Decent weather at Interlagos today, more's the pity, but the track is still naturally slippery.  So what's the grid like for Sunday's race?  Take a look:

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:04 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Uh... huh. 

Just a little something I picked up via Steam a few weeks ago... well, actually, it's the new extended version of something I picked up on Steam back when I booted from the bookstore.  Since it was selling for less than the cost of a couple of Chicago Style hot dogs (hold the peppers and cucumber slices, please!) and fries, I figured what the hell. 

In a lot of ways, that's still my reaction, though it's more like "what the hell?!?" now.  We'll see when I'm done and get it written up. 

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The fact of the matter is that I hate Interlagos, the site of the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil.  I always have, and though I know it's an irrational hate, I probably always will.  Even though the circuit has been upgraded to fix the ridiculous pit-in that nobody paid attention to and therefore it always looked like they were going to pile into the wall of the pit lane at 200mph, the memories remain.  Here's the track map for the place:

Really, I'm just about the only F1 fan out there who doesn't like Interlagos.  The drivers adore the place (except for the occasional attempt at armed robbery), the Brazilian fans (that's a lot of fans!) are both well-versed in the sport and insane, and it's uncommon to have a poor race.  Even the part that I used to hate the very most, that it was the last race of the season, has changed, with that title now in the oil-stained hands of Abu Dhabi.  So why, exactly, do I still hate Interlagos?

Because I'm a stubborn mule of a lifeform that refuses to allow such things as logic to get in the way of my peccadilloes when it comes to F1.  Enough of this place, I hope the two manmade lakes that give the place its name overflow their banks and flood the whole kit 'n' kaboodle.  Safely, of course.

Despite my loathing of the place, the Legendary Announce Team (which does not, in fact, respond to my every whim, unlikely as that seems) will be doing their usual outstanding job at coverage.  Here's the schedule for the broadcast weekend:
Friday
Practice 2: 10a - 1130a live on NBCSN
Saturday
Quals: 10a - 1130a live on CNBC
Sunday
2015 Grand Prix of Brazil: 930a - 12n on NBCSN

This actually surprises me somewhat; even though they've done four races on NBC already, for whatever reason I thought Brazil would be on the Mother Network.  Wow, look at me, I'm wrong, perhaps for the first time this post.  Anyway, that's it.  I've given enough of my attention to this... place... for one day.  Of course, I'll force myself to cover Quals and the race this weekend, so I don't get to escape completely!  See ya then!!!

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In the comments of the last post, friend Ben asks what anime series I'd like to see get remade due to age or quality.  While I didn't type my answer immediately, the second I saw the question I knew how I'd be replying: The Dirty Pair.  If not the actual first "girls with guns" series, Dirty Pair was certainly the first to be hugely popular.  The adventures of Kei and Yuri have been around for nearly 40 years, and I've been a fan since sometime in the '90s.  Light novels, one 26 episode TV series, three movies, two completely different OVA series, and even US comic books cover most of the source material of these great characters.  Along the way, only two things have stayed more or less constant with the visual designs: Kei has red hair and Yuri dark hair, and the two are female.  Obviously one of the most important aspects of a remake of such a legendary franchise would be the updated character design.  With any luck, the production company involved would pay attention to what had come before.  With that in mind, let's take a look at the evolution of the best known 3WA Trouble Consultants, shall we?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:09 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 I still have a mess of the Adam Warren comics in boxes in a closet here. If I remember correctly (always a crapshoot...) my first real experience with Dirty Pair was a bootleg VHS unsubtitled copy of "Nolandia Affair."

Yes, I still have it.

I wouldn't say that any incarnation of The Dirty Pair is the best of its kind, but I will always have a warm place in my heart for these two walking disasters...

Posted by: GreyDuck at November 09, 2015 09:14 AM (rKFiU)

2 Thanks for posting this.  I've been rewatching all the Dirty Pair that Hulu has as a part of my recent subscription there (going ad free and liking it, at least in short bursts.  Talked about it a little here.    It wasn't my first anime, there's a close tie between Robotech, Sailor Moon and El Hazard.  Robotech and Sailor Moon were on early mornings while I was in middle and high school, but I didn't recognize them as anime per se at the time.  El Hazard is the first thing I watched on Laserdiscs with a script sheet somewhere the same year I graduated in '95.
Either way, I love the OVA intro and music still.

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at November 09, 2015 10:26 AM (XbFxF)

3 The Smith/Warren collaborations are up there with Project Eden as my favorite incarnations, but Warren's solo efforts don't do it for me; his character designs simply aren't attractive. Actually, in general, his art style has gone in a direction I have no interest in.

IIIRC, Sim Hell, while listed as a Warren solo, still had a lot of story input from Toren, which explains why it was better than what came after.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at November 09, 2015 11:37 AM (ZlYZd)

4 ...his character designs simply aren't attractive.

Ergo, "It's not to everybody's taste."  I agree with you, by the way; Toren Smith was almost like control rods in a nuclear plant... remove them, and Warren went crazygonuts with his designs.  I think he's an excellent artist, but I have a hard time with what he did to Kei & Yuri in his solo stuff.

Posted by: Wonderduck at November 09, 2015 06:29 PM (a12rG)

5 On his own, Warren seems to draw every woman like an inflatable sex doll, with lips set for Full Suck. Consider this panel from the unpublished Quick & Dirty story he started in 2004. With luck, it will remain unpublished.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at November 09, 2015 09:22 PM (ZlYZd)

6 Over on his deviantart page, there is a sketch labeled "extra pouty".

Which would be his default level of lips a little while later.

Posted by: Wonderduck at November 09, 2015 09:36 PM (a12rG)

7 Some of his work on "Empowered" goes even further, to the point where Emp in profile doesn't look quite human, with a barely visible upturned nose and the lips and jaw thrust so far forward she looks like she's in mid-werewolf transformation.

Yeah, he's been going further and further astray. From obsessively busy backgrounds to this compulsion to hang signs on everything. But on the other hand, I just cant resist stuff that mucks around with the Superhero Genre.

Posted by: Mauser at November 10, 2015 06:26 AM (5Ktpu)

8 ..."Project Eden," that's the VHS I have. Not "Nolandia Affair."

Has anyone seen my marbles?

I didn't get past "Sim Hell" in the Warren comics, and from everything I've heard, that was a wise decision on my part. Those lips shown in the above comments aren't so much "pouty" as "balloon-like." Nooooot appealing, Mister Warren.

Posted by: GreyDuck at November 10, 2015 09:06 PM (rKFiU)

9 I love this series. (except for Flash. that was garbage). I own practically everything English done for this series. The dvds/movies, comics, two novels, comics,and even a few figurines. I found years ago Masi Oka was said he might like to do a live action film for this, but it's not gonna happen.
Sadly, there is one huge episode I do not like; episode 10. I felt they left it open-ending. The girls were trapped in jail, the boy prince and this girl ran off and they faded to black. It was dumb. 
Other than that, I'd watch the rest of the series.

Posted by: Rokusho at March 29, 2019 12:25 PM (MfGno)

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-GATE, Ep03
There's an awful lot to like about last season's GATE... I mean, who doesn't like the idea of fighting dragons with attack helicopters, or taking on an army of orcs with a swath of .50cal machineguns?... but to my mind Rory Mercury, demigod and Oracle of Death, heads the list.

Just don't get on her bad side.  Or be nearby when she gets hungry.

I want a crossover with Rio: Rainbow Gate! now... call it Rio: Rainbow GATE.  Oh, the joy I would feel seeing Rory Mercury let loose on Casino Island, or the JSDF shooting down Sky Resort with a few F-4 Phantoms.  This needs to happen.

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Here's the thing: we here at F1U! don't particularly want to do our usual update.  Instead, what we're going to do is something a little more free-form, step aside from our usual bullet point format with generalized info about the race as a whole.  We've realized that unless we're going to write 2500 words, there are plenty of better places to get lap-by-lap coverage.  We digress, however... THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Mexico!

We had another Mercedes 1-2, with Nico Rosberg beating his teammate Lewis Hamilton (who did, of course, win the Driver's Championship at the US Grand Prix) rather handily.  Williams' Valterri Bottas took the third step on the podium, followed by the Red Bulls of Kid Kyvat and Daniel Ricciardo.  For the first time since 2006 neither Ferrari finished the race, and more about Seb Vettel's day later.  However, on the whole the race was something of a disappointment.  After Friday and Saturday's sessions, we were expecting to see cars slithering around like "grip" was a four-letter word.  Which it is, but not that sort of four-letter word.  Tails stepping out, slow speed spins, that sort of thing.  Instead, we got very little of that.  The reason for that is fairly obvious: the sun was out and the track surface was some 30°F warmer than it had been on Friday and Saturday.  Warm pavement equals warm tires which means more grip... apparently just enough to keep cars glued to the surface.  As a result, the race ended up much like any other, though the high altitude did limit the usefulness of the DRS.  We saw very few DRS-related passes down the 1.2km long front straight... when you're already down 20% on drag due to a lack of air in the air, losing a bit more doesn't make that much of a difference.

One thing that didn't disappoint were the 115000 Mexican fans that showed up.  From cheering insanely whenever Sergio Perez did anything (and practically having orgasms when he executed a pass at the above turn!) to chanting "Nico Nico Nico Ole Ole Ole!" just before the podium ceremony, they put on a show that was at least as entertaining as the race itself.  It's no stretch to say that, at least for one race, the lunatic fans at Monza were given a run for their money.  If they're always going to act this way, we here at F1U! don't care if the race is humdrum... the fans were incredible.

"Incredible" would be a good way to describe Seb Vettel's day.  Filled with confidence that his Ferrari would be able to hang with the Mercedes, he had a less-than-stellar getaway from the start, was passed by Kid Kvyat almost instantly, then had a run-in with the other Red Bull that resulted in a punctured rear tire.  It took only a short distance for the tire to fail completely, forcing him to finish the rest of the lap at a walking pace.  Once the tire was replaced, he set his cap to make up for the delay.  For a while, all looked fine.  Soon enough it became obvious that the three-time Driver's Champion wasn't so much driving his car as he was over-driving it.  An unforced spin that luckily ended without hitting anything brought frustrated radio calls.  A pitstop that saw the Ferrari put onto the medium tires instead of soft brought another hail of radioed complaints.  Things got so bad that he was lapped by Rosberg and he impeded Hamilton enough for blue flags to be thrown in his direction.  The pit wall had to get involved, telling him to let the Mercedes by... to which he replied "I'm faster than him!"  While perhaps true, he was still a lap down.  His miserable race came to an end some 20 laps early, embedded in the wall on the outside of Turn 7.  He escaped injury, but the Ferrari was toast.  So, too, are his hopes for second in the driver's championship as it was his chief rival who won the race.

Finally, Lewis Hamilton seemed to be in something of a complaining mood during the race.  From disobeying an order to come into the pits for new tires to disagreeing with tire choice, he certainly seemed to be feeling his oats as a new repeat champion.  Or perhaps he realized that he wouldn't be able to pass his teammate on track so trying a very long one-stop strategy was his best shot.  As it was, the team thought his his tires were being worn to the fabric backing, but that wasn't good enough for Hamilton.  "I still think this was the wrong choice," was the call to the pit wall after the tire change in question.  Understandably, the pit wall's response was brusque: "We can discuss it later."  It's almost like he doesn't trust his team...?

The penultimate race of the season is in two weeks at Brazil.  We'll see you then!

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After the race, I took a nap.  The race ended around 3pm, and I went to sleep around 6pm-ish.

It's almost midnight.  I only just now woke up.  I'm an idiot.

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Ladies and gentlemen, we have one helluva circuit here in Mexico City.  This is a beast, and a lot of that is due to altitude.  Mexico City is over 7300 feet above sea level, meaning there's about 20% less air up there.  Less air means less drag on a F1 car, as seen by the Williams of Felipe Massa tripping the speed trap's sensors at 226.2mph during Q1 today.  Please note that the fastest a F1 car has gone during a race was 233mph at Monza, and that during the V10 era when engines were routinely putting out 1000hp.  However, there is a drawback as well.  20% less air also means less downforce, meaning less grip.  As a result, combined with a track that only completed having its asphalt laid a few weeks ago, cars are driving like they're on ice.  F1ast and F1urious: Mexico Drift!  We're seeing low-speed spins like the drivers have never touched a car before, high-speed spins that look like the cars have become frisbees, just less aerodynamic.  Paradoxically, the teams are all running Monaco-style front and rear wings, gigantic barn door-sized things in an attempt to claw back some of the missing downforce.  All this slipping and sliding is playing hob with the tires.  We've seen some gigantic lockups and the resulting epic flatspots over the past few days.  Oh, by the way, less air also means less cooling.  Nico Rosberg had a brake fire in Practice on Friday because there wasn't enough air getting into the brake ducts.  Kimi Raikkonen had what looked to be an engine fire during Practice 3 today, probably from overheating.  Some of this will be mitigated by all the rubber being laid down over the weekend (F1 tires love nothing more than to grip onto F1 tire rubber... if they made a track surface out of F1 tire rubber, we'd see driver's heads being torn off by the G forces), but did I mention that it's supposed to rain Sunday afternoon? 

With that daunting prospect in mind, let's take a look at the provisional grid for the 2015 Grand Prix of Mexico:

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Feeling like I'm part of a team, of something larger than just myself.  That's what I miss.  Sure, we have our little soirees at work, the bi-monthly awards thingies or the lunches or whatever, and those are nice.  They can't change the fact that each of us claims processors are not only working alone, but we're really working against the others.  Every claim that Abbie, Bob or Chris does is one that Dave, Ernie, Frank or Wonderduck can't do... and there's only a finite numbers of claims out there.  It's not adversarial, it's just the way things are.

And it's a far sight from what it was like at the Bookstore, that's for sure.  If I had a problem, I could call on any of the other 20-odd managers in the region, plus another dozen or so that I knew from training classes or national meetings, based anywhere from San Francisco to Roanoke, Houston to Fredericton (that's Canada, y'all!), and I knew they'd help to the best of their ability.  I don't really miss the job, but I do miss that camaraderie. 

I also miss feeling like I was accomplishing something here at The Pond.  I'm not, and I don't think I have for a while.  I'm sorry about that.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:31 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I've had my current cellphone for about four years, and it does everything I need it for.  It makes calls (I assume it receives as well, but it's been a while since anybody has actually called me), it both sends AND receives texts, it's my primary alarm clock, so on and so forth.  It's never more than six feet from me, and usually a lot closer... both because it's my ONLY phone (haven't had a land-line in a looooooong time) and because if something happens with my ticker (and, by the way, I had the 10 year anniversary of my Cardiac Event this past Sunday), having it close at hand might save my life.

So you can imagine how I felt when I left work on Tuesday and... the touchscreen didn't work.  It worked perfectly fine when I turned it off going IN to the office, but... well.  Not having a working touchscreen is something of a drawback on a touchscreen-based phone.  Oh, I eventually figured out a way to make a phonecall, involving the physical keyboard, the "phone" button on the frontplate, and a weird combination of opening and closing the slideybit, but I couldn't hang up when the call was over.  I also couldn't answer the phone ha-ha-ha, nor could I send texts.  Indeed, anything that needed the screen was no longer functional.  This was bad, as I had reset my alarm for a one-time only thing and couldn't reset it for the right time to wake me up for work.  Fortunately, my actual alarm clock, now closing in on 30 years old, still works... barely.

After work let out today, I set sail for my carrier's standalone store.  I had gotten the replacement insurance on the thing, so I assumed I'd be forced to upgrade to a so-called smartphone... there's no way they'd still have a four or five year old phone in stock.  As it turned out, I was right: they didn't have the phone anymore.  What they did have, though, was a brand new touchscreen!  After about a half-hour of techguy maneuvering little bits and pieces of the phone hither and yon, he called me over and said "it works great!"  Sure enough, it works like a charm.  Yes, the new frontpiece is purple, not blue, but I'll cope... when I first got the phone, I wanted purple anyway; they were out of stock. 

The best part however was that techguy laughed at my wallpaper (seen here to the left) when he turned the phone on.  And not a "that's stupid, ha-ha-ha loser" laugh, but an actual "I'm amused" laugh.  Which was nice.

Kids these days must have common experience with anime.  Either that or he's seen so many stupid/shocking/horrifying wallpapers over the years that he's stopped caring.  One of the two.

I'm not prepared to say which one.

But it doesn't matter, because my phone works again, at least for a while longer.  I'll take it for as long as it lasts.  It's a GOOD phone.  I'm used to it, and it at least tolerates me.  What more could you ask for?

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Señors y señoras, hola!  Bienvenido a El Estanque!  That's pretty much used up my supply of Spanish, but it hopefully got you in the mood for this week's race, the "debut" of the Grand Prix of Mexico at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.  I put debut in quotes since there's been plenty of GPs of Mexico in the past, but it's been a while and never on this version of the track.  Let's take a look at the map, shall we?

A laps of the 2.76 mile-long circuit is expected to take around 75 seconds.  Alas, said lap won't be ending in the classic Peraltada corner, a massively fast 180° arc that used to run from Turn 12 to what is now Turn 16... Turn 17 is roughly half of it, though the banking is gone.  Instead, the layout now runs through a baseball stadium... on the aerial maps I've seen, it looks like Turn 12 enters the stadium somewhere near the right-field corner, and Turn 16 exits it somewhere up the third base line, but short of third base itself, through a gap in the stands.  It's hard to tell, as there is no outfield wall, and clearly the infield can be picked up.

That front straight is no slouch, by the way... indeed, at 1.2km, it becomes one of the longest on the F1 calendar.  That should make for some interesting pileups on the first lap.  We don't really know anything about how it'll race, per se, since F1 hasn't been there in 20 years or so.  Should be fast though, and my guess is about USGP level of tire wear.  That could be really wrong, however, so don't hold it against me if it turns out differently.  Definitely give me credit if I'm right, because I'm just that sort of duck.

The Tres Amigos plus Will Buxton will be providing their usual commentary, but NOT at the usual time and days.  Let's take a look:
Saturday
Quals:  1p - 230p  live on CNBC
Sunday
Grand Prix of Mexico:  1230p - 330p live on NBC

Yup, there's no mistype there: we're not getting coverage of Friday Practice except online.  For that matter, the coverage won't be on NBCSN, either!  How passing strange is this?

Well, we'll watch what's being shown... and we'll see you afterwards, yes?  Yes?

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The sky was grey and heavy as the Thundering Herd was led to the Circuit of the Americas' grid by polesitter Nico Rosberg.  If you tilted your head and squinted, you could almost believe it wasn't raining, the first time that had happened this race weekend since early in Friday Practice 1.  The track was still wet however, and the field was on Inters and glad for it.  Would it rain some more?  Would it ever dry out?  THIS is your F1Update! for the 2015 United States Grand Prix!

*TURN 1:  The first turn of any F1 race is usually exciting as 20 cars try to file through a space made for two or three.  When something goes pear-shaped in the midpack, it accordions back through the field like a train derailing.  The one track where this should never occur is the Circuit of the Americas, where Turn 1 looks wide enough to fit the entire field through wheel to wheel.  Except when something intentional occurs.  At the start, polesitter Nico Rosberg was on the outside, nominally the racing line, with his teammate Lewis Hamilton right alongside, and it stayed that way as they ran up to the first turn.  Except Hamilton closed up next to Rosberg and kinda didn't bother to turn all that much, pushing his German teammate to the limits of the track.  At this point, Rosberg had a choice: fight back, possibly damaging both cars but more likely making Hamilton back down, or give up and surrender first place to Hamilton.  He gave up, allowing himself to be shoved into the runoff area and dropping down to fifth place.  At this point, the Legendary Announce Team had something of a disappointing moment, as they made it sound like they believed that Hamilton had lost control, when anybody with a set of eyes could see it was totally intentional.  We here at F1U! rolled our collective eyes and expected to see Hamilton gallop off into the distance, never to be seen again.  Behind the frontrunners, five cars were involved in incidents resulting in debris scattered around the outside of the first turn

*ABOUT THAT GALLOPING:  Did you know this was the first wet race we've had this season?  It was.  Which means this was the first time these cars had any real race time on the Intermediate tires, and we discovered something very interesting.  The Red Bull chassis is very good indeed on Intermediate tires, and the Mercedes... isn't.  Instead of running away and hiding, Hamilton instead found himself in an actual race, with Kid Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo right behind him, and Rosberg not far in arrears in fourth.  A Virtual Safety Car for the Turn 1 debris locked the field for a couple of laps, but the ending of the period saw Rosberg either be incredibly opportunistic (if you're a charitable sort) or a filthy cheater (if you have eyes), jumping past both Red Bulls at the restart.  He was actually alongside Ricciardo when it ended, and he made short work of Kvyat using the momentum from that move.

*CHARGING RED BULL:  On Lap 12, Ricciardo tried twice to get past Rosberg for second.  The first attempt saw him go too deep into Turn 1.  At Turn 2, though, he caught the Merc and set his sights on the lead.  Suddenly, the F1U! crowd actually started to be interested.  A few laps later, for what we believe was the first time this season, someone made an actual and real pass for the lead in a Formula 1 race when Ricciardo got past Hamilton.  It took only a few more laps for Rosberg to dispatch his teammate, who was complaining about his "worn inters."  Then, crucially, Hamilton pitted... for slick tires.

*THAT'S A FIRST: Valterri Bottas and Lettuce Grosjean had shifted to the soft slicks back around Lap 5, and they didn't work... it was still way too wet.  But when Hamilton stopped on Lap 18, the time had come and the other teams knew it. By Lap 20, the entire top 10 had stopped and put on the running shoes, and for the first time this race weekend, we saw F1 cars that were able to stretch their legs.  And by Lap 26, it was Rosberg leading Hamilton... Mercs in front, as usual.  It stayed that way until Lap 36.

*ENDGAME:  On Lap 36, Force India's Nico Hulkenberg got a little over-excited at being in passing position on Ricciardo and stuck his nose where it didn't belong.  One broken suspension later, and we had another Virtual Safety Car period while the recovery vehicles dragged the stricken Force India away.  Rosberg, Kvyat and Ricciardo stopped for new tires, promoting Hamilton into the lead and Ferrari's Seb Vettel to second.

*INTERLUDE: If Hamilton won, Vettel had to finish in second place to keep the driver's championship contest open until Mexico.  Rosberg's only chance was to win.  After the pitting, Hamilton led Vettel, Embryo Verstappen, Rosberg.

*RESTART / RESTOP:  On Lap 40, the racing re-began... and again Rosberg quickly dispatched the driver in front of him, blowing past Verstappen and setting his sights on Vettel.  A couple of laps later, the deed was done and Vettel was in third.  And then the critical moment of the race occurred, when Kvyat lost his car and smacked hard into the steel barriers.  As the incident happened in an awkward location, Berndt Maylander was summoned and a real Safety Car period began.  Now instead of pitting under green, Hamilton and Vettel got to pit under yellow flags.  Returning to the track after their stop, Rosberg led Hamilton and Vettel.  The restart occurred on Lap 46.

*END:  We looked to have a fantastic 10 lap sprint to the finish.  Instead, Rosberg blew a turn just enough to let Hamilton by for the lead... and on his fresh tires, there was no way anyody was going to haul him back in.  Rosberg barely managed to keep Vettel behind him to keep third place... and hand Lewis Hamilton his second consecutive World Driver's Championship, and his third overall.  It was still the best race of the 2015 season by a very long shot.  A wet track makes everything better.

*HAT DRAMA:  Afterwards, Rosberg sat dejectedly in the "podium room," where the top three finishers get to relax for a few minutes before heading out for the podium ceremonies.  Hamilton was there as well, of course, still pumped up on victory emotion.  After getting a hug from Paddy Lowe, the Merc tech director, Lewis grabbed his 1st place ballcap, lobbed the 2nd place cap to Rosberg, and handed the 3rd place cap to Vettel.  However, Rosberg wasn't paying attention, being (understandably) too wrapped up in his own emotions... and this happened.  When they moved out to the podium, Rosberg was booed by the crowd.  We here at F1U! think that Rosberg should have clocked Hamilton upside the head with the cap... we understand Hamilton was high on his victory, but we also think that Lewis was an insensitive berk, too.  Still, congratulations must be given to Hamilton on his third World Driver's Championship... he's moved into very rare company by doing that.

Next week we see the debut of the new circuit in Mexico City!  See you then!!!

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Welcome to Sunday morning!  We don't do this very often, but the crappy weather the past coupel of days has moved Quals to this weird time and day... and it hasn't gotten much better, to be honest.  Let's start live-ish coverage!

Q1: Teams are under orders to use Full Wet tires and nothing else.  Which is good, because it's crap out there.  It's still raining, it's dark, it's wet, the spray is awful, and traction is less than optimal.  And oh boy! The folks on the pit wall are saying the first half of the session will be the GOOD weather.  It'll start getting worse after that... and we've got a Red Flag.

Carlos Sainz Jr lost it on the curbs at the start of the Esses (back where that other car is) and slid all the way into the TecPro barriers at the next turn... and it looked like he never slowed down in the process.  The session has restarted, but it's probably not going to matter... the rain is coming.

Okay, Q1 is over, and the rain never got worse.  Times actually improved, but that's all relative; it's hard to improve from 2:20.500, y'know?  That being said, wow, that was fun to watch.  The drivers had to have their hearts in their mouths, and the cars were slipping and sliding all over the place, but they were pushing hard because nobody knows if there'll be a Q2.    If there isn't, Daniel Ricciardo will be on pole, ahead of Hamilton, Rosberg and Kvyat: Red Bull Merc Merc Red Bull.

Q2:  Nope, we've got a Q2!  It's just started, it's still not looking great out there, and we're waiting for the next disaster.  Vettel kissed the wall late in Q1, but didn't appear to damage anything as he's on track right now.

Turn 10 is going to kill someone.  It's off-camber downhill, and everybody is winding up sideways...  yeesh.  American Alexander Rossi just came up with the understatement of the weekend: "It was a little sketchy out there."

Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton have both fallen victim to Turn 10 as well.  Raikkonen just called back to the pit wall "mrmrmmrmrr rm rmrmrmr rmrmrbrrlrl."  He didn't sound happy.

Kvyat just called in: "It's really dangerous out here."  I'm starting to think this is a bad idea.  So does Seb Vettel: "These are Red Flag conditions."

Q2 just ended... let's see if there's a Q3.  If not, Rosberg, Hamilton, Riccardio and Kvyat are your first four.

Heh from the Williams Twitter account: "By a show of hands, who hasn't had a moment at T10?"

Between sessions, Berndt Maylander is out on track in the Safety Car, checking conditions.

Q3: Q3 is being postponed for 10 minutes.  Here's the current standings:

There was just a broadcast from Jenson Button earlier, saying in effect that it's dangerous and bad out there.

Q3 has been called.  There will be NO Q3.  Rosberg takes pole.  Vettel and Raikkonen are dropped 10 places due to engine changes, so the first six are Rosberg, Hamilton, Ricciardo, Kvyat, Perez and Hulkenberg!  Two FIs on the third row, hooray!

The race is this afternoon, see ya then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:19 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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P3 ran with a completely empty house, as COTA didn't actually open to spectators until 12noon local time.  And by "ran", I mean "swam".  It started out damp and raining, and after 20 minutes or so it was sodden and bucketing.  By the 30 minute point, the teams had given up, parked their cars, and endeavored to keep everything dry.  An impossible task, as the rain just kept coming down harder and harder.  By the time the fans were let into the circuit, the weather was Biblical.

At best, the wind and rain was heavy.  Every so often, the weather would get much much worse, then calm back down to "heavy".  The start of the session was delayed a half-hour even before the Legendary Announce Team came on the air.  Not very long after that, it was pushed back another half-hour, to a 2pm local time start.

And then came the weirdness.  It started with a sighting in the Force India pits of this:

Yes, that's a paper boat.  That was merely the beginning.  In an attempt to give the hearty and brave fans that managed to get to the Circuit of the America's Cup any sort of show they could, the pit lane began to go insane.

Dancing Red Bull drivers, doing what was obviously a well-practiced pas de deux.  The cheers from the crowd drove the pit lane to new heights.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:11 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Okay, this is not good.  But first, a moment of levity from Legendary Announce Team member and author of three wonderful books Steve Matchett's twitter account.

"Good Morning from Austin!  Time to throw open those eagerly waiting bedroom curtains and see exactly what this new Texas day has to offer."

"Oh.  Plan B: Coffee and Palestrina."

Please note the picture was posted by COTA around 8am or so, not Matchett, but the point still remains: it's ugly out there.  It turns out that P3 actually began at 10am and NBCSN's coverage, which begins at 1130am, is on delay.  But it's somewhat amazing that P3 is running at all... all teams are required to run Full Wet tires and nothing else is allowed.  Meanwhile, Circuit of the America's Cup is not opening its gates until noon.  Why?

The weather continued apace last night, flooding is beginning to become widespread, and the storms are forecast to keep on keepin' on.  P3 is still going on, just without fans in the stands.  While that sounds weird, in a way it makes sense.  Consider: the FIA is responsible for the track and what occurs on it during a F1 weekend, but COTA is responsible for the circuit.  If the FIA needs to stop the running, they throw a red flag and everything is halted within two minutes or so as the last cars come into the pit lane... everybody safe.  If the same happens to COTA (lightning, for example), it's responsible for tens of thousands of people, and evacuating them to safety would be no small feat.

Avatar, I hope you didn't decide to attend the weekend. 

Practice 3 and Quals coverage coming after it's over... or sooner, if weather causes something.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:03 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The F1 Circus has made it to Austin, TX, site of the 2015 United States Grand Prix, and... well, so far things are NOT going to any sort of plan any sane person could have hoped for.

See, it's kinda raining down cats and dogs and hippopotami and blue whales and any other type of creature you care to name.  In the runup to Practice 1 it poured a good deal, but it stopped just before the session began.  The circuit was wet enough for the Full Wet tires to begin with, but long before the session ended everybody was on Intermediates.  The usual suspects did the usual things, nobody broke anything, and all was okay.  But in the gap between P1 and P2, Very Bad Things occurred.

Just as the Legendary Announce Team came on the air for P2, heavy rain and high winds hit COTA (and much of Texas in general).  As it hasn't rained in Texas since 2003, the water isn't soaking in.  Flash Flood Warnings have been released, and apparently Austin could get up to a FOOT of rain by Sunday night.  P2 had actually been delayed before TV coverage began because of the rain and, more importantly, lightning.  The track workers and camera crews were unable to take their positions around the circuit, most of which are protected... by steel and aluminum structures.  Zap.  After about maybe an hour or so the FIA announced that the medical helicopter wouldn't be able to fly for at least another two hours, at which point the sun would be rapidly setting.  Even without the storms, things would have been sketchy for P2 anyway, so the session was scrubbed altogether.  Good call, that... here's an amateur video of what it was like on the front straight.  The weather forecast for Saturday is for rain and more rain... indeed, it's quite possible that it'll be worse conditions than today.  If Quals gets cancelled, the FIA has three choices: 1) run Quals on Sunday; 2) have P1's times set the grid; 3) set the grid via the Driver's Championship standings.  #1 has practically no chance of happening, there's every chance the rain will still be coming down.  #3 is probably the most likely, as #2 seems too random to me.  But all of this is of secondary consideration, really, because of this:

Hurricane Patricia officially made landfall in Mexico just as I started writing up this post (around 7pm Pond Central Time).  While the wind speed was merely 165mph (down from the 200+ mph measured a couple of hours earlier), it was still a Category 5 hurricane, and heading dead for Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico and the hometown of Force India's Sergio Perez.  There's some five million people in the Guadalajara metro area.  Patricia is being reported as the most powerful hurricane to hit North America in recorded history... and it can't be helping the weather in Texas.  And ohbytheway, it's about 340 miles from Mexico City, home of next week's GP of Mexico.  Given what could possibly occur, there's already talk about that race being affected.  Let's just cross our fingers and hope for the best, both for the race and more importantly for the people about to be hit by a massive hurricane.

Hopefully, we'll have info tomorrow!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:36 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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It still counts as a successful season to me.

Wait 'til next year!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:23 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Around 1pm this afternoon, Jack, the hulking front desk guy, loomed over my cubicle wall.  The single word "Package" rumbled from his mouth and he handed me a box that looked tiny in his massive mitts, but in reality was just small-ish.  I thanked him, and reminded him that I could have run up to the front of the building to pick it up.  "Nah.  Cubs ducks are here."  He then turned and massived his way back towards his office.

See, Jack's a big (in both common usages of the term) Cubs fan, and I have a pair of Cubs rubber duckies on the top of my cubewall.  Guess he likes them.  Anyway, he left me with a box, which I promptly put to one side so I could finish up a series of claims I was working on.  This diligence lasted for roughly thirty seconds before I reached into my Magic Desk of Holding for a pair of scissors.  Screw the claims, I needed to open the box!  And what was inside?

The gift of music... and sanity.

I mean that quite literally.  I'll actually be able to concentrate on work now, as opposed to the tappity-tappity-tap-click-click-click-tap of ambient noise in the production room.  Throw in the ridiculously chatty ladies who sit just beyond my cube's front wall, and music will be a blessed relief, similar to that experienced when the morphine kicks in.

"But Wonderduck," I hear you ask quizzically and I've got to do something about that microphone, its directional feature is misaimed, "what happened to the iPond reader ReallyBored sent you?"  Funny story!  It arrived here quite promptly, it had enough juice in the battery for me to even turn it on at work, and everything worked quite well.  Got home that night, plugged it in to charge, installed iTunes, all that jazz.  When it was fully charged, I copied music over... and all hell broke loose.  There was a quiet screech sound from the iPond, the screen reset, and a rhythmic "tic" sound began to emanate from it... and I couldn't break out of anything.  I couldn't even do a hard reset.  Probably not a huge surprise... it was a 2006 edition, meaning it was pushing 10 years old.  RB apologized, which I immediately turned around... he shipped me an iPond, for heaven's sake. 

When I mentioned this in online conversation with Pixy, he immediately said he'd ship me one of his.  From Australia.  Surprisingly, it isn't as expensive as you'd think, about $12 US or so for seven day shipping.  It's a big world, but it's getting smaller all the time. 

It's tangent time!  That link will take you to the title song of Joe Jackson's album Big World.  Indeed, the video was shot during the recording of that very track.  "Wonderduck, that's a concert video," you say disbelievingly.  And indeed, that too is true.  Big World was JJ's attempt at capturing the immediacy and energy of a live performance without all the noise from an excited audience.  The crowd was told they were cutting an album, and they could only cheer at the end of songs.  Anybody violating this rule would be kicked out.  It says a lot about JJ fans that I have found nothing about anybody being ejected.  Anyway, it was an interesting experiment, and it turned out one of my all-time favorite JJ tracks, but on the whole I'd druther clap.  End digression, back to the original point.

Pixy took the sacrifical iPod to Australian Post where, he told me later, the lady behind the counter was very nice and cheerful and helpful, which immediately tells me that he wasn't in a US post office.  They had everything all set, and then she said that due to the US Department of Homeland Security rules, he had to demonstrate that the battery was removable.  Ah.  Yes.  Quite.  And y'know what?  That was the first time that I've ever been affected by the so-called draconian Homeland Security rules, save for having to remove my shoes at the airport.  Curse them!  Curse them all!

Cut to two weeks ago.  I'm on Steam when I notice my brother in feathers GreyDuck is also online.  We chat for a while about nothing in particular, although I congratulated him on his time-lapse video when he asks if the iPond had helped me at all.  So I explain the Great iPond Saga, and I can tell he's laughing on the other end of the (metaphorical) line.  I then mention that I had to borrow money from the folks to buy food this month (it was, and still is, a little tight around here, though it's getting better) and that a mp3 player was probably going to the only thing on my Xmas list this year (not that there's ever more than a couple of things in toto).  GD asked what I was looking at, and I threw him a link to the SanDisk Clip Jam.  It's not fancy, but I don't need fancy... I needed something that'll shuffle-play music and I'd be happy.  At which point, GD said "done."

Huh?  "Something good happened at work.  Gimme a week or two."  Wait, no!  "Shut up, WD.  Do something nice for someone else when you can."  But... but....  "Just say yes." 

So that's how I now have a surprisingly small mp3 player, and I can't thank GD enough.  And one of these days, something will happen here at The Pond to pay it forward.

Now if you'll excuse me, it looks like it's done charging.  I can load songs onto it for tomorrow!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:35 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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So here's the situation.  I'm at work... actually, I'm in the breakroom, refilling my water bottle with water and fresh cold ice (best benefit of the job: the icemaker), and I notice one of the really new hires (I'm no longer a total noob!) reading a paperback.  The cover is emblazoned with the words...

...which of course made me smile.  While I'm pretty much over Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, et al, I'll always remember them fondly.  I must have chuckled or something like that, for the kid reading looked up at me, and was that perhaps a look of annoyance that flashed across his face?  Oh no, not another vunderkinde who thinks his generation invented everything cool.  Yup... "Is something funny?"

"Yep!  The cover of your book... seems to fit this place perfectly."

"It's not really like that.  The book is called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and..."

"Yes, I know!"

"You saw the movie, huh?"

Oh.  Oh dear.  I've had this sort of thing happen to me before, and ever since that time in 2008, I've wondered why.  Do I look like I'm so incredibly uncool that I wouldn't watch anime, or read science fiction or manga, or even seen Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog?  I've even had someone express surprise that I've played Fallout 3.  Is it because I'm old?  What? What is it?  "Yes, I saw the movie.  Quite enjoyed it, actually, particularly the dolphins, and Zaphod's two heads effect was...".  At this point, I was going to say "...much better than the old TV show's", but the kid got all kinds of snippy then.

"The movie is awful, you should read the book."  Now look, the movie isn't going to win any awards, that's for sure, but short of having the ghost of Douglas Adams make his way back to this plane of existence and take a few classes in movie directing it wasn't likely to be any better than it was.  I mean, other than the Heart of Gold looking completely wrong, there's very little to complain about visually.  Heck, some bits of it were quite inspired: Mos Def as Ford Prefect?  Alan Rickman and Stephen Fry as Marvin and The Book?  Zooey Deschanel playing Trillian like the character was written for her?  But where does he come off suggesting I've never read the book? 

At this point, I probably should have nodded, said "good idea," and walked away.  If I had been in a better mood, I probably would have.  But I'm still in an awful mood, so I didn't.  "My hardcover copy is probably older than you are.  I have a British paperback first edition of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.  I once had a small group of friends over to my house when I was a freshman in high school, just to listen to the radio play on NPR... on 8-Track!  But you're right, I should read it.  Again.  It's been a few years."  And I walked away, humming "So long and thanks for all the fish."

I then cranked out 40 claims in an hour, followed by another 39 the next, on the way to my best day yet: 245 claims in eight hours.  Maybe I can get the kid to piss me off every day?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:05 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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