IndyCar notes. Every God-fearing American should watch the 500 on Sunday
1. That car is ropey in qualifying trim at the speedway with the hybrid system. Goddamn they need a new car so bad
2. Props to Robert Shwartzman for putting that car on pole. I hope he doesn't wreck the field coming to green on Sunday
3. Sadly, we didn't get the bump day battle we deserve: Rahal vs. Andretti. F1 fans moaning about Lance Stroll have nothing on these guys
4. It's gotta be doubly embarrassing for Bobby Rahal for a Honda executive to drop in and put one of their cars on the front row while their full time drivers can't crack the fast 12. Remember that time Bobby almost got his old IndyCar engineer Adrian Newey to come to Jaguar?
If you're in the US, go buy an antenna for $30. The 500 along with every other IndyCar race is on Fox. No subscribing to Poob or any other streaming service to watch the IndyCar races themselves
Signal not strong enough here, I would have to mount an antenna on the roof which I also won't do. IndyCar really took a step backwards by moving to Fox.
For all of the serious doubts one may have about IndyCar's competitive integrity, IndyCar recently has been ran by Chip Ganassi and Alex Palou, a guy who's a dark horse for a Honda-powered F1 seat if he ever gets that lawsuit cleared.
Without denigrating other forms of motorsport, I have a soft spot for the Middle American pageantry of the 500, and most importantly, the racing delivers at the end. https://www.youtube.com/live/Eqw2rDOrfds
The hybrid is pointless virtue-signaling. It seems to have unbalanced the car, and it was comical to watch driver after driver employ the hybrid on Lap 4 of qualifying and not increase the speed of the car at all.
Still, I can't wait for Sunday, just like every 500. The upside of being a spec series is that the parity is insane. Conor Daly is my favorite long shot.
0-If Maro Engel or Laurens Vanthoor or Chris Mies or … any other NLS/WEC/IMSA/SRO/etc. factory pro encountered Max Verstappen in a paddock somewhere, they would ask the Dutchman for a selfie. Every single one of them wanted to race in Formula 1 when they were children; after that dream died, they ended up in sports cars.
1-Roger Penske has defenestrated Tim Cindric and other various cheaters in his organization; Tim got caught cheating last year too! When the rakish, raffish Flavio Briatore ALLEGEDLY orchestrated a race victory to save Renault’s presence in Formula 1 (including over 1,000 jobs), it was almost a bit lovable. When Roger Penske bought a second tier spec series, ran it into the ground further, and then instructed his teams to cheat brazenly again and again and again, it reminds me of someone cheating at the Special Olympics.
2-I don’t think the Dems will need much help to win in 2028; Mayor Buttplug or whoever else can beat the $hillbilly or Lil’ Marco.
3-Jack’s criticism of “Gen Z Boss and a Mini” makes me suspect that he’s getting dangerously close to advocating for what amounts to DEI for disaffected white men!
4-I saw a comment on Instagram referencing the “Riva” in Ms. Carpenter’s Espresso Music Video. Apparently social media believes that any and all old wooden boats are “Rivas.” Which would be like saying all cars from the late 50s and early 60s are Ferrari berlinettas powered by front-engined V-12s.
more like, you start down by 3 touchdowns, you only get 3 downs to get a first down, you get an automatic 15 yard penalty every three downs, you don't get any time outs, and you have to kick field goals with your hands tied behind your back.
Meh. I haven’t felt short in Germany, Sweden or Estonia. About average was the worst it got. However, anytime i visit the US of A, I feel positively skinny.
My first impression of the Netherlands was noticing how comically high the urinals were mounted in the Schiphol airport. At 5'11" with a 32" inseam I managed, but there is a legitimate concern for the "short kings."
Roger bought Indycrap and made it even worse by under-investing and tilting the scales in his team’s favor. So petty, so insecure that his own team had to cheat repeatedly to “win” in a series he owns. If I were Zak Brown, I’d demand / threaten legal action that last year’s “victory” be vacated so that Pato would inherit the win.
That’s how Donald Trump would run a sports league.
If NASCAR is serious about introducing the torque sensors from IMSA so that Honda doesn't have to spend tens of millions of dollars on a pushrod V8 engine program for Cup, Honda's found an out. https://x.com/bozitatarevic/status/1889301757601181818
Smoothing out the attenuator had no affect on the airflow affecting the car's performance. I would argue it was only done because for sixty years the culture at Penske demands a sharp appearance and from the factory the pieces looked like shit. This was an unfortunate situation resulting from a stupid rule.
That is a shame you feel Lady Gaga was the best you had to crank your newly developed meat to. The thought makes me extra glad I had Christina, break out (on the charts, not jail) Britney, and Maria, as the gold standard (IMHO) to help me build up right hand callouses. Not to mention all the pseudo famous girls of the late 90s early 00s, it was a good era for skanks.
The girl I dated before getting in a relationship with my current wife I dumped for excessive weight... and then at my favorite restaurant over beers told her exactly why I was moving on from her. Never in my life have I received such a stink-eye from a waitress. I have no regrets.
I used to work at an agency staffed mostly by nurses and social workers. They got really chatty when I started going to lunch with one of the younger girls that worked there (who was my age). So much whining occurred that HR wanted us to sign one of those relationship waivers.
What those geniuses didn’t know was that her and I had been friends since high school. She was also dating my (then) best friend and they had been high school sweethearts.
I was assigned an intern last summer. I made sure that all of our meetings occurred in a very public space. If it was a conference room, I had at least two other people in there with us.
They sunk to filming Black Mirror in Vancouver; that should tell you everything about the new season.
Also, I miss the old Charlie Brooker of Screenwipe and early Black Mirror days. His take on the news media and TV in general was scathing and still holds true today, even if he's a wacko lefty now
Biden has always been a pretty awful guy, but the amount of elder abuse he's sustained over the past five years actually makes me feel some sympathy for him. Not a lot, but some.
I was rooting for anyone but Max last year to win the WDC up until Brazil. During that race I swallowed the DtS kool-aid. He's the best. I want him to win and win again. I want him to be 9-time champ and break all of Sir Lew's records.
In regards to relationships, my life before Mrs. MD was sad and pathetic. Since then, we have had some, uh, interesting arguments, but we've gone on adventures and had three kids and have plans for more adventures as we head into the second halves of our lives together. I understand when people talk about women hitting the wall, but dammit, Mrs. MD never will for me. At 42 almost 43 she's still as wonderful as she was at 19 when we met, and I have no doubt still will be in 24 more years. Having a career, a house, and a loaded CX-9 would be meaningless without her and our kids, and I hope everyone gets the chance to experience such love and devotion in their lives.
The monowiper is cool but I think I'll stick with Japanese cars.
The children have done a number on the wifes, ummm, upper level accessories but still haven't gotten tired of her yet. One thing I will never miss is being single and trying to date. I did just fine and what an awful experience. "Strange" is vastly over rated.
"Upwards of a decade." Interesting that a few months ago we had a debate on THIS VERY SUBSTACK:
Side A) I pointed out that Tucker Carlson had reported on Biden's cognitive decline in 2020 if not earlier.
Side B) Democrat partisans argued that the coverup happened BECAUSE Trump /Republicans falsely "cried wolf" about Biden's fitness, so that when he actually did, ALL OF THE SUDDEN decline, no sensible person would it because Trump and the MAGA Republicans.
Because the Democrat party and its candidates can NEVER be wrong: anything bad that happens, even the INTERNAL MACHINATIONS OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY MACHINE is always the fault of the nearest Republican.
To be clear, I really wish we had two decent parties rather than one bad and one utterly and completely abhorrent and discredited! Gavin Newsom even has been going around admitting that ignoring voters legitimate concerns while completely losing every last shred of credibility might not have been in the party's best interest.
The D party has been completely utterly politically inept and stupid for 20+ years. Fortunately for them the R’s have a habit of running complete nut jobs. The result is we have a complete lack of anything close to serious leadership.
Biden has been a laughing stock for as long as i can remember but no one accused him of being senile until he was obviously senile. Which is what is so funny.
It's a miraculous victory to have stumbled upon someone like that and somehow have the smarts to hitch up to them for life. Especially when I think how many times I've choked on my own spit, hit my thumb with a hammer, or forgotten to pack a toothbrush on a trip.
This always hits me in glaring relief when I go to bike events and see guys my age tipping tatted up string bikini servers 10 bucks on a 5 dollar pint. It's sad how rare happiness is when most men are so desperate for it.
I haven't read the review, but I never saw Tapper once, or the network he works for, ever call into question Biden's dementia, senility, or parkinsonisms.
I pay zero attention to the media, but from the way my media-loving coworkers talk, one would have thought that Biden was the fittest man who ever walked the earth, and that in preparation for his second term he was training not just to compete in but win the Iron Man Triathlon in Hawaii.
I'm super curious to see how long Max stays in F1 and what he does after. He often seems fed up with the F1 circus, but he eats, sleeps, and breathes racing. Where else besides F1 can he get competition anywhere near his level?
I love Fernando. the desire to race is so strong in that guy that he simply won't go away, and keeps dragging dogs to better finishes than the deserve. the guy has raced in more than one-third of all F1 races _in history_. I dunno that anyone has that kind of passion for racing.
Can he get it in f1? When max has the fastest car, he win every race by thirty seconds. Mclaren gets second with the fastest car. I watched with a friend and said “max has a longshot to win unless he takes this first corner then watch out”
I always used to think that Kimi Raikkonen would be street racing for pink slips in Helsinki if he hadn't gotten a seat somewhere. Building on that, I'd like to think the he and Max and maybe Alonso will field a team in whatever Europe's version of AER is and show up in a battered Miata to race under made up names.
A few years back in the paddock at Sebring, I was able to put my arm around Juan Pablo Montoya and pose for a pic. All I need to do is wait about 30 years and I'll get one with Max.
I voted for Trump but wonder if the Dem's had a better chance of winning if they ran Biden instead of screwing him for the money. America will elect old white guys all day long but they don't elect women. Hillary is still pissed about losing to Trump and while she is evil she isn't as braindead as Kamala is.
She's the next Pelosi. She'll anchor herself where she is and slowly turn into a power grabbing sludge monster. The big chair has no draw for folks like them. They like a congressional seat where they can dig in like a tick for decades.
I think they would have had a better chance if they had NOT asked for an unusually early debate.
The first debate (and the following debates had they been held) showed even the most loyal partisan that Biden was brain dead. Kamala's polls were highest at her appointment and declined steadily as the public realized how retarded she is, so pulling the switcheroo at the last minute would have given them the best chance to win.
I agree but I know loyal Biden supporters that still think it is his stutter. I don't think he would have done worse than Kamala but I could be wrong and am glad we didn't end up with that result.
I'm actually shocked the system was able to keep a lid on Biden's diagnosis this long. It explains quite a bit. One theory going is that endorsing Heels Up was Joe's (or Jill's) final 'fuck you' to the Party for ousting him, and I buy it.
10 bucks says Ms. Davis is more concerned with the 'right' for her daughters to kill her unborn grandchildren than they are. And she hates her mother. To steal from Dalrock, 'Men have biographies, women have grandchildren.'
Men will toil in field or mine, fight and die on the battlefield, and build (and sustain) civilizations for worthwhile women. Without them, they will do none of those things, while women cannot and have stopped doing the absolutely most important thing that they can do that men cannot. Boom. Rocks fall, everyone dies.
And if I have to watch one more effing TV show or movie with one or more RBF sporting Mary Sue girlboss, I'm going to off myself.
I mean, everyone who was paying attention knew Joe was cooked in 2020, nevermind after that. We just had ideas to the contrary screamed in our faces until we didn’t feel like arguing about it anymore.
Sherman and the rest of us are going to find out the hard way you cant buy the weapons of war on amazon woth free two day shipping no matter how good your portfolio does
Your previous statements are on record to the effect of "I don't care whether someone has a PhD [in AI] or how many years of experience you have" and then described your lack of any tangible skills.
And yeah, lecture me about how "the free market" gives employers a 15% tax break to preferentially hire foreign nationals over citizens, rather than an illegal executive action:
Well, I sure as hell don't believe the weight they publish for him, I'll tell you that.
BUT. He's lifelong sober, and he DOES get out and walk every day, albeit on a company golf course at public expense. I bet his overall health is better than you'd think. Not poisoning yourself with alcohol 200 times a year goes a long way towards keeping things together.
Also I will choose to ignore your comments on alcohol because it makes me think about how much more in shape I’d be if I didn’t enjoy drinking from time to time.
I have the diet of a raccoon and won't eat a vegetable -- but my ECG showed basically zero blockage at the age of 53. If you had watched me eat on any kind of consistent basis from 1985 to now you'd think I was already dead!
Im down 25 lbs on the year and im trying to get the last 15 with healthier diet and exercise than just fasting. Belt keeps getting tighter so it’s working but the damn scale wont move.
But the track record of sober modern presidents is, eh, middling at best:
Carter, W., Biden, Trump.
I was at lunch with a bunch of historians today and it was interesting how many of them thought we're now living in the fully-realized Dubya legacy (as much as we are a Trump 2nd term).
We're now bearing the full fruit of what Dubya sowed from Iraq and Afghanistan, the housing bubble and crash, the surveillance state, etc.
What a horrifying truth to contemplate, I must avoid re-reading this after lunch so I don’t retch.
@jack makes W out to be a regretful, useful idiot who paints portraits of the soldiers his imbecilic wars for Israel maimed, but I don’t buy it: not that he knew what he was doing, but that knowingly or unknowingly he doesn’t bear the responsibility for being the guy who sold the best (and it wasn’t even close) country down the RIVER, for nothing. Not even for worldly largesse.
Truly, in such a situation, “shame” don’t cover it
In a just world, he and the rest of that admin would share a place in the rafters with Mussolini, or at the very least a cell at The Hague.
Instead, we in this country refuse to prosecute our tyrants so he's left to live in what I can only hope against reality is an acute pain and suffering for all of the terror, poverty, and grief he has caused humanity.
I couldn’t care less about my daughters accomplishments besides marriage and children and i hope they are all lucky enough to get what me and their mom have
"I'm actually shocked the system was able to keep a lid on Biden's diagnosis this long. It explains quite a bit."
The dangerous thing is how many insiders _believed_ he was okay. I guess it's that boiling of the frog thing, if you'd been around him long enough.
It may be no different than folks in the current admin who believe DJT is actually Divinely Ordained. Being in the DC is a weird fishbowl and the WH is esp so.
Where to begin? Now that Biden has no power, and probably a very difficult future, the media and his party (apologize for the redundancy) are abandoning his sinking ship and it's captain, Dr. Jill. While Chuck Schumer wants to "move forward", I would say, not so fast, my friend. A party that kept the health of its leader and president from the American people (and voter), is worthy of very little respect. Morons like Joe Scarborough and Karine Jean-Pierre are on record, for posterity, while offering that Joe was the best version of himself. Admittedly, a very low bar, but still a look into the souls of "journalists" who were simply advocates. The cry of everything Trump being a threat to Democracy seems rather hollow with these "revelations". The timing of his cancer announcement is suspect...on the eve of Jake Tapper's pathetic book release. There are so many questions about Joe's care, or lack of same, that no one even knows where to begin. With all the potential villains in this epoch, I would like to single out Dr. Jill as the architect of this political debacle. If she stood by while Joe should have had his PSA tested, shame on her. If she knew he was flirting with prostate cancer, and didn't insist on treatment, shame on her. It would seem that she placed her desire to maintain residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue ahead of the health and well being of the man she purports to love. He is in no shape to take on treatment for metastatic cancer that has escaped the prostate. We will never know what happened. In fact, it's even less likely than knowing the flight manifest on Epstein's 737 plane. Biden always wanted to be president. Or perhaps, Jill just wanted to be the First Lady. the moral of the story is be careful what you wish for. At the risk of being judgmental, I would suggest that the cabal of bureaucrats behind the scenes have all got to be on the Mount Rushmore of despicable human beings.
"If she stood by while Joe should have had his PSA tested, shame on her. If she knew he was flirting with prostate cancer, and didn't insist on treatment, shame on her. It would seem that she placed her desire to maintain residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue ahead of the health and well being of the man she purports to love."
I agree... though part of me gives a lot of latitude to long-time spouses of leaders and what really goes through their minds, which is almost - in some way or another - in service of their spouse and his/her ambition and sense of "history." I've skimmed enough biographies of them to not envy that role.
Agreed. In this instance, Joe was so compromised, and Dr. Jill kept dressing him up and sending on his way to work. From afar, most people could see that he was in bad shape. How could someone living with him not see the same thing? I shouldn't be judging others but the optics in this situation are almost irrefutable.
That is an easy question to answer. They had to save OUR DEMOCRACY from LITERALLY HITLER. They still talk that way. They believed it then and believe it now. Listen to them.
Except in the case of Dr Jill and her dear Woodrow Wilson. They needed to save OUR DEMOCRACY (their legacy) from their 1992 version of James Stockdale.
I'm slogging my way through Caro's "The Power Broker" about Robert Moses's destruction of New York City (along with all the great stuff he did) and a common thread throughout was the utter complicity of the press about the costs of his plans. From the camel's nose way that he burdened the city with catastrophic financial costs or the powers he usurped from elected officials via "temporary" commissions, to the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods, he was never questioned. This in a city and an era with morning and evening editions of multiple ostensibly competing news outlets.
He did such a great job, did Mr. Moses, that they named a highway after him out along Jones Beach on Long Island. But no one seems to want to remove his name from the highway as they have wanted to remove the names of Washington, Jefferson, Columbus, etc.
My W210s were the last Benzes to be equipped with the mono-wiper, and to this day, I miss it. Granted, a liberal coat of Rain-X on the windscreen all but eliminates the need for wipers, but when I needed it, it did a neater job than any two-wiper system I’ve ever used. Plus mine all had the rain-sense functionality, which (weirdly for late-90s German tech) was telepathic and meant I never touched the wiper stalk for any reason.
By the time W202 and W210 rolled around, I think M-B had made the system more robust, as my three W210s had collectively 900,000 miles and I never once thought about the mechanism.
My memory of the mono-wiper was reading David E. Davis in C&D, can’t remember if he wrote the review or if it was a counterpoint. He suggested that the first thing to do after driving one’s new M-B home was to get the neighbor kid to spray water on the windshield so you can be mesmerized by the mono-wiper in the safety of one’s driveway and not cause an accident the first time it rains.
My SL320 had a mono-wiper and even though I didn’t drive it in the rain a lot it never failed to amaze me whenever I twisted the heavy stalk to activate it. The mono-blade epitomizes Mercedes-Benz in its heyday: taking an otherwise simple mechanism and producing a wildly complex, expensive solution that worked better than any other on the market yet was completely unnecessary.
Did it produce a smooth wipe all the way across the windshield, or did it get pushed laterally at some points, which I would think would have caused excess wear to the blade?
That’s almost like the weird articulating wiper on the W116/W126.
You had to be careful not to wipe if the windshield was too dry, else it would indeed push. I changed blade inserts twice a year, which sounds criminal, but refills were two-for-$5.99—and are still under $10 in today’s funny money.
Are you getting over your Yuki fixation yet, Mr. Baruth?
I'm just a Cretin, but to my eye he's never been, nor will ever be more than a middling talent -- no better than the current crop of newbies, and certainly not on the level of the truly good drivers of his class. Perhaps he's better than Lawson, but there's no driver currently on the grid who has endured as much disrespect as Lawson has gotten since his first temporary fill-in seat for AlfaTauri. Yuki has certainly gotten the second, third, and fourth chances Lawson will never get. I wonder -- do F1 aficionados hate Lawson because he's a middle-class kid whose parents sold their house to fund his racing dream, or because he's never suckled at the Honda teat? Absent Honda's "involvement", Tsunoda is parking Grand Cherokees as a valet at an Indian casino in South Dakota.
I agree -- we're living "Peak F1". While I understand that modern eyes are a poor judge of greatness across various ages -- Max has to be in the pantheon of all-time great F1 drivers. Red Bull is in disarray (and I could talk about Horner until everybody was tired of it), but Max continues to win in a 3rd tier car. He's just on another level.
Absent this season (2 races spent driving a nearly undrivable car), his results have been better than the level of respect he's gotten from Red Bull/AlfaTauri/Racing Bulls, et al. He out drove Horner's favorite pet (Danny Ric) taking his seat in '23.
You'd have a bad attitude as well if you'd been jerked around for 3 years.
That just means that they can’t drive the car to the level Verstappen can. See Alex Albon’s comments about Max’s driving style on the High Performance podcast.
I think that kind of proves my point. The McLarens are keeping Norris and Piastri in the hunt for the driver's title. Max is keeping Max in the hunt -- Red Bull is almost as lost as Ferrari at this point. Lawson in a Williams is finishing well ahead of P17.
I will be pro-Yuki until I die, regardless of what happens. I am *not* anti-Lawson and I was very happy to see him outperform Danny Ric.
Yuki has benefited from Honda, to be sure -- but I think it also kept him out of the seat at the beginning of the season.
I believe that Max is the objectively finest F1 driver to ever exist. In historical context, however, there was surely a greater gap between, say, Fangio and the #2 guy in any given year than there is between Max and the second-best driver on the grid, who is...
Agreed regarding the delta between Fangio and whoever was number 2 when he was dominating -- but to my mind it's difficult to rate "best overall", given the fact that Senna had to shift his car, and Fangio had to do essentially everything. Still, I think the 3 of them stand alone.
George? I think not. Piastri has better equipment, but I think he's got more of a killer instinct.
Here's my case for Princess George in a nutshell... We only have two recent champions in the sport right now; the only other driver to have won is Alonso who hasn't done it since 2006.
No one has come close to Max since he was basically a rookie, but George absolutely toasted Lewis for two years running, in theory at the peak or near to the peak of Hamilton's ability.
Russell is consistently outperforming what the Mercedes can do, especially over the course of one lap. I think if you had Lewis in the second car it wouldn't be out of Q1 this year.
I can buy that, Jack. The silver arrow has been lost in space for a good long while now, and Russell has overdriven the car, for sure.
He's just way too deferential for my tastes, but then so is Norris, LeClerc, et all. When there's a dog-fight through the first few corners, you know he's not going to end up as P1... or even P2. Lewis has some fight in him at times, but he's been way, way, (way) oversold as the GOAT (when in truth it was the Mercedes juggernaut of the teens that propelled him along). He too seems content to pick up points at P5 or 6, rather than go balls out for glory. Regardless, his SJW schtick wore thin after he won his first championship and became a very wealthy man. F1 is a curious place to talk about being a disaffected/dispossessed black man.
I actually like some of the drivers in third tier cars. I think some of the young guns could materialize into very, very good Alonzo-like drivers. It's honestly Yuki and his ilk who do nothing for me -- neither fast nor smooth, they seem content to either crash or be also-rans for their entire F1 careers. Yuki will never contend for anything -- he'll probably never even be in the first seat on a 2-seat team.
I would think that if you got a seat in F1, you'd want to compete week in and week out at the highest level, or go race somewhere you might win (endurance racing? Rally?).
The thing about Princess George is he has made a lot of glaring errors over the last couple of years, but I guess you could make the argument that those errors have come about as a result of over driving a piece of shit. I think he’s done better this season as I can’t recall any serious mistakes so far in ‘25.
Oscar’s differentiating factor is his mental strength. He’s so calm, cool, and collected. I predict multiple championships in his future.
Im not gonna say yuki sucks but i dont get your fandom of him. He is fine but nothing special. He is lucky he didnt die over the weekend. Modern saftey is impressive
I think it's extra hard for Asian drivers to do well in F1. The culture is so different and insular. I crossed my fingers for Logan Sergeant, too, and for the same reasons.
I've been wondering if the fact that not one No. 2 at Red Bull has done as well as the equipment suggests they should indicates just how heavily the cars are skewed toward Max's driving style alone.
is that possible? I seem to recall Max likes a particularly sharp car. is it possible no one else can handle the car?
I'm clearly not a follower of F1. Meanwhile I'm a lifelong follower of NASCAR, despite not really watching any races in a long time. So the following statement confounds me:
"Leclerc was begging for new tires during the safety car period and got nothing."
Isn't the whole point of the crew chief / team to support and maintain the vehicle so it can perform? And who's in better shape to comment on what the car needs than the damn driver? I can understand debating the magnitude of adjustments, but why would the crew not defer to the driver on the directionality of what it needs? If the driver is asking for tires why wouldn't the team give him tires?
The most annoying thing about this season is i don’t hate any teams. Mclarrn is good but boring. Mercedes isnt s as hateable without lewis and ferrari is so stupid even lewis can’t make them hateable
The team chose to favor Hamilton in that moment, for whatever reason. The teams tend to think in terms of overall points math -- putting Hamilton on new tires gets him more points than Leclerc would have gained from new tires.
There’s a great, great song by a largely forgotten Jersey punk’s one-off side-project whose chorus goes:
“And it's such a shame
I heard the wind say this morning
Be still my heart
I age by years at the mention of your name”
I think about this line all the time. When I’m standing where she and I used to go, when a song comes on shuffle she and I used to sing, when I drive by where she used to (or maybe still does?) work. When a mutual friend brings her up…
Ah. To have loved and lost.
That said, I’m the happiest I have ever been and ever could see myself being with my soon-to-be-wife. There isn’t a thing in this world I wouldn’t do for her. I am excited to spend the rest of my days here by her side.
I don’t know what it would mean if I wasn’t a hollow, broken man fresh off some bad times when I met her. It has certainly made me more appreciative, and a much better partner than I ever would have been otherwise.
I was at my strongest in that part of my life through lifting heavy and accidentally bulking on the calories afforded to me by just obscene amounts of beer.
Largely forgotten? I cannot let you slander TGA like that.
Your story mirrors mine in a lot of ways.
I’d always been a TGA fan, but I really got into them around the same time that I was involved in a web of relationships and also trying to figure out my life. TGA/THC/BF was pretty much the soundtrack of my mid-20s.
If there’s such a thing as a canon event, it was a trip I took to Charleston in 2016. One of the girls above was stationed down there. She was actually a huge TGA fan. At the time, I was two weeks out from quitting my job and taking another stab at college. This was my last big trip at least until I got back to working. We spent a week together and parted ways forever.
In the backside of that trip, I planned to spend two days driving the dragon and whatnot but I wasn’t in the right state of mind for that.
Instead, I ended up driving straight through from CHS to Detroit. Minus some rain around Cleveland, the whole trip was windows down with TGA on repeat. It was the one time that I wish I had a targa vs a Z06.
During that drive, I decided to sever ties with every other woman that I was seeing and use this opportunity to start life with a clean slate. It was the best decision that I have ever made next to where I decided to actually go back to school.
The whole era of my life was bookended by the relationship with my last serious girlfriend and current fiancée (not one of the previous women). Ironically the previous relationship more or less ended at TGA’s show where they announced their hiatus (Columbus 2015). When they had their reunion tour in 2022, I made sure to take my now fiancée.
Since then, I rarely listen to that music. While it’ll always have a special place in my heart, it’s just not who I am anymore. That’s also why I sold the car last year. It’s time to make new memories with a new woman in a new car with something else on the radio.
The Horrible Crowes are the largely forgotten ones!
TGA is my favorite band of all time. I’ve seen them live more than all but one other band, and that’s only because of the hiatus (and the fact that their current tour with counting crows is like $100/ticket…)
I’m a jersey boy. They’re the hometown heroes. Impossible for me not to love them.
Also, that’s a beautiful story. Glad you made it through the other side.
Pretty much same here. It’s always been TGA and Coheed for me with a little big of John Mayer on the side.
Going to a TGA show in NJ is still a bucket list thing for me. I’m insanely jealous.
When they did the mini reunion for The 59 Sound, I bought tickets to the Chicago show. Then like two weeks later they announce the shows at The Stone Pony. I sold the Chicago tickets but nobody wanted to go to NJ with me so I missed out completely.
I have to ask though, are the (not) groupies as annoying in person as they are on the internet? I had to leave the Andy Diamond Facebook group because of how insufferable a few of those people were.
The few I met in person at shows were pretty normal. A few of them though seem to have this weird parasocial thing going on. They act like they are friends of the band despite the band more or less hating these girls.
Edit - I forgot to mention. I know I’m biased, but Elsie is one of the most beautifully-written albums that I’ve ever had the privilege of listening to. I’d put it up there with Blood on the Tracks.
I was at the very last of the 59 sound reunion shows at the stone pony summer stage! It was an unbelievable experience.
Helps that Asbury is such a cool town. Best gin I’ve ever had is made there…
I do not associate with the Super Fans haha. I am not apart of any Facebook or instagram groups or whatever. Don’t want that to spoil my experience, which is merely that they are a band I’ve listened to very often since I was 16.
Talked to a few at the shows, and likewise they were pretty normal. Once caught pick thrown out by an opening band, gave it to one of Them, and the guy proceeded to pay for all my beers. So all in all a pleasant time with that one.
And I couldn’t agree more about Elsie. Find myself going back to read over the lyrics to that one more than just about any other album.
IndyCar notes. Every God-fearing American should watch the 500 on Sunday
1. That car is ropey in qualifying trim at the speedway with the hybrid system. Goddamn they need a new car so bad
2. Props to Robert Shwartzman for putting that car on pole. I hope he doesn't wreck the field coming to green on Sunday
3. Sadly, we didn't get the bump day battle we deserve: Rahal vs. Andretti. F1 fans moaning about Lance Stroll have nothing on these guys
4. It's gotta be doubly embarrassing for Bobby Rahal for a Honda executive to drop in and put one of their cars on the front row while their full time drivers can't crack the fast 12. Remember that time Bobby almost got his old IndyCar engineer Adrian Newey to come to Jaguar?
Indy sucks. Not quite as much as nascar so i will give it that
Don't think I can watch it without paying for an entire TV package, which I won't do.
Seems unfair to lump Marco and Graham together; one lives in his Daddy's house and the other has built several businesses from the ground up.
That Honda exec is a 2-time Indy 500 winner.
Adrian had actually signed a letter of intent but there was no way Ron Dennis would let him go.
If you're in the US, go buy an antenna for $30. The 500 along with every other IndyCar race is on Fox. No subscribing to Poob or any other streaming service to watch the IndyCar races themselves
Signal not strong enough here, I would have to mount an antenna on the roof which I also won't do. IndyCar really took a step backwards by moving to Fox.
It’s probably going to be a damn sight better than NBC!
Why would I watch a show that has been transparently manipulated by the owner in the past to favor his own team?
For all of the serious doubts one may have about IndyCar's competitive integrity, IndyCar recently has been ran by Chip Ganassi and Alex Palou, a guy who's a dark horse for a Honda-powered F1 seat if he ever gets that lawsuit cleared.
Without denigrating other forms of motorsport, I have a soft spot for the Middle American pageantry of the 500, and most importantly, the racing delivers at the end. https://www.youtube.com/live/Eqw2rDOrfds
If Palou wins it on Sunday, I hope he will be able to join Cadillac in F1. Or another team.
Those were absolutely smokin’ quali laps by Shwartzman - and the kid’s never been on an oval….
I’ll be watching for sure. I’m looking to O’Ward to use his head, be patient, and get to the checkered flag in first place.
The hybrid is pointless virtue-signaling. It seems to have unbalanced the car, and it was comical to watch driver after driver employ the hybrid on Lap 4 of qualifying and not increase the speed of the car at all.
Still, I can't wait for Sunday, just like every 500. The upside of being a spec series is that the parity is insane. Conor Daly is my favorite long shot.
0-If Maro Engel or Laurens Vanthoor or Chris Mies or … any other NLS/WEC/IMSA/SRO/etc. factory pro encountered Max Verstappen in a paddock somewhere, they would ask the Dutchman for a selfie. Every single one of them wanted to race in Formula 1 when they were children; after that dream died, they ended up in sports cars.
1-Roger Penske has defenestrated Tim Cindric and other various cheaters in his organization; Tim got caught cheating last year too! When the rakish, raffish Flavio Briatore ALLEGEDLY orchestrated a race victory to save Renault’s presence in Formula 1 (including over 1,000 jobs), it was almost a bit lovable. When Roger Penske bought a second tier spec series, ran it into the ground further, and then instructed his teams to cheat brazenly again and again and again, it reminds me of someone cheating at the Special Olympics.
2-I don’t think the Dems will need much help to win in 2028; Mayor Buttplug or whoever else can beat the $hillbilly or Lil’ Marco.
3-Jack’s criticism of “Gen Z Boss and a Mini” makes me suspect that he’s getting dangerously close to advocating for what amounts to DEI for disaffected white men!
4-I saw a comment on Instagram referencing the “Riva” in Ms. Carpenter’s Espresso Music Video. Apparently social media believes that any and all old wooden boats are “Rivas.” Which would be like saying all cars from the late 50s and early 60s are Ferrari berlinettas powered by front-engined V-12s.
at this point hiring a white guy is the diverse option
im for whatever gets them employment
That’s horseshit.
It’s cope from people who can’t compete.
im not sure i even care at this point
all dei got us was importing third worlders to act as slaves and to suppress wages
might as well start hiring locals
You start the football game down by a touchdown and when you lose by a field goal Sherman will tell you "You just can't compete"
more like, you start down by 3 touchdowns, you only get 3 downs to get a first down, you get an automatic 15 yard penalty every three downs, you don't get any time outs, and you have to kick field goals with your hands tied behind your back.
Giving me nightmares of watching Bears games.
To sherman: A level playing field = DEI for white men
Was there a level playing field when you were nepo-hired by your Daddy?
Like all great men, I got hired because of my height.
Which, if you ever go to Germany, will make you feel short.
I left Munich this last time feeling like an authentic manlet.
Short AND rich. Like sherman
I prefer to say, like Sabrina Carpenter, I am short and sweet!
Whenever I'm in GER, I look around and I'm like "yeah, no wonder these dudes were into war."
It's also fairly obvious why the Romans ended up departing the area despite having far, far better ideas about close quarters combat.
Meh. I haven’t felt short in Germany, Sweden or Estonia. About average was the worst it got. However, anytime i visit the US of A, I feel positively skinny.
I didn't feel short in Germany, but I did when meeting with a group of DAF (Netherlands) engineers.
Yeaj but the dutch are cheap bastards
My first impression of the Netherlands was noticing how comically high the urinals were mounted in the Schiphol airport. At 5'11" with a 32" inseam I managed, but there is a legitimate concern for the "short kings."
In regards to 2: Fuck it, I'm just going to write in Trump.
Cindric was Roger Penske's longtime consigliere, and the man whom Penske had groomed to run the race team after his death.
Penske fired Cindric to save face because he's pissed off the one partner he can't afford to piss off: Honda.
I hope Honda leaves.
Roger bought Indycrap and made it even worse by under-investing and tilting the scales in his team’s favor. So petty, so insecure that his own team had to cheat repeatedly to “win” in a series he owns. If I were Zak Brown, I’d demand / threaten legal action that last year’s “victory” be vacated so that Pato would inherit the win.
That’s how Donald Trump would run a sports league.
If NASCAR is serious about introducing the torque sensors from IMSA so that Honda doesn't have to spend tens of millions of dollars on a pushrod V8 engine program for Cup, Honda's found an out. https://x.com/bozitatarevic/status/1889301757601181818
I’m pretty sure NASCAR will move toward GT3 to an extent.
Smoothing out the attenuator had no affect on the airflow affecting the car's performance. I would argue it was only done because for sixty years the culture at Penske demands a sharp appearance and from the factory the pieces looked like shit. This was an unfortunate situation resulting from a stupid rule.
That’s what Team Penske said, of course.
They cheat. Again and again and again. Period.
Roger will be dead soon enough, and this episode will feature heavily in all of the obits. And it’s entirely his fault.
No, that's what I decided after looking into the facts.
"One of our crew chiefs was badly injured on the road this week"
praying for the fellow
"I’d unironically suggest that most SCCA Runoffs winners are better drivers than the average NLS podium finisher"
dunno if this is the intent but it makes that level of skill seem attainable (i have no idea how good they really are)
"choose between the ancient archetypes of the Madonna or the whore"
isnt madonna a whore though? i dont understand any of this but the author is a complete retard for several reasons
what not at all retarded is the monowiper however. classic german engineering brilliance
"Madonna", as in the mother of the true Christ, not "Madonna" as the chick who filmed herself having relations with a horse.
mary is the mother of jesus though right?
"the chick who filmed herself having relations with a horse"
sorry what
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex
Converted to millennial: Wants a lady in the street but a freak in the bed
thanks for the clarification
Every 15 years some new slutty chick shows up. My generation got lady gaga. At least she could sing.
more like every 15 months .....
Most of them dont get super famous but good point
Lady Gaga was ugly though.
So was madonna and while i wouldnt say sabrina carpenter is ugly, she is nothing special. The pretty ones dont have to act like whores
Fortunately that doesn’t stop Britney.
Truly a multi generational talent. Trashy as all hell but we have had someone that hit in awhile. Id still hit it
Occasionally my girl will send me one of Brittany’s unhinged Instagram posts. In hindsight, she probably needed to stay in a conservatorship.
She looks like any other sorority-type girl.
Translation: Single me would take a run at it. Madonna or Gaga at the same age? Probably wouldn’t get a second look.
Id take a run at gaga. I bet she does some weird shit
That is a shame you feel Lady Gaga was the best you had to crank your newly developed meat to. The thought makes me extra glad I had Christina, break out (on the charts, not jail) Britney, and Maria, as the gold standard (IMHO) to help me build up right hand callouses. Not to mention all the pseudo famous girls of the late 90s early 00s, it was a good era for skanks.
I was having sex with real actual women by the time lady gaga was a thing. Britney is more my generations sears catalog.
Now I'm even more confused.
Here you go (26 s):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRj61dcvmuU
Every one of these articles who bags on girls for being hyperfeminine or whatever is always written by some mid-30s uggo.
some post wall women are as strident and cynical as combat vets
what lack of a family does to someone
The wall is over rated. Obesity is not.
The girl I dated before getting in a relationship with my current wife I dumped for excessive weight... and then at my favorite restaurant over beers told her exactly why I was moving on from her. Never in my life have I received such a stink-eye from a waitress. I have no regrets.
Never tell them why! Always use some nebulous thing like "Chemistry"
"sorry the vibes were off and the mercury was in gatorade"
All the older women in our office were mean to the “young” one who was 35
I used to work at an agency staffed mostly by nurses and social workers. They got really chatty when I started going to lunch with one of the younger girls that worked there (who was my age). So much whining occurred that HR wanted us to sign one of those relationship waivers.
What those geniuses didn’t know was that her and I had been friends since high school. She was also dating my (then) best friend and they had been high school sweethearts.
Hr drove me out of corporate America because they thought i was banging all the interns. I SHOULD HAVE
I was assigned an intern last summer. I made sure that all of our meetings occurred in a very public space. If it was a conference room, I had at least two other people in there with us.
I was a 2nd year!
May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb
They sunk to filming Black Mirror in Vancouver; that should tell you everything about the new season.
Also, I miss the old Charlie Brooker of Screenwipe and early Black Mirror days. His take on the news media and TV in general was scathing and still holds true today, even if he's a wacko lefty now
They sunk to filming Black Mirror in Vancouver; that should tell you everything about the new season.
The episode is all Chinese people?
audible lol
dont forget the drug addicts
I went to vancouver about ten years ago and was shocked at all the young white drug addicts sleeping on the streets.
its horrible and only gotten worse
Vancouver is approaching greatness. It now has its own human poop patrol.
YIKES .
I remember when Canada was a really cool place to visit . (1960's) kinda odd to be wanting to live there IMO .
-Nate
Close; cheap and disposable
After seeing what has happened the last 8 years, to me democracy's time is over... let's go back to monarchism. Or Benevolent Dictatorship.
at least with a king the power is naked and you know who to shoot
There are probably only 2 choices soon:
State-controlled capitalism, or a
Capitalism-controlled state
We know which one China is (and India is becoming). How about us?
A is just fascism. The real kind and not the everyone i don’t like is a fascist kind
I wouldn't support a Hitlerian dictator, but I'd support a Pinochet. Say what you like about ol' Gus, but he knew how to deal with communists.
Holly Math Nerd wrote a fantastic review of Jake Tapper's new Biden-is-old-and-broken book, in which he makes obvious that Biden has been in serious decline for upwards of a decade: https://hollymathnerd.substack.com/p/the-cowardly-sound-of-treasonous
Biden has always been a pretty awful guy, but the amount of elder abuse he's sustained over the past five years actually makes me feel some sympathy for him. Not a lot, but some.
I was rooting for anyone but Max last year to win the WDC up until Brazil. During that race I swallowed the DtS kool-aid. He's the best. I want him to win and win again. I want him to be 9-time champ and break all of Sir Lew's records.
In regards to relationships, my life before Mrs. MD was sad and pathetic. Since then, we have had some, uh, interesting arguments, but we've gone on adventures and had three kids and have plans for more adventures as we head into the second halves of our lives together. I understand when people talk about women hitting the wall, but dammit, Mrs. MD never will for me. At 42 almost 43 she's still as wonderful as she was at 19 when we met, and I have no doubt still will be in 24 more years. Having a career, a house, and a loaded CX-9 would be meaningless without her and our kids, and I hope everyone gets the chance to experience such love and devotion in their lives.
The monowiper is cool but I think I'll stick with Japanese cars.
"He's the best. I want him to win and win again. I want him to be 9-time champ and break all of Sir Lew's records"
PREACH
I didn't have anything particularly against him, I just wanted the season to be more interesting. I've changed my mind!
I mostly hate Hamilton and hate root for max to take his shared record.
real
The children have done a number on the wifes, ummm, upper level accessories but still haven't gotten tired of her yet. One thing I will never miss is being single and trying to date. I did just fine and what an awful experience. "Strange" is vastly over rated.
Somehow my wife has gotten better looking. The accessories are a little lower, but bigger and still plenty good to me.
The wife wants to fix hers. E we will see if that ever happens
"Strange" depends :
When you're single _getting_ some 'strange' is usually a very good thing .
OTOH, dating someone who's 'strange' isn't much fun I have found .
-Nate
She just wants her perky tits back. I realize you probably were replying to my other post
Ha ! .
Gravity is a real bitch .
That 38DD you drooled over in 1975 has them slapping her knees now .
-Nate
"Upwards of a decade." Interesting that a few months ago we had a debate on THIS VERY SUBSTACK:
Side A) I pointed out that Tucker Carlson had reported on Biden's cognitive decline in 2020 if not earlier.
Side B) Democrat partisans argued that the coverup happened BECAUSE Trump /Republicans falsely "cried wolf" about Biden's fitness, so that when he actually did, ALL OF THE SUDDEN decline, no sensible person would it because Trump and the MAGA Republicans.
Because the Democrat party and its candidates can NEVER be wrong: anything bad that happens, even the INTERNAL MACHINATIONS OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY MACHINE is always the fault of the nearest Republican.
"Republicans pounce..." I believe is the meme.
To be clear, I really wish we had two decent parties rather than one bad and one utterly and completely abhorrent and discredited! Gavin Newsom even has been going around admitting that ignoring voters legitimate concerns while completely losing every last shred of credibility might not have been in the party's best interest.
Gavin is just another pretty boy twit.
The D party has been completely utterly politically inept and stupid for 20+ years. Fortunately for them the R’s have a habit of running complete nut jobs. The result is we have a complete lack of anything close to serious leadership.
Biden has been a laughing stock for as long as i can remember but no one accused him of being senile until he was obviously senile. Which is what is so funny.
Word up. I too have an awesome wife.
It's a miraculous victory to have stumbled upon someone like that and somehow have the smarts to hitch up to them for life. Especially when I think how many times I've choked on my own spit, hit my thumb with a hammer, or forgotten to pack a toothbrush on a trip.
This always hits me in glaring relief when I go to bike events and see guys my age tipping tatted up string bikini servers 10 bucks on a 5 dollar pint. It's sad how rare happiness is when most men are so desperate for it.
This is why i only tip the ugly ones well!
I haven't read the review, but I never saw Tapper once, or the network he works for, ever call into question Biden's dementia, senility, or parkinsonisms.
I pay zero attention to the media, but from the way my media-loving coworkers talk, one would have thought that Biden was the fittest man who ever walked the earth, and that in preparation for his second term he was training not just to compete in but win the Iron Man Triathlon in Hawaii.
Immediately followed by beating Magnus Carlsen in chess.
I'm super curious to see how long Max stays in F1 and what he does after. He often seems fed up with the F1 circus, but he eats, sleeps, and breathes racing. Where else besides F1 can he get competition anywhere near his level?
Nowhere. LeMans would be a snooze after this.
I'm not sure what any human being could do after F1, other than do actual WWII air combat.
Well air racing is back. Maybe that?
This is why we have Fernando Alonso.
I love Fernando. the desire to race is so strong in that guy that he simply won't go away, and keeps dragging dogs to better finishes than the deserve. the guy has raced in more than one-third of all F1 races _in history_. I dunno that anyone has that kind of passion for racing.
He will race sports cars; he has said that numerous times.
Sure, but the question was "not what will Max do next," but rather "Where else besides F1 can he get competition anywhere near his level?"
Can he get it in f1? When max has the fastest car, he win every race by thirty seconds. Mclaren gets second with the fastest car. I watched with a friend and said “max has a longshot to win unless he takes this first corner then watch out”
well, Schumacher tried motorcycles...
Er, try MotoGP? Or the Isle of Man TT where the test is as much against yourself as anyone else.
More dangerous, surely, but also less competitive in the sense that you see greater delta between drivers.
IOMTT isn't for serious racers - it's for psychopaths. God bless 'em.
I always used to think that Kimi Raikkonen would be street racing for pink slips in Helsinki if he hadn't gotten a seat somewhere. Building on that, I'd like to think the he and Max and maybe Alonso will field a team in whatever Europe's version of AER is and show up in a battered Miata to race under made up names.
Or show up at LeMons wearing gorilla suits.
Kimi tried the WRC for 2 years but returned to F1 just as it seemed he was getting the hang of pace notes.
Kimi left WRC after being lectured about telling this navigator "Just leave me alone. I know what to do."
A few years back in the paddock at Sebring, I was able to put my arm around Juan Pablo Montoya and pose for a pic. All I need to do is wait about 30 years and I'll get one with Max.
I voted for Trump but wonder if the Dem's had a better chance of winning if they ran Biden instead of screwing him for the money. America will elect old white guys all day long but they don't elect women. Hillary is still pissed about losing to Trump and while she is evil she isn't as braindead as Kamala is.
americans will elect old white dudes until someone else has a chance of winning
Can't we at least get some younger guys as President. I lived through Reagan and Biden and would like to say no to dementia in the White House
i dont know about that
as the saying goes 75 is the new 25 and 25 is basically a child so we cant have that
jokes aside it would be great if someone not crippled by age could run the place
But 25 year olds are not allowed to run for president so we will end up with 90 year olds.
AOC might run, she's not too old. lol.
Maybe not for president...
she could probably run a coffee shop
Doubtful
She might be able to make a coffee
God help us!
She gets some years in and should could make it or just grift up on the hill
She's the next Pelosi. She'll anchor herself where she is and slowly turn into a power grabbing sludge monster. The big chair has no draw for folks like them. They like a congressional seat where they can dig in like a tick for decades.
My thought as well. It must be the yuge cans.
Sure, JD Vance
A delta cant be president! I see you there!
I think they would have had a better chance if they had NOT asked for an unusually early debate.
The first debate (and the following debates had they been held) showed even the most loyal partisan that Biden was brain dead. Kamala's polls were highest at her appointment and declined steadily as the public realized how retarded she is, so pulling the switcheroo at the last minute would have given them the best chance to win.
I agree but I know loyal Biden supporters that still think it is his stutter. I don't think he would have done worse than Kamala but I could be wrong and am glad we didn't end up with that result.
Hypotheticals aside:
1) There are millions of Democrats
2) The last time they had a true primary was 2008
3) Out of all the Democrats who could run, their leadership chose THOSE TWO
That is a depressing thought but Obama's policies were not anything like we survived under the auto pen and Biden not that I voted for him either.
Obama illegally expanded STEM OPT, which subsequent presidents including "MAGA" Trump, have continued.
Certainly a bad idea although I had to GOOGLE the program. The jobs I can get hired for now a days are the same ones the asylum seekers can get.
I'm actually shocked the system was able to keep a lid on Biden's diagnosis this long. It explains quite a bit. One theory going is that endorsing Heels Up was Joe's (or Jill's) final 'fuck you' to the Party for ousting him, and I buy it.
10 bucks says Ms. Davis is more concerned with the 'right' for her daughters to kill her unborn grandchildren than they are. And she hates her mother. To steal from Dalrock, 'Men have biographies, women have grandchildren.'
Men will toil in field or mine, fight and die on the battlefield, and build (and sustain) civilizations for worthwhile women. Without them, they will do none of those things, while women cannot and have stopped doing the absolutely most important thing that they can do that men cannot. Boom. Rocks fall, everyone dies.
And if I have to watch one more effing TV show or movie with one or more RBF sporting Mary Sue girlboss, I'm going to off myself.
I mean, everyone who was paying attention knew Joe was cooked in 2020, nevermind after that. We just had ideas to the contrary screamed in our faces until we didn’t feel like arguing about it anymore.
We had a “safe pair of hands” running the government (by committee) during the Biden years.
We gave recognition to the identity politics people, increased asset prices, etc. We will look back on those years as halcyon days!
The bankster is the enemy of the human.
Sherman hates democracy almost as much as he hates meritocracy!
Sherman and the rest of us are going to find out the hard way you cant buy the weapons of war on amazon woth free two day shipping no matter how good your portfolio does
The rest of us have been stockpiling them for a decade or more.
This is unfortunately not also true of the US Navy, according to many observers.
I keep shooting all the ammo
I’m actually a big fan of both, particularly the latter.
Surely you are not suggesting that you merit more than you have received in the market, and that somehow you’re a victim? I hope not.
Your previous statements are on record to the effect of "I don't care whether someone has a PhD [in AI] or how many years of experience you have" and then described your lack of any tangible skills.
And yeah, lecture me about how "the free market" gives employers a 15% tax break to preferentially hire foreign nationals over citizens, rather than an illegal executive action:
https://www.numbersusa.com/videos/the-insidious-opt-optional-practical-training/
You are starting to understand!
Degrees, certifications, etc. don’t matter much. Achievement and agency do.
The inputs are not meritorious; the outcomes are.
We got a million Ukrainians killed
Makes you wonder what they’re hiding with ol Donny T, who has never once been a man that takes care of himself
probably some sort of trans ....
Donald Trump being trans masc would be the funniest thing that has ever happened in the history of the world.
he would be the first black woman president
Well, I sure as hell don't believe the weight they publish for him, I'll tell you that.
BUT. He's lifelong sober, and he DOES get out and walk every day, albeit on a company golf course at public expense. I bet his overall health is better than you'd think. Not poisoning yourself with alcohol 200 times a year goes a long way towards keeping things together.
He also has the diet of a raccoon.
Also I will choose to ignore your comments on alcohol because it makes me think about how much more in shape I’d be if I didn’t enjoy drinking from time to time.
I have the diet of a raccoon and won't eat a vegetable -- but my ECG showed basically zero blockage at the age of 53. If you had watched me eat on any kind of consistent basis from 1985 to now you'd think I was already dead!
The vegetables thing is total bullshit and i mostly like them.
'Salad is what dinner eats.'
you work out regularly and engage in strenuous activity. trump has never broken a sweat
Quit drinking for 12 weeks and go hard and you can get back in shape. Suprising how quick it happens.
I’m in pretty good shape as is tbh. 5’11” 175, can bench 225 three times, can run an 8 minute mile OR 6 very slow consecutive miles…
As it stands, I’m basically two-four disciplined weeks from visible abs lol
My only vices in life though are good food and drink, so what are ya gonna do
Im down 25 lbs on the year and im trying to get the last 15 with healthier diet and exercise than just fasting. Belt keeps getting tighter so it’s working but the damn scale wont move.
But the track record of sober modern presidents is, eh, middling at best:
Carter, W., Biden, Trump.
I was at lunch with a bunch of historians today and it was interesting how many of them thought we're now living in the fully-realized Dubya legacy (as much as we are a Trump 2nd term).
We're now bearing the full fruit of what Dubya sowed from Iraq and Afghanistan, the housing bubble and crash, the surveillance state, etc.
Only president i regret voting for. I skipped obama romney
What a horrifying truth to contemplate, I must avoid re-reading this after lunch so I don’t retch.
@jack makes W out to be a regretful, useful idiot who paints portraits of the soldiers his imbecilic wars for Israel maimed, but I don’t buy it: not that he knew what he was doing, but that knowingly or unknowingly he doesn’t bear the responsibility for being the guy who sold the best (and it wasn’t even close) country down the RIVER, for nothing. Not even for worldly largesse.
Truly, in such a situation, “shame” don’t cover it
I think Cheney was the mastermind of that administration.
The facts support this assessment.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angler:_The_Cheney_Vice_Presidency
In a just world, he and the rest of that admin would share a place in the rafters with Mussolini, or at the very least a cell at The Hague.
Instead, we in this country refuse to prosecute our tyrants so he's left to live in what I can only hope against reality is an acute pain and suffering for all of the terror, poverty, and grief he has caused humanity.
215 is his official weight. Lol. Thats worse than my drivers license lie. Hes at least 250-260.
There is no freaking way he is 215. None.
251 would be optimistic.
Yeah. I'm 206 this morning and I have a flat stomach at his height.
Damn man. Well done
This is gonna be great for lap times!
I'm 215 at 5'11" and look trimmer than him.
I'm four inches shorter than him and appear several inches smaller around the waist, and I'm 215. Yeah, no.
After watching him play golf with Bryson Dechambeau last year, who is a tad shorter than trump, thinner, and built, my guess is Trump is 280 ish.
and is exhibiting clear cognitive decline
It's remarkable that his cognitive issues are, astonishingly, somehow less acute than the previous president's!
But yes also that.
I couldn’t care less about my daughters accomplishments besides marriage and children and i hope they are all lucky enough to get what me and their mom have
Hot tip: the men that may enter their lives, either for a night or long term, couldn't care less either.
Junior is a dandy Gamma Chi at State U. 'Dad, I'd never let my daughter go away to college.'
I mean. I know this. I am also a man.
Well played.
"I'm actually shocked the system was able to keep a lid on Biden's diagnosis this long. It explains quite a bit."
The dangerous thing is how many insiders _believed_ he was okay. I guess it's that boiling of the frog thing, if you'd been around him long enough.
It may be no different than folks in the current admin who believe DJT is actually Divinely Ordained. Being in the DC is a weird fishbowl and the WH is esp so.
they hid way more about Roosevelt and Kennedy.
Where to begin? Now that Biden has no power, and probably a very difficult future, the media and his party (apologize for the redundancy) are abandoning his sinking ship and it's captain, Dr. Jill. While Chuck Schumer wants to "move forward", I would say, not so fast, my friend. A party that kept the health of its leader and president from the American people (and voter), is worthy of very little respect. Morons like Joe Scarborough and Karine Jean-Pierre are on record, for posterity, while offering that Joe was the best version of himself. Admittedly, a very low bar, but still a look into the souls of "journalists" who were simply advocates. The cry of everything Trump being a threat to Democracy seems rather hollow with these "revelations". The timing of his cancer announcement is suspect...on the eve of Jake Tapper's pathetic book release. There are so many questions about Joe's care, or lack of same, that no one even knows where to begin. With all the potential villains in this epoch, I would like to single out Dr. Jill as the architect of this political debacle. If she stood by while Joe should have had his PSA tested, shame on her. If she knew he was flirting with prostate cancer, and didn't insist on treatment, shame on her. It would seem that she placed her desire to maintain residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue ahead of the health and well being of the man she purports to love. He is in no shape to take on treatment for metastatic cancer that has escaped the prostate. We will never know what happened. In fact, it's even less likely than knowing the flight manifest on Epstein's 737 plane. Biden always wanted to be president. Or perhaps, Jill just wanted to be the First Lady. the moral of the story is be careful what you wish for. At the risk of being judgmental, I would suggest that the cabal of bureaucrats behind the scenes have all got to be on the Mount Rushmore of despicable human beings.
"If she stood by while Joe should have had his PSA tested, shame on her. If she knew he was flirting with prostate cancer, and didn't insist on treatment, shame on her. It would seem that she placed her desire to maintain residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue ahead of the health and well being of the man she purports to love."
I agree... though part of me gives a lot of latitude to long-time spouses of leaders and what really goes through their minds, which is almost - in some way or another - in service of their spouse and his/her ambition and sense of "history." I've skimmed enough biographies of them to not envy that role.
Agreed. In this instance, Joe was so compromised, and Dr. Jill kept dressing him up and sending on his way to work. From afar, most people could see that he was in bad shape. How could someone living with him not see the same thing? I shouldn't be judging others but the optics in this situation are almost irrefutable.
That is an easy question to answer. They had to save OUR DEMOCRACY from LITERALLY HITLER. They still talk that way. They believed it then and believe it now. Listen to them.
Except in the case of Dr Jill and her dear Woodrow Wilson. They needed to save OUR DEMOCRACY (their legacy) from their 1992 version of James Stockdale.
Unless they know exactly how evil they are. Does anyone neutering children and murdering babies really think that he is the good guy?
They absolutely do think they are the good guys on the right side of history'. Breaking eggs and all that.
Eliminating white Christians for the original sin of being smart and principled enough to threaten the powerful doesn't seem like a heroic endeavor.
I'm slogging my way through Caro's "The Power Broker" about Robert Moses's destruction of New York City (along with all the great stuff he did) and a common thread throughout was the utter complicity of the press about the costs of his plans. From the camel's nose way that he burdened the city with catastrophic financial costs or the powers he usurped from elected officials via "temporary" commissions, to the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods, he was never questioned. This in a city and an era with morning and evening editions of multiple ostensibly competing news outlets.
He did such a great job, did Mr. Moses, that they named a highway after him out along Jones Beach on Long Island. But no one seems to want to remove his name from the highway as they have wanted to remove the names of Washington, Jefferson, Columbus, etc.
My W210s were the last Benzes to be equipped with the mono-wiper, and to this day, I miss it. Granted, a liberal coat of Rain-X on the windscreen all but eliminates the need for wipers, but when I needed it, it did a neater job than any two-wiper system I’ve ever used. Plus mine all had the rain-sense functionality, which (weirdly for late-90s German tech) was telepathic and meant I never touched the wiper stalk for any reason.
By the time W202 and W210 rolled around, I think M-B had made the system more robust, as my three W210s had collectively 900,000 miles and I never once thought about the mechanism.
My memory of the mono-wiper was reading David E. Davis in C&D, can’t remember if he wrote the review or if it was a counterpoint. He suggested that the first thing to do after driving one’s new M-B home was to get the neighbor kid to spray water on the windshield so you can be mesmerized by the mono-wiper in the safety of one’s driveway and not cause an accident the first time it rains.
My SL320 had a mono-wiper and even though I didn’t drive it in the rain a lot it never failed to amaze me whenever I twisted the heavy stalk to activate it. The mono-blade epitomizes Mercedes-Benz in its heyday: taking an otherwise simple mechanism and producing a wildly complex, expensive solution that worked better than any other on the market yet was completely unnecessary.
You've described the ENTIRE SL320 there!
The BMW electric fuel pump would like a word. Maybe it's a Germanic thing to overcomplicate the straightforward?
NEIN! IT IS EXACTLY AS COMPLICATED AS IT NEEDS TO BE!
The correlate of 'NO, RIFLE IS FINE' in Russian.
"Your rifle is with that guy over there. When he gets killed, go grab it. The Wehrmacht is that way."
Did it produce a smooth wipe all the way across the windshield, or did it get pushed laterally at some points, which I would think would have caused excess wear to the blade?
That’s almost like the weird articulating wiper on the W116/W126.
You had to be careful not to wipe if the windshield was too dry, else it would indeed push. I changed blade inserts twice a year, which sounds criminal, but refills were two-for-$5.99—and are still under $10 in today’s funny money.
You have to treat the car well first if is anything like a woman. I apologize for this
🤣🤣🤣
Are you getting over your Yuki fixation yet, Mr. Baruth?
I'm just a Cretin, but to my eye he's never been, nor will ever be more than a middling talent -- no better than the current crop of newbies, and certainly not on the level of the truly good drivers of his class. Perhaps he's better than Lawson, but there's no driver currently on the grid who has endured as much disrespect as Lawson has gotten since his first temporary fill-in seat for AlfaTauri. Yuki has certainly gotten the second, third, and fourth chances Lawson will never get. I wonder -- do F1 aficionados hate Lawson because he's a middle-class kid whose parents sold their house to fund his racing dream, or because he's never suckled at the Honda teat? Absent Honda's "involvement", Tsunoda is parking Grand Cherokees as a valet at an Indian casino in South Dakota.
I agree -- we're living "Peak F1". While I understand that modern eyes are a poor judge of greatness across various ages -- Max has to be in the pantheon of all-time great F1 drivers. Red Bull is in disarray (and I could talk about Horner until everybody was tired of it), but Max continues to win in a 3rd tier car. He's just on another level.
Much like Sabrina carpenter, Yugo
Yuki is mid
I hate Lawson because he has a terrible attitude and just about ZERO results to back it up.
Go watch his initial appearance in DtS. He’s a Red Bull (Honda) driver and he’s driving around in a riced out Toyota. Bad attitude.
Absent this season (2 races spent driving a nearly undrivable car), his results have been better than the level of respect he's gotten from Red Bull/AlfaTauri/Racing Bulls, et al. He out drove Horner's favorite pet (Danny Ric) taking his seat in '23.
You'd have a bad attitude as well if you'd been jerked around for 3 years.
No I wouldn’t have a bad attitude in public, on camera knowing that I was lucky even to be there.
There are 20 seats. He has not made a case that he deserves one of them.
“Nearly undrivable car.” Max seemed to do ok in that car 🤷🏻♂️
... and Yuki (and anybody not named Max Verstappen) does not.
That just means that they can’t drive the car to the level Verstappen can. See Alex Albon’s comments about Max’s driving style on the High Performance podcast.
Really? Nobody can drive at MV's level? Do tell!
I think that kind of proves my point. The McLarens are keeping Norris and Piastri in the hunt for the driver's title. Max is keeping Max in the hunt -- Red Bull is almost as lost as Ferrari at this point. Lawson in a Williams is finishing well ahead of P17.
I will be pro-Yuki until I die, regardless of what happens. I am *not* anti-Lawson and I was very happy to see him outperform Danny Ric.
Yuki has benefited from Honda, to be sure -- but I think it also kept him out of the seat at the beginning of the season.
I believe that Max is the objectively finest F1 driver to ever exist. In historical context, however, there was surely a greater gap between, say, Fangio and the #2 guy in any given year than there is between Max and the second-best driver on the grid, who is...
uh...
Princess George?
Agreed regarding the delta between Fangio and whoever was number 2 when he was dominating -- but to my mind it's difficult to rate "best overall", given the fact that Senna had to shift his car, and Fangio had to do essentially everything. Still, I think the 3 of them stand alone.
George? I think not. Piastri has better equipment, but I think he's got more of a killer instinct.
Maybe?
Here's my case for Princess George in a nutshell... We only have two recent champions in the sport right now; the only other driver to have won is Alonso who hasn't done it since 2006.
No one has come close to Max since he was basically a rookie, but George absolutely toasted Lewis for two years running, in theory at the peak or near to the peak of Hamilton's ability.
Russell is consistently outperforming what the Mercedes can do, especially over the course of one lap. I think if you had Lewis in the second car it wouldn't be out of Q1 this year.
Hes such a bitch though
I can buy that, Jack. The silver arrow has been lost in space for a good long while now, and Russell has overdriven the car, for sure.
He's just way too deferential for my tastes, but then so is Norris, LeClerc, et all. When there's a dog-fight through the first few corners, you know he's not going to end up as P1... or even P2. Lewis has some fight in him at times, but he's been way, way, (way) oversold as the GOAT (when in truth it was the Mercedes juggernaut of the teens that propelled him along). He too seems content to pick up points at P5 or 6, rather than go balls out for glory. Regardless, his SJW schtick wore thin after he won his first championship and became a very wealthy man. F1 is a curious place to talk about being a disaffected/dispossessed black man.
I actually like some of the drivers in third tier cars. I think some of the young guns could materialize into very, very good Alonzo-like drivers. It's honestly Yuki and his ilk who do nothing for me -- neither fast nor smooth, they seem content to either crash or be also-rans for their entire F1 careers. Yuki will never contend for anything -- he'll probably never even be in the first seat on a 2-seat team.
I would think that if you got a seat in F1, you'd want to compete week in and week out at the highest level, or go race somewhere you might win (endurance racing? Rally?).
Based on the Indy 500 qualifying, Yuki could qualify pole by a full second or something. He's way ahead of where Takuma Sato ever was!
Agreed about Yuki at Indy. He'd love (and be ideally suited for) IndyCar.
Bullshit
Max
George OR Charles
Hard to say if Piastri is any better than Sainz or Albon (both of whom are rather good).
If, say, Gasly were in the McLaren (Oscar’s seat), he would probably be leading the WDC right now.
The thing about Princess George is he has made a lot of glaring errors over the last couple of years, but I guess you could make the argument that those errors have come about as a result of over driving a piece of shit. I think he’s done better this season as I can’t recall any serious mistakes so far in ‘25.
Oscar’s differentiating factor is his mental strength. He’s so calm, cool, and collected. I predict multiple championships in his future.
Im not gonna say yuki sucks but i dont get your fandom of him. He is fine but nothing special. He is lucky he didnt die over the weekend. Modern saftey is impressive
I think it's extra hard for Asian drivers to do well in F1. The culture is so different and insular. I crossed my fingers for Logan Sergeant, too, and for the same reasons.
I guess appreciating the hustle is a thing and rooting for the underdog. But there are two asian drivers. It’s a euro league. It’s all they got!
I've been wondering if the fact that not one No. 2 at Red Bull has done as well as the equipment suggests they should indicates just how heavily the cars are skewed toward Max's driving style alone.
is that possible? I seem to recall Max likes a particularly sharp car. is it possible no one else can handle the car?
Yes
Sterling moss was not too shabby against Fangio.
As for after the fact curtain pulling, how and when will they admit to outright stealing 2020 and that knowing the jab was dangerous the entire time?
They've basically admitted to the former.
The minute they are certain nothing can be done about it, I'd say.
Statute of limitations for election tampering is…?
Of course, there’s a, what, hundred year liability waiver for the Big Pharma companies for the Jab?
No one is untouchable
Luigi mangione
I'm clearly not a follower of F1. Meanwhile I'm a lifelong follower of NASCAR, despite not really watching any races in a long time. So the following statement confounds me:
"Leclerc was begging for new tires during the safety car period and got nothing."
Isn't the whole point of the crew chief / team to support and maintain the vehicle so it can perform? And who's in better shape to comment on what the car needs than the damn driver? I can understand debating the magnitude of adjustments, but why would the crew not defer to the driver on the directionality of what it needs? If the driver is asking for tires why wouldn't the team give him tires?
He got screwed but Ferrari has a history of being incompetent.
The Tifosi hates it, but that's the truth. I like Fred, but they're a joke.
The most annoying thing about this season is i don’t hate any teams. Mclarrn is good but boring. Mercedes isnt s as hateable without lewis and ferrari is so stupid even lewis can’t make them hateable
the best part of watching Ferrari is being amazed that they always find a new way of stepping on their own dick.
Plan N? We go with Plan N!
yeah, you think he would just pull into the pits, while screaming into the radio, "give me some f'n new tires!"
The team chose to favor Hamilton in that moment, for whatever reason. The teams tend to think in terms of overall points math -- putting Hamilton on new tires gets him more points than Leclerc would have gained from new tires.
Do they have a limit on tire changes?
Number of tires of each compound is limited for the weekend.
They don't but Charles was short on tires compared to Lewis.
They could have given him medium hards or softs! And hed have been better
That was the fundamental problem. He didn’t have any suitable tires left.
Parroting your point,
There’s a great, great song by a largely forgotten Jersey punk’s one-off side-project whose chorus goes:
“And it's such a shame
I heard the wind say this morning
Be still my heart
I age by years at the mention of your name”
I think about this line all the time. When I’m standing where she and I used to go, when a song comes on shuffle she and I used to sing, when I drive by where she used to (or maybe still does?) work. When a mutual friend brings her up…
Ah. To have loved and lost.
That said, I’m the happiest I have ever been and ever could see myself being with my soon-to-be-wife. There isn’t a thing in this world I wouldn’t do for her. I am excited to spend the rest of my days here by her side.
I don’t know what it would mean if I wasn’t a hollow, broken man fresh off some bad times when I met her. It has certainly made me more appreciative, and a much better partner than I ever would have been otherwise.
I met my wife 3 months after breaking up with a girl I thought I'd marry. Got lucky there. Still sucked and I drank a lot.
I was at my strongest in that part of my life through lifting heavy and accidentally bulking on the calories afforded to me by just obscene amounts of beer.
Sooo yeah. I get it.
It was 6 months for me, but the same thing -- I have no idea why I was so blessed. We will have been married 40 years this December.
Largely forgotten? I cannot let you slander TGA like that.
Your story mirrors mine in a lot of ways.
I’d always been a TGA fan, but I really got into them around the same time that I was involved in a web of relationships and also trying to figure out my life. TGA/THC/BF was pretty much the soundtrack of my mid-20s.
If there’s such a thing as a canon event, it was a trip I took to Charleston in 2016. One of the girls above was stationed down there. She was actually a huge TGA fan. At the time, I was two weeks out from quitting my job and taking another stab at college. This was my last big trip at least until I got back to working. We spent a week together and parted ways forever.
In the backside of that trip, I planned to spend two days driving the dragon and whatnot but I wasn’t in the right state of mind for that.
Instead, I ended up driving straight through from CHS to Detroit. Minus some rain around Cleveland, the whole trip was windows down with TGA on repeat. It was the one time that I wish I had a targa vs a Z06.
During that drive, I decided to sever ties with every other woman that I was seeing and use this opportunity to start life with a clean slate. It was the best decision that I have ever made next to where I decided to actually go back to school.
The whole era of my life was bookended by the relationship with my last serious girlfriend and current fiancée (not one of the previous women). Ironically the previous relationship more or less ended at TGA’s show where they announced their hiatus (Columbus 2015). When they had their reunion tour in 2022, I made sure to take my now fiancée.
Since then, I rarely listen to that music. While it’ll always have a special place in my heart, it’s just not who I am anymore. That’s also why I sold the car last year. It’s time to make new memories with a new woman in a new car with something else on the radio.
The Horrible Crowes are the largely forgotten ones!
TGA is my favorite band of all time. I’ve seen them live more than all but one other band, and that’s only because of the hiatus (and the fact that their current tour with counting crows is like $100/ticket…)
I’m a jersey boy. They’re the hometown heroes. Impossible for me not to love them.
Also, that’s a beautiful story. Glad you made it through the other side.
Pretty much same here. It’s always been TGA and Coheed for me with a little big of John Mayer on the side.
Going to a TGA show in NJ is still a bucket list thing for me. I’m insanely jealous.
When they did the mini reunion for The 59 Sound, I bought tickets to the Chicago show. Then like two weeks later they announce the shows at The Stone Pony. I sold the Chicago tickets but nobody wanted to go to NJ with me so I missed out completely.
I have to ask though, are the (not) groupies as annoying in person as they are on the internet? I had to leave the Andy Diamond Facebook group because of how insufferable a few of those people were.
The few I met in person at shows were pretty normal. A few of them though seem to have this weird parasocial thing going on. They act like they are friends of the band despite the band more or less hating these girls.
Edit - I forgot to mention. I know I’m biased, but Elsie is one of the most beautifully-written albums that I’ve ever had the privilege of listening to. I’d put it up there with Blood on the Tracks.
I was at the very last of the 59 sound reunion shows at the stone pony summer stage! It was an unbelievable experience.
Helps that Asbury is such a cool town. Best gin I’ve ever had is made there…
I do not associate with the Super Fans haha. I am not apart of any Facebook or instagram groups or whatever. Don’t want that to spoil my experience, which is merely that they are a band I’ve listened to very often since I was 16.
Talked to a few at the shows, and likewise they were pretty normal. Once caught pick thrown out by an opening band, gave it to one of Them, and the guy proceeded to pay for all my beers. So all in all a pleasant time with that one.
And I couldn’t agree more about Elsie. Find myself going back to read over the lyrics to that one more than just about any other album.
Christ, we have too much evocative writing in today's thread, you people are gonna put me out of a job!
Strictly speaking Simon & Garfunkel are not boomers, but they wrote for boomers.
You're right! They are older than the boomers by a couple of years. Same is true for Dylan!