 4 tires and then anything else went…you had Offenhouser 4 cylinders, Ford V-8’s, Novis, diesels, turbines…front wheel drive, all wheel drive, rear wheel drive cars and any body work they needed to cover the engine and driver….and it was cool to see what people had come up with over the winter to try to get an advantage…now they shave .003 of an inch off a side plate of a wing and the car is disqualified….too many damn rules. This misguided reliance on rules permeates NASCAR, too…with cars being rejected in inspection for being .0002 inches too low or for having a rear fender that is a 16th of an inch too wide and all of this is measured by lasers which is taking all of the creativity out of the sport…I sound like an old guy but, again, when I started following nascar in the early 60’s you had people like Smokey Yunick showing up with a Chevelle that had a foot cut out of the center of the car to lower the drag…and no one would have found out but someone parked a rental Chevelle next to it and then you could easily see the difference…and what about Freddie Lorenzen’s 1966 Ford “banana car” that had the front of the car pushed down by a foot while the rear had been bent up by a foot to give it more downforce…or the special manufacturer cars like the Charger Daytona or Torina Talledaga that gave each manufacturer an advantage for a while. And the engines….like the Chrysler Hemi, the Ford Boss 429, and the Ford SOHC 427 that were built just for this series….and now the engines are basically all the same and in the truck series, they ARE all the same engine built by Ilmor and put in the Fords, Toyotas, and Chevys…no innovation at all other than what is allowed by the series…and this has made all of the series just too damn boring. I think they should have a”run what you brung” series that goes back to 4 wheels and a driver and no other regulations…I mean Bill Elliot lapped Talladega at over 215 mph all the way back in 1985 and the cars have just gotten slower and slower since and how can that be exciting? Okay…that’s enough for now…don’t even get me started about formula 1….it will take one of these just for that….
Might do a few of these today…
Well….I’ve already made the decision to not ride the bike today since it is only going to get to 30 and I just don’t feel like getting cold…it is the first time this year that I’ve taken 3 days in a row off and I don’t feel guilty at all…and that is weird with my well developed sense of guilt…I did get the bathroom cleaned already and will probably do the kitchen later today as I listen to soccer…and soccer will get me through until 4:30 or so and it’s nice to have something running in the background that I don’t have to pay attention to…regular tv shows just don’t do it since they demand more attention than soccer…I did get a few texts from one of my nieces last night and that was a little odd since I have only talked to her probably twice in her life…but it was kind of nice that someone was thinking about me and to find out my youngest sister is still in remission from the bone cancer she had….hmmm…what else? Not much right now but I do have one on racing that I want to do…but it may be a repeat and I don’t want to do that….but, I really don’t want to search through 9,000 of these to find out….more later…
December 26th
Well…the day after christmas used to be my favorite day of the year…when the running for presents and visits to family were over and all I had to do was just get up and do whatever I wanted for the day…but, since I don’t celebrate it anymore, it’s just another day…oh, well…I did sleep okay last night but feel pretty slow this morning and need to ease into the day…not sure if I’m going to try to ride the bike today since it will have to be on the bike lanes since the trails will still be snow covered and icy…I did watch the new WW 1984 movie last night and I’m not sure how it got a 7.8 rating on rotten tomatoes…not much to it and I would rate it a 5 at best…but it killed 2 1/2 hours so I guess that’s okay….didn’t get anything done….again…yesterday but I need to get off my butt today and clean the bathroom at least…still working on leftovers so I don’t need to cook and that is a little boring…I may try to make some scalloped potatoes tomorrow and will need to work on a second meal, too, and I’m not sure what that would be yet…need to look in the freezer to see what’s there….not much to do today…Man U plays in a half hour so that will take up most of the morning…or a good part of it and then there are other games to watch…but right now it’s more coffee and some news….more later…
I’m bored…again…
Well….yeah, it’s another day and I’m bored…have already gotten everything done I wanted to and it’s only 12:45…so it looks like another grind it out day…can’t even find anything to watch on tv other than Doctor Who….just watched the first one with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan and that just makes me even more meh on the new ones….I did have to listen to some Mountain this morning with Leslie West dying Wed night and had it up pretty loud….which you really should do when you listen to them….haven’t been thinking about politics much the past couple of days and I really don’t want to write about it….at least right now but maybe later in the day if the boredom holds….don’t feel like cleaning today so I think I won’t…or maybe just do the bathroom counter and sink since they are looking pretty ugly….I don’t get this….my forearms hurt like crazy right now and they are stiff…I feel like I have a bug coming on and it is about time for my yearly cold that goes on for a month…and I have been coughing and sneezing this morning but with shutting down the downstairs project weeks ago, I had hoped that my allergies would subside some but I’m not feeling it since I wake up every morning with my head plugged up and coughing…oh, well….hey, it’s one o’clock now! Only 10 hours and I can go to sleep again……that’s how bored I am….
December 25th
Well…I promised that I wasn’t going to talk about sleep anymore since it’s only interesting to me so I won’t do that today…okay, just a little…got out of bed at 7 and that’s why I’m late coming here today…had an okay day yesterday but didn’t do much at all…I am going to clean some today and I might make some scalloped potatoes that don’t come from a box…the ones I made yesterday to go with the ham didn’t have a lot of taste so anything I make has to taste better and I have a lot of ham to go with it…just couldn’t do the normal mashed potatoes with gravy again…I was going to shovel the driveway and sidewalks yesterday but couldn’t get motivated to do it…and there is only a half inch or so of snow out there that is going to melt Sunday with it getting to 40 or so…and that means I might not have to put the snowies on the car today…don’t have anywhere to go so I may wait til Sunday when it’s a little warmer….not much to do today…I do have to do laundry since I am out of t-shirts and I may clean but that’s still up in the air…won’t do a bike ride since it is only going to be in the 20’s again and the trails will be icy with the snow from yesterday….so, It looks like another lazy one today….and that’s not a bad thing….more later…
Wasted days and wasted nights…
Well…it has been another wasted day to go with the wasted night that I know is coming….and the birds haven’t come back to the new food that I put in the feeders…they stopped a couple of times but the mosh pit I’m used to is gone and I wonder if someone else has put up a feeder with stuff they like better? All I know is I’m done trying…both bags of food I have can’t be contaminated, could they? Oh, well…it will save me money in the long run…haven’t done a damn thing today but run the errand and take a shower…and do these but that still makes it a wasted day for me…at least my son got the outage fixed so I have my tv back and I can get caught up on the shows that have been piling up on plex…have 4 of the expanse to do and I wonder if there is a new Star Trek out there? Will have to take a look after I finish this….I did cook my big ham today since I really don’t do christmas so I asked myself what I was waiting for and did it today….so that means no cooking tomorrow so maybe I’ll have time to put the snowies on the car? We’ll see…
Stupid trump supporters…
Well…with the eviction crisis barreling down on the country and widespread hunger accompanying it…and a relief bill sitting on idiot boy’s desk, gee, I wonder where he is? Hell, that’s one’s easy…he’s off golfing which has cost the taxpayers over 150 million dollars so far….no food for his voters but lots of golf for him…I wonder how his followers are going to feel when they are on the street because idiot boy couldn’t be bothered to do his job? The only damn thing he has been doing is pardoning left and right…letting all of his co-conspirators in the Russian election collusion go and the thing there is he told them if they just keep their mouths shut, like manafort and others did, they would get pardoned…clear obstruction of justice but the repubs are okay with that…after all, they had every chance to hold him accountable but not one of them did.The only thing we have to look forward to is more and more damage being done and I think that is idiot boy’s plan…destruction on a wide scale just for spite…and he doesn’t care who he hurts…he just gets his jollies from hurting people and revenge is now his top priority…and he doesn’t give a damn that his cult followers are going to be hurt the most by his assholery…geez…
Gonna have to put the snowies on..
Well…just went out to run a short errand and yow! The new tires are really, really crappy in the snow so I guess I’m going to have to put the worn out old snowies on the car since I could barely move with the “all weather” new ones on it…so that will be a project for the next couple of days….
RIP Leslie West
Well…damn, another one of my musical family died last night…Leslie West, founder of Mountain and other groups is gone after a heart attack that he couldn’t recover from. From the first time I heard “Mississippi Queen” and it’s cowbell intro, I knew he was something special…and I still get chills when Leslie comes in with the power and slashing guitar…I’ve always thought that the song was one of the most perfect 3:39 in rock history and Leslie’s growling vocals still takes my breath away…I could always tell when a guitar riff of his was playing…he has this choppy, power style that was raw and yet he could be subtle, too…I was fortunate enough to get to see him live three times…once with Felix Pappalardi as Mountain, and two other times with Leslie as a solo act…the last time at the intersection downtown where I could walk right up to the stage and watch him play from about 10 feet away…just frickin amazing….while they were great on studio albums, to get to the core of Leslie and Mountain, you have to hear their live recordings…I would recommend that you find a copy of their double live album “Twin Peaks” that was recorded in Japan….and listen to “Nantucket Sleighride”….thirty minutes of power where they put together bits and pieces of other songs to make an epic live jam….but it’s not the noodling kind of stuff that jam bands get into…it’s full power blast that ebbs and flows and shows you just how good Leslie was….I’m going to miss him…RIP Leslie….
December 24th
Well…no news on Leslie yet so I’ll wait to write anything more until later…I guess I shouldn’t bitch about not sleeping, huh? Didn’t have any dreams to speak of but feel okay this morning…and my son got his cloud outage fixed so I have plex and emby working again…but, I missed Man U playing yesterday and it looked like a pretty close match until Man U pulled it out in the 88th minute and that puts them in the semi finals of the league cup….my oldest brother stopped over to chat for a while yesterday and it was good to see him…and it made me realize that I do miss hanging out with people some…I think I may have gotten some bad bird food last week since I filled the feeders with the new food and the birds stopped coming…so I’m going to go out to menards this morning and get different stuff and re-fill them…it’s really cold out there and I’m sure the sparrows could use the food…and I need to stop at the atm to get some cash since I only have 4 dollars in my pocket and I may need some cash…and I’m going to do that early after I do this and read some news since I’m not getting on the bike with how cold it is today….and probably won’t tomorrow, either….have given up on making it to 6K this year so taking a couple of days off won’t activate my guilt too much….more later…