I've been busy

Perhaps it's a little tough to read, so here's a zoomed-in version:



FEATURED! I am extremely proud of myself right now, to have written a featured instructable. Maybe my first two 'ibles ever weren't featured, unlike my buddy Skunkbait, but then again the rest of mine have been quick and tossed together. So again, hooray for having my first "serious" 'ible featured!

In other news, meet my second-favorite fish blog.

Wristwatch motorcycles

I just ran across this post showing all sorts of motorcycles, made entirely of old wristwatch parts. They are amazing in their detail, even when the artist took liberties with the laws of physics. The sheer aura of coolness is overwhelming.

If I can't get one of these pre-made, I need to go make friends with a watch repairer and try and build one myself.

The greatest hot rod song ever written

I will gladly explain it if you don't get why it is the greatest. What other song has epic sports cars, totalitarian governement, high-speed pursuits, and the unparalleled musicianship of the three men of Rush? It's not just a good-time song like the Beach Boys wrote, it is an intricate tapestry of nostalgic pleasure in the midst of the Priests' dystopic rein. I cna't think of another song where the protagonist risks a death at the hands of the mountain, or worse, a non-death at the hands of the Thought Police. I could go on about how much I love this band, but I really have to sleep sometime soon. Good day.

Gonna buy me a Mercury and cruise it up and down the road.

I am a diehard Mercury fan. Any Merc, big, small, new, old, running, rusted out, I don't care. I believe in american cars and American bikes. I don't like the fact that they're not built in America anymore, but the Big Three are classic American marques. That's why every car that's ever occupied the driveway has had Ford, GM, or Mopar badges, even rentals. There just is no beating them. Of course, at hill climbs and rallies, I do occasionally love to hear an Italian engine wail and howl like it's tearing a hole in Hell itself. But it's the growl, roar, and bark of the American V8 that I love the most. If I can't get that, a well-tuned V6 can do a tidy job. Dare to be different, right?



You should have heard the fellow on the other end of the phone at a certain famous mail-order parts company when I asked about anything that might maybe kinda work on a front-drive 1993 60 degree six inhabiting the engine bay of a Cutlass. He tried to help, first by trying to talk me out of it, then by giving me prices and sources of parts that might not work, but might just do the trick. The target is around 400, so it might never happen, but he helped all he could. I've got my work cut out for me if I want a high-power V6, offroadable tow rig/city cruiser.

Of course, the other car is already a "little hot rod." It's a '07 Merc Milan six. 220 horse out of 183 is pretty good. But I get the feeling it's being held back. The low end is great, but the transmission is a bit shifty. It tends to pick the gear I'd like it to, you just have to speak its language. Off the line is great (even with the auto, you can pull a great holeshot. The converter stalls around 900 if you go easy on it, or up to about 1300 if you stomp on it. By the time it shifts gears, the engine is already making as much power as the four-banger does wide open. Like I said, the pull at low rpms is pretty fun.

Handling is crisp, predictable, and smooth. I find the power steering to have a good amount of resistance. I've only felt the vehicle skid once, and that was on a wet road with the traction control off. I call it "active Positraction." I mentioned the responsiveness and low end earlier, but that's on a good day. On a bad day, things are jerky, opening the throttle is just a suggestion (the computer gets final say, since it is infuriatingly drive-by-wire). Response is not crisp, but compared with the ocean-liner handling and throttle response of the Olds, it only annoys me when the person in the right seat is being impatient and wants faster starts, later stops, and general disregard for gas milage and parts longevity. Well, she should know her daughter better. When she gets impatient and says "speed up to 60 faster" she should know that that means all four windows down, pedal to the metal, engine spooling up past four grand, exhaust note loud. I may be a hotrod enthusiast, but I'm secure enough in the machine's ability to not have to show it off. My mom just likes to get there now, even if "there" is a red light. She doesn't like not being in control.

So back to what I like to call "on-ramps with a pissed off nervous backseat driver." The Milan is not a straight-line car. It does the quarter in 15 seconds at a hair over 90, or so I'm told. I intend to get it up to Bandimere soon and get timed in an E.T. class sometime this year. I'm confident it'll lose. 0-60 in nine seconds. Those numbers are bad for a car of this magnitude. Where's the lead brick?

The car itself is the lead brick. Coming in at over two tons, it's one heavy mutha. The speedometer goes to 120, the revs are limited at 133, but the car doesn't even want to do 90. I'm sure with a long enough road 133 could happen, but I don't know where that blacktop would be. I felt it complain at 87 and asked to do more last summer out in the flatlands with my dad at the helm. Besides a Corvette or a red Barchetta, I can't think of a better mountain backroads rallymobile. But if fast acceleration is needed from 55 on up, it's not gonna happen. The low end is promising, but the stock tune can't deliver.

Of course, none of that amounts to a hill of beans, the favorite thing for my family to do in that car is to cruise it up and down the road.

The redneck to-do list

First of all, I would like to know how I wound up with the honey-do list. I was snaking the drain of a sink I don't even use today when I realized, "Holy crap, I've been doing stuff my mom has been nagging my dad to do. When did that happen?"

So to counteract and delay the honey-do list's evils of pulling weeds, returning dog shit to our neighbor's yard where the little shitter lives, cleaning dishes that have been soaking against my explicit request, and watering the lawn, I have drawn up my own official to-do list, which is as follows.

1. Complete portable jacob's ladder for sparking motorcycle helmet
2. Get another motorcycle
3. Get it running
4. Go to the Rocky Mountain Concours d'Elegance and dig the Munro Special '20 Indian Scout 45
5. Get the rest of our motorcycles running
6. Join a high school rugby team
7. Aquire and hotrod a 50cc scooter to do an honest 55 for any sustained period of time, more than once
8. Attach a tow hitch to our Olds
9. Hotrod the Olds
10. Get Brushfire Customs off the ground as a business
11. Graduate high school
12. Build a machine to race up Pikes Peak

I'm not sure whether those are in chronological order or by drop-everything-else-and-do-it priority, but whatever. There's some NASCAR-watching, NHRA-following, family reunions, shooting, barbequeing, wild-game-eating, and all that in there, too, but that's kind of par for the course, y'know?

Gearhead habits and redneck lawns

If you cried at the end of World's Fastest Indian, you're probably a bit of a gearhead. I'll pass you the Kleenex.

If you sell cowboy furniture, walking sticks, and steel roses to pay for your Indian habit, you might be a gearhead.

If you have over five hundred horses in your garage and none of them are animals, you might be a gearhead.

If the first time you saw your house on Google Earth you couldn't help but say, "Man, what a dump!" before you realized, oh, that's our house, you might be a redneck. In my defense, that was right after we bought it as an abandoned property.

If, fifteen years later, your house can still be mistaken for an abandoned property at first glance, but hey, it's a mighty spiffy "abandoned property", you might be a redneck.

If you have more lawnmowers than grass but your lawn is covered in green plants anyway, you might be a redneck.

If you have the second-greenest lawn in the neighborhood and all you do is ignore it, you might be a redneck in a yuppie area. They work so hard on their yards that the yard can't live without them.

If you've ever had a yard that consisted entirely of poison ivy, you're probably that poor fella in the Reader's Digest last April. That was a freakin' hilarious article. Life lesson, don't take off your clothes when there's poison ivy around.