Fighting Talker

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the greatest TV show about cars of all time. It’s called Top Gear and it’s broadcast on the BBC. I got hooked on it from youtube and now am downloading the torrents each week. It consists of three dudes testing supercars, arguing over supercars, and then taking on insane projects like launching a Mini down a ski jump, creating an amphibious car, making a convertible minivan, building a Caterham in less than 8 hours, etc. Their latest stunt was to attempt to building a reusable rocket out of a tiny three-wheeled car called a Reliant Robin.

I’ve attached a part of the Space Shuttle episode along with the Land Rover vs. a Tank bit. It makes for terrific viewing.

Unfortunately, BBC has been pulling down many of the videos from Youtube, but they are available at Topgear.com, http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/ or at Finalgear.com, where you can get whole episodes… for now.

I’ll let Jennifer B. moan about the weather, she’s funnier.

Seriously, “meteorologists”? You’re really not very good at this. Now, how is one expected to drive to Maryland to get kosher Chinese food to eat whilst watching the Oscars in this non-accumulation of over three inches of non-snow?

An absolute utter disaster. We got caught in Arlington during the worst of it, and I could’ve smacked into another car as my Honda slid across two lanes and just missed another car.

Not good times, bad times.

I need one of those little Shockwave cartoons that lets me shoot a bazooka at Bob Ryan and Topper Shutt’s heads.

Nicolas Cage, DO NOT MAKE A RACING MOVIE. Put the helmet down and slowly step away! No one wants to see this. Please, racing fans have suffered enough. Nic, baby, don’t do it.

American movie star Nicolas Cage, the grand marshal for last weekend’s Daytona 500, has told autosport.com that he would “leap at the chance” to make a film about motorsport.

Cage, star of blockbusters such as ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’, ‘The Rock’ or ‘Ghost Rider’, gave the “Gentleman, start your engines” command in his own inimitable fashion before the 49th running of the stock car classic on Sunday.

When asked if he would like to emulate Steve McQueen, who committed the Le Mans 24 Hours to celluloid in 1971, Cage told autosport.com: “I would love to. I would leap at the opportunity if someone came to me with a script about racecars and this great sport, I would participate straight away. Whether it was Le Mans, Daytona, Formula One ­ all of it.

Thank you once again to Deadspin:

You know, we’re starting to think that the only things that would survive a nuclear holocaust would be cockroaches, Kevin Federline and Matt Millen. And at least the cockroaches would feel kind of guilty about it.

That made me laugh way too loudly in my cubicle today.

Prof. Jonathan D. Sarna references a good quote from the Talmud today in the Washington Post. This is a quote we should all keep in mind in light of so much of the histrionics we hear regarding criticism of the war, Israel, etc.

In trying to discern how to distinguish legitimate prophetic criticisms of Israel from illegitimate ones, I have been greatly influenced by the words of Rabbi Jonathan in the Talmudic tractate of Tamid (28a): “He who reproves his neighbor with pure intent [‘in the name of heaven’] is worthy of a portion from God.” Criticism, Rabbi Jonathan implies, must be carefully evaluated: Much depends on the motives of the critic.

Major “Blog Dap” to the DCenters, the best DC United blog on the Internet and the reason that I have never bothered to just to do a DC/MLS blog. They (and I don’t know who actually does it) would kick my ass.

Here is their match preview for the match tonight at Olympia…

The Port Halifax Idea Gateway posts an interesting article on the future of RFK Stadium once the Nats and then DC moves away from it. Here’s a bit of it:

What’s the future for the RFK site? I have suggested that it would make a good site for a consolidated Department of Homeland Security complex (at least from a planning perspective) as it is a large amount of land in downtown DC with close proximity to a Metro station. There are some reports that the Washington Redskins could come home to RFK. The potential deal is very interesting because DC officials are in no mood to shell out more money to construct a sports stadium after spending over $600 million for the Nationals new park. The leverage that Dan Snyder, the owner of the Redskins, wants is the land and development rights for the area around the new stadium.

One other note, it looks like Bobby Boswell, DC’s favorite defender and former GUTS contestant, is getting his own site.

How will Riz handle the wait until March?

So this blog is now on Technorati… I dunno yet quite what it does. But everyone else seems to be using it, so I better figure out what it is.

Right?

In the wake of Steve’s article saying that the US will bid on hosting the next two World Cups… here is my bid. Yes, stadiums may change by then, likely with new stadiums in the NY and LA areas.

• Washington - FedEx Field
• NY - Giants Stadium
• Boston - Gillette Stadium
• Chicago - Soldier Field
• Houston - Reliant Stadium
• Miami - Orange Bowl (Would have to be renovated)
• Dallas - New Cowboys Stadium
• LA - Rose Bowl (or new stadium)
• Phoenix - U. of Phoenix Stadium
• SF/Oakland - Oakland Coliseum? New Niners stadium?
• Seattle - Qwest Field
• Denver - Invesco Field

Here is how my venues look on a map. To me, this looks like fairly good geographic distribution.

A couple of places that I wish I could include:

• Cleveland - Cleveland Browns Stadium
• Detroit - Ford Field
• Philadelphia - Lincoln Financial Field
• Somewhere in the South like Atlanta, Birmingham or Nashville

Any other candidates that I missed?

This year’s Daytona 500 followed the typical plot for 500 mile restrictor plate races in modern NASCAR:

1. Someone compares Daytona to the Super Bowl
2. Invocation
3. Commercial break
4. Three bits by Kelly Clarkson
5. Commercial break
6. Darrell Waltrip says something dumb
7. Commercial break
8. Parade laps
9. Commercial break
10. Race starts
11. Three hours of the good drivers trying not to wreck
12. My man Tony Stewart crashes
13. NASCAR contrives reasons for late caution flags to bunch field up
14. Big wreck
15. Great finish
16. Ensuing controversy

It was a great finish. Harvick made a great move to deny Mark “Buffalo Bills” Martin from winning.