Things I learned today
Justin Bieber slowed down sounds sort of like Sigur Ros.
And Sigur Ros sped up sounds sort of like Justin Bieber.
September 2, 2010
Malibu Mustang
So this is what I ended up with when Hertz couldn't deliver a Mustang coupe with GPS.
And it's actually not bad. It's the 2011 model, so it's got the new 3.7L V6 (305 horsepower, up from the 210 horsepower that last year's rubbish model squeezed out of its 4.0L V6, and almost as much as last year's V8).
Admittedly, it's no Corvette (previously on JRE). It does jump away when you mash the loud pedal, but it doesn't turn everything into warp-speed smears. The handling leaves a bit to be desired as well (although it's certainly not bad - just a little bit of understeer, and if you give it a dab of throttle it corrects nicely).
But the Corvette starts at $50,000 (for the 430hp coupe). The Mustang starts at $22,000 (for the base V6 coupe). How can you say no?
September 1, 2010
Skate or Die 2
August 31, 2010
Homage to a Starry Knight
The LA suburb of Venice is a completely different animal to its ritzy northern neighbour Santa Monica. Santa Monica is clean, trendy, and immaculately kept; Venice is grungy, laid-back, and packed full of artists and craftspeople.
And Venice has a spectacular collection of murals in the alleys alongside Oceanfront Walk and Venice Beach. Here's Homage to a Starry Knight (yep, that's how it's spelt).
August 28, 2010
Don't press the big red button
A bonus photo from the Intrepid Museum - this is the (formerly Top Secret) missile control room from the submarine USS Growler.
The Growler was armed with four Regulus nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, each of which could unleash two megatons of messy fission-powered death on any target within 900km of the submarine. And this was where the missiles would be controlled from. Rather scary.
August 26, 2010
On the High Line
Until 1980, the High Line was an elevated railroad that ran through Chelsea and the Meatpacking district. It was abandoned and left to rot for 25 years, until someone had the bright idea of turning it into a park... and this is the result.
It's a mile or so (with more to come) of elevated greenery, winding up the west side of Manhattan. Here's the southern end, running underneath the painfully trendy Standard Hotel.
And some more pics: the 14th Street overpass; and a bumblebee buzzing around some flowers.
August 25, 2010
Intrepid Museum: Om nom nom
The Intrepid Museum is all sorts of awesome. How often do you get to climb all over an aircraft carrier, a nuclear-armed submarine, and Concorde, all in the same day?
This photo is of one of the planes parked on the USS Intrepid's flight deck; how cool is that paint job?
And here's some more pics: a Lockheed A-12 (the precursor to the famous SR-71); the missile command room inside the USS Growler submarine (yes, it carried nukes); the Growler's torpedo room; and a souvenir of Dilbert's little-known career as a Navy pilot.
August 24, 2010
Land ho!
SQ21/22 is the world's longest regularly scheduled non-stop flight - eighteen hours of flight time, fifteen thousand kilometres, and it flies just 130km from the North Pole - just a shade less than 89 degrees north.
This is the far northern coast of Greenland, hemmed in by pack-ice. And here's some more pics from the top of the world, including: the first sight of the Arctic icepack around Russia's Severnaya Zemlya islands; a lonely Russian Arctic island; and a glacier flowing down a dry hill in Greenland.
(Plus, bonus: maps are deceptive!)
Seventeen hours, fifty-five minutes
17:55 to go, Singapore: Takeoff. Singapore shrouded in low cloud, as per usual.
17:45 to go, Johor Bahru: seatbelt sign off. Bust out my half-finished copy of The Rational Optimist.
15:15, Thailand: take a break from reading. Matt Ridley was a terrible bank manager, but he's a brilliant science writer. Good to see he's decided to stick to his doctrine of specialization and trade.
15:14: leaf through inflight duty-free catalog. What on earth is a Lancome Duo Virtuose Precious Cells and why does it sound like something pilfered from a Genentech lab?
13:40, northern Laos: finish The Rational Optimist. What now? Walk around a bit.
13:39: The guy four seats in front of me looks exactly like Weird Al Yankovic. Or maybe Slash.
13:38: Gruen Nation. The ABC's MP4 video downloads work great on iGadgets; feel momentarily guilty that I'm no longer paying my eight cents a day.
13:37: Where does Todd Sampson get his tee-shirts?
13:15, Laos-China border: John Hewson is a really good sport. Can we get him on TV more often?
12:15, northern China deserts: stare out window. Try to watch Treme. It's by David Simon, therefore it must be good.
12:00: give up on Treme. Overtaken by sleep.
10:30, Lake Baikal: wake up. Slept through Mongolia. Not sure I missed anything.
09:15, Siberia: looks like we're headed straight north off the top of the map. I knew I shoulda taken that left toin at Vladivoishtok.
09:00: bust out camera, take some photos of rainbow clouds. Double rainbow clouds. What do they mean?
08:30 to go, Severnaya Zemlya: The enormous bloke in front of me in an Australian Bodybuilding Championships tee-shirt is listening to the Glee soundtrack. Yeah. Don't stop believin'.
08:00, Arctic Ocean: "feet wet", as they say - or as they would say if this were a Tom Clancy novel. But Tom Clancy novels don't have stewardesses serving chocolate cake. (Or do they? I've never read Without Remorse; maybe it's in there.)
7:30: the little plane on the flight status screen has just flown off the top of the map. This doesn't look like Narnia.
7:25: first sight of Arctic icecap. NOW it looks like Narnia. "always-winter-but-never-Christmas" Narnia, but still.
7:00, 38,000 feet above the Arctic ice: It's just gone 9:30am in NYC. Need to stay awake or risk world-class jet lag. One thing making it easier: through a quirk of timing (taking off mid-morning, flying through the 24-hour-sunlight zone above the Arctic Circle, and landing late afternoon), the sun never goes down for the whole 18-hour flight.
6:30: picturesque broken pack ice out the window.
6:00, 87 degrees north: the most northerly screening ever of Yes We Canberra. NEW WORLD RECORD.
More after the jump...
August 23, 2010
Weekend linkdump
In my defence, it's still the weekend in Honolulu.
Ed note: your humble correspondent is on holidays right now. Expect more photos and less meaningful commentary.
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Well, the Australian election this weekend was an absolute clusterfuck (if you'll pardon my French). We have no Prime Minister. The government will basically be run by the three independents, all of whom quit the (conservative) National Party because it wasn't conservative enough. (Which, incidentally, means they'll probably caucus with the Liberal/National coalition and give the Prime Ministership to Tony Abbott. Freshman Green rep Adam Bandt in Melbourne will definitely caucus with Labor, but that'll only give Labor 74 seats - two short of a majority.)
A minty- fresh Morgan poll suggests that if the election had to be re-run, the Greens and Independents would each lose a couple of points, and the votes would flow back to the Labor and Liberal parties. Rob Oakeshott - one of the kingmakers - is proposing exactly that, but he holds his seat by a vast margin, so I doubt he's worried about a couple of percentage points' swing.
If minority government turns out to be as dysfunctional as it usually is, and we have to go to a double-dissolution election sometime before the three-year electoral cycle, expect voters to flee the minor parties like a bad smell.
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In other news...
From the people who brought you How To Cook A F*cking Steak (warning, sweary) comes How To Make A Pizza, Fundamentalist Macaroni and Cheese, and How to Barbecue a Turkey The Super Easy Way (step 1: shoot the turkey)
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For kids starting college this year (meaning they were born in 1992), Czechoslovakia has never existed and John McEnroe has never played professional tennis. I feel old.
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The best words to use in Hangman. "Jazz". "Faff". "Hajj". "Vex". "Fuzzy". "Quizzing". "Bubbliest". "Zigzagging". "Grogginess".
And JRE keeps you entertained all weekend with one of the greatest moments of the Aussie election campaign.
August 15, 2010
Weekend linkdump
One week 'til I jump on the plane to New York City - and one week until JRE once again turns into a USA photoblog.
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To mark Singapore's 45th birthday, here's an interview from 2006 with David Marshall, Singapore's first Chief Minister. Why, no, he didn't draw a three million dollar salary after he stepped down.
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ABBA backwards (eM nO ecnahC A ekaT is weirdly awesome). No Satanic messages, though, which is frankly a bit of a disappointment.
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The governor of Wyoming has threatened to sell off parts of Grand Teton National Park to fund the state's education budget. I reckon some enterprising investor should buy it and turn it into a REIT.
How about the GrAnd Teton - Trees And Conservation Alliance REIT? GATTACA-REIT is now taking subscriptions, minimum investment $1 million, institutional investors only, please form an orderly queue.
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The Confined Nomad is trying to eat his way through the cuisine of every country in the UN, in alphabetical order - without leaving New York's city limits. He's up to China and going strong. (He had trouble with Chad, though - anyone know a good Chadian restaurant somewhere in the five boroughs?)
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And JRE keeps you entertained all weekend with Jane Austen's Fight Club.
