1967 Ford Mk III (GT40) - Car and Driver review... from the past!

The Ford GT40 is one of the most beautiful things ever made. It was basically re-made in identical form from 2004-2006, to the fascination of the gearhead world. here's a Car and Driver road test of the consumer version in 1967. apparently it was a janky, half-finished, wildly expensive absolute thrill to drive. I expect more for my $18,500.

It's worth noting that Jeremy Clarkson was so in love with the 2004 re-do that he bought one. Link to that video:
http://youtu.be/hVeGuCs1R4c?t=3m6s

...but Ford had enormous trouble getting  him a car that would work right. Link to that video:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f66_1197922429

I guess it really is just like the original. Click each for the big version.

New Fields from Science's Frontiers of New.

Researchers seek upper limit of "Marilyn Monroe sexy updraft effect."

Inventor publicizes "dash pad" to improve survivability of gruesome 2 mph crashes.

Army announces new "man grenade".

Steering the ship.

Joke #1 - "Fine. FINE! We'll go back for your goddam ChapStick. Are you HAPPY, YOUR MAJESTY?"

Joke #2 - " This isn't some cheap motel you can manhandle between the crests! There's only one way to steer a library. You've got to finesse it. Now, watch and learn, son."

Joke #3 - "You know, I really wish you'd told me you had to go before we left Madagascar."

Joke #4 - "This new carpet gets really slippery in the rain. You'd better go below decks and batten down the media room or something. I'm not losing another Colecovision over this storm. Archduke Ferdinand really wants to play Bump & Jump when we arrive in Austria, and I won't let him down again."

Joke #5 - "When you've been at this as long as I have, son, you can parallel park it without even checking the mizzen. Now, go down and get some of those really huge coins for the meter."

MisterFancyGorton'sPants_2 did not disappoint, with Joke #6. I am not commenting on his fish stick. "Whaddyamean there's still Poop on the Poop Deck!?! - Listen here 'Mister Fancy Gorton's Pants', you take you & your stupid bristly-moustache and CLEAN IT UP!!"

[Commenter jokes will be added to the post.   -Mgmt.]

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Gronk You Answer - Business proposals and sleazy offers and comic.

WENDY PAYNE say...

Your Mail Id have been given 1,000,000.00 by the Jumbo Company, send Name,AddressTo: Cc: 

Dear Wendy,

Gronk see movie once, "Jumbo". About big animal with long nose. Long nose animal have company now? Jumbo doing well for self! Still, gronk not trust animal with 1,000,000... -Hey! You not say what Gronk got given. Gronk mail Id been given 1,000,000 whats? 1,000,000 rocks? 1,000,000 sandwich? 1,000,000 copies of book by Oprah? Gronk interested in 1,000,000 sandwich. And maybe 1,000,000 rocks. You keep blow-hard book by hoo-man lady in love with self. Stick 1,000,000 books up nose, Jumbo. GRAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAHH!

Gronk thank you for letter.

Mr. Leung say...

did you received my mail?

Dear Mr. Leung,

No, Gronk not receive your email. Gronk also not receive punctuation or capitalization from you! GRAH HAH HAH HAH HA HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! You get "zing" by Gronk! In face! GRAH hahha hahahah.

Gronk thank you for letter.

Golam Morshed say...

Item :kids keeper
Brand label: H&M
Qty: 5000pc
Style:3

Price- Please contact for best price

Oh! New comic! Gronk read. Okay, uuh. First panel, bear eat trumpet-shape cookie. Second panel, dumb dog is comfortable with self. Good for dumb dog. Who care? Third panel, elephant have love stuck in nose. Hmf. Gronk think this comic not Golam Morshed's best work.

Gronk thank you for letter.

Angel Tan say...

什么是 PayPal ? What is PayPal?（consult QQ： 2622 134 156）
PayPal是全球最受欢迎的在线支付工具，一个邮箱即可完成收付款。可在全球190多个国家和地区使用，支持24种货币。现有3亿用户，海外知名度、普及率和信任度高，有利新客户开发。PayPal注册简单,且无月、年费，小额收款更划算。1、购物网站 shopping site 2、B2B企业小额货款、订金、样单 B2B small business loans, deposits, like a single 3、B2C或C2C商家B2C or C2C business 4、外贸SOHO foreign trade SOHO 5、物流公司 logistics company
我能为你提供什么支持？ What can I offer you support?

Dear Angel,

AAAAA! SPIDERS ON GRONK COMPUTER SCREEN! NOT LIKE SPIDER! GRONK NOT LIKE ANGEL WITH SUN TAN! GRAAAAH!

Gronk is not a board certified therapist. Gronk is a celebrity advisor and life coach, and is a staff member of several support group outreach centers. His replies are intended for entertainment purposes only, and should be followed up by consultation with a qualified counselor or experienced therapist, probably a human.

Pitney-Bowes Postage Meter - Philately are GO!

Even 54 years after this ad was printed in Fortune magazine, it's still an uphill battle to get small businesses to get off the stamp train. But now it's Stamps.com making the big anti-stamp push. I wonder how Pitney-Bowes feels about that these days?

Anyhoo, observe this horrible vignette that must surely give philatelists nightmares. So many stamps neglected! Heavens, no! This illustration is heavily photo-referenced, which means the artist hired models, posed them in the exact positions he/she wanted, and used those photos as "reference" to paint the final art. How do we know this? Because time is money, and when you can show your client pictures of posed models, and let them choose the pose from a stack of fifty before you even begin the painting, that's time and money saved.

Now here's a weird thing. Why add the distracting detail of the ring on that guy's hand? As a general rule, you only want to add details that help sell the product or idea. What's this ring doing for anybody? It must be like the eyeball ring in the 1982 cinematic suppository, Beastmaster. Clearly, the forgetful goof is a unwitting pawn for the Postmaster General, who was obviously spying on the situation in an attempt to preserve the government's stranglehold on the lucrative postal business! Stamp collectors have never been so thrilled, and are reaching for their inhalers as we speak.

Jesse Monrow Donaldson, as portrayed by Maax,
as portrayed by Rip Torn, in the roles of a
lifetimes.

In 1949, the U.S. Postmaster General was Jesse Monroe Donaldson, who was also... A HA! A freemason!!!!! Also, he was from Shelbyville, Illinois, and THAT is 210 miles south of Chicago, which is where we are headquartered, here in GO! Tower! A HA! Coincidence??? Of course. Don't be an idiot.

These particular models are so carefully overposed that, if there were emmys given out for ad illustration reference modeling, they would still win nothing. But camp is what we want from corny old 1949. So, allow the Phil Are GO! Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade to lift the useable portions of this illustration for your continual repurposement. You're welcome! All personnel to the helipad. Incoming Graphic Gift, stat!

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This image is perfect for any occasion where you're finding out what you owe... usually because you neglected routine preventative maintenance on something that now needs replacement. The gent in the glasses could be a mechanic or a plumber or a gynecologist or a physicist, "I'm sorry Mrs. Fishwhistle, but this is what happens when you don't mind your gluons." It's up to you! You're welcome!

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National Board of Fire Underwriters - What the FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.......

.......UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCKKKKKK??????????

"Okay, class who feels neurologically impaired? Timmy, if you're not sure, you can just put your hand down."

UPDATE: Due to massive reader response and threats, here is the adorable firey cowboy from today's ad. Right-click these little horsemen onto your hard drive apocalypse in three, two, one, RIGHTCLICKNOW!

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Pream - Patterns in the fog.

It's been a little while since we had a decent Graphic Gift, so today's ad comes at a fine time. This ad for Pream has a great clip art lady head.

Pream was (Google doesn't seem to think Pream is around any more.) a coffee creamer made from dairy products and other milk stuff. Quite unlike Coffee-Mate, which is famously a non-dairy creamer that continues to dominate the market, Pream wasn't okay to use if you were lactose intolerant. Maybe that made the difference that killed Pream? It sure wasn't for lack of a snappy name. "Pream" is way simpler and catcher than "Coffee-Mate".

My dad always had Coffee-Mate, which had a similar picture on the label - a steaming cup with the white product swirling and dissolving into the coffee. Here's the weird thing: as a single-digit-old kid, I studied this picture trying to figure out what was swimming in the coffee. It just wouldn't register as a random swirl of creamer. My brain demanded that it BE something.

This is a uniquely human psychological phenomena, called Pareidolia, that makes our brain want to see patterns in random stimuli. It's why we look at clouds and see Lincoln's head or hear voices in the wind. Pareidolia was an evolutionary advantage for us because it allowed us to learn why things happen, like migration of prey animals and predicting the seasons. It's a driving trait behind analysis that animals don't have. However, combine it with a little egocentrism or paranoia, and depending on who you ask, it can account for everything from the "face on Mars", religious phenomena, and pretty much every conspiracy theory there's ever been. We can't let Pareidolia make us think crazy shit. You know how, maybe twice in your life, a street light has gone out just when you drove past it? Believe it or not, you don't have some magical power that interferes with electrical systems. It was just random. When a street light reaches the end of it's functional life, odds are somebody will be driving past. How many times have you driven past a street light that has totally failed to go out at that moment? I'll bet lots.

As a kid, for some reason, despite the obvious presence of the spoon and cup, I couldn't see the random swirl of Coffee-Mate as it was. My leading theory was that there was a sea serpent in the coffee. I didn't' think my dad was drinking a sea serpent, maybe because watching the action of him stirring a spoon of powder into the coffee made everything clear. But the picture on the jar mostly looked like a something slithering in a brown pool, but I had other theories, depending on how late it was, how sleepy I was, and what I had for dinner. Weird.

Anyway, about that lady head. Sure, she's no candidate for the Disembodied Floating Head deathmatches, but she's easily perky enough to be useful as clip art. She has been lovingly pen tooled out of her background by our elite staff of old-world craftsmen so that we could present her to you, our loyal readers, in two sizes - big and less big. I know, you're endlessly grateful. But, try not to vote me into public office. I'm not running for anything and you wouldn't want someone in office who fails to see a threat in every random event. I'm not seven any more.

 You're welcome.

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Did someone say "gimme a friggin' Pream commercial? No? Well, here are some! Watch or don't!!!

Supplementary Sidebar - The Cord Cutting Chronicles, Pt 4. - Secret ROKU settings screens. Controller codes revealed! Special attack ACTIVATE!

Today we're having the kitchenette updated in Employee Lounge B of GO! Tower. We're switching from avocado to burnt orange for that "Brady" look. As a result of all the sawdust and hammering, there was to be no post today. HOWEVER...

As our more loyal (or unemployable?) readers may know, I "cut the cord" with annual Worst Company in America contender, Comcast, back in the spring. Here's a link to that little three-part rant on the subject of systematic customer pillaging, for those who missed out on all the vitriol. Anyhoo, I called Roku support on my day off today to ask about a wee problem I'd been having with my Roku, which, I'll remind you, is my only TV-harvesting device.

The problem is this: at least once per day, the Roku would simply drop internet connectivity. The show I was watching would try to buffer, and eventually throw an error message telling me my router had apparently exploded itself into a smoking crater. Funny thing is, the router, being an inch away from the Roku, was clearly in a non-exploded state. My phone and a few other devices connected to the router via Wi-Fi and hard line all attested to the router's happy non-explodedness. The problem obviously was with the Roku. Repeatedly cycling power on your TV puck is not how most people like to spend their evenings, begging the damn thing to re-find the internet, which, I hasten to point out, was being jammed into the Roku via every available orifice. Yes, The Roku was connected to my router via Wi-Fi and a bright yellow Cat 5 cable. Still, one to three times per day, the Roku would suddenly and randomly become as unaware of the internet as a standard issue 80-year-old senator.

So, yeah, after a mere six months of this, I ran out of patience, screwed up my courage, and braved the dark reaches of the Roku Customer Discouragement Telephone Labyrinth. A couple of button presses connected me, surprisingly quickly, to "Andrew", which must be short for "Andreshkarvatharan". Sorry, but the accent definitely reminded me of my deep love for tikka masala and lamb samosas. Wow, it is almost lunch time. Hmm.

Anyway, Andrew asked me to access two SECRET Roku settings screens to do a system update and download a patch. Say what? Yep, controller codes. For some reason, Roku engineers chose to hide two screens of what I would call REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF behind two sets of unguessable buttons presses. WHYYYYYYYYY?????

Apart from the secrecy of these important menus, the Roku claims to do a "system update" on a daily basis in the middle of the night. Why the secret update function on the secret settings screen? Andrew told me that the plain old system update, as seen on the non-hidden settings screen was just to check for new channels and content, but not for system updates. WHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY?????????? Sigh.

Anyway, here are the secret controller codes to access these super-double-secret settings, and how to mess with some of those settings, just in case you have a Roku that has a love/hate relationship with the internet. All of these key presses are done on the Roku remote. In case it's not obvious, when I say "HOME 5x", that means press the HOME button five times.

SUPER SECRET SCREEN #1

HOME 5x
FAST FORWARD 3x
REWIND 2x

Here is where you can tell your Roku to use the right update server. If it's like mine, the server's name was BETA. Change it to RELEASE. I guess unless you specifically tell it to use the good server, the Roku will use the crappy old test mule server that is full of bugs and sloppy code. That's nice.

Then, go down to SYSTEM UPDATE to download the latest system software, complete with any patches. Then, go to REBOOT SYSTEM.

SUPER DOUBLE SECRET SCREEN #2

HOME 5x
FAST FORWARD 1x
PLAY 1x
REWIND 1x
PLAY 1x
FAST FORWARD 1x

This should call up the other extra-super-turbo-secret screen. I think this was the important one, because it's where you can disable network pings. See, with pings enabled, the Roku will constantly check with your router to be reassured the internet is still there. The router may interpret this as a threat, and block the Roku from connectivity. It's like an insecure girlfriend who demands constant assurance that she is the very prettiest girl in all the land, who eventually irritates her boyfriend who then becomes someone else's boyfriend. Why is this constant pinging set to "on" by default, when, apparently, a very popular model of Netgear router will get irritated and block the Roku? Why is this menu, which enables you to turn this off a extra-super-double-fingers-crossed-turbo-secret setting concealed in a hidden screen? WHYYYYYYYYYY?????

Anyway, I'm off to try and watch The Daily Show. We'll see if this did any good. I wish there was an Indian restaurant around here that delivered. That's lunch, everybody.


[-Mgmt.]

Scientific Expedition to Kashmir - National Geographic, 1931

This old issue of National Geographic featured a lengthy article on The Citroen-Haardt Trans-Asiatic Expedition. I skimmed the first page and failed to see what was scientific about it. It's a little ethnocentric calling it an "expedition" when you're basically driving through populated nations. It's not like you're hacking your way through a frikkin jungle. You wouldn't call it an "expedition" if you were going to Elk Grove Village to pick up your new couch, but that's kind of how these guys thought. Different times. Notice that the National Geographic teams don't use that word any more (I think).

Anyway, these pictures, taken in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are pretty much actual indiana Jones stuff. bazaars and deserts and half tracks. Pretty darn cool. Let your thirsty eyes chew on the coolness of these pictures. These are not all of the photos in the article, but some of the really good ones.

Yes, "explorers" actually wore that stuff. Pith helmets, bowlers, and jodhpurs. I recently found out those are what those goofy pants are called, with the poofy thighs.

Such a puss on that kid. He's a charmer of birds, and little else. He definitely won't tell Indy where the entrance to the tomb is located.

"Iiiiiiiin-dyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!"

Blue Drama at the Window, with Handkerchief.

Joke #1 - "Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Sylvia. This is my handkerchief, but this NOT my sputum. Alert the staff that we have an unwelcome nose in the manor!"

Joke #2 - "Mary, I'm glad you're sitting down. I have alarming news about our son Thurman. Apparently he is a laudanum fancier. Also, he imbibes absinthe at inopportune moments. I just read about it on his The Facial Booke."

Joke #3 - "Sometimes I just carry a pocket square to go down to breakfast, because, you know, informality and all that. But some days, if I'm feeling especially luxurious, I'll carry a whole handkerchief! I know it's decadent, but I always say 'life's too short', don't you think, ladies? I said 'Don't you agree, ladies?'"

Joke #4 - "I got this handkerchief from my grandfather, who has it back in The Wars. Sometimes I can't help but wonder how I'll pass on the legacy. I can't imagine how many nose-blowings it's had blown into it by who knows how many noses. Must be thousands. Anyway, is lunch ready, Sylvia?

Joke #5 comes to us from Jim Dillon. How could I miss the obvious magic trick angle? Damn, you Jim. - "And now . . . HEY PRESTO!!!" [removes kerchief with flourish] Damn. Still blue."

Joke #6 comes to us from Jim again, with another cracking spot color joke I wish I'd thought of. Thanks, Jim! - "Definitely hers. I'd recognize that blue nail polish anywhere. Better get the ransom together. If you need me I'll be in that other room, where everything is green."

Joke #7 just slides under the door thanks to MonsieurLeFancyChaudBoules_Deux. - "You see dear, It doesn't matter how many times I wipe off these damn glasses. Your mother still looks like Napoleon in that hat..."

[Commenter jokes will be added to the post.  -Mgmt.]

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Elkhart Lake Vintage Classic 2013 - Pt. 5. - Other of interest.

Today we're posting the last batch of pictures from the Vintage Festival. Back to the jokes on Monday. We love going to the vintage races, and you can expect to see more reports next season, as I continue to put experience points into my photography skills, in the hope of leveling up every few boss fights.

An old Corvette Stingray on the false grid. In my opinion, this was the last time the Corvette achieved actual gorgeousness. After this generation, they went in the "boxy wedge" direction for several decades, and have only recently begun to dip their toe in the waters of curvaceous beauty again.

This is one of the Chevy Cheetahs from Monday's post, with it's owner at the wheel. If you appreciate this car enough to own one, could you let someone else have the fun of driving it in anger?

Here's the Studebaker I hinted at yesterday. It's not my favorite era, but the age of the thing still deserves respect.

Here follow some racing shots I took with a giant 200mm zoom lens, which is about as long as my forearm. Because my camera is smaller than the one this lens was made for, it has the net effect of a lens that is double the length. So, it's like putting a telescope on my camera. Remember the picture of the Edsel wagon from yesterday, when I had to back way off to fit in the whole car? That's the drawback to using a foreign lens from a larger camera. Here is the advantage to the "foreign lens blues". This 200mm lens acts like a 400mm mondo-zoom lens on my camera. Of course, at that magnification, camera shake was a problem since I didn't have a tripod. These were all taken from a spot on the track near "the carousel", looking at a corner where the cars come down a long straight hill, have to scrub off speed and make a hard left.

I nearly missed this shot, but the car was so cool looking I had to use it. I don't know where this thing was hiding, but I couldn't find it in the paddock.

I saw this for the first time at the dinner time car show. It looks like some kind of  prototype or test mule. Crazy looking.

We passed this great sign for a restaurant with a great name on the way home. Midway Eat!The nonexistent grammar makes it almost feel Japanese, doesn't it?