March 31, 2008

Emperor Mosely In Trouble... BIG Trouble.


Ve hav VAYS uf makink you cheer ver Ferrari...

According to a story in The Australian, Max Mosley, the grand-high vizier of the FIA, is embroiled in a sex scandal and is under pressure to resign from his position.

Allegedly, Mosley (the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, who was the leader of the British Union of Fascists during the 1930s and '40s) was videotaped enjoying a "Nazi-style orgy" with five prostitutes in "an underground torture chamber" located in Chelsea, England.  After being 'subjected' to an inspection for lice and an interrogation whilst being locked in chains, he  then wielded a leather whip on the women while speaking German.

When asked about the allegations, Bernie Ecclestone, F1's commissar-in-chief and long-time friend of Mosley, said  “Assuming it’s all true, what people do privately is up to them. I don’t honestly believe (it) affects the sport in any way. Knowing Max it might be all a bit of a joke. You know, it’s one of those things where he’s sort of taking the p*ss, rather than anything against Jewish people.” 

Sir Stirling Moss, the former champion driver who's father was Jewish, said "I don’t see how he can continue. I hope he can, frankly, because I think he’s very good at what he does. I suppose what goes on behind closed doors is his business but when a thing comes out like this . . . it’s an absolute shocker.”

I think maybe he should pay a fine... say, $100 million?  Surely there's more proof involved than that brought against McLaren last year.

Mosley is pursuing legal action against The News Of The World, the tabloid that either took or acquired the videotape in question.

More info as it becomes available.

UPDATE: The creepy News Of The World article is located HERE.  Yeesh.


ANOTHER UPDATE: Mosley responds to allegations HERE.

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March 30, 2008

Random Anime Picture #17: Why I Like Clannad.


-Clannad, ep21

It's not my favorite KeyAni production (that's Kanon '06, of course), but Clannad has a LOT more humor than anything "serious" they've done before, excepting FMP: Fumoffu, a straight-up comedy series.

Slice-of-life + KyoAni + Key + humor = win.  Lots and lots of win.

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Random Anime Picture #16


-Kimikiss Pure Rouge, ep24

I think JCStaff put this lass into the show just so she could dress up as a kitsune in this episode.

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March 28, 2008

It's Baseball Season (almost)

Baseball starts on Monday.  No, I don't count the Red Sox/A's games in Tokyo, or the Braves/Nationals game on Sunday, the first game of the season SHOULD be the Reds at home against whomever their opponent is.

My Fantasy Baseball League, however, has its annual player auction at 830am on Saturday... which is why this is a short post, because I've gotta get back to researching the 6th inning left-handed specialist pitchers...

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March 27, 2008

A Legend Passes


Wally Phillips 1925-2008

The Pond is in mourning right now, as the news of the death of Wally Phillips hits home.  If you lived in the Midwest in the '70s or '80s, or you've worked in the radio business, you know who Wally was: the most popular morning drive host of all time.

Get this, Pond Readers... Wally Phillips was the morning host of Chicago's WGN-AM (720 on your dial) from 1965 to 1986.  During that time, WGN's morning show was not only #1 in the Arbitron ratings (Arbitron is the Nielsen of radio), but was far and away the highest-rated show in Chicago, at times garnering HALF OF THE MARKET.  His successors, Bob Collins (from 1986 until his death in a small plane crash in 2000) and Spike O'Dell (2000-present), have just carried on with the immense ratings.

But that was just in Chicago and the suburbs!  WGN-AM is a 50KW station, and can be heard in 38 States and Canada. 

In a business where five years is a long time, and 10 years is forever, 21 years is eternity.  21 years on the top of the ratings sheet is unheard of... but Wally did it in one of the largest markets in the country.  He's often called the father of talk radio, though that might be stretching things a tad... certainly he was one of the originators of the genre.  If you listen to a call-in radio show, you're hearing things that Wally pioneered.

He was elected to the Radio Hall of Fame in 1993.  One of the quickest of wits ever on the radio, he died, ironically, of complications of Alzheimer's Disease.

You'll be missed, Wally.

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March 25, 2008

Random Anime Picture #15


-ARIA the Origination, ep09

Possibly one of the finest anime episodes I've ever seen.  I went back and watched it again, as I'm feeling a little glum tonight.  The first time I watched it, I had no idea what was coming, so it was as much a surprise to me as it was to Alice.   This time, however, I knew what was about to happen... and I still got a goofy grin on my face.

That's good storytelling. 

I find that I really don't want ARIA to end.  After 49 episodes (to date) and one OVA, you'd think that the show would start to feel like it was dragging on, but it has stayed fresh for me.  Even Kanon didn't give me that feeling... when it ended, it was time for it to end.

In fact, only one other series has evoked the "don't be over yet!" feeling from me: Azumanga Daioh, my favorite show of all time.

I believe that, with episode 09, ARIA has joined Azumanga and Kanon as My Favorites.  Nobody is more surprised than me.

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March 24, 2008

I Needs Me Some Of That...

In comments, Steven points out something interesting over at Peter's J-List Sideblog.  Seems Peter was over in Tokyo recently, and he took a picture of a store with the intriguing name of...


Store My Ducks. Brilliant!!!

But here's where it gets weird... or if you know me and my penchant for ducks, maybe it's not so weird after all:

I ALREADY KNEW ABOUT THIS PLACE!!!

See, the Brickmuppet hizzownself, Ken, went to Tokyo last summer, and he sent me this photo:

Store My Ducks!  Even MORE brilliant!!!
And you know it's the same location... there couldn't be two places with that much awesome on display in this world.

What I regret is that I haven't the faintest idea of what Store My Ducks actually sells...  I have a feeling it's the greatest store EVER.

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March 23, 2008

F1 UPDATE!: MALAYSIA 2008

Will Ferrari bring itself back from the disappointment of Australia?  Will McLaren charge off into the distance and take a commanding lead in the dual championships?  Will BMW consolidate their gains?  Will we stop asking questions and get on with it?  THIS is the F1 UPDATE! for the Grand Prix of Malaysia!

*WHOOPS...This might be getting ugly, and it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys than Ferrari.  Those were the words of the owner of this website after Friday practice.  Whoops.  Kimi Raikkonen won by 22 seconds over 2nd place finisher Robert Kubica, and was over 70 seconds ahead of 8th place HWMNBN.  The only dark spot on Ferrari's day was Felipe Massa burying himself in the kittylitter, costing the team a 1-2 finish.  Since we can't sack the owner of this blog, we'll just point at him and jeer instead.

*TARNISHING?:  We're starting to see signs that Lewis Hamilton may not be the greatest thing since rye bread.  He appeared to be uncommonly hard on his front tires and brakes today, and that might have added to his day's troubles.  In the last 15 laps of the race, he wasn't quite able to close up on Jarno Trulli's Toyota enough to mount a serious charge, and while some of that might be due to the improvement of the Toyota chassis itself, a good portion has to be laid at Hamilton's feet.  We here at F1 UPDATE! believe that, perhaps, he's not as good as running in traffic as he is up towards the front.  Understandable, since he rarely has to do so.  We'd still take him...

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  Robert Kubica, BMW.  Kimi Raikonnen won handily, but probably would have finished behind Massa had Felipe not decided to beach himself.  Kubica, on the other hand, actually had to drive hard for his position, and was flawless with the lurking McLaren of Koveleinninnine just a few seconds back.  Kimi, on the other hand, could have gone over to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, hopped a quick flight to Finland, had a drink or two, flown back to KLIA, picked up something in the duty-free shop, gotten back in his car, and resumed the race and still have a couple of seconds lead.  Gotta go with Kubica this week.

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  BMW-Sauber.  They scored two podiums in a row for the first time ever, they put Kubica on the 2nd step of said podium, and Grizzly Nick Heidfeld had fast lap of the race.  If that's not an indication that this team is for real, nothing is.  They're still not up to Ferrari/McLaren levels yet, but they're closer now than they ever were before.

*MOVE OF THE RACE:  Since we refuse to give a MOTR to anything that happens on the first lap of a race, we can't give it to Lewis Hamilton's breathtaking manuever at the turn 1, lap 1, where he started outside of HWMNBN, then dove underneath, passing the Renault AND Trulli AND Heidfeld, all in one go.  No, instead, we're giving the MOTR to Heidfeld and HWMNBN for their sequence on lap 4.  Both were behind David Coulthard's Chin on the short straight, and coming on strong.  Heidfeld went right of The Chin, HWMNBN went left, and we had three-wide racing for a bit. 

The Chin was probably apoplectic as Heidfeld went by, as he did a fine job of slamming the door on HWMNBN going into the turn.  The Renault driver simply kept his foot in, and over the course of the next two turns and a short chute, got round the Red Bull.  A gem of driving prowess from both Heidfeld and HWMNBN, though in different ways.

*MOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE:  They can't all be gems, and the Mooooo-ooove celebrates the cow-like waddling that all F1 drivers display at one time or another.  This race, the prize goes to Felipe Massa, who threw away a sure podium and a possible win simply by letting his rear-end pass his front-end on lap 31, turn 8.  At the time, he was only a couple of seconds behind Kimi, but 20 seconds clear of Kubica.  Even a simple spin would have been recoverable, but Massa went the extra mile by sliding offtrack, rolling backwards on the asphalt runoff area for a few lengths, then finding a big enough pile of gravel to high-center himself.  He then proceeded to dig himself in for a few seconds.

Nicely done, lad... guess that lack of traction controll is a b*tch, huh?

*DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

more...

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March 22, 2008

F1 Quals: Sepang 2008!

Ouch, that's gonna hurt.  First, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovaleininnie miss the front row, with Heikki being third, Lewis fourth behind Massa and Kimi.

That's bad enough, but both McLarens were then hit with a five-spot penalty for impeding rival drivers during Q3.  As is usual, when they finished their final qual laps before Q3's time ran out, they immediately slowed down to conserve fuel.  Unfortunately for them, they didn't realize that both HWMNBN and Grizzly Nick Heidfeld crossed the line with a few seconds to spare, and both were pushing to improve their grid position.  About halfway through the lap, Heidfeld and HWMNBN had to zig off the driving line to dodge the two McLarens.  In fact, they had to thread the needle between the McLarens (on the line) and two other cars on the far side of the track.

As a result, the stewards declared that the McLarens forced their rivals to slow up, which is a real no-no.   That drops them to eight and nine on the grid, with a lot of quick cars between them and the front.

To be frank, they deserve it, too.

The provisional grid is as follows:
1. Felipe Massa, Ferrari
2. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari
3. Jarno Trulli, Toyota
4. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber
5. Grizzly Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber
6. Mark Webber, Red Bull
7. HWMNBN, Renault
8. Heikki Kovalaininnie, McLaren
9. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren
10. Timo Glock, Toyota
11. Jenson Button, Honda
12. David Coulthard's Chin, Red Bull
13. Nelson (Don't Call Me Junior) Piquet, Renault
14. Rubens Barrichello, Honda
15. Sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso
16. Nico Rosberg, Williams
17. Giancarlo Fisichella, Farce India
18. SeaBass, Toro Rosso
19. Takuma Sato, Super Aguri
20. Adrian Sutil, Farce India
21. Ant Davidson, Super Aguri
22. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams (after his 10-spot penalty for buttsecks running into Robert Kubica's BMW behind a safety car last race)

It's looking more and more like Trulli and his Toyota are for real as far as pace goes.  Of course, Jarno is a good qual-bad race sort of guy, so we'll see.  One also gets the feeling that BMW is going to take a couple of races this year... they may not quite be as fast as the Big Two, but they're close.

And then there's the weather forecast.  The entire quals session was under rain watch, though it never came.  The race is under the same situation, with an 80% chance of thunderstorms during the race, with a high of 87oF.  That can't be pleasant to drive in... but it could give us one of those wonderful races where anything can happen.  We'll see Sunday!

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March 21, 2008

F1 Practice: Sepang 2008!

So you're driving along and you blow a turn, wind up off-track.  Happens all the time.  No big deal, particularly because you're on an asphalt runoff area... you just steer yourself to come back on track as fast as possible.  The only problem, and it's not that much of one, is that there's a curb in front of you.  No sweat.

Oh.  Dear.
Except the backside of the curbs at Sepang are, it seems, two feet tall and made of razorblades and C4.

Red Bull Gives Tires Wings.
Officially, David Coulthard's Chin suffered a steering failure.  Yes, having your suspension shatter like a window with a baseball through it could be considered "steering failure."  This could have been a dreadfully serious incident, however, as wheel tethers are not supposed to fail under any circumstances, yet there's a Red Bull right-front flying in a graceful arc away from the scene of the crime.  It wasn't THAT bad of an accident, guys.

The only real news to come out of the practice sessions was that Ferrari engines seem to be having more problems.  Kimi had a shutdown in P1, SeaBass had problems in both sessions (the second of which impressively caused his engine to seize solid), and one of the Farce India cars was ill, too.  That can't be encouraging to Ferrari proper.

Of course Ferrari is denying there's any problem at all.  We'll see, won't we?  The quals are on Saturday, and Lewis Hamilton's McLaren had fast lap of the day, and zero problems on track at all.  This might be getting ugly, and it couldn't happen to a nicer buncha guys than Ferrari.

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Random Anime Picture #14


Orange Princess
-ARIA the Origination, ep09

Over at Civilis' place, I said that Alice had become my favorite character sometime in season 2, and that the recent string of episodes about her had cemented that feeling.

So when the events of episode 09 played out, I will admit to doing something much more appropriate for a college hoops game than for the laid-back ARIA...

Cheering.

I know this means that the series is heading into it's last episodes, and that certainly makes me sad, but if that's the cost for seeing (and hearing!) episode 09, it'll be worth it.

It's been a rough couple of weeks here at The Pond, what with the cold, and the tooth extraction (which had a complication that entailed an emergency visit to the oral surgeon... on a Saturday night, too), and End-of-Fiscal-Year at the Duck U. Bookstore, and there's a problem that I'm not at liberty to discuss but is extremely worrisome to me (more than the others combined, actually).  In other words, life has blown chunks recently.

This episode didn't make it all go away, but it did allow me to (mostly) forget about the problems for a while.

And Alice smiled.

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March 20, 2008

The Melancholy of Ducks In Anime



-Ouran High School Host Club, ep07.

I forgot just how much fun Ouran is.  Even though I've got new episodes of Clannad, ARIA,  and Bamboo Blade to watch, and I somehow fell three weeks behind on Kimikiss,  I guess I felt like something else.

On a whim, I brought up ep01 of Ouran... and wound up watching six more. 

I don't usually marathon a show; three or four is my usual maximum at any one time.  Kanon and Azumanga Daioh seem to be the only series that I can sit and watch the whole run of (though I did watch 10 episodes of Clannad when I was sick a couple of weeks ago, that was more because I was testing my new DVD player's reaction to a high-complexity dual-layer burned disc... or, rather, two of them), but if I didn't have to work in the morning, I might find that Ouran would join them.

Which is so strange, because the pointy-chin style of show usually doesn't interest me at all.  But then, Ouran breaks a lot of rules in the first place, doesn't it?

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March 17, 2008

F1 on SPEED!: Malaysia!

UPDATE: All listed start times are confirmed to be correct; practice runs 90 minutes, quals two hours, the race (including pre-race) is 2.5 hours long.

It appears that someone at the FIA actually listened to the plaintive wails echoing throughout the world last year.  As incredible at it may seem, in 2007 we went THREE WEEKS between the Aussie and the Malaysian GPs, waaaay too long for fans and teams alike, I'd wager.  One week, though?  Plenty long enough for us fans!

We start with Practice LIVE from 1am to 230am on the morning of Friday, March 21st.  Maybe a little too early to watch as it happens, but what can you do when the action is happening on the other side of the planet?

Now, here's where it gets tricky.  See, as I mentioned last week, speedtv.com recently revamped their entire website, including the tv schedule page.  While most of the site works just fine, the schedule page is pretty much broken.  So while the listed time for F1 Quals LIVE is 1am to 230am on Saturday, March 22nd, I'd be careful about setting your VCR for those times, exactly.

The same applies to the LIVE race times... it's listed at 130am to 4am, Sunday March 23rd, but again, the schedule actually claims it's the practice from Australia, too, so...

However, I think I'm on pretty secure ground when I state that the REPLAY of the race is from 1230pm to 3pm on Sunday, March 23rd.  That's Easter Sunday, of course, so gather your family around the screen!

Finally, I can't NOT post this screenshot from the ITV coverage of the Aussie GP:

Awkward... very, very awkward...
Okay, caption contest!  Put yours in the comments!

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March 16, 2008

F1 UPDATE!: AUSTRALIA 2008!

Ahhhhh, the first race of a season... always full of wonder and questions.  Who'll be good, who's bad, who'll surprise and disappoint?  Does the offseason testing mean anything, or is it all window-hanging?  Let's find out, and get right to the updatin'!!!

*WELCOME BACK:  If all the races were going to be like this, there'd be a lot more fans of Formula 1 out there.  While the winner wasn't really ever in too much doubt, everything behind the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton was up in the air all day.  This race, you saw some of the best driving you'll ever witness, as well as some of the worst, sometimes from the same person.  The reliability of the cars came into question with 14 racers ending up on the side of the track due to accident or breakdown (there was also one driver DQ'd).  To be fair, the air temps were hovering around 100oF. all day, and that's really tough on these cars, but still and all.  Now, since it's the first race of the year, you can't really put too much stock in the overall results... but boy, was it fun.

*WHAT THE...?:  Last season, Ferrari swept the Driver's and Constructor's Championships (with a little help from the FIA's exclusion of McLaren) in a solid display of how to do things in Formula 1.  In this race, however, Ferrari looked more like Joe's Garage And Lube Racing.  Massa running out of fuel, Kimi discovering that it's easy to pass when you don't hit the brakes (but hard to make the upcoming turn), then that it's good to have your tires on the track when you decelerate.  Then there were the disorganized pit decisions that Ferrari made (why keep Kimi out on the track during a yellow when everybody in the park knew he'd have to pit in a couple of laps anyway?).  Basically, Ferrari looked amateurish, and they were lucky to have earned a single point today... and it took a DQ ahead of them to get that.  One imagines Ron Dennis is smirking tonight.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Lewis Hamilton, McLaren.  A 10 second lead by lap 15, a 30 second lead late, he was only out of first place for 5 laps due to pit-lane rotations.  While Kubica gave him a challenge at the start (you can't be any closer to each other without being naked), that only really lasted for two or three laps.  After that, the only question was would Hamilton keep it on the track and would it hold together?  The answer to both was yes, and Lewis ran away with it.  His first stint was particularly impressive, setting and resetting Fast Lap on laps 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15 and 17.  That's domination.

*TEAM OF THE RACE: Williams.  Nico Rosberg gets a podium, Kaz Nakajima in the points, and the only team other than McLaren to get both cars to the end of the race?  Considering how miserable a season Williams had last year, it's good to see them have a good race for once.  McLaren gets an honorable mention for their Win-5th, which is nice, but they've got to be kicking themselves for losing a great chance to steal a march on Ferrari.

*MOVE OF THE RACE:  On lap 57 of 59, Heikki Kovelaineininnie was challenging Renault's HWMNBN for 4th place.  Considering that HWMNBN drives a very wide car, and the antipathy he has toward McLaren, there's no chance that Heikki would have an easy pass, and it wasn't.  But it WAS a clean, firm, and impressive move.  That Heikki threw it away a half-lap later by pressing the pit-lane limiter on the front straightaway (allowing HWMNBN to blow past the suddenly slow McLaren) takes nothing away from the move.

*MOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE:  Celebrating the bovine lurking inside every F1 driver, the Mooooo-ooove is given to the driver or team that has the clumsiest moment of the race.  This week, Timo Glock's Toyota slid a little too far out of a turn, got into the grass, and wallowed around in a more-or-less uncontrolled fashion.  It should have been fine, if embarrassing, but this is Melbourne's Albert Park.  When it's not being used for the Grand Prix, it's just an ordinary (if large) park/golf course/lake facility.  Glock skittered across the grass, crossed a strip of asphalt, and hit a very tall lip back onto the grass.  The result?  Well... not good:

Avert your eyes, women and children...
Mental note: F1 cars are not meant to be dropped.  It took Glock a long time to get out of the cockpit, undoubtably with a very sore back.  Maybe his Mooooo-oooove will help sooth the pain.

*DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:
more...

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March 15, 2008

Beware The Ides Of March!



What, you thought I'd have guys in togas stabbing each other instead?

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March 14, 2008

All's Well: Toof Update.

First off, forgive any typographicasl errors that my be contained herein, but the vicodin is kcikin' my arse and I'm for bed as soon as this post is done.

The toof extraction went smoothly, took the usual amount of time, and has been accompanied by a remarkable small amount of pain.  There's been some, of course, but the vicodin has ruthlessly stomped that into submission for me.  It's making my fingers move not entirely as I will them, however, as well as making me extremely groggy.  "DOn't operate power tools or heavy machinery" indeed.

I DID get to watch Aussie Quals, but I'll be rewatching it Saturday afternoon so I can actually comprehend what I was seeing (the vicodin was really overstepping it's boundaries).  Again, I'm not sure if there'llbe a post on the quals session, or if it'll blend into the F1 UPDATE!.

Short version: Hamilton (McLaren) and Kubica (BMW) are the front row, Heikki (McLaren) is 3rd, Massa (Ferrari) is 4th.  Raikkonen is SIXTEENTH after a mechanical failure on the circuit prevented him from makign the pitlane.  He had made it to Q2, but because he couldn't coax his car back into the pit area after the failure, he wasn't allowed to continue (the failure having occurred on track by the definition of tte term.  If he had managed to roll about 15 more feet, no problems other than the breakdown).  Sebastian Vettel has given Toro Rosso their first Dry-weather Q3 ever.  SeaBass didn't make it to Q2, which wasn't a suprise to me... first race, after all.

SuperAguri was 20 and 22, which is poor, but considering that they weren't even sure they'd be racing at all until about Tuesday, it's not bad at all.

Okay, The Duck is going to bed.  Thaks, everybody!

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March 13, 2008

F1 Practice: Australia 2008!

The F1 Circus has returned!  Today was the first day of the Australian Grand Prix weekend, and the howl of engines at 19000 rpm echoed thru Albert Park, Melbourne once again.

As it was practice, we couldn't really learn anything of true substance, but there are a few conclusions we can draw from the day's activities:

1) Some Things Never Change.  Ferrari and McLaren were, for the most part, fastest on track... just like last year.  For example, Lewis Hamilton was the fastest in session 2, almost a full second ahead of everybody else.  Expect to see the Big Two repeat their dominance this season.

2) Some Things DO Change.  The fight in the midpack looks like it's going to be wild.  Mark Webber's Red Bull was second quickest today, and while we can't be sure that it wasn't just a low fuel speed run, the fact that David Coulthard's Chin was fifth seems to indicate that it's no fluke.  The Williams (by the way, it isn't dark blue... it's black!)looked solid, and Toyota looked like they'd be high-midpack too.  Renault, though, blew chunks;  HWMNBN could only muster 13th best.  What a shame, huh?  Surprise of the day, though, has to go to Giancarlo Fisichella and Force India... they managed 9th fastest (and the car looks even better than I originally thought).

3) The Race Is Gonna Be Ugly.  The removal of traction control led to an incredible amount of skids, slides, twitches and spins.  It might as well have been "2 Fast 2 Furious: Melbourne Drift" out there.  Hamilton took one turn practically sideways, yet you never thought he was out of control... his opinion may vary, however.  EVERYBODY went off at one time or another, with Jarno Trulli (and his all-new, still lousy, hairstyle) beaching his Toyota near the end of the session.  The first couple of laps are going to be true adventures.

4) The Legendary Announce Team Is Already In Midseason Form.  Who else would bring you the news that David Coulthard's Chin a) buys 40 pair of a particular Australian brand of underwear when he comes to Melbourne, and b) he wears size small.  We were also informed that Flavio Briatore, team principal of Renault, is going to marry his girlfriend in about six months... "She's a lingerie model.  Flavor Flav, however, is not."
Thanks for the clarification, guys.

This is gonna be fun.

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March 12, 2008

F1 Pr0n: Toyota Put One Over On Us!

F1 UPDATE! has discovered that Toyota was spoofing earlier when they rolled out their so-called "TF108."  Jarno Trulli debuted their REAL car today in Melbourne, and we've got an almost-exclusive picture!  Click below...

more...

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O RLY?

Astro claims to have 'defined' Kyoto Animation over at his place.


Uh, okay, Astro, whatever you say...

...but I think there's some people who just might disagree with you...


...yep, all that's missing is the snow, all right...


...maybe, just maybe, his assessment is a leeeeeetle bit off, neh?

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March 10, 2008

F1 on SPEED: Melbourne!

Oh, did it feel good to type that title just now!

The first race of the season is coming up on us like we're on the starting grid and the red lights are turning on, and we're back for our fourth year to tell you everything you need to know (and lots of stuff you don't).

And it all starts with this post... the excitement is palpable, the air is thick with anticipation, and we're simply padding this paragraph now, so lets right get to it!

This being Australia, everything is off-kilter for us here in the States.  Our first taste of the new season starts Thursday, March 13th, with the second Friday Practice session, LIVE, from 10pm to 1130pm.  There does not appear to be a replay scheduled, but be aware that the good folks at Speedtv.com have recently revamped their website and the online schedule is still a bit gorked.  Still, it's F1, folks, you know you'll be watching it live...

Next on tap is Saturday Qualifying, on our TV sets LIVE on Friday, March 14th, from 10pm to 12midnight. They've tinkered with the format (again), so no more fuel burnoff runs during Q3... which means no more mad scrambles for the pit-out, probably... and that's a good thing in our books.

Saturday, March 15th, from 1030p to 11p, brings us Inside Grand Prix, still sponsored by Allianz and still featuring Mr. Snootyvoice and his superciliously dulcet tones.  But then... then... it's time.

Time for the Legendary Announce Team's coverage of the Australian Grand Prix LIVE from Melbourne, from 11pm to 130am.  There's a replay on Sunday, March 16th, from 1230p to 3pm, too, for those of you who can't make it for the live coverage, of course.

It's the beginning of the 2008 Formula 1 season... and we here at F1 UPDATE! will give you our usual outstanding coverage* until the final checkered flag drops.  And it all begins now!


*Despite this, please keep visiting.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:19 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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