Always Name Your Race Cars After Insects

I "watch" Speed Channel (as in leave it on in the background) and the show Hot Rod TV was on.  Hey, they are talking about old race cars.  This is the Marmon Wasp, the winner of the first ever Indianapolis 500 in 1911.

If it was the number 41 and had a red & blue paint job, I would've pinched myself.  Cause one of the most famous race cars in history is almost named after the same insect as the Hornet from Daytona USA.  Hornets are a subset of wasps so they're relatively the same.  Is that a coincidence or was Nagoshi-San onto something???

About the first Indianapolis 500, it is a funny story...  It was basically a soap box derby but more people got hurt.  Race cars back then drove an average of 75 mph (120 kph).  Bear in mind the race was always 500 miles so it took 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 8 seconds for Ray Harroun, driver of the #32 Marmon Wasp, to finish.  The track was laden with white sand to absorb the oil.  A car's tire came off.  One guy died and six others were injured.  There were pace cars, pit stops, and 80,000 fans in attendance so this was a "legit" event.

Nowadays, Indy Motor Speedway can seat 400,000 fans (largest sporting venue in the world) and the 500 is aired on ABC every year as everyone makes a big deal out of it despite the fact no one cares about Indy Car anymore, or something.  I care about Indy Car...if only someone on Speed Channel told me when the races come on cause they always happen when I'm NOT watching the TV...

Black & white footage doesn't help me see the sponsors...

What is that, Go Daddy and Red Bull sponsoring cars in 1911???  NOPE!!
Lovin' the shoutout to the "King of Speed" from Daytona...

And if this old timey news footage wasn't hectic enough, guess what--this is 1911 we're talking about. Do you think a bunch of judges could keep track of the positions of 40 cars over that time span? After 10 minutes, everyone lost track of the positions. Then about 200 miles in, a spin out near the judges' stand caused them to flee, throwing any record-keeping out the window.  So Ray Harroun "won" because he was such a swell guy who drove a car made in Indianapolis and was good friends with the president of the track. Hey, read this.

I like this picture from Ron Hoskins at Getty Images (from the previous link) cause we love cars and we need more old-school cars in our vidya games.  Oh wait...

We already do, thanks Amusement Vision, no thanks to you AM2!!!

EDIT: Oh yeah, you can't forget about the 1951 Hudson Hornet, made famous by Doc Hudson from the Cars movie.

Just so you know, Cars is THE BEST PIXAR MOVIE!  *readers rage*

Hey Kids, STOP ALL THE DOWNLOADIN'...

Right now, I'm experiencing a lot of mental fatigue and I'm downloading this new Black Ops map pack so we'll see what that's like soon.

But first, the Supreme Court case.  So video games are an art form that are no longer persecuted by the government.  Or M-rated games can now be sold to minors in the state of California...I really don't understand what was the big deal by this...an EPIC WIN for gamers everywhere despite the fact we have much worse problems like the economy, the massive deficit, wars in the Middle East, etc.  Aren't kids already prohibited from buying M-rated games (in my state of Louisiana anyway)?  And so what--kids are always playing M-rated games like Call of Duty and Halo so it's not like their minds haven't been "infected" already.  Just get mommy and daddy to buy the games, problem solved...

I don't think the government should dictate what games can and cannot be made (yes, even Burnout).  Although this doesn't mean I don't frown upon ultra-violent/sexualized/other-questionable-material games (uh, Duke Nukem?  Rofl, well that's the Duke, that gets a pass...).  Happy games only...

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Oh, and right now, I'm checking my blog stats (don't worry, I'm not whoring hit counts here) and I see that I'm getting an abnormal amount of hits on my Cars 2 blog post, look at this:

For no reason at all, I'm getting an assload of Google Image views for one picture...this one.  Originally, I copied the url from the third-party website, then uploaded it to my blog, then removed it altogether.  I'M STILL GETTING HITS FOR A PICTURE I REMOVED FROM MY BLOG POST ALTOGETHER.

You might say, "Look at you!  You're getting tons of hits, you should be happy!"  Really, now how many people going through Google Image Search are going to stop and read what I have to say?  I'm going to try removing the pic from my Picasa album, maybe that'll solve things.

And to make matters more embarrassing, Cars 2 is turning out to be the biggest Pixar flop ever...33% on Rotten Tomatoes.  That's unheard of.  EDIT: Just like Nintendo producing a horrible Mario/Zelda game.  At least Cars 2 topped the weekend box office at $66 mil.  I haven't even seen it in theaters yet...I'm too lazy.  Cars is pulling a Duke Nukem...supposed to be great but no it sucks.  I want to talk more about that later.

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GREAT, now my XBL is just screwing with me again.  I can sign in any time I want, but I get signed out ten/fifteen seconds later.  While I'm halfway through downloading the new map pack.  This is horrible.  Maybe if I just keep mashing the "Connect to Xbox Live" button, it'll work (and make my name pop up on my friends' screens repeatedly)...

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One more thing.  This has to do with computer updates.  Last week, I got two Windows updates within a matter of a week.  So the computer always nags you--"When do you want us to remind you to restart your computer?" and I'm like NEVER!!  POSTPONE, POSTPONE, I restart my comp when I feel like it.

Every time it "reminds" you, it tries to restart the computer from under your nose.  EDIT: It still reminds you every ten minutes even if tell it to postpone for four hours.  As a matter of fact, I was in the middle of a chat with a Steam buddy and then my computer went through this self-initiated restart process (without telling me)....it started losing "focus" on the window so I had to keep clicking and getting off one letter at a time...something like "I think my computer is gonna restr (enter) r (enter) tt.."  as every single thing on my desktop disappeared one-by-one.  Just great.

And the updating process is so slow.  It's this blue screen that says "Installing 1 of 6 updates.  Please don't turn off your computer."  Alright, no big deal.  So the computer gets to the final update relatively quickly (in about 15 mins) so I'm thinking this last update will be quick.  NOPE.  My computer sits in the "Installing 6 of 6 updates" phase for about 8 to 12 hours...and there's NO indication of how close it is to completion.  I thought something was wrong with my computer and was about to manually power off the thing but it went "ding-a-ding-dong" late at night to indicate the computer had finished & restarted.  Both updates were the same.  Thanks, Microsoft, thanks.

And I also love how the computer has to restart over the most absurd updates...AVG?  Java?  Adobe Reader???  Now how many times have you used Adobe Reader recently?  I've only use it to read some .pdf attachments I've received in my e-mails.  And yet somehow the install has the gall to sneak in a little desktop icon every time like it's really that relevant.

Reference.

TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY.  HOW FITTING WOULD IT HAVE BEEN TO TYPE UP THIS WHOLE POST IN CAPS CAUSE DAMN I'M REALLY PISSED OFF.  AND I HAVEN'T EVEN MENTIONED ALL THE Windows Account Alert! E-MAILS BUT THAT'S IT.  I'M GOING BACK TO SLEEP.  OH WAIT, DID THE BLACK OPS MAP PACK ACTUALLY DOWNLOAD?  WELL F*** IT I'M KILLING SOME SHANGRI-LA ZOMBIES!!!

Cars 2: A Movie About Cars

Anyone heard about this Cars 2 movie coming out in June 24th? 

I thought they announced Cars 2 several years back so this was inevitable.  It's the second Pixar movie to get a sequel.  Now to tell you the truth, I'm awfully surprised.  Cars was probably the least-received of the Pixar movies except for A Bug's Life.  Of course, I would say that Cars 1 was probably my favorite Pixar movie behind Toy Story.  Why?  Cause it's cars, duh.  The race sequences were well-done and I like that.

The three things no one seemed to like were 1. the long drawn-out Radiator Scenes, 2. Tow Mater, and 3. ripoff of Doc Hollywood.  Well, yeah, the Radiator Springs scenes were rather long and I wanted to see more racing.  EDIT: However, I did like the canyon cruis'n and nighttime city lights scenes as well.  As for Tow Mater, well Larry the Cable Guy is an acquired taste.  Who else would you cast as a rusty tow truck?  And I've never seen Doc Hollywood so so what if Pixar plagiarizes it.

One of the cool parts in Cars 1 was when Doc Hudson and McQueen raced around some dirt track.  Doc Hudson could drift but McQueen couldn't so he fell off a cliff.  DAYTONA USA/SEGA RALLY STYYLIIEEE11111!

Anyway, so Cars 2 is about Lightning McQueen going to some World Grand Prix in Tokyo but he also get caught up in a British spy ring mission.  Oh wow, I don't know how that's going to turn out, but the more racing the better!  I know about some of the characters when I was looking around Epcot on my Disney trip.  The other race cars, each of which represent some country, I got a kick out of.

These are the race cars.  I really would like to know how a rally car could contend with a LeMans car, but by God they'll do it.

Wait, cause they're in Japan, you have to play this music!!!

Maybe they will go drifting down the Akina or something like that.

Beautiful.  Seeing a stock car race a F1 car is kind of funny cause they're not even close performance-wise, but we all know a Daytona USA stock car can compete with the best of them, right?

And these happen to be two of the spy cars.  Rofl, an Aston Martin DB5, perfect.  And I really would like to know what a Dodge Challenger has to do with espionage, but it does so deal with it.

Now I still have some pressing questions about the Cars universe.  First of all, how are cars born?  What about junkyards, are those graveyards, so to speak?  What about normal everyday cemeteries?  Are destruction derbies like fight clubs?  How do wrecked cars get repaired?  If you're born as a crap economy car or a minivan, can you move up in status or are you stuck in the same "wealth class" for the rest of your life?  How do cars build buildings anyway?

You know what, I don't know and I don't care cause this is the best movie ever made.  This is the only movie where these conundrums exist since the main characters live in their own world outside of human reality and don't have opposable thumbs.

I'm kind of pissed they're not bringing back The King or any of the old stock cars but what did you expect?  Even as a cameo appearance.

Then there was also Chick Hicks who has the old 80's-90's style stock car (see Daytona USA Hornet), but no one likes him since he's an assh*** and (SPOILER FOR CARS 1)

he wrecked The King and stole the trophy away from Lightning McQueen.

(END SPOILERS) 

EDIT: BTW, this is also funny.  Michael Schumacher makes a cameo appearance at the end of Cars 1 as a Ferrari F430.  Guido, the little Fiat 500, gets to go to the Ferrari museum and passes out upon sight of Mr. Schumacher.  Lol, OutRun 2.  It's kind of strange that Schumacher wasn't a F1 car but who cares.

Anyway, a new Cars movie means an influx of more toy car merchandise that'll never disappear.  You never see any Pixar stuff besides Toy Story and Cars.  Apparently because Cars characters make cooler toys than...say, Finding Nemo or Wall-E characters.  And Toy Story is Toy Story, there is no debate there.  Hey, I'm just sayin'.

You can already read the Cars 2 wiki for loads of information.

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