Whose Shake Is This!!?

The Gundam always wins!

It’s not like I’m going to tell you what happens in some current, new anime show that I happen to be watching at the moment that most of you who will be reading this will never be watching at ANY moment. I could regale you with my latest take on everything that happens in episode 11 of So-Ra-No-Wo-To, or episode 1 of Gundam Unicorn, and it won’t significantly spoil yer day. Even though you should, you probably wont be watching these shows anytime soon.  Also, since I’m writing this on Saturday, by the time most of you even get around to reading this, tomorrow’s race at Martinsville will be in the books, along with the name of the winner, and the post-mortem analysis of the new spoiler will raging in earnest. As for tomorrow’s Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville, I’m jumping on the Jeff Burton bandwagon. There’s my spoiler for ya. Jeff Burton wins at Martinsville.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see the spoiler in action the next time the lads race at Bristol. Bristol with the COT and the wing as become a more tedious and miniature version of Talladega with less wreckage and mayhem than in the past. Not at all the 43 rabid chihuahuas in a teapot that it used to be. The race last Sunday was set to come down to the wire, but…the evil machinations of Chad Knaus spoiled the day for for everyone as he called for 4 tires when Matt and Kurt and the rest of the leaders took 2. That was the call that won Jimmie Johnson his 50th race and his first at Bristol. On the final restart he cruised by the field and left Smoke, Kurt, The Biff and Matt in his dust. Damn, now THAT spoiled it for me, yes? I got cheated out of a shot of Crown Royal and a bottle of Miller Lite ((and a damn fine pilsner it is.))

But speaking of spoiling someones day….

Read the rest of this entry »

“According to THIS book, someday you will publish a photo of us on the Internet.”

Sometimes I just get caught up in my own format. It becomes a trap from which I can barely escape. Hopefully, by recognizing that and bringing it to light, I can indeed effect an escape. Format. Perhaps I should explain, and as always, I will try not to allow the facts to get in the way of the truth.

I’ve been using a format for my blog that primarily involves a synergy and/or a resonance with current anime shows that I have been watching. As y’all should have guessed by now, I stay on top of all the new shows. And I use screencaps from those shows for various expositional or comedic effects, or both. Also, I will sometimes dredge up an older show and go off on that. Format. Yes. Now the concept of format actually comes from my old SF Fanzine publishing days back in the late 70′s and into the 80′s when I lived in Minneapolis and published a Hogu Award nominated fanzine INTERGALACTIC STARBARN and also published zines for the two local APAs (Amatuer Press Associations, for those among you who are mundane — hee!), MINNEAPA  ((used various titles there, also published quite few zines ananomously there under the nom de plume of Mark Heifer)), and one for STIPPLE-APA, titled ZINE. I also published a zine, entitled MY ZINE TITLE for the Chicago fandom’s local APA, WINDYAPA….although my first zine published there was entitled The Johnny Callison Show which was written live from the Convention Suite of Minicon 17 on Saturday evening April 18, 1981, and then published in WINDYAPA #6.

Format. Typeface, Masthead, Colophon, Comments and the layout thereof. I would use a format for each of my apa-zines and try and stick to it consistently. It was a small little obsession that was, to varying degrees, shared with my fellow fans. It would prompt such comments, like my comment to Robin Beal in WINDYAPA 11 ((which btw features my cover drawing of myself and fellow Minneapolis fan, Mike Wood (the late Mike Wood, beloved by all in Minn-Stf and longtime editor of MINNEAPA) arriving in Chicago…Mike flying in in the guise of a wood-duck, and me sky-skiing over downtown Chicago being towed being a Northwest (Bozo)Orieinted Airlines DC-10)): “Well by golly, this format is a real wicked drug. [Hi Gretchen.] I like yours. real easy to read.”

Now am I clear about FORMAT!!??

Okay…onward!!

Read the rest of this entry »

The racing season has finally begun!  I’ve been watching the Rolex 24 hours of Daytona and as I type this with about 2 hours and change to go,  the #9 Action Express Porsche Riley team with Mike Rockenfeller currently at helm has the lead over Chip Gannasi’s #01 BMW Riley by about 1 minute 22 seconds with Justin Wilson guiding the sled. It’s setting up to being an exciting finish for the race, that for me, always kicks off the Racing Season. The NASCAR darlings are mired deep in the field for the most part. The #02 Gannasi car guided by Juan Pablo Montoya , Jaime McMurray, Dario Franchitti & Scott Dixon is out of the race…they blew an engine shortly after midnight on Juan Pablo’s  watch. Jimmie Johnson the #99 GAISCO/Bob Stallings crew of Jimmy Vassar, Alex Gurney & John Fogarty are now 56 laps down essentially out of it.  A.J. Allmedinger and the $6 Michael Shank Ford Riley crew of Brian Frisselle,
Mark Patterson, & Michael Valiante are only a lap down and still have a shot at it….Allmendinger is the hammer for the team will take the checkers.

On the GT side. Bobby Labonte’s  #71 TRG Porsche GT3 crew somehow ran him out of gas and he actually had to be towed to the parking lot to get a splash of gas to get thim back to pit road.  Very odd, yes?  How could they let him run out of gas!? With Spencer Pumpelly at the wheel at the moment, they are currently 27 laps behind the current GT leader Nic Ham and the #70 Speedsource Mazda RX-8 team.

However, my enthusiasm is guarded and I’ll still not quite on board with the new NASCAR season just yet, even though Speedweeks is less than a week away. I haven’t resolved in my mind all the changes, both in terms of rules and team mergers. It think part of this also has to do with uncertainty over Matt Kenseth’s sponsorship for 2010. As soon as that gets resolved. I’ll most likely be all in.

But I did hear a rumour regarding some new Kenseth sponsorship last night….

Read the rest of this entry »

The countdown clocks are ticking, ticking, inexorably ticking. Countdown to Daytona 500. Countdown to Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. Countdown to F1 Practice in Bahrain. Countdown to the F2 Race at Silverstone. Time is running out and there is no hope left of stopping it. No hope of turning it back to the beauty and wonder that once filled its days and hours to the brim. No time to catch a breath of innocence and wonder, no time to hold it’s contemplative silence gently in one’s hands or heart. The clocks are ticking and they will not stop. There is no hope left.

A year ago, the ticking of the clocks was music to my ears. This time of the year was a-swirl with excitement and anticipation. Each tick of the countdown clock was bringing me closer to the excitement and exhilaration of a new season of racing. I couldn’t wait for the clocks to tick down to the respective zeroes and bask in the hallucenogenic roar of the engines as my favourite drivers and teams raced off into the on-rushing year with hope and determination with an almost  psychedelic furor not to end until the final checkered flag is dropped at Homestead or Bahrain.

Now, in this terrible year of 2010, I’d like to stop all the clocks and chronometers. Not forever mind you. But for the moment. I’m not looking forward to anything or any of this and I’d like to stop the ticking ticking ticking for long enough to salvage some hope from what seems to be a hopeless world.

“And under the oppression of the silent fog

The tolling bell

Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried

Ground swell, a time

Older than the time of chronometers, older

Than time counted by anxious worried women

Lying awake, calculating the future,

Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel

And piece together the past and the future,

Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,

The future futureless, before the morning watch

When time stops and time is never ending;”

from “The Dry Salvages” by T.S. Eliot

Now don’t get me wrong. I want to feel this excitement again. I want to be looking forward to the new season of racing. But somehow, somewhy, I’m not. And I don’t know if it’s the racing and what it’s become, or me and what I’ve become, or both. But right now I want it all to stop so I can unweave, unwind, and unravel the mess that this has become.

Well, it’s hopeless I guess.  The clocks are ticking. Daytona 500 is 21 days and change as I write this. Rolex 24 hours is 6 days and  change. Bahrain is 46 days and change. Sao Paulo tees off on March 14th but IRL thankfully has no countdown clock. So you might as well join me. I have no choice in the matter. The clocks are ticking. So come along for the ride.

Read the rest of this entry »

In keeping with the current theme and mood and mode of hopelessness and despair, it pains me greatly to report a VERY disturbing new development in the world of NASCAR, specifically in the Camping World Truck series. This is a development so shocking to me that I can barely find the right words to wrap around it…I would much rather poke at it with a stick from a great distance. This development is  beyond the pale and so exemplary of what is wrong with this terrible new decade…and it is being rolled out in a manner that is mind-numbingly at odds with anything involving class, style, taste and dignity.  And yes, I know that NASCAR is not the standard-bearer for anything involving class, style, dignity, taste, culture…etc…but even by NASCAR’s admittedly low-brow standards, this really plumbs depths that I never even knew existed.

Follow me down this path of terror if you dare.

Read the rest of this entry »