September 04, 2018
F1 Update: Italy 2018
The tifosi were all a-twitter over the possibilities facing them as the Great F1 Circus pulled onto the grid. Their beloved Ferrari drivers, Kimi Raikkonen and Seb Vettel, were perched on the front row, with the Finn having put in the fastest lap in F1 history to grab pole. Further, everybody knew they had the best car, having slowly but surely moved past their rivals in silver, Mercedes. Those two worthies held the second row, but Lewis Hamilton held the lead in the driver's championship. Behind them, the rest of the field could only look on in disgust at the way this had become a two-tier sport: the big guys, and everybody else. How did all this work out in the end? THIS is your F1Update! for the 2018 Grand Prix of Italy!
Next time we'll be in Singapore! See ya then.
*START: "You cannot win a race on the first lap, but you can lose it." So it is written in the Gospel of St Fangio the Quick. And lo, it did come to pass when Seb Vettel, trying to defend against Hamilton in the second chicane, banged into the side of the Mercedes. The next thing we knew, there was a cloud of smoke and the Ferrari driver was back in 17th, for all intents and purposes out of contention. Which left Raikonnen in the lead, Hamilton in second, DH Verstappen's Red Bull in third and unable to keep up with the first two, and Valterri Bottas in the other Merc in fourth.
*STRATEGERY: On Lap 20, Raikonnen pitted from the lead. Hamilton's pit wall informed him that it was now "Hammer Time." The idea being that if Hamilton could hammer out a few quick laps, he could close the overall time gap to the actual leader, Raikkonen, enough that he could pit and return to the track in the lead. This is basic strategy, and it usually succeeds when you're talking about a driver the quality of Lewis Hamilton. Which of course means that it didn't work. Mercedes left Hamilton out on track until Lap 28, by which time he had actually lost five seconds to the Ferrari driver. The Ferrari driver who was in second place. He was there instead of in the lead because Bottas had been promoted to 1st during the pitstop rotation, though he had yet to stop. Which was all part of Merc's plan, probably ginned up on a napkin right then and there.
*AGONY: For the next seven or eight laps, Raikkonen tried to get past his fellow Finn. For seven or eight laps he failed, and burned his tires in the process. All the while, the Finn fight had allowed Hamilton to close the gap to the Ferrari driver. Bottas had obviously been told to slow things down, act as a rollling roadblock while sacrificing any chance to win the race himself. This he did beautifully, driving a wide car while staying just far enough ahead that the Ferrari driver would almost have to push... it was just right there! Nothing worked. When Bottas finally peeled off into the pits on Lap 36, Hamilton had gotten close enough to be a threat.
*TOWARDS A NEW LEADER: And yet, Hamilton didn't push matters. He just stayed close, ready to jump if Raikkonen made a mistake, but holding a little bit in reserve. His pit wall had told him that the race would be won or lost on tires, and his opponent had already savaged his. So Hamilton bided his time, taking a tenth of a second off the lead here, a little bit more there, lap after lap just stalking the Red Car. And then on Lap 45, Hamilton breezed by as neatly as you please, and the Finn had no tires left to counterattack with.
*THE END: It was all a matter of formality then. Raikkonen had so badly hurt his tires that he was losing over a second per lap to the new leader. And in some small way, Mercedes' strategy of sacrificing Bottas on the altar of Hamilton actually turned out to be a benefit for Ferrari. Once Bottas returned to the race after pitting, he was stuck in 4th place behind DH Verstappen's Red Bull. Bottas of course tried to get past the Dutchman, and twice it looked like he would succeed. On the first try, Verstappen cut a corner and got away with it. The second time, he actually swerved stiffly towards the side of the Finn's Merc. This, he did not get away with, and he was soon handed a five second penalty to be tacked on to his final time. While Verstappen did cross the finish line third, the penalty meant that he was dropped back to fifth. Bottas, of course, was in third, but there, within five seconds of Verstappen at the end, was Seb Vettel, who did take fourth. But because Bottas had been stuck behind the Red Bull, that meant he couldn't take the fight to the gimpy Ferrari for second place. Still, it seems likely that Mercedes was okay with trading second place for third when it got them the overall victory.
*TIFOSI PFUI: During the post-race interviews/podium ceremony, the tifosi booed Hamilton, and not for the first time. This time felt particularly egregious, however. Indeed, no less a voice than ex-Ferrari chief Luca di Montezemolo went on record saying that he was "disgusted" by the tifosi's behavior. Not the best way to end what was a rather exciting race.
Next time we'll be in Singapore! See ya then.
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September 03, 2018
F1U! Where, Wonderduck?
I ended up sleeping instead of doing the F1U! for Monza. It was a good race, well worth your time to watch it if you can. But this weekend has either been annoying (Saturday), or relaxing (Sunday, Monday).
The plan had been to do it Monday morning... get up, do morning things, sit down at the computer and bang the writeup out... but I didn't actually get up until 1130a. So I got up, did morning things in what technically turned out to be the afternoon, had lunch, put together what is basically a one-shelf bookcase, though that's not what I'll be using it for, fiddled about, then I took a nap around about 630p. I had intended to to wake up at 9p and do the writeup then.
Intentions are not what happened. I actually woke up at 11p. Which brings us to now. But it was a nice nap, and with the office on mandatory 10 hours of OT this week even with the holiday, a nap that is likely to be needed.
I did try to get some of that OT in on Saturday, but the system was down. The system was down. The system was down. Down down down. Zakazakazakazakazaka system systemsystemsystem. The system was down. Which pissed me off to no end, since I had willingly come in on a day off to do work. Okay, not that willingly. Which made it worse, actually!
So, yeah, OT sucks. I'll do F1U! on Tuesday. Hope y'all had a good holiday off, or for my non-US readers, a good monday.
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September 01, 2018
F1 Quals: Italy 2018
It looked like rain. The official FIA Weather Clowns gave it an 80% chance of rain during Qualifying. For once, being underneath the giant Ferrari banner in the main grandstand didn't seem like it'd be all that bad. But did it rain? Or did we get full speed, athletic-spheroids-to-the-dividing-structure action like we hoped, for Monza is the one track on the calendar where rain takes away from, as opposed to adding to, the spectacle. So which was it? Here's the provisional grid for the 2018 Grand Prix of Italy:
| Pos | Driver | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:20.722 | 1:19.846 | 1:19.119 | |
| 2 | 1:20.542 | 1:19.629 | 1:19.280 | |
| 3 | 1:20.810 | 1:19.798 | 1:19.294 | |
| 4 | 1:21.381 | 1:20.427 | 1:19.656 | |
| 5 | 1:21.381 | 1:20.333 | 1:20.615 | |
| 6 | 1:21.887 | 1:21.239 | 1:20.936 | |
| 7 | 1:21.732 | 1:21.552 | 1:21.041 | |
| 8 | 1:21.570 | 1:21.315 | 1:21.099 | |
| 9 | 1:21.834 | 1:21.667 | 1:21.350 | |
| 10 | Veruca | 1:21.838 | 1:21.494 | 1:21.627 |
| 11 | 1:21.783 | 1:21.669 | ||
| 12 | 1:21.813 | 1:21.732 | ||
| 13 | 1:21.850 | 1:22.568 | ||
| 14 | 1:21.801 | DNF | ||
| 15 | 1:21.280 | DNF |
||
| 16 | 1:21.888 | |||
| 17 | AMX-30 | 1:21.889 | ||
| 18 | 1:21.934 | |||
| 19 | 1:22.048 | |||
| 20 | waffle | 1:22.085 |
See that 1:19.119 up there? That works out to an average speed of 163.785mph, which makes it the fastest lap in Formula 1 history. Please note that both Vettel and Hamilton also broke the lap record in qualifying, but the Finnish driver pipped them both. Sadly, the SKY announcers couldn't sound excited if you set them both on fire. At least, not in any way that makes you feel it. Yes, I'd still much rather have the Legendary Announce Team broadcasting my F1.
If you look closely at the top 10 places on the grid, you'll see they are occupied by cars from eight different manufacturers. I personally cannot remember the last time I saw that. Only McLaren and Sauber are absent. But the Swiss team has a very good reason for their performance today...
"Hi, I'm Sony Ericcson. *record scratch* Yep, that's me.
You're probably wondering how I got myself into this situation..."
In Friday's Practice 2, Ericcson was approaching Turn 1 at somewhere around 210mph or so, nothing out of the ordinary at all. Unbeknown by him his DRS flap had actually over-opened, meaning that it was stuck that way when it came time to apply the brakes. Doing so is supposed to automatically close the DRS flap, thus increasing downforce and allowing the car to do things like slow down or turn in a controlled manner. Instead, the Sauber immediately speared to the left, giving the armco a 15G hit. Then the right side tires dug into the rain-softened grass and dirt, sending the car into a tumbling, spinning, somersaulting ride that reportedly covered some 700meters. The video is terrifying to watch in its violence:
During this gymnastic routine, he pulled 28Gs. Once it ended however, he just stood up and walked away. The trip in the medical car that followed was required by the regulations; any time a driver suffers an impact that sensors record as being over a certain g-force level, they're going to the medical center whether they're hurt or not.
Sauber immediately called Charles AMX-30 into the pits, only to discover that his DRS equipment had the same problem, it just hadn't happened yet. Ericcson's car had to be rebuilt from the ground up... even the chassis was ruined. So while Sauber is usually kinda slow, they had a good excuse this time.
You'll also note the two "DNF" entries in Q2. Both Smiley Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg had massive gridspot penalties... Hulkenberg for his causing of the massive crash at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix, and Smiley for engine component changes. Both knew there was no point to going out and burning tires when they were going to end up at the back anyway, so neither did more than an installation lap and back to the pits.
So, it'll be a fast race tomorrow... and a fast one, too, if you know what I mean! F1U! will be along sometime thereafter. See ya then!
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August 30, 2018
F1 on TV: Monza 2018 Blah Blah Blah You Know The Drill...
I'm grumpy as heck at my boss right now, and I'm very, very tired of doing overtime. Getting home at 10pm just so I can eat something then go back to sleep? All work and no play makes Wonderduck a dull waterfowl.
Speaking of playing, the F1 Circus is in Italy this weekend. Italy, Italy... which track is that again?
Oh yeah, right! Formula 1's answer to NASCAR, Monza! At Spa-Francopants, something like 72% of a lap is run at full throttle. At Monza, it's 114%. It's a fast circuit, is all I'm saying. After they made some changes to Parabolica (aka Turn 11 on the map above), it's no longer the end of your race if you go off there, and that's a shame. Unless you go REALLY off, in which case we'll send out Fluffles the cat to cover up your car in the kitty litter.
Sadly, it looks like Friday practices are going to be very wet, if not completely rained out. I say "sadly" because that's probably going to be the only rain we see. On the other hand, with a dry track we've got a good chance to see something that hasn't happened since 2010: Ferrari winning its home race. I can't even remember the last time before that for a Ferrari victory at Monza, so... history in the making?
Well, whatever. I'll have a Quals report up sometime Saturday... still working out details of having a meal with the folks, maybe Saturday, maybe Sunday... and I expect I'll get some sort of F1U! up after the race.
See ya then!
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August 27, 2018
F1 Update: Belgium 2018
"I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out!" THIS is your F1U! for the 2018 Grand Prix of Belgium!
*LAP 1, TURN 1: We here at F1U! can completely understand if you thought the race at Spa-Francopants was exciting, because holy frijoles was a first lap! The race began with the usual charge towards the tightest first turn in Formula 1, La Source. You come running in at high speed, then immediately slow down to Toyota Camry speeds, turn greater than 90° to the right, then go galloping off towards Eau Rouge. That's what's supposed to happen, and for the the frontrunners, that's what occurred. And then you had Nico Hulkenberg. He was starting 18th because of a power unit change, and decided that he was going to make up all the lost places right away. At least, that's what we here at F1U! assume happened, because he went careening into La Source with all four tires smoking from locked up brakes after apparently forgetting that there were other cars on track. The result was... something.
Hulkenberg rammed the back of the McLaren of Fernando Alonso. This got the McLaren all sorts of wrong, and contact with Charles AMX-30's Sauber sent him airborne. The car went up and over first the side of, then the front of, the Sauber, dealing a frightful amount of damage to Alonso's chariot. However, since he came down correct-side up, this was not something that needed to be worried about. As it turned out, AMX-30 was very nearly decapitated by the front-right wheel of the McLaren when the entire car slid over the Sauber's HALO from right to left. Indeed, the halo snapped the right-front suspension of the orange and blue car as it went past AMX-30's head.
The view from the nose of AMX-30's Sauber, looking backwards.
We here at F1U! are not overly fond of the new safety device... it looks all sorts of ugly... but we'll give credit where credit is due: there's an excellent chance it saved a promising young driver's life today. But that wasn't all that happened, oh heavens no! See, as Alonso's car began its wild journey towards the sky, it snipped off the rear wing of Smiley Ricciardo's Red Bull. That caused the Aussie's vehicle to contact Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari in passing, destroying its right-rear tire. Both cars limped to the pits, both cars got repaired (you don't often see a rear wing replacement in F1!) and went back out. Both cars would be forced to retire soon after, meaning Hulkenberg's Wild Ride was responsible for destroying a full quarter of the Belgian Grand Prix field! That deserves a wow, at least!
*THE STRAIGHT: As one can imagine, a safety car was called out, but not immediately. This gave us just enough time for the leaders to go charging down the Kemmel Straight, Seb Vettel's Ferrari leading Hamilton's Mercedes leading the two Force Indias. Except that makes it sound like they were nose to tail... they weren't. No, as they came to the end of the straight, doing something like 180-190mph, they were four wide.
False Esteban! was on the inside for the approaching right-hand turn, but had to back off since Vettel had the racing line. Lawsuit Perez on the outside was just beaten into the turn by Hamilton, and wound up third. Just for the record? NASCAR doesn't usually go four wide ever: that way lays madness. Just sayin'.
*SAFETY IN SPEED: The safety car lasted for four or five laps, an eternity around the 7+ km long Spa circuit. And then came the restart. Vettel did a fantastic job on snookering Hamilton, leaving him desperately gasping for air once things went green again. How fantastic? He had a full second lead on the Mercedes into Turn 1. That's pretty impressive. Sadly, it was so impressive Mercedes basically pulled the plug on trying to catch the Ferrari. Oh, they tried for a while, but once it became clear that Vettel could keep the gap at any amount of time that he wanted they stopped trying. Gotta protect that engine, don'tchaknow? And once DH Verstappen made his inevitable way past the two Force India cars (they were a great story, but we knew it was coming, didn't we?), the podium was set... with over half the race to go. To be sure, there was still a little racing going on... Valterri Bottas, who started 17th in his Mercedes managed to haul himself all the way to 4th... but nothing earthshaking. In effect, the race was over by the end of the first lap.
*FORCE INDIA Ver. 2.0: With their fifth-sixth place finish today, (Racing Point) Force India scored 18 points in the Constructor's Championship. They are now in 9th place, ahead of Williams, only one point behind Sauber, and 12 points behind Toro Rosso for 7th. Amusingly, they are also ahead of (Deadbeat) Force India, in 11th with zero points. Realistically they could get as high as 6th place... and wouldn't that be a performance with only half-a-season to do it in?
Right, Monza is this coming weekend... prepare for speedspeedspeed!
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August 25, 2018
F1 Quals: Belgium 2018
Overcast, gray and cloudy. No, not the skies over Duckford for most of the past week, the skies over Spa-Francopants today! The FIA Weather Minstrels said there was a 90% chance of rain during today's Quals, which meant we had a great chance of it not raining ever again at Spa... that's how inaccurate those predictions usually are. But rain it did, and hoo boy, did it pay off! Here's the provisional grid for tomorrow's Grand Prix of Belgium:
| Pos | Driver | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:42.977 | 1:41.553 | 1:58.179 | |
| 2 | 1:43.035 | 1:41.501 | 1:58.905 | |
| 3 | 1:44.003 | 1:43.302 | 2:01.851 | |
| 4 | Lawsuit | 1:44.004 | 1:43.014 | 2:01.894 |
| 5 | 1:43.597 | 1:43.042 | 2:02.122 | |
| 6 | 1:42.585 | 1:41.533 | 2:02.671 | |
| 7 | 1:43.199 | 1:42.554 | 2:02.769 | |
| 8 | 1:43.604 | 1:43.126 | 2:02.939 | |
| 9 | 1:43.834 | 1:43.320 | 2:04.933 | |
| 10 | 1:42.805 | 1:42.191 | DNS | |
| 11 | 1:44.221 | 1:43.844 | ||
| 12 | 1:44.153 | 1:43.865 | ||
| 13 | AMX-30 | 1:43.654 | 1:44.062 | |
| 14 | 1:43.846 | 1:44.301 | ||
| 15 | 1:44.145 | DNS |
||
| 16 | 1:44.489 | |||
| 17 | 1:44.917 | |||
| 18 | , | 1:44.998 | ||
| 19 | Veruca S | 1:45.134 | ||
| 20 | 1:45.307 |
Sure, the top two positions aren't anything to get worked up about, except that Hamilton becomes the first driver to ever have five poles at Spa (big deal). But what happened next... now there's the interesting stuff!
You may remember my offhand comment that Force India went into receivership and nearly died, yes? Well, while it had been purchased, there turned out to be something of a confusion, as so often occurs when money is involved in Formula 1. I've read everything I could on the matter, and what I THINK it works out to is that the purchasing group bought the team, but not the actual FIA Entry to allow the team onto the grid. Or something like that. So here's this group of moneymen that has just purchased everything they needed to have a Formula 1 team, but due to some technicality or other, they couldn't do anything with it.
As I left for work Thursday morning Pond Central Time, nobody was sure if the pink cars were going to be on the grid. They were there, their trucks and motorhomes without liveries, but that was all they were. Various votes were taken, and the teams unanimously decided to allow them to race. But, since the team had changed hands, the decision was made to declare them a new team and Force India, now known as Racing Point Force India, has had their constructor's championship points stripped. Their drivers kept their points, however. Because of this, an amusing conundrum arose. See, the technical regulations say nothing about a situation like this. An argument was put forth that, since they were a new team, the engine allocations for the cars should be reset to zero... that is, all the engine pieces Force India had used (three ICE apiece for each driver, the annual limit before penalties start accruing) would no longer count against the team since they were being considered a new entity! After some frantic hemming and hawwing, the logical answer was reached: since the drivers were being allowed to keep their points, so too should the engine count carry over. This is, of course, the right answer, but I think they came to it for the wrong reason. I think it was made clear a couple of years ago that the engine count is tied to the car, not the driver. Otherwise, a driver put in the seat to replace another would have zero engine usage. In any case, logic says this is the correct answer, but logic usually has little place in Formula 1.
The upshot of all of this is that Force India, after a week where nobody knew if they were going racing or not, after a summer break where nobody knew if they were going to exist as a team or not, took third and fourth on the grid today. I think that's got to count up there with the greatest performances of all time, right? From dead to Row 2 in one week? Hell yeah.
Anyway, the rains DID come, just seconds after Q3 began and everybody went out on slicks. And the rains came in buckets, too. Drivers were tiptoeing around that first lap, particularly after Valterri Bottas lost control of his Mercedes while driving in a straight line. He didn't hit anything, which counts as some minor miracle. Anyway, everybody dove into the pits for rain boots... everybody but Force India, either through mistake or just sheer bloody-mindedness. It didn't go well. The track was pretty much unable to be driven on with slicks, as Lawsuit Perez proved when he only just missed turning his car into very small carbon fiber shards at the top of Eau Rouge/Radillion. In what counts as a masterpiece of understatement, Perez later described it as a "pants sh*tting moment".
After crawling back around, the team was in no rush to send them back out, and for a wonder the rains stopped and the circuit immediately began to dry. Times began plummeting, and the pink cars were released at what turned out to be pretty much the perfect moment. A short span of time later, and the second row was theirs. While it's true that Force India has always done well here... remember their pole in 2009?... this has got to rank among their finest moments anyway.
Pay no attention to the massive time gap between Row 1 and 2... both Hamilton and Vettel took even greater advantage from the rapidly drying track, is all. Tomorrow's race should be a humdinger, you betcha. See ya then!
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August 21, 2018
Summer Break Is Over... Get On The Bus, Kids
Yup, Formula 1 is back for the second half of the 2018 season. As has become tradition, the first race back will be at Spa-Francopants, the longest circuit on the calendar and the race with the highest percentage of the track being on Belgian soil.
While it's yet another race, it's also going to go down in history as the start of the Fernando Alonso retirement parade. Yes, the LeMans winner announced during the break that this will be his last season in F1. Exactly what he's going to be doing is still unconfirmed... he might stay in the WEC with Toyota, he might race IndyCar full-time, that's not announced yet.
I expect he'll be in IndyCar... he only needs the 500 to win the Racing Triple Crown, after all... at which point I'm afraid I'll have to start writing his obituary for future use. There was yet ANOTHER major crash-and-injury in IndyCar, this time last weekend at Pocono. Robert Wickens got tangled up with Ryan Hunter-Reay and was launched onto the top of the outside barrier. He was nose-high, however, and it took only a few moments for him to hit one of the support posts for the safety fence. Cue rapidly disintegrating car, the pieces of which wound up taking out a few others. Wickens suffered broken legs, one arm was broken, bruised lungs, and most seriously, a broken spine and spinal cord damage. The severity of that is as of yet unknown. This is the same track where Justin Wilson was killed back in 2015, just as a coincidence.
In slightly more positive news, Pierre Ghastly was officially named as the Red Bull replacement for Smiley Ricciardo. Nobody was surprised.
So yeah, race this weekend. I'll be watching, we'll see about a writeup. See ya then!
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August 16, 2018
I Didn't Realize...
Today, we lost Aretha Franklin, unarguably a music legend no matter what you like to listen to.
I know this is how I was first exposed to her as a young duckling, but what would you expect? I was born in Chicago, Momzerduck was almost killed by The Blues Brothers, not the band but the film crew, and everybody hates Illinois Nazis.
But did you know that today in history was also when Elvis Presley died?
Sorry for posting the AMV instead of the original version, either of the remake or the original original. But I'm still amazed by the work that must have gone into the AMV, particularly because it's 15 years old.
Also on this date?
Yep. Bela Lugosi. To think that multiple generations know him only from this song... it's a shame, it really is.
Okay, yeah, pretty weak sauce for a post, but whaddya want for nuthin', a rubber biscuit?
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August 13, 2018
It's 2016 All Over Again
Last night the Cubs were facing Max Scherzer and the Washington Nationals. If you're not familiar with the National League, Scherzer is on the short list of "best NL starting pitcher." And by short, I mean "him and Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers". And for seven innings, he proved the old maxim that good pitching beats good hitting, completely shutting down the Cubs.
Meanwhile, the Nationals were having a difficult time with the Cubs newest acquisition, Cole Hamels. While not quite as sharp as Scherzer, he still had a great outing for a team that hasn't had many of those this year. Despite that, the Cubs were down 3 - 0 going into the bottom of the ninth.
The Nationals brought in reliever Ryan Madson to close it out. He got the first batter, then gave up an infield single. He hit the next batter, then coaxed a pop fly for the second out. Madson then hit another batter to load the bases. What happened next was magic.
Skip to 2:45 for the moment of a lifetime
David Bote has played a grand total of 35 games of major league ball in his career, all of them this year. He became the third player in baseball history to hit a walk-off grand slam with two outs and trailing by three... and he had two strikes on him,and he was a pinch hitter to boot. Good way to end a game.
I'm starting to get those 2016 vibes from this team, because this is exactly how the 2016 team did things. I'll take that, yeah.
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August 11, 2018
Duckford Blue
It was another late night at the job last night. 11 hours on the clock, almost 12 if you count the lunch break... by the time I finished my mandatory 10 hours of OT for the week, it was 945pm and I was the last person in the building that wasn't one of the three cleaning crew people. Even they were leaving out the back door as I was heading towards the front. Honestly, I think I had been the last person in the building since around 7pm... pretty much everybody tries to be gone as early as possible on Fridays. Except for me, of course, mostly because I enjoy singing while working and I don't want to disturb my coworkers.
Sure, that's the reason. Really. It has nothing to do with my not being able to drag my butt out of bed with any alacrity in the morning. Anyway. My work done, I grabbed my cane and headed out the door to the parking lot. Where I saw a police car sitting right behind the Duckmobile, headlights on and clearly running my plates, or whatever they do these days. Technology: ain't it grand? Immediately I began wondering what did I do wrong? Because that's the first reaction of anybody when a police officer begins an out-of-the-blue interaction with you: the police are talking to me, ergo I must have done something wrong. Even if, like me, you haven't had a traffic ticket in 32 years and the last time you were in court was for jury duty.
I began trudging towards the car, parked at the far end of a decent sized parking lot and after a long day of work... and ohbytheway, the police car too... when the police officer yelled "Is this your car?" I had to restrain an insane impulse to yell back "No, this one is," point at an empty parking spot, and start miming unlocking the door, getting in and driving away. Instead, I behaved like an actual adult and yelled back "Yes, that is my car." Another question came back: "Are you Wonderduck?" "Yes...?"
The officer backed up a bit, then drove right up next to me, driver side window to my left. He smiled, or at least that's what I inferred from the movements the big furry caterpillar on his upper lip suggested. "There's no problem, it's just that a lone car in a big darkened parking lot late on a Friday night... just thought it'd be good to check it out, y'know?" I explained myself, finishing overtime, last one in the building, yadda yadda. "Great, glad there isn't a problem. You have a good night, Mr Duck."
And he pulled away, leaving via the lot's back exit (coincidentally, the same way I usually leave). A few moments later, I see him go flying past, gumballs spinning, siren screaming.
So that was how my Friday night at work ended. Upon reflection after a day's separation, it wasn't as exciting as I thought at the time.
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August 07, 2018
Yes, I'm Still Alive! Hooray!
Overtime is really kicking my llama's arse. Weekends have been spent sleeping or doing even less than usual. Weeknights... well, I'm usually getting home between 9pm and 10.
Which is not to say I haven't been keeping eyes on things, heavens no. For example, Smiley Ricciardio is going to be leaving Red Bull at the end of the season and moving to the Renault works team. Lets face it, with golden boy DH Verstappen on the scene, Dannyric was never going to be The Man at the Bull. Whether moving to Renault will be a good career move or not remains to be seen, but at least he's free of the Dutchman. Who will be replacing him at Red Bull? I don't know, because there's a huge X-factor involved, namely that Verstappen has the ability to nix any driver the team tries to bring in. So don't be so quick to say Pierre Ghastly, current hotshoe over at Toro Rosso, my friends. He'd be totally logical, which means that DH might just say "no."
In other F1 news, Force India nearly died recently... because Daimler-Mercedes and team sponsor BWT supported FI driver Sergio Perez essentially sued his team for $4million of unpaid debt. Force India's engine manufacturer Mercedes says the team owned them around $10million, while BWT claimed that their sponsorship deal was really "just a loan." The team went into receivership, and was quickly snapped up by a group of five deep-pockets, led by Pleasant Stroll's daddy and the billionaire father of GP3 driver and FI's test driver, Nikita Mazepin. I'm pretty sure I know what the driver lineup for Force India will be in 2019.
Okay, I'm tired. More sometime soon.
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August 05, 2018
That Made Me Happy!
So I was wandering around the web earlier Saturday, just going where it took me, wound up reading some of the Fluff for Warhammer 40K again. I've discovered a WH40K writer/audiobook reader combination that I'm fascinated by of late (Aaron Dembski-Bowden and Jonathan Keeble and the Black Legion series), so I've been spending a lot of time in the 40K universe recently. Fun to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there... and if I did, I expect it'd be a very short life with a very violent end. That's just the way things are there.
Remember, these are the good guys.
Anyway, after reading more than I really ever wanted to know about the Necrons ("We're gonna need a bigger can opener..."), I somehow found myself reading about spaceflight, which took me to yootoob for some fun times watching booster-cam footage. While doing that, I realized I had never seen good footage of a real "Korolev's Cross", just KSP-based versions. So I went looking, and discovered something I didn't know existed.
As it turns out, Korolev is the B-side of a remix disc of Sputnik by Public Service Broadcasting. Clearly it belongs on their album "The Race For Space", but it's not on mine.
What a great thing to discover on a day off: a new PSB song!
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July 30, 2018
Dredd
I have spoken of the 2012 movie Dredd before, about how I thought it captured the feel and texture of the Judge Dredd universe quite well. My opinion on the film does need to be tempered by my lack of experience with the source material, but I've enough to realize that it done good. Karl Urban in particular needs praise for his performance of the title character, particularly because he never takes off the iconic helmet during the film... when was the last time you saw a movie star do that?... and is still able to bring life to the role. What I'm saying here is that if you like a good action film, or you're a fan of Judge Dredd, go watch it immediately.
However, that's not really why I'm here today. Nope, today I'm here to expose y'all to the MUSIC from Dredd. I never really noticed the music the times I've watched the film, but the soundtrack was pointed out to me by one of those "Everything Wrong" style yootoob viddys. And brother, were they right to say that the music is great!
Now I can see how people may not like the industrial/krautrock/synth/whatever aesthetic of the music. I can't define what genre it is, not really. But then, I don't much care either: I just like the music.
A lot.
Enough that I've got the soundtrack lined up on Amazon for digital purchase, that's how much.
Okay everybody, enough music. Go back to work now.
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July 26, 2018
Oh, Hey, Hungary Is This Weekend.
My least favorite circuit at a time where I'm really down on F1? I'll monitor everything, if and when anything interesting happens I'll blog about it, but whew.
This may be disappointing to my two or three remaining F1 fans but I'm really toasty around the edges and can't work up the energy right now. I love you all for sticking around, I really really do, and I hope you stick around forever.
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July 25, 2018
Note My Life
I'm still on mandatory overtime, and with Monday night spent at Best Buy bringing home Triela I'm running behind. I was on the clock for 11 hours tonight, which leaves me with 5.5 hours of OT to do by 10pm Friday.
I've got a new gaming computer, and I haven't had a chance to actually DO anything with it yet! I'm d/l'g Fallout 4 to the SSD, but that's a 25GB game... it's taking a while.
So... how's everybody over there?
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July 23, 2018
Step 3: See Step 1
The moment I expected, yet feared came Saturday. In the afternoon I started my old computer, browsed around for a couple of hours, then watched Quals for the German Grand Prix, shutting it down as I did. I then took a nap.
Saturday night, I hit the power button on my computer and... nothing. The hard drive just gave a rhythmic, constant, flashing light with no sign of life otherwise. She had finally given up the ghost after doing her best for me. Press F to pay respects.
So I spent the rest of Saturday night tearing down my computer setup, figuring out how to store the old computer until I can get around to beating the hard drive into a very small smear, the better to keep my info safe y'know? Also accomplished was removing the old 19" 1440 x 900 monitor... over 12 years old would you believe... and putting the new 24" 1080p monitor in position. And then I slept, ready to get the new computer in position and move up in the world.
This was duly accomplished around 4pm on Sunday. Everything plugged in, everything ready, I hit the power button, and...
...nothing. I tried another power cable.
...nothing. My brand new computer was DOA out of the box.
A quick run to Best Buy got me an exchange for another, this time with free setup. It only took an hour to accomplish this, an hour, two managers, two different salespeople, one customer service rep, and a sugar glider named Hugo.
I may be exaggerating part of that.
Monday rolls around, and after work I head back over to the BigBlueBox, getting there exactly on time for my appointment, and... I had to wait for a half-hour while two biddies who looked old enough to remember a time when the most complex computing device you could find was an abacus tried to understand what the tech was telling them... "power button is here on the side."
A quick demo of the new computer (it works! it works!) led to me loading it into the Duckmobile and driving home to Pond Central. At which point, I was faced with some difficulty. How do you get a 30 pound computer up a flight of stairs when you use a cane? The answer is "slowly, step by step." Carry the computer to the stairs, put it as many steps up as you can, go back to the car to get the cane, go up a couple of steps, lift the computer up another couple of steps, climb some more, repeat as many times as needed (five, in case you were wondering).
Just as an aside, at the time I returned to Pond Central, somewhere around 845pm or so, it was still in the mid-80s outside, with ridiculously high humidity, and no breeze whatsoever. As a result, Your Hero was drenched in sweat when he got the computer inside. Also exhausted: it had been a long day at work, and the whole "carrying things up stairs" gig was awkward. And painful: a poorly placed foot as I was trying to maneuver the tower through the door to Pond Central resulted in rather a lot of ankle pain. I'm hoping I didn't sprain it; we'll find that out tomorrow morning.
After taking a while to regenerate some action points, I found myself back where I had been Sunday evening: everything hooked up and just needing to hit the power button. Filled with trepidation, this I did.
Everybody, say hello to Triela.
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July 19, 2018
F1 on The ESPNs: Germany 2018
Gotta hurry on this post... again... while my old computer works and my bodyhealth stays above "miserable". Here's the track map for the home of the Grand Prix of Germany, Hockenheim:
Remember, we had no grand prix in Germany last year... in the rotating track thing that Germany has, the Nurburgring couldn't afford it. So it's Hockenheim's turn again! For the most part, it's inoffensive with a touch of "what used to be" nostalgia involved. As I always mention, back in the old days, there used to be a ridiculously high-speed section that went blasting through a forest in a semi-oval that reached from Turn 2 to Turn 6 on the new map... totally breathtaking, ridiculously dangerous. It's probably good that it's gone, but...
Here's the alleged broadcast schedule:
Saturday
Practice 3: 5a - 630a live on ESPNews
Quals: 8a - 930a live on ESPNews
Sunday
2018 Grand Prix of Germany: 8a - 1030a live on ESPN2
No promises on a F1U... if the race moves me to one, then there'll be one. If not, there won't. I'm working on it. See you soon!
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July 16, 2018
Step 2: Get New Monitor
COMPLETE!
I love Amazon Prime. After realizing that I was going to need a new monitor for my new computer, I immediately went to the Retail Giant and ordered one. It arrived today. Now, I have a great relationship with the not-receptionist at work. I tell her I've got packages coming, and she usually brings them to me once they show up.
Not today. Today, Amazon shipped the monitor in a HUGE box lined with, I dunno, sheets of lead disguised to look like crumpled paper. The thing weighed a whole bunch... not as much as the computer, true, but still a whole bunch. Too much, considering the monitor itself is allegedly only nine pounds.
I'm terrified it's too big for the available space. I know I've got the room... my measurements confirmed it... but it still feels too large.
Unfortunately, I don't know when I'm going to get to set up and go! I've got 9.5 hours of OT to do in the next four days. That means late nights at work and dear god the Windows setup process is... well, you know.
But it's here! And who knows, maybe I'll get the flu or something.
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July 15, 2018
Step 1: Get New Computer
COMPLETE!
I'll admit the name "Inspiron 5676" does nothing to make the heart beat a little faster but that's okay, I take medicines to prevent that from happening anyway. It's what's inside that counts, and the new 2nd Generation Ryzen 7 2700X is AMD's top-of-the-line processor. It has a 1TB hard-drive, but it also has a 256GB SSD, which I'm told is important these days. That's all matched up with a Radeon RX580 graphics card, which is ATI AMD's best card that isn't in "ludicrous" territory.
So what I'm saying is that this girl should be quite the performer! I'd have it hooked up already except for one little thing. That is, it only has a HDMI port to hook up a monitor and my current monitor, which is 10 years old, only has DVI. I knew this ahead of time though, and ordered a ViewSonic 24" monitor beforehand... it'll be delivered on Monday, and THEN I can get it all set up.
Darn thing weighs about 1573 pounds, though.
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July 12, 2018
Random Anime Pictures #146: SCIENCE!!!
-Cells At Work, Ep01
Who knew anime could be so educational? Cells At Work is all about the stuff inside our body, anthropomorphized. Which sounds like the most boring thing ever... who needs a boring biology class when you're watching Japanese cartoons?
Note: boring biology stuff
The simple answer is "you do." The first episode was entertaining as hell, and if the series keeps up like this... well. That would be a good thing indeed. Just be prepared for some strange looks if you try and explain it.
I mean, our main character is a red blood cell. That wears jean shorts and a cabbie hat. What's not to love?
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