oldshurst442

Although not twins, but uncle and nephew. May I interest you in: Hephaestus Greek god of metallurgy, blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, fire. (seems to fit you nicely...) Poseidon Greek God of the Sea and Horses If I ever build a hot rod, whether it be a '33 Ford Roadster or a '57 Chevy, I will have the classic hot rod motif images on it. But it will have a twist. Instead of THE classic hot rod images the motif will be Ancient Greek stuff on it. The Parthenon. Famous statues of 1 or 2 Greek Gods. Im thinking Athena and Poseidon. A Trireme. A Spartan shield and helmet. An Owl maybe. Yeah the flames will be there too. But even the flames will be Greek in nature. Disclaimer: I am not trying to convert you or anything. But seeing as how I was (jokingly) flirting with the idea of becoming a TV evangelist awhile back, maybe now I could seriously see my next career come to fruition. That is to start my own church and be on TV. I would try to heal people in the name of Mount Olympus. Care to send a donation my way? For the greater good of seeing the my project hot rod car be realized?

Ive heard that the B52 will continue on serving for another 20-30 years... THAT...is INSANE! THAT...will be very near to a 100 year continuous service life of this aircraft with the LAST one built in 1962. Making these aircraft being serviced and overhauled a literal THOUSANDS of times. IN-FREAKIN-SANE! Which leads into this bolded statement that seems to have flown passed people's heads. When people's lives are at stake, no matter in what context we are referring to, we really dont want the very equipment designed to save lives, to fail and ultimately these equipments BECOME the very thing that ends up killing them... There comes a time when the equipment becomes a liability and NEEDS to be replaced regardless of age or the cost. Human lives SHOULD NOT have a COST attached... PS: The more you overhaul, multiplied by age, the LESS effective it becomes and more of a liability. You saw it with Boeing and the MAX 737. SHYTE...(sorry for the political reference), but we STILL see it with the Covid response both in the US AND in Canada... Seeing these 'Burbans are destined to protect political leaders both foreign AND domestic, a fail COULD literally mean....WAR. Yeah...its THAT serious. Not only losing life being a huge negative, but implications of conspiracy theories going wild, WAR may become a result... I seriously cant believe that nobody could see that.

The post about the religion chart I made was in jest. With a little truth to it. But more so, I wanted to show that Ancient Greek polytheism was missing... I do have faith in God. Im not a bible thumper. I just try to live life being the best human I could possibly be. Seeing that humans are flawed creatures, I aint perfect... I could be a selfish asshole at times.... Food. I LOVE food. I eat to live, duh. But I also live to eat. My culinary tastes are more in sync to the western world's. European and American mostly. Minus British and Mexican. Although there are some Mexican foods I enjoy. Depending on what kinds of Oriental foods we are talking about, I do enjoy them. But if we are going to be honest about Oriental foods, its the Americanized Oriental foods that I love to eat. But my culinary palette is like my music palette. Its wide. And I am not afraid to taste and eat something that I havent eaten before. I may have limits though. Insects is where I draw the line. And exotic animals. Ive tried snails and frogs and horsemeat and game meat such as dear and moose. And Ill kindly decline to eat those again. And because of that experience, I wont eat shark. Why would I eat shark when there are a ton of other classic fish around to eat? Greek seafood cuisine has all kinds of fish to eat with all kinds of different ways of cooking them, I dont see the need for me to try shark... Im sure its good and tasty, but I dont feel the need to experience it. Ill stick to fried calamari and grilled octopus both drowned in lemon with ouzo on the rocks as an aperitif on a beautiful picture perfect sandy Greek beach in July thank-you very much. Speaking of which, the background is just as important as the food itself. Sipping wine on the French Riviera or eating a cheeseburger and fries in my hot rod muscle car cruising the Pacific Coast highway or Woodward avenue or having a hotdog at Fenway or Wrigley Field is just an important experience for me. Aint life beautiful? (If we could experience those senses?) EDIT: I wont eat game meat because game meat tastes too much like grass. I love my greens. I eat lots and lots of greens. Spinaches and brocolli and cauliflower and... All done the same way. Boiled and soaked with olive oil and lemon juice. I wont eat snails because...icky. And honestly, all you taste is the way they are prepared, with lots and lots of garlic. If one has to prep up food with that much spice, you arent really tasting the food, right? I mean, Im Greek. Garlic is a staple. But I wanna taste the snail. If I wanted to taste garlic, well, there is skordalia, there is tzatziki sauce... I wont eat frogs again, because it literally tastes and feels like chicken. Ill just eat the damn chicken... Why eat frog? Sharks and other exotic animals. Well, these animals are not really human food. Well, not where I come from at least. If in your culture, you eat shark or baby seals, great for you. My culture does not eat that. So I wont. No need to. Alligator and snake falls into this category. Just to be clear though. Greek cuisine involves all kinds of other animals. Im accustomed to that. Im glad this post turned out to be less long than usual.

I feel neglected... How many Gods I wanna worship? Well, sometimes, when things go my way, I tend to believe and have faith in one God. The God that is my culture. But...sometimes, when things dont go my way, I do either one of two things 1. I stop having faith in my God. 2. I blame Him for my failures... But then things turn around and I have faith in him again. I know, right? Blasphemous of me. So...since Ive been blaspheming all this time, I would want to start believe in multiple Gods. THIS way, no matter how many of them I have pissed off, including the God that says that there is no other and that I shoudlnt worship another, not ALL of them would be pissed at me. Id have 1 or 2 in my corner. But this is where I feel neglected... How Many Gods Do You Want to Worship? - A Ton of 'Em Do I Want To Be Reincarnated? - No, but I do believe I have a soul. I wont ever sell my soul, but I do believe that my soul will live forever even if my body will not. OK?... Do You Prefer Indian or Chinese Take-out? - Food is good. All food. But I also LOVE bacon. I eat pork. Have NO issues with it! Pork on a stick with garlic/yogurt sauce sounds dee-lish. Maybe You Should Worship These Guys

It has, unfortunately. The genius that is Elon Musk. Not to take this into a personal direction (against Musk and his family's retarded parenting) (but PHOQUE IT!) but their child's name is a bunch of random letters and symbols, and his girlfriend, the mother of his child, has a dislike for their baby to call her mom. The child calls his mother by her first name... With where his mind is at right now, you could see as to why genius Musk went with a yoke for a steering wheel. There are at least 3 reasons in my paragraph there as to why I will NEVER buy a Tesla vehicle regardless if Tesla EVs are STILL the benchmark.

I saw this today in that exact colour I did a double take as I was immediately reminded of this Its nice to see that the Aztek is an inspiration.

(not a real Mustang) would probably be the answer...

yes. I said this about the Lucid air a while back

To be fair, the dude in the Tesla did NOT want ANY part of it. He even WARNED him that "its a TESLA! NO! NO! NO! I DONT CARE!" The Tesla passenger after the crash told the driver to just go. The idiot Camaro driver just trashed what looked like a nice freakin' car. In my eyes, there was only one idiot. Of course we do not know what transpired before of where the video starts, but hearing the Tesla driver emphatically denying any wanting of any shenanigans and warning him like "dude, its a Tesla, why you even want to bother?" is proof enough for me that the Camaro driver is a couple of beers short of a six pack. Self hating Americans would be MY guess. But I could be wrong...

Hold my wine spritzer. Add insult to injury, its @smk4565 car's interior. Now, if we want to criticize GM for whatever reason, we should ALSO look at the German car with the SAME freakin' critical eye. If we dont, well then, by golly...we arent really truthful to ourselves then. And I dont really give a shyte who the phoque I offend! That right there, that Mer-say-deez Benz. Its one cl -ass-y car, I must say. Better than anything Ive ever owned, I reckon. Honestly...I REALLY dont understand why we keep on shytting on GM's interiors? Is it BECAUSE Mercedes used two toned plastic greys and shinier fake wood on the more expensive models? From 2007 that Mer-SAY-deez. An E 500 apparently. 1998 Cadillac One generation apart and the Mercedes looks EXACTLY like that shytty FWD Caddy. Go ahead, zoom in on the steering wheel and dash. Plastic and vinyl.. Its "luxury" because its got textured plastic? LOL Its the same category too... Its not as if I took a C Class to compare it to. A freakin E 500 at that. MORE expensive... Yet alls we here about is how shytty the STS' interior was in car magazines and Eurosnobby patrons of Eurotrash cars like our fellow Mercedes E Class owner resident. Nothing personal, buddy. (SMK) But I find it hi-larry-us you dissing on American cars when your own 'luxury' car was a dime a dozen taxi cab with a rugged, but taxi cab worthy interior...

Dont judge me. I got kids. To THIS day, my daughter, 16, LOVES this movie...

Or...1980s Mercedes bad The caption says 1991 on this particular picture... 1991 https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/1991-Mercedes-Benz-190-Class-Pictures-c6222?picturesTabFilter=INTERIOR#pictureId=35891412

Awesomeness! But Id opt for a 426 Cubic Inch Hellephant motor for that ride. And if all sold out, Id PROUDLY stuff the 'ho-hum' Hellcat motor in it. Not taking away from that build. Its just what I would prefer doing. THAT is an interesting build. Certainly more compelling than a Hellephant or Hellcat swap. Now...about this one: As much as I dont mind electric motors and batteries for the next generation of restoring restomoding the classics, I wouldnt want that 572 cu in motor in a '57 Chevy. If I did, it wouldnt be lowered like that. It have THE classic Hot Rod/muscle car high rear stance. But THAT is not what I would want from MY '57 Chevy. So it would be lowered. NOT with a 572 cubic incher. But with a Corvette 6.2 liter. Yeah, supercharged. C7 ZR1 motor. Or the C7 Z06 motor. Or the in between, the detuned Ct5 Blackwing V. The motor would be as far back to the firewall as possible, suspension parts and brakes from whatever late model Corvette (C5, C6, C7) would be a good fit with an Art Morrison or similar modern chassis so it could be a classic, modern Chevy restomod. The Fuelie cross flag logo would be replaced with the C7 Corvette version on the front fenders. From this: To this: (the C5 Corvette logo) Candy apple red. Pearl white top. Possible polished nickel on the chrome parts. I said possible... But the shiny parts, ALL of them, would be present and accounted for!

https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2021/sep/0915-gmdefense.html Id buy one of these... Yeah...I would want that Blackwing CT5 supercharged V8 in that. Which is the Corvette C7 ZR1 engine. Better yet. Ill take THAT one as THAT one is 755 HP and 715 ft/lbs torque versus it being detuned to 668 HP and 659 ft/lbs torque. I would not want the blue and red lights. But I would want it CIA black all around though. Armoured and bullet proof is a gimme, obviously! Skid plate. Powder coated in black. Chevy Bow Tie. In black. No chrome or shiny bits anywhere. I havent made up my mind if I would opt for the push bumper bar grille guard. Yeah. Id add that too! Front AND rear!

My condolences once more. Robin Williams' death made me cry. Because he too, was my favorite comedian. Part of my youth and all that. Yeah, like Chevy Chase and John Candy and countless of other actors and singers and the like. But that was not the reason why I cried. The main reason is because I knew that he was truly a great and genuine person. I knew, we all knew, his jokes came from his heart and all he ever wanted to do was make us laugh. And Ill repeat. He truly was a great human being. Countless of stories about him and his generosity were around a loooong time before his death.

I always laughed at his jokes. His childish ways of talking in the mid-1990s especially on SNL really had me hooked on him. Then, sometime after he got fired from SNL, I noticed that I didnt understand his words anymore. Oh....I laughed at his jokes, but I laughed NOT at his jokes, I laughed at his spoken way. Then youtube comes along, and I got to get re-acquainted with him. So I binged watch youtube videos of him. All materials. Podcasts. David Letterman appearances. Conan O'Brien appearance. Howard Stern. Old stand-up bits. New stand-up bits. Bob Saget roast. ESPYs. Bill Clinton dinner roast. Denis Miller podcasts Etc... It took me a VERY long time to TRULY "get" his jokes. I understood this man was a genius. I heard what Letterman and O'Brien and others said of him and in the beginning of my binge watching him, I didnt want to believe them that he is one of the best ever comedians. But I listened to his jokes over and over and over again and then I finally "got" him. The man was not only funny. He was literally a genius. He was smart. His comedy had you coming and going and YOU, whether as a listener or the butt of his jokes or his trolling or his "apology", YOU didnt know whether YOU were coming or going. He had you all tied in knots. To boot. He was FUNNY doing it. His choice of words. His comedic pausing. His stares. His glances. His nuances and overtones about how he chooses to tell a story. The voyage of the story. The punchline NOT being about the story itself but about the voyage. Unlike Robin Williams. Another comedic genius. Robin was mostly superficial and quick. Norm was the opposite. Norm was deep and slow. But the joke was too fast for people and it usually would go over people's heads. People usually, like me in the beginning, would try to focus on the superficial and quick like a Robin Williams joke. The REAL joke would be the undertones. Once you understood that about Norm, you were on another level of comedy.

"Im not a doctor. but Im pretty sure if you die, the cancer also dies at the same exact time. So that to me is not a loss; its a draw." - Norm Macdonald RIP

What I find sad is that the socio-political climate that was the 1970s (which actually started RIGHT AFTER the end of WW2) culminated to a perfect storm that forced GM and the others Detroit gang to hastily change their product portfolio over night to downsize and FW drive their vehicles. Was it a right choice? Yeah... I think it was. Lets not pretend to NOT understand and acknowledge that the downsizing from GM WAS a success in both the market place AND in terms of the time it took for a behemoth company like GM to do a COMPLETE 180 degrees and perform THAT kinda change in as little as a decade ACROSS their WHOLE product portfolio. In some cases, in one generation of a product cycle, in other cases in just 2. Yeah...some product portfolio was utter shyte. But that was mostly products FROM the 1970s. The 1980s stuff was pretty reliable. And in "context", in the amount of time it took them to engineer WHOLE product lines from the ground up, their ENTIRE car product line, Id say its a miracle that GM did NOT go bankrupt right then and there with overblown engineering costs and budgets with major...MAJOR engineering fails. A creaky cup holder here and a small cost cutting parts bin and badge engineering over there is truly NOT that big of a deal. Again, in context, the Japanese and German cars we got over here were really not that much better built and had the SAME cost cutting measures engineered in THEIR offerings. Sure, some Japanese cars were more reliable than their American car counterparts, but MOST Japanese cars were NOT that reliable either. What I find sadder though, is that America was blind to see how the world had become when time reached the 1970s, because of how good the good times were SINCE the end of WW2 in America, and failed to adjust to what the new reality of the 1970s would bring. The ever increasing in size and weight of our vehicles, the excessive use of chrome on our cars, which I have NO problems with, the huge displacement and horsepower that the engines made, it was only a matter of time that it would all coming crashing down as soon as political power vacuums and new regimes sought revenge for perceived and rightful injustices that America was responsible for, and it would all culminate PERFECTLY in the 1970s to create a storm that America was just not ready for. Our culture and lifestyle that influenced our cars and our car industry itself was NOT ready for it. (Viet Nam never ending, oil embargoes, terrorist bombings in various parts of the world, airplane hijackings, 1972 Olympics, puppet wars, cold war.. etc) So I dont think its fair to say that GM forced and pushed aside their full-sized RWD owners to the side. It was kinda the right move. Obviously, they thought the direction they took was the right one. In hindsight, maybe GM should have NOT put BOTH their legs in the downsized FWD water as they did, but as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20... America still plays around with global oil prices and ensures that America gets the best prices...its a miracle that we enjoy (well you guys, not us Quebecois) low gasoline prices to this day and THAT is why American folk NOW buy the bigger than the downsized sedans in the form of the taller and slightly larger CUVs and full-sized pick up trucks and their SUV counterparts. But 20 years ago this past Saturday is a reminder of the political power vacuums and new regimes I was talking about that America had to face in the 1970s that continued...well, in 2001.

Mine too. But I wouldnt necessarily choose RWD over FWD. But comparing FWD to FWD... The Audi 5000 was nothing special as compared to the GM A platform cars. Not the interior. Not the fit and finish. Reliabilty? The GM cars were actually rock solid. Even when powered by the Iron Duke. Not so much for the Audi 5000. The 2.8V6 models were even faster than the Audi... But when we are talking about appliance vehicles...whether FWD or RWD. There is no much difference other than RWD versus FWD. EVEN in the US, an American spec E30 325 is still an econobox because in EUROPE its an econobox no different than what we see here in the US... This 4 door Pontiac Lemans meant for average American hauling their families Appliance... is not this version of it let alone this one So was the Audi 5000 tho...

Exactly...

@Robert Hall I know you hold the E30 Bimmer on a very high pedestal. Sure... In guess. Whatever. But you also hold an Audi 5000 to that same high pedestal? While probable dissing on the FWD GM A platform? Sure, you could do that too. But the Chevrolet Celebrity, even in the laughable Eurosport trim, the Pontiac 6000, Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra and Buick Century were really good cars. Held there own... The Audi 5000 was really not that special. The only special thing about it was because it was made in Germany? THAT is the laughable part. It was the same type of FWD appliance car that you like to diss as the GM A platform cars. What Quattro? Yeah yeah yeah It was "winning" rallye races... I guess THAT was the marketing angle that Audi was peddling and the automotive journalism world was spewing... Oh... GM had an answer to that, but I guess it wasnt German and it wasnt winning rallye races to count as something good... But at least the GM cars were not accelerating by themselves... But I guess we will say that that story was not true though. We will just continue to bash GM cars from this era just because its a better storyline to cling on to.

I had editted and added a few things to that: Edited part: Problem is...in the 1980s, Car and Driver and everyone else ONLY crapped on American cars. NOT on the E30... Because it wasnt crapped on. The E30 in the US was ALWAYS revered. Just pick up any mag that compares a Cimarron to an E30. The Cimarron was NOT the ideal car for Cadillac. But taken one on one forgetting that the Cimarron was also a Chevrolet, which wasnt that bad of a car in realty, the Cimarron comoared to the E30 was on PAR with the E30. What? RWD versus FWD? With an E30 that had aprox the same HP? They also forgetting to mention that the E30 was SHYTTIER than the Cavalier in Europe? But you did counter with this: Only partly true for the E30. Only the "M" E30 was truly performance oriented. But I will relinquish the debate as there is merit to RWD versus FWD whether FWD drivers want to admit to it or not. Including myself. And yeah, Lincoln and Cadillac did NOT have the right engineering done to their cars to counter the new definition of luxury. But, in context, what they did give us in the 1980s was not bad. It wasnt the European definition of what yuppie money, cocaine fueled Wallstreet types demanded from luxury. Lets not forget though. The dinosaur big American RWD land yacht luxury was still selling more than the European sport sedan luxury car well into the mid-1990s. So much so that Mercedes Benz was lost in that they didnt know what direction THEY wanted to go. Rival BMW or rival Lincoln/Cadillac and the new comer Lexus. Ditto for Audi...

From the September 2019 issue of Car and Driver. Problem is...in the 1980s, Car and Driver and everyone else ONLY crapped on American cars. NOT on the E30... Because it wasnt crapped on. The E30 in the US was ALWAYS revered. Just pick up any mag that compares a Cimarron to an E30. The Cimarron was NOT the ideal car for Cadillac. But taken one on one forgetting that the Cimarron was also a Chevrolet, which wasnt that bad of a car in realty, the Cimarron comoared to the E30 was on PAR with the E30. What? RWD versus FWD? With an E30 that had aprox the same HP? They also forgetting to mention that the E30 was SHYTTIER than the Cavalier in Europe? My dad owned a 1986 Chevrolet Celebrity. I learned to drive in that car... @balthazar showed me where the Celebrity was quicker and faster than a 1986 Audi 5000. I too, was under the impression that the Celebrity was a dog as compared to the German competition. Yeah...a Celebrity being competition, if you could call it that to an Audi 5000. And that is thanx to American automotive journalism where my perceptions were corrupted by that drivel...

@surreal1272 To clarify then: @Robert Hall said that Road&Track catered to a demographic that preferred small, road hugging European cars over large, American cars. I get that. I really do. There is a quality of ride and sportiness to being small and nimble to which American GIs got experience over in Europe during the war and craved that coming back home after the war. This is where my pic of a Hot Rod Ford comes in as this is what these GIs did to replicate what they saw in Europe. And then the muscle car era came upon us when these Hot Rods evolved into what the Detroit 3 noticed what was happening on the strip and street etc... And you cant deny that fact... The list is a very accurate way of explaining to why cars after the war were. Small European cars were always a thing. Big large American cars were always a thing too. Large European cars also existed before the war. After the war, well...read the list... But...in CONTEXT: Balthy ALSO described this "sporty phenomenon" in another point of view that some of us FAIL to recognize or even ACKNOWLEDGE... So there is that... But...Im not the one to diss different car cultures. THIS is about automotive journalism. And I realize that! Ill agree with you with your statement here! I have issues with the hypocritical automotive journalism along with the hypocritical opinions of certain anti-American car sentiment car folk that I know personally in my real life.

After reading this sentence, I came to realize this is my exact issue as well. From the automotive magazines comparing and contrasting and describing these cars to my idiot Greek friends that praise European cars blindly, to the accepting universally that American cars equal junk anywhere we go whether we are in Europe or in North America and we FAIL to put ANYTHING in context and we ABSOLUTELY fail to remember how really shytty European cars were and STILL are...