F1 on NBCSN: Brazil 2016

I have made a decision.  Other than this sentence, I am not going to mention how much I despise the circuit for the 2016 Grand Prix of Brazil, Interlagos, and have for quite some time.  Let's take a look at the track map, shall we?

This place has given us some remarkable season-ending races in the past, and a victory by Nico Rosberg this weekend wraps up the Drivers Championship (there are other scenarios where he closes the contest, but that's the most likely one).  One aspect of this race that should prove to be quite dramatic is that this is Felipe Retired Massa's last home race... almost literally in his case, as he grew up very close indeed to the circuit... since he's retiring at the end of the season.  An interesting career, his... so close to winning the Championship in 2008, then came the spring to the helmet the following year, and he never quite seemed the same afterwards.  Ah well.

The Legendary Announce Team will, of course, be bringing us their usual sterling coverage live all weekend!  Here's the broadcast lineup:
Friday
Practice 2: 10a - 1130a  live on NBCSN
Saturday
Quals:   10a - 1130a  live on NBCSN
Sunday
2016 Grand Prix of Brazil:  930a - 12n  live on NBCSN

Of course, all times are Pond Central, and make sure you doublecheck them... what with the timechange, I'm not even sure what my name is, let alone what the time race happens.  F1U! will come along sometime after the race, of course.  See ya then!

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Vascilating Back To Normal

Of late, things have gotten a little off-track here at The Pond.  First came the tragic news about SDB, which threw the place into a funk.  Then there was the whole Cubs winning the World Series thing.  Following each game of the playoffs closely tended to eat up entire evenings and nights, setting me up with little time to sleep, let alone blog.  Fall anime got ignored, too... even Hibike! Euphonium 2 got left at the wayside, for heaven's sake.  I've gotten caught up on that, and I'm trying to figure out a three-episode YWA, just to bring that feature back to speed. 

It's a mess around here right now, but these have been extraordinary times.  Just bear with me.  Again.

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Cubswatch 2016: Reflection

Now that it's been a few days since the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series, I can look back and talk about the whole thing with something like restraint.  Before now, just thinking "the Cubs won the World Series" would make me break out in a huge grin and a case of the giggles.  My boss, who is also a big Cubs fan, played Eddie Vetter's love song to the Cubs, Someday We'll Go All The Way, over the intercom and it was everything I could do to not cry again.

Truth be told, it still makes me tear up.  Anyway... where was I?  Oh, right, the Cubs won the World Series, their first in 108 years.  Did you see the movie Bull Durham?  Do you remember Baseball Annie's opening monologue?  Specifically the part where she says "...there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and 108 stitches in a baseball"?  Almost enough to make you believe in things like curses and stuff like that.  Which I don't.  Never have.  It's never been about the Goat, or Bartman, or stuff like that.  It's been about lousy team management that cared more about making money than winning ballgames.  Once a real owner came on board, he hired the best people to rebuild the team from ground zero. 

And they did.  They based their team of the future around a core of hitters in the minors like Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, Willson Contreras, Jorge Soler, Addison Russell, and Javier Baez, sprinkled in some veterans like David Ross, Ben Zobrist, Anthony Rizzo, and Dexter Fowler, and then went out and obtained a pitching staff.  Not one of the Cubs starters came up through the organization... and it worked.  Obviously.  The Chicago Cubs won the World Series!

The victory parade and rally on Friday saw an estimated five million fans gather along the parade route and in Grant Park.  If that number is accurate, and it's anybody's guess if it is, it is the seventh-largest peaceful gathering of people worldwide in history.  It's the largest gathering in American history.  But to get to that point, the Cubs had to win a Game 7 against the Indians, a game that went to extra innings after they blew a 6-3 lead.  A rain delay gave the team a chance to recover their wits and score twice in the top of the 10th.  And when MVP-in-waiting Kris Bryant fielded a grounder with a smile on his face and threw it over to Anthony Rizzo at first, the Cubs had finally won one for not only themselves, but for their fans.

I'll freely admit to showing more emotion after they beat the Dodgers to earn a trip to the World Series.  After this game, I was exhausted... the way the game whipsawed back and forth was emotionally draining.  The final out was as much relief as triumph.  On paper, there was very little way the Indians could hang with the Cubs, particularly after losing two of their starting pitchers... but the playoffs usually aren't about the best team, but the hottest.  The Indians had been very hot indeed, taking three of the first four games in the series, but the depth of the Cubs showed.  One could argue that the Cubs got hot, but it really was more a case of the better team winning.  Make no mistake, the Cubs were the better team.  In fact, they had been the best team in baseball all season long.  It was only during a stretch in July when they played something like 28 games in 28 days just before the All-Star Break that they didn't have the best record in baseball, relinquishing it to the Texas Rangers for a week or so.  Beyond that, they were a massive steamroller.  Some people have suggested that this triumph changes the Cubs... that they've now lost their identity as the "lovable losers", the butt of all jokes, the "wait 'til next year" that never comes.  Maybe so.

I'm okay with that.  I haven't been happy like this since 2009.  Because 40+ years of fandom have finally been rewarded.  The Cubs have won the World Series. 

The Cubs have won the World Series.

The Cubs have won the World Series.

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Cubswatch 2016: Eamus Catuli! AC 0000000

The Chicago Cubs have won the World Series for the first time in 108 years.  I'm laughing and crying at the same time. 

I am not exaggerating when I say that this is one of the greatest moments of my life. 

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Cubswatch 2016: "...And We'll See You Tomorrow Night!"

A few days ago, the Cubs were down three games to one to the Indians in the World Series, and they looked like they deserved to be down three games to one.  And then the Cubs did what they've done all year: win.  Which brought us to tonight: the Indians were throwing Josh Tomlin, who made the Boys in Blue look silly earlier.  And they were back in Cleveland, in front of a full house at what might be the loudest stadium in baseball.  Cubs fans everywhere were torqued down so tight it was hard to breathe.  The tension was unbearable.  For two batters.  Then Kris Bryant came up.

433 feet later, the Cubs had the lead.  By the end of the first inning, the Cubs had scored three runs and Cubs fans everywhere began to relax slightly.  By the time Addison Russell hit a grand slam in the third to make it 7-0, Cubs fans began to smile grimly.  One game for all the marbles on Wednesday.  The Indians will send their ace Corey Kluber out on short rest to face the Cubs Kyle Hendricks, 2016's ERA champion, going on normal rest.  I like those odds.

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F1 Update!: Mexico 2016

The weather at Mexico City's Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was basically perfect for a F1 race.  Mix in the drama of a last-gasp championship fight between teammates, and you should have a recipe for a tense, dramatic race.   What we got was an example of everything wrong with Formula 1.  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2016 Grand Prix of Mexico!

*CAVALCADE OF ERRORS:  The confusion began right at the beginning of the race.  Polesitter Lewis Hamilton won the drag race to the first turn, mostly because his teammate Nico Rosberg was having to defend against the Red Bull of Embryo Verstappen.  To do so, he wound up bumping wheels with the Dutchman and having to take evasive action.  But that little action was overshadowed by the more obvious faux pas made by Hamilton.  He locked up a tire trying to make the first turn... and failed.  Instead of attempting to regain the track, he went ahead and kept right on going.

This is known in most circles as "blowing the turn."  In some others, it's called "agricultural racing."  In a tiny amount, it's known as "Susan", for reasons we do not wish to contemplate.  In any case, when one blows a turn that dramatically, a driver is usually instructed to give up any advantage gained.  For example, if by Susaning you actually pass an opponent, you have to give up the position.  In this case, Hamilton was told no such thing.  While he was in the lead approaching Turn 1, and thus gained no positions by his offroading, he did open quite the gap to second.  Indeed, he didn't slow down until a Virtual Safety Car was called out for an unrelated incident.  No penalty given, nor even considered.

*ERRORS (CONTINUED):  The race settled down to the usual Mercedes - Mercedes - Red Bull format, in this case Hamilton, Rosberg, Verstappen, with Seb Vettel in fourth.  Indeed, Hamilton was never in danger of being caught at any time and would go on to win the race with nary a worry.  However, Rosberg, Verstappen, Vettel, and Smiley Ricciardo would not be quite so fortunate.  At one point, Verstappen took advantage of traffic up ahead to make a move for second on Rosberg, but blew the turn and Rosberg took the position back.  In effect, this allowed the Ferrari of Vettel to close the gap so he could attack Verstappen.  Behind them, Ricciardo was in position to take advantage of any mistake, but not quite close enough to force a move.  After the Ferrari driver had lined up Verstappen, he made a strong effort to take third as they raced down to Turn 1 with only a couple of laps to go.  It looked like he had pulled it off when the Red Bull locked up and carried straight on. 

Verstappen just kept on going, rejoining the track ahead of Vettel and keeping third place.  Remember what we said about "relinquishing the position"?  This was a textbook case of that principle, about as clear-cut as it could possibly be.  A furious Vettel would take to the radio waves, screaming that he had to give up the spot.  In fact, it went so far that the German took to swearing at Race Director Charlie Whiting via radio after the race was over.  But that was still a couple of laps in the future. 

*ERRORS (YUP ONE MORE):  Only a few moments later Smiley Ricciardo tried his luck at passing Vettel.  On one hand, both stayed on track.  On the other hand, Vettel did some rather dodgy moving around in the braking zone, eventually interweaving tires with the Red Bull.

Mind you, this was after the two bumped wheel hubs.  How one or the other didn't wind up launching into low-earth orbit through this sequence was beyond us.  In the end, Vettel held the spot, Smiley backed off, probably in fear of his life, and the race ended Hamilton, Rosberg, Verstappen, Vettel, Ricciardo.

*HOLD IT RIGHT THERE:  But we're not finished yet!  As the three podium drivers gathered in the green room before the ceremonies, a camera caught sight of Seb Vettel jogging from the garages to the podium area.  Meanwhile, a FIA official said something in Verstappen's ear and led him from the room as the two McLaren drivers watched.  Sure enough, Vettel ended up taking the third step on the podium.  It turned out that Verstappen was given a five-second time penalty for not relinquishing the position after cutting Turn 1.  This dropped him from third to fifth, behind Ricciardo.  But wait, we're not done!  Immediately after, both Vettel and Ricciardo were summoned to the steward's office to discuss their incident.  Shortly thereafter, the FIA released a statement giving Vettel a 10-second time penalty for his less-than-kosher activities defending against the Red Bull driver.  After the penalty was applied, RICCIARDO moved into third place, Verstappen to fourth, and Vettel ended up in fifth.

*AWFUL:  So why was Verstappen penalized for doing the same thing Hamilton did?  The general response has been "because Hamilton did it on the first lap."  To be sure, first laps are hectic... back when F1U! did "Move of the Race", anything done on the first lap was not considered... but rules should be applied evenly.  But there is one quick and easy solution to this sort of problem.  Bring back gravel traps.  Make going off-track actually cost something for the drivers.  It won't happen, particularly after Alonso's wild ride back in Australia, but it'd solve everything.

Next race is Brazil, where a victory means that Rosberg clinches the championship.  That'll be in two weeks!  See ya then.

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F1 Quals: Mexico 2016

Beautiful day at Mexico City's Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez today.  The sun was shining, bringing a lovely glow to the world's largest megaslum Neza-Chalco-Izta, located just a few miles away from the pretty park where the track is located.  The track was very hot, however, making the Super-soft tires start degrading even before they were mounted on the cars.  Nico Rosberg can actually clinch the World Championship this weekend, with a win and Lewis Hamilton finishing 10th or below.  To stand a chance to win, first you must qualify!  Here's the provisional grid for the 2016 Grand Prix of Mexico:

Pos	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:19.447	1:19.137	1:18.704
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:19.996	1:19.761	1:18.958
3	Embryo Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:19.874	1:18.972	1:19.054
4	Smiley Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:19.713	1:19.553	1:19.133
5	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India Mercedes	1:20.599	1:19.769	1:19.330
6	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:19.554	1:19.936	1:19.376
7	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:19.865	1:19.385	1:19.381
8	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Mercedes	1:20.338	1:19.958	1:19.551
9	FelipeRetired  Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:20.423	1:20.151	1:20.032
10	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:20.457	1:20.169	1:20.378
11	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1:20.552	1:20.282
12	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:20.308	1:20.287
13	JensonRetired Button	McLaren Honda	1:21.333	1:20.673
14	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:21.254	1:21.131
15	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:21.062	1:21.536
16	Pascal's Wehrlein	MRT Mercedes	1:21.363	1:21.785
17	Esteban!	Haas Ferrari	1:21.401
18	Kid Kvyat	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:21.454
19	FelipeNot Retired Nasr	Sauber Ferrari	1:21.692
20	False Esteban	MRT Mercedes	1:21.881
21	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:21.916

The sharper-eyed (or the overly-detail-oriented) of you may have noticed that there are only 21, not 22, cars listed.  That's because in P3 Renault's Jolyon Palmer took his car for a looooong run over some curbing... that fit perfectly between the wheels.  He wound up with a crack in the driver's tub, forcing the team to build him a new car from the ground up.  He races at the stewards' whims.

Other than that, however?  Rosberg pulled second place out of his exhaust pipe, jumping up from fourth at the last moment.  I'm sure his teammate is happy for him.  The Ferraris only noise came from a radio call with Seb Vettel in Q2: "Are we safe (in our position)?"  "We are safe."  "Can I go for a wee?"  Just in case you wondered what F1 drivers do when... well... y'know.

Finally, Lettuce Grosjean looked to be ready to shank a b*tch after his car had another series of cascading failures in Q1.  He's never been thrilled with his brakes, and they've gotten even worse over the last few races... and today, his hybrid battery went south on him, too.  You know, the battery that's charged mostly by the brakes?

Race is in the afternoon.  See you sometime thereafter...

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Long Draining Week

This week probably could have been worse, and I'm extremely relieved that it wasn't.  Steven's death has hit me harder than I expected, even though as last week's research went on it became obvious that bad things were likely.  Still, its weighed heavily upon my furrowed brow.

Tuesday, I had jury duty.  I was originally called back in April, but I postponed it twice "because of my job".  It wasn't untrue, I just would have rather pushed claims than go do jury stuff.  Not that I'm opposed to doing my civic duty... I've been called four, now five, times after all.  Except I know plenty of people who haven't ever been summoned, why not give them a chance?  Ah well.  So Tuesday morning found me in downtown Duckford, trudging my way to the County Courthouse, barely noticing how gray the environment looked.  Anywhodles, I made it to the holding pen for us fortunate folk, and was exposed to an hour of HGTV banality.  And here I was, thinking I was doing something good for the community.  Instead, I was clearly being punished.  Eventually we had to sit through a video on how wonderful jury duty is, which was a mixed blessing.  On one hand, HGTV was turned off.  On the other, a video made by people who had never even heard of the concept of "acting", let alone doing it professionally.  After another hour, during which time I started Max Hasting's Battle for the Falklands, then promptly dozed off.  Then a judge appeared in our midst!  Turns out the threat of a jury trial caused the defendant to strike a deal... turns out it was a felony case we had been summoned for, one that the judge had expected to take all week.  Oy.  So as it turned out, my jury duty lasted just under three hours.  I promptly came back to Pond Central and went back to sleep.  And then the Cubs lost the first game of the World Series.  They did come back to take the second, which is exactly what you'd want when you start on the road.

Wednesday and Thursday were terrible at work.  A mixture of garbage claims and worsening problems on the client's end made processing any claim a (pardon the pun) trial.  Until, inevitably, the client's server farm caught fire just before it fell over into the swamp.  Wednesday, after an hour of literally sitting around doing nothing, we were sent home in late afternoon. Thursday was more of the same, without sitting around for an hour.  Now it was only 15 - 20 minutes at a time.  But today!  Today, the server farm, stacked on top of the other farms in the swamp, didn't fall over!  Too bad all it was serving up was reversal after corrected claim after "screw you, here's a thirty line, $25000 total corrected claim... in Barzani Jewish Neo-Aramaic!"

And now the Cubs have lost Game Three of the World Series, and I have 10 hours of overtime to do next week.  The two are not related, but I just had to say something.  The week could have been worse.

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F1 on TV: Mexico 2016

Last year's GP of Mexico was the surprise hit of the season, with the fantastically renovated circuit combining with a gazillion insane fans.  And now we're back!  Here's the track map for the 2016 Grand Prix of Mexico:

I'm really not in the mood for writing tonight, so I'll simply say the tire choices are Medium, Soft and Supersofts. 

The Legendary Announce Team's broadcast schedule is as follows:
Friday
Practice 2:  2p - 330p  live on NBCSN
Saturday
Quals:  1p - 230p  live on NBCSN
Sunday
2016 Grand Prix of Mexico:  130p - 4p  live on NBC

All times Pond Central, as per usual.  Please note the actual race is on NBC, the mother network.

Chin up, fellow fans.  F1U! will be along as usual.

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The Crying Of The Catgirls: SDB

Steven Den Beste was not the reason I became a blogger.

But if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been a blogger for long.  I began Wonderduck's Pond back in July of 2005, primarily as a way to entertain the Official First Reader of The Pond, Mallory, with expanded versions of the Formula 1 emails I sent her.  Along the way, I began to work some anime into the mix.  The Pond muddled along, read by practically nobody, for a couple of years.

And then something odd happened.  Steven linked to one of my posts and people came from Chizumatic to read it.  Then he did it again.  And again.  Every time he did, people came to read what he linked, some stayed around, and by The Pond's glory years of 2010/11, I was getting perhaps 5000 real hits/day.

I doubt that he ran an intentional campaign to send readers here, but that was the effect.  Because HE had a loyal fanbase that made almost all other animeblogs look small.  A link from him would be a boon for a small blog.  A permanent place on his small blogroll made you.  I was tremendously flattered when he put The Pond there ten years ago.

Which is not to say that all was sweetness and light.  He and I had a few arguments, some blog-based, some e-mail.  He could be an irascible old coot, entirely unwilling to change his opinion on something once he got it in his head.  He refused to say much about his health... when I e-mailed him once to see how he was doing, he wrote back saying that people who asked that weren't really interested so he wouldn't say.  I suspect a lot of his "cootness" stemmed from his old USS Clueless days, when he was hated by roughly half the blogosphere.  Death threats weren't unheard of.  And if you knew what's best for you, you never ever made suggestions.

All of this was part of a brilliant thinker that also had the ability to take those thoughts and write them legibly.  He didn't do straight humor very much, perhaps his only weakness and perhaps the only category I would say I was at least his equal in.  Everything else, however?  There's a reason he was one of the first bloggers to wind up published semi-occasionally in the mainstream media.  When I started The Pond, one of my conscious decisions was to never write about politics.  There were plenty of people writing about politics out there, and they were infinitely better at it than myself.  When I thought that, I was thinking about Steven in particular.

Over the years, I know he and I became friends despite never having met.  He became a Formula 1 fan due to my writings, almost against his will.  When I first thought about closing this place down, he was the first to say that he'd miss reading what I wrote.  Imagine that: a legend of the medium saying he'd miss my writing.  He was a willing participant in the continuing story of the Anatidae Liberation Front, a bit of whimsy that never failed to amuse the hell out of me.  His last comment here at The Pond was about the history of failure that surrounds the Cubs, a common theme from him. 

This afternoon brought the news that the man I was pleased to call my friend, Steven Den Beste, had passed away. 

I'm going to miss reading what he wrote.

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F1 Update!: United States 2016

The clear blue sky was a far sight from what greeted the F1 Circus last year as they pulled onto the grid of Circuit of the Americas.  As usual, Lewis Hamilton led the field, with his teammate Nico Rosberg right beside him.  Behind them, the surging Red Bulls lurked.  Could they derail the championship fight going on between the two Mercedes drivers?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2016 United States Grand Prix!

*LIGHTS OUT:  To be honest, the race was decided at the very beginning.  Once the race started, Hamilton galloped away, but Rosberg got swamped by the Red Bull of Smiley Ricciardo.  He fell to third, and nearly fourth as Embryo Verstappen threatened his position as well.  And that's the way it stayed for nearly half the race.

*SCREWUP:  On Lap 25, Ricciardo pitted from second for a new set of tires.  Nothing out of the ordinary there.  On the next lap, though, Verstappen drove into the pit lane... and there was nobody there for him.  The team recovered quickly, swarming into the Red Bull pit box just as he approached the spot, but they were essentially unprepared for the young driver.  The stop took nearly 10 seconds to complete, which sounds fast, but when 2.50 seconds is the norm... well.  As he pulled back onto the track he was on the radio: "I'm sorry, I thought you told me to box (pit)."  Simple driver error deep-sixed his race.  A few laps later, he unintentionally deep-sixed his teammate's race as well.

*BLOWUP:  On Lap 30, Verstappen's Red Bull was spotted going very slowly down the long back straight.  A cut to the onboard camera made the problem quite clear: a loud thumping sound was coming from the engine.  "I have an engine problem or something" was the radio call.  In fact, it was his gearbox turning itself into a bunch of neutrals.  In fact, first gear was the only one remaining, and he could not get into the actual neutral.  As this is required for trackworkers to get the car behind the walls, even though Verstappen had stopped just in front of an access point Race Control had to issue a Virtual Safety Car so marshals could deal with the recalcitrant vehicle.  Not a big deal normally... but neither Mercedes had stopped for tires yet.  In effect, they got a free stop, allowing Rosberg to easily jump Ricciardo on the rotation.  After that, it was all over but the shouting.

*THE SHOUTING:  While there was still half the race distance to complete, nothing of any importance happened up front.  Lewis Hamilton won his 50th Grand Prix, his seventh victory of the year, and his fourth out of five races at COTA.  However, Nico Rosberg finished second, five seconds behind, limiting his teammate's point gain in the Championship.  He still has a 26-point lead with three races to go... and you get 25 points for first, 18 for second.  Essentially, Hamilton needs Rosberg to have a breakdown to have a chance of repeating as Driver's Champion.  Smiley Ricciardo finished a distant third, Ferrari's Seb Vettel was fourth over a half-lap back of the leader, and Fernando Alonso's McLaren was fifth even though he could probably see Hamilton's Merc in his side mirrors when the race ended.  And in the feelgood story of the race, American team HaasF1 scored a point at their home race when Lettuce Grosjean came home in 10th.

So that's it from a lackluster USGP.  Next weekend is the second running of the reborn Grand Prix of Mexico.  We'll see you then.

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Cubswatch 2016: Seven!

The Chicago Cubs are going to the World Series.

Holy crepe, I don't believe I finally got to type those words.

Kyle Hendricks threw a gem against the Dodgers tonight, pitching 7.1 innings of shutout baseball.  He was relieved by Aroldis Chapman, who got a sweet double play to end the game.  On offense, they beat the crepe out of the best pitcher in baseball, hitting two homers and scoring five runs off Clayton Kershaw.  It was never close.

Next up, the Cubs will be facing the Cleveland Indians.  First game of the World Series will be Tuesday.  Seven down, four to go!

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F1 Quals: United States 2016

Time is running low on the 2016 season, and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, reigning driver's champion, is in serious trouble.  His teammate has a 30+ point lead and holds all the cards.  Hamilton needs to win out and hope something goes wrong with his teammate, but to win out, you've basically got to be on pole when the light go out.  So how'd Quals for the 2016 United States Grand Prix work out?  Here's the provisional grid:

Pos	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:36.296	1:36.450	1:34.999
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:36.397	1:36.351	1:35.215
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:36.759	1:36.255	1:35.509
4	Embryo Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:36.613	1:36.857	1:35.747
5	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:36.985	1:36.584	1:36.131
6	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:37.151	1:36.462	1:36.358
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India Mercedes	1:36.950	1:36.626	1:36.628
8	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Mercedes	1:37.456	1:37.202	1:37.116
9	FelipeRetired  Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:37.402	1:37.214	1:37.269
10	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:37.744	1:37.175	1:37.326
11	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:37.345	1:37.353
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1:37.913	1:37.417
13	Kid Kvyat	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:37.844	1:37.480
14	Esteban!	Haas Ferrari	1:38.053	1:37.773
15	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:38.084	1:37.935
16	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:38.040	1:39.356
17	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:38.308
18	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:38.317
19	Jenson Retired Button	McLaren Honda	1:38.327
20	Pascal's Wehrlein	MRT Mercedes	1:38.548
21	FelipeNot Retired Nasr	Sauber Ferrari	1:38.583
22	False Esteban	MRT Mercedes	1:38.806

The two Merc drivers split the first two Qual sessions.  Perhaps importantly, Rosberg was fastest in the second session.  This is important because the top 10 have to start on the tires they used for their fastest lap in Q2... and unlike everybody else, the Mercs used the Soft tires while everybody else used the Supersofts.  So in theory, Rosberg will have the advantage in at least the first stint.

Beyond them, Two-by-Two is was the rule of the day with only a wayward Force India to break up the first eight slots symmetry.  Major disappointment for American team HaasF1, who were chasing gremlins all practice.  Maybe things will go better for the race tomorrow afternoon!  Look for it on NBC-the-mother-network, and sometime thereafter, F1U!

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Cubswatch 2016: Six!

21 innings without scoring a run has been forgotten, that's for sure!

Addison Russell hit his second homer in two nights to give the Cubs a 3-1 lead in the sixth inning. Two innings later, they broke it open with five runs, and ultimately cruised to a 8-4 victory over the Dodgers.  They now have a three-games to two lead in this best of seven series as the NLCS moves back to Wrigley for a possible clinching game on Saturday.  Six down, five to go!

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Cubswatch 2016: Finally Five!

The last two games in this here NLCS were kinda grim.  The first time the Cubs had ever been shut out two games running in the playoffs.  Including the first few innings of this game, they reached 21 straight innings without scoring a run.  And then this happened:

Now that's the curbstompin' Cubs we've come to know and love during the regular season!  More importantly, Anthony Rizzo and Addison Russell, both mired in post-season long slumps, broke out tonight.  Both went deep to lead the team to victory and tied the series 2 - 2.  Seeing Rizzo start to hit is good news for the Cubbies indeed, for while Kris Bryant is probably going to be the MVP of the league, Rizzo is the guy that leads the team.  With him hitting, this team just doesn't lose very often.  Five down, six to go!

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F1 on TV: United States 2016

Y'all put your Stetsons and cowboy boots on, grab a handful of shootin' iron, jump in your pickup truck (RED TRUCK!) and drive your herd just southeast of central Texas to that lil' ol' town called Austin.  But be careful, there's gonna be a buncha furriners there, because the circus is in town... the Formula 1 Circus, that is!  C'mon down to the Circuit of the Americas, home of the United States Grand Prix!  Take a gander at the track map:

Today, tomorrow and forever, the best of the new circuits.  Blatantly stealing Borrowing the best concepts from other tracks around the world, COTA is just about everything you'd want from a FIA Class 1 circuit.  Plenty of run-off area surrounds the track itself while the facility has the world's only Emergency Room located at a race track to go along with the 5500 sq ft medical center (which is fully prepared to deal with exotic diseases like malaria and ebola.  Yes, really).  But best of all is what isn't going to be coming to Austin this year.

Yep, it was just last year that Hurricane Patricia hit the western coast of Mexico, then tracked up north.  That meant rain and lots of it: nearly a foot of rain in a couple of days, to the point the 2015 USGP nearly got rained out.  As it was, the whole weekend was borked up... just take a look at the goings-on on Saturday for a reminder of what it was like.

As is usual for a home race, the Legendary Announce Team will be on-site and bringing us coverage of every session during the weekend!  Here's a look at the broadcast schedule:
Friday
Practice 1: 10a - 1130a  live on NBCSN
Practice 2: 2p - 330p  live on NBCSN
Saturday
Practice 3-Intermission-Quals: 1130a - 3p  live on NBCSN
Sunday
2016 United States Grand Prix:  130p - 4p  live on NBC

All times are Pond Central, of course.  On a personal note, I tried to get Friday off from work, but because of a mandatory event I couldn't manage it.  I did manage to get the afternoon off though, so I'll be parked in the Official Comfy Chair of The Pond for P2!  Saturday and Sunday, of course, are givens.

So there we have it: the USGP!  I'm looking forward to this one, if for no other reason that it'll be the first time HaasF1 has been home.  Points would be nice, guys!

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Your Weekly Asuka, S2E02

This week, the second season of Hibike! Euphonium presents us with a staple of "group" shows: a training camp!  The entire band will secrete themselves away for multiple days and do nothing but practice, practice, practice!  Of course, it never works out that way: there's always downtime for hijinks to occur.  But before that, there's a mandatory three-day break enforced by the school.  Whatever will our main characters do during a short summer vacation?  Why, go to the pool, of course!  I have to admit, I didn't expect a swimsuit episode in this series, but hey, I'm not complaining.

No, not complaining in the least.  Kumiko is, though... she has no idea who this strange girl that's molesting her is! 

Oh.  Now she knows.  It's the Goofy Cute, in full effect!  A nice lighthearted moment in an otherwise pretty serious episode.  It's also practically the last time we see Asuka until very late in the episode.  Which is amazing, because the episode from this point on spends its time describing the events of last year that saw most of the second-year club members quit, and Asuka's role therein.

In other words, it's yet another episode where she's the main character mostly without showing up.  Yet, despite all of this, we still don't really know why she's so opposed to letting that one second-now-third-year student rejoin the club.  The good news is that it seems we'll be getting that info in the next episode.

While this is all well and good, I'm still looking forward to THE Asuka Episode.  It's gotta be coming.  KyoAni can't be setting all this up just to ignore the payoff, right?

Ridiculously pretty shot of the episode:

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Cubswatch 2016: Four!

When everybody is looking up and out...

...say it with me: you know it's gone.  The Dodgers intentionally loaded the bases with two outs to bring up the pitcher's spot in the order.  Which, at the moment, was occupied by the Cubs ace closer Aroldis Chapman.  Manager Joe Maddon brought in pinch-hitter Miguel Montero.  There was some question as to whether Montero would make the roster for the NLCS, for he was suffering from a sore back, but he talked his way on.  And then he hit a pinch-hit grand slam on a 0-2 count, putting the Cubs ahead 7-3. 

If you've followed the Cubs this season, you knew what was coming.  They've already hit a granny, why not add on?  Center fielder Dexter Fowler, who had already had a spectacular catch under his belt, went back-to-back to make make it 8-3.  That the Dodgers scored a run in the top of the ninth meant nothing in the end.  The Cubs won it 8-4, in a game that also had a Javy Baez steal of home.  Four down, seven to go!

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Forces

I bumped into this picture the other day, thought it quite amazing how it shows forces at work on a F1 car.

Let's be perfectly clear about this: there is nothing wrong with this Mercedes.  Aerodynamics and G-forces alone have hucked the car over to the left.  The tires are doing their job of pretending to be shock absorbers.  The roll to the left is being mirrored on the right, picking the front right off the ground as the rear left compresses.  And underneath, the titanium skid plate is performing its secondary duty of a sparkler.

All and all, a truly remarkable shot.

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Cubswatch 2016: And THAT Makes Three!

Last night, the Giants beat the Cubs in 13 innings to stay alive in the NLDS.  Tonight, they were ahead 5-2 in the 9th inning, at home, with their closer coming in.

And then magic occurred.

The Cubs scored four runs in the top of the 9th, their closer, Aroldis Chapman, came in and struck out the side, and not one pitch was below 100mph.  Next up is the winner of the Dodgers / Nationals series.  The NLCS starts Saturday.  Three down, eight to go.

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