Working! No, Really!

I'm slowly beavering away on the whole blogging thing.  Soon, I hope to be back into the groove and start generating fun and entertaining posts again.

No, really!  Why are you laughing?  Stop that this instant!

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Random Anime Picture #106: Cheesecake

-Shokugeki no Soma, Ep17

For a show that I only began watching to see if there were more rubber ducks involved, I'm pleasantly surprised to admit that Shokugeki no Soma is really quite good!  Cross a fighting anime with Iron Chef and you've got the basic idea behind the show.

Just... don't watch the show when you're hungry.  Or on a diet.  Swear to god, you gain weight just watching the dishes they prepare.  Best of all, none of them are stupid: you could "easily" make them yourself.  Heck, many of the recipes were included in the manga!

There are other reasons to watch, too.

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Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me???

Holy crepe, it's almost Christmas.  When did that happen?

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Gakkou Gurashi Ep06

This has been a tough one.  Not just because of the subject matter, which as you'll see is less unicorns and rainbows and more zombies and more zombies.  No, actually, zombies and more zombies would have been okay.  This particular episode of Gakkou Gurashi is of a type that makes for really tough recapping, because it relies heavily on sound to convey a very dramatic turning point in the series.  And, in case you haven't noticed, much of this blog is silent, occasional music posts to the contrary.  So how to actually do this?  I've given it much thought, and to be blunt, "I dunno.  I just dun."  Which might be a first.  Well, that's always exciting, huh?  Breaking new ground, heading off into the great unwashed unknown.  As always, however, I must caution you, the reader, against spoileriffic activities and discussions, if for no other reason than I'm watching the show as I do the writeups... Ep06 is as far as I've gotten!  If you even drop hints that could be spoilers, I will not hesitate to do Bad Things.  And nobody wants that.  So!  On with the story, eh?  Last time out, we got to see how Miki joined the gang.  What wonders does Gakkou Gurashi bring us this time?

GAH!!! 
...
Sorry, I'm just not sure that being stared at by a weird kid is how I'd want to wake up after having survived a shopping mall full of undead horrors.  A glass of water, though, is exactly what Miki needs, and after that...

...it's time for introductions!  Well, introduction-singular, as Miki just completely ignores Megu-nee and concentrates on the amazing fact that Yuki is a senior.  While that is something of a shocking revelation, it doesn't seem like enough reason to completely blow off a teacher to me.

A short conversation between Megu-nee and Yuki about explaining the School Living Club to Miki does nothing to help matters, as the garterbelt-wearing lovely seems to just get more confused.  The talk ends when Yuki hands her teacher the water bottle she's holding.  Turning back to Miki, we hear the sound of a water bottle hitting the floor.  Curiouser and curiouser.

A tour of the school is in order, it appears, even though Miki's a student there.  Ever a good kid, Miki points out that they've left the door to the room open.  "That's okay, Megu-nee is still in there!"  Hmmm.  But you'd think the junior would have noticed that...?

more...

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Quokka!

Quokka!

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Sleep Is For The Weak. And The Tired.

I fall into both categories right now, after having two horrendously stressful days at work and very vivid nightmares two of the past three nights.  Technically, the fact that I had nightmares meant that I also slept, but I'll be darned if you could prove it by me.

I kept nearly dozing off in front of the computer at work today.  As that's the one sure way to get yourself fired, this is A Very Bad Thing.  So, to prevent that from occurring tomorrow, I am going to take a nap now.  "But Wonderduck," you say... nope, I'm not gonna throw in anything here like I usually do, gotta keep y'all on your toes... "it's 830pm!"  Yes, I reply, and I care not at all.  I need sleep like ducks need rye bread.

UPDATE:  "Seven hours" is the answer to the question "how long was the nap?"  I'm awake only to post this update and to release pressure in my hydraulic system.  Going back to bed now.

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Humanity Deserves Better Than Humans

During my period of... um... unplanned vacation... I made jokes about becoming very hermit-ish in my everyday life.  There were whole weeks when I never left Pond Central.  Heck, there were long periods of time where I never opened the door, let alone leave for any reason.  At the end of such long stretches, I would find myself beginning to get antsy for human contact, leading to some epic runs of motormouth during dinners with The Librarian or Ph.Duck.  On the whole, though, I was pretty okay with being a recluse.  I had a radio, I had a TV, I had a computer... really, it's hard to think of what more a modern-day hermit could desire.

I'm now gainfully employed, of course, which means I pretty much have to leave Pond Central at least five days per week.  Six days isn't uncommon, though going out seven days is totally unheard of... Sunday is always totally mine for F1 or football or whatever.  Even with having to go out, I'm still awfully hermity.  The job itself is a solitary position, and it doesn't take any effort at all to go the entire day speaking a total of four words: "Good morning" and "good night."  I'm pretty okay with that, though the person sitting next to me is becoming something of a work buddy... we're starting to play pranks on each other.

However!  There are times where I cannot avoid the outside world... like this afternoon.  We ran out of claims after I got six hours in, which was okay with me because in the trunk of the DuckMobile was nearly fifty pounds of laundry.  The situation had become desperate... hell, I needed to wash clothes back as far as Thanksgiving.  Problem is, I couldn't bring myself to actually do it.  Couple of reasons for that.  First, I'm in one of those periodic fits of self-loathing I tend to get into.  Second, I'm also in one of those fits of hating just about everybody that I tend to get into.  The LAST thing that combination warrants is going to the laundromat.

But no clean clothes means away I went.  The good news is that at 3pm on a Tuesday, the place was nearly empty.  The bad news is the "nearly" part.  During the two hour, eight loads of laundry span of time I was there, I rediscovered just how much I despise most of humanity.  For example, the screaming baby.  Actually, I had no problem with the baby... it was hungry and that's what babies do when they're hungry.  However, mommy was 18, tops, and much too invested in her phone to actually feed the poor child.  She was even taking selfies... in a laundromat?... no doubt to update her myfacetwitsnaptube page.  Meanwhile the baby screeched on.  Speaking of phones, there was also the charming lass talking on her phone at high volume, whose use of the language would have made sailors blush.  How in the world can you carry on a conversation when every third word was f'n this, or f'n that or f'n the other?  Then there was the guy who actually made little jokes about me... because I was reading a book.  I'm not sure if he was offended by my reading, or if it was because it was an actual book and not a Kindling or a Niche or whatever.  In case you're wondering, it was Heinlein's Expanded Universe.  Finally, as if simply to mock me, the TVs were showing some Judge Judy-alike with much yelling and banging of gavels.  By the time I broke the zipper on the small laundry bag from overstuffing it, I was ready to do Very Bad Things to everybody. 

The big bag, now containing approximately 200 pounds of clean clothing, continued to not explode, something it has managed for over a decade now.  Dragging the 500 pounds of stuff out to the DuckMobile was somewhat troublesome; carrying the 943lb bag up the stairs to Pond Central nearly killed me, not least because the railing on the stairs is badly rusted and it fair to broke at one point, nearly catapulting me down two flights of stairs.  So now I've got 2000lbs of clean laundry to deal with, and I have to go back to work in the morning, and I would rather do anything else right now.  Because Humanity kinda sucks.

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Ducks In Anime: Disapproval

-Shokugeki no Soma, Ep07

Over the years, I have encountered many rubber ducks in episodes of anime, and this is good.  I approve of this trend wholeheartedly.  One thing that I do not countenance, however, is the use of rubber duckies as projectiles.  Bath toys of any sort should never be thrown at others... it could hurt the duckie! 

This occurred in Rio: Rainbow Gate! and Kanon '06 as well... no more!  No more, I say!

Darn humans, always messing it up for the rest of us.

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Ah.

I...  um... hm. 

(sigh)

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That'll Buff Right Out, You Betcha.

November 29, 1968 was shaping up to be just another day for Santa Fe 213L, an EMD F7A in freight service on the Plainview District main line in north Texas. 

Hook up and run through Hale Center, taking its load of cars to wherever they needed to go.  Shame about the tornado that tore through the center of town a few years earlier, though.  Never was a big place, and some folks decided they didn't want to come back afterwards... Lubbock to the south, Amarillo to the north, plenty of big city reasons to move in either one.  'Sfunny how things change.  Even that US 87, runs parallel to the main line, it's gettin' replaced by something called I-27.  Saw it gettin' built as we ran back and forth over the years.  Dunno if it's better, but it's new... train'll still carry more stuff than trucks will, more than likely.  Although that may not be true for long... lotta guys retirin' early, or just being let go, and who ever thought that'd happen? 

Huh.  Could swear that looks like a train out there, just south of Hale.  Hm...

more...

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F1 Update: Abu Dhabi 2015

Night was falling as the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg led the assembled field to the grid at Yas Marina.  Behind him was world champion Lewis Hamilton, who began complaining about that fact days earlier.  Carrying the hopes and dreams of Italy was the third car on the grid, the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.  The oddball of the bunch sat in fourth position, the Force India of Sergio Perez.  How would these worthies shake out at the end of the day?  There's only one way to find out: THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi!

*OH JEEZ... REALLY?:  When the lights went out, the usual headlong dive for the first turn began.  Polesitter Nico Rosberg easily outpaced his rivals while Hamilton's poor start meant that he had to scramble to keep Raikkonen behind him.  He accomplished this feat, which gave him a grandstand view of Rosberg galloping away.  It wasn't a huge gap, only five seconds by the time first Rosberg, then Hamilton, pitted for new tires on Lap 10 and 11, respectively, but that would prove to be plenty.

*SO MUCH FOR THAT:  The one true important contest remaining in the World Driver's Championship was for fourth.  Williams' Valterri Bottas led Raikkonen by a single point... whichever man finished ahead of the other would take the position.  Bottas and Williams took all the drama out of the duel early.  First Bottas peed the start down the leg of his firesuit, dropping to 10th by the end of the first lap.  Then during his first pit stop, the team released him just as the McLaren of Jenson Button angled into his pit box.  The collision snapped the left side of Bottas's front wing clean off, and for whatever reason the team told him to leave the pits and return instead of stopping and having the mechanics pull him back.  In any case, by the time he got his car around and the nose repaired he had dropped to last place and was never seen again.

*OH... HIM?:  Due to a massive screwup in Quals by Ferrari, Seb Vettel started the race pretty much at the back of the field.  He sure didn't stay there long; by the end of the first lap he was 12th, and then settled into tire conservation mode.  While his rivals began pitting on Lap 9, he didn't make his first stop until 14 laps later, at which point he was in fourth place!  After the stop, he had fallen to 6th, but by babying his tires he managed to work his way back up to fourth, practically without having to pass anybody on track.  Maybe a boring strategy, but an effective one.

*BACK AT THE FRONT: The second stint was much more friendly to Hamilton, allowing him to close the gap to his teammate almost to DRS range.  When Rosberg pitted on Lap 31, the entire race was there for Hamilton to take.  He had been begging for an alternate tire strategy, any tire strategy, that could allow him to take the fight to the other Mercedes, and now he had the chance.  The team left it up to him... and he let the team make the call.  Rosberg would go on to win by over eight seconds, and Hamilton would go on to say that he "You have to rely on the engineers to give you the optimum strategy at that point," but that he "didn't understand it." 

*IN THE END:  The top three places were exactly the way the race began: Rosberg, Hamilton, Raikkonen.  If it hadn't've been for Vettel getting in the way, it would have been the top five places, for Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo, 4th and 5th at the start, ended up 5th and 6th.  Yeah, it was that sort of "race"... and it was essentially the 2015 season in a nutshell.  Only three drivers earned victories this year, Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel (Hamilton 10, Rosberg 6, Vettel 3).  The same three were the only polesitters (Hamilton 11, Rosberg 7, Vettel 1).  The German national anthem was heard during every podium ceremony in 2015.

*SO.:  And thus does the 2015 F1 season come to an end.  We're only 109 days away from the first race of the 2016 season, at Australia... but we'll start seeing the rollouts of the new cars a lot sooner than that.  One of them will be the first design for the new official team of F1U!, HaasF1.  We all hope that they'll be enough to make next year interesting.

Thanks for reading this year, and we'll see you soon enough!

*ALMOST FORGOT:  Noah would be pleased with the final driver's championship standings.

Two by two... two by two.

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While We're Waiting For F1U...

People have asked me, "Wonderduck, why do you like LeMans so much?"

THAT right there.  That's why.

That's Audi's entry into the 2016 World Endurance Championship's LMP1 class (or whatever the top prototype class is called these days).  My word, that's quite the looker.  I mean, I love F1 cars, but c'mon, they haven't looked this good in years.  And that livery!  That's poster material right there.

I kinda geeked when I first saw the pictures.

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F1 Quals: Abu Dhabi 2015

Here's the provisional grid for the 2015 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi.  Stop me if you've heard this one before:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:41.111	1:40.979	1:40.237
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:40.974	1:40.758	1:40.614
3	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:42.500	1:41.612	1:41.051
4	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:41.983	1:41.560	1:41.184
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:42.275	1:41.830	1:41.444
6	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:42.608	1:41.868	1:41.656
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:41.996	1:41.925	1:41.686
8	Felipe Not Nasr Massa	Williams	1:42.303	1:42.349	1:41.759
9	Kid Kvyat	Red Bull Racing	1:42.540	1:42.328	1:41.933
10	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:42.911	1:42.482	1:42.708
11	Embryo Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:42.889	1:42.521
12	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:42.570	1:42.668
13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:42.929	1:42.807
14	Felipe Not Massa Nasr	Sauber	1:42.896	1:43.614
15	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus	1:42.585	No Time
16	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:42.941
17	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:43.187
18	Sony Ericsson	Sauber	1:43.838
19	Will Stevens	Marussia	1:46.297
20	Roberto Merhi	Marussia	1:47.434

Yup, it's another Mercedes 1-2, with Rosberg taking his sixth pole in a row.  The big news, though, is that Ferrari's Seb Vettel never made it out of Q1.  The team told him that he had gone fast enough to make it to Q2, so he backed out of his final flying lap to preserve tires... and then Jenson Button's McLaren bumped him.  Oy.

Up at the front, Lewis Hamilton actually was quickest in Q1 and Q2; Rosberg just killed it in Q3, though, and that's the only one that really matters.  There's actually a chance that the nearly .40 sec gap will increase, as Hamilton may have his fastest lap thrown out for violating track limits.  He'd still be in 2nd, though.

Other than all that, however, it was pretty much bog-standard.  Which is what I expect Sunday's race to be as well.  But who knows?  Maybe it'll rain.

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Long Weekend

It wasn't until sometime late last week that I discovered that the office was not going to be open on Black Friday.  Four day weekend!  Now, to be honest, I wouldn't have minded working today all that much... it's not like I have to deal with retail customers as a medical claims processor... but I'm not going to look a paid day off in the mouth of a horse of a different color.

Things have taken a distinctively positive turn at The Job.  I cleared the first major hurdle of averaging 100 claims a day a few months ago.  I then set a goal of averaging 20 claims an hour, or 160 claims per normal day.  I've sunk that one a few weeks back, and set sail for 200/day.  Almost immediately I reached that milestone.  Even better, I've now worked at The Job long enough to be paid on merit for each claim.  For the past three months I was locked at $.50/claim.  Once you hit merit pay, the base amount per claim drops to something like $.34.  However, you then get bonuses based on your accuracy levels on three separate categories.  If you're not making too many errors, these bonuses add up to truly pleasant levels... like, twice as much as the base amount?  Combining my recent speed boost with that means that my per-hour rate is looking truly inspirational. 

There is one little problem though... I haven't worked a full eight hours in a day in two, maybe three weeks.  There's some long-winded reasons for that that I'm not going to get into, but there's one smaller reason that just makes me facepalm so very hard.  See, as you may remember, the medical industry recently switched from the ICD-9 standard of coding to ICD-10.  This is actually one of those few changes that makes a lot of sense... ICD-10 allows for much more accurate coding of incidents.  Just making up an example, ICD-9 would code for "broken arm, right."  ICD-10 codes to "broken arm, right, upper, enclosed fracture, honey mustard sauce."  However!  The implementation date for the new coding had been pushed back multiple times, and it appears that a lot of medical facilities just assumed that would occur again.  This means that it's taking longer for claims to get to us, as doctors' offices and clinics and all those sorts of places try to figure out software and codes they've been neglecting.

Other than that little problem, though?  Things are okay.  The mp3 player allows me to mostly tune out the world... except for one person.  This person, who we'll call Louise because that isn't her name, is a talker.  Worse, her voice has a lot of throw weight to it, much the way nuclear weaponry has throw weight.  She doesn't ever whisper, so everything she says is quite audible, even when she isn't talking loudly.  Remember, this is in a relatively quiet workspace as well.  The job is hard enough without hearing her discuss her lunch in detail.  Polite requests for her to be quiet had a couple hours' worth of effect.  More formal complaints fell on deaf ears or worse, led Louise to complain to the manager of the entire office... "boo hoo, they're picking me."  Frustrating.  One feature of this job is that long-term people with good speed and accuracy are often allowed to work from home.  Combine that with the usual workforce churn and open seats tend to appear.  When enough of those occur, a reorganization invariably takes place.  Remember, in the Duckford office, we actually work with four different medical insurance firms, and it's always best to get the workers for a firm in one place.  New employees, for example, will always get put into The Big Room before they get shuffled to their real room.  This reorg occurred on Tuesday... and Louise was moved from her seat in the cube directly in front of me to one literally as far away as possible from me and still be in the same room.

That very Tuesday, I cranked out my best claims day ever... I was within spittin' distance of 300 when we ran out of 'em.  Coincidence?  Nope.  I could listen to my music without fear of hearing her "huh?" rip through Athena's Barcarolle from ARIA... I have a four minute long live recording of it on the mp3 player that can manage to bring tears to my eyes.  So work is okay.  And it's not in a mall.  No complaints at the moment.  And hey, four days off!

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Visual Novel Review: Go! Go! Nippon!

I'm not what I'd call a "gamer" by any stretch of the imagination.  Make no mistake, I do play computer games, sure, but I'm not one of those hardcore creatures who eat and sleep videogames all the time.  We have a few of those at work actually, and they're great fun to talk to.  They accept me as one of their own, ever since I recognized Vault-Boy on one of their cellphone's lock screen.  I haven't been able to talk to them recently though, as the three of them are playing Fallout 4 like they'll die if they don't... and talking about spoilers.  As I've managed to avoid all details of the game except those given in the first Official Trailer, their conversations tend to send me screaming from the break room.  I have a feeling that I'll get into the game the same way I did Skyrim or Fallout 3 once I obtain a copy, though.  But I'm not a heavy-duty gamer.  One particular type of game that I've never really gotten into is the Visual Novel, though I've played a few.  If you've never played a Visual Novel, understand that it's not a "game" the way, say, Mass Effect or Portal or Pong are games. Most of the time, you're just reading words on the screen much the way you read a book. Upon occasion, you have the ability to influence the course of the story by making a decision ("Go to sleep" or "Go out and party"; "Invade Russia" or "Invade Britain"... that sort of thing).  For the most part, VNs are distinctly Japanese, and some very good anime series have been made from them.  Kanon, for example, was first a VN... I tried to play it, but I got a nasty virus from the copy I obtained.  I did manage to play some of Clannad, but never came close to finishing.  On the whole, in fact, the few VNs I've played, I've given up on long before I completed the storyline/s.  Ironically, the two that I have finished weren't actually Japanese!  Katawa Shoujo was made by a volunteer group from all over, and Sakura Spirit by an American company; both were written in English.  Which brings us to the subject of this review.

Go! Go! Nippon! (GGN) was released in 2011 by Overdrive, a Japanese company.  Unlike pretty much every VN ever, it was developed exclusively for the overseas audience... English speakers, primarily.  Shortly after I was disassociated with my position at the Duck U Bookstore, I stumbled across a promo video for GGN on Steam.  Amused, I put it in my Steam Wish List for later perusal... and then it went on sale last Thanksgiving.  Five dollars later, it was in my library.  I enjoyed it, but it was short... five hours got me through the entire thing.  Eh, fair enough.  I then put it aside and never touched it again.  Until recently, that is.  Y'see, about a month ago Overdrive released what they called DLC for the game.  In reality, it was an almost complete rework of GGN.  As it, too, was only a few bucks, I bought it.  So what's it all about?

more...

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F1 on TV: Abu Dhabi 2015

And so we come, not to the end of the beginning, nor the beginning of the end, but just, simply, the end.  The final race of the 2015 Formula 1 season.  A season which started eight months ago in Melbourne.  Along the way, we've seen one of the less-interesting seasons of racing in recent history.  So what does this finishing contest promise?  Let's take a look at the track map for the 2015 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi.

We've been here plenty of times before, and pretty much what we've learned is that this is a awful track to race on.  Fun to drive, yes, but to contest position?  There's one good place to pass, Turn 8/9, with Turns 5-7 being somewhat less swell.  Remember, this is the circuit where they thought it would be a good idea to have the pit exit run underneath the track.  I suspect it's merely luck that we haven't seen that idea backfire horribly.

So what's the point of this race?  Well, Valterri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen in a fight for fourth place in the driver's championship, one point separating them.  Lotus leads Toro Rosso by nine points for sixth in the constructor's championship.  And... um... that's about it, really.  Most teams will probably be using Abu Dhabi as an extended test session... remember, the 2016 season is only four months away!

Oy.

The Legendary Announce Team has the coverage, as usual.  Here's the schedule:
Friday
Practice 2:  7a - 830a live on NBCSN
Saturday
Quals:  7a - 830a live on CNBC
Sunday
2015 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi:  6a - 9a live on NBCSN

We'll be along afterwards, of course, with the usual F1Update!.  Join us, won't you?

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Moses Supposes?

Erroneously?  Magnificently!

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Stagnant? Moi?

Not intentionally... at least, not since that last post.  My internet connection has been completely down since very early Wednesday morning.

This is very very annoying.  It's not like I need help in not blogging, after all.  The connection has been up for only a short time... my modem fired up as I was looking at it, in fact... but I have no confidence in it staying up, so I thought I'd better get a notification posted.  And when I clicked to finalize this post? The internet had gone down again.  Guess I was right.  Wow, five minutes of internet in over a day.  Considering this provider's track record at times, I guess I should count myself lucky.

On the other hand, I managed to watch a few episodes of Sakura Trick, which I was told was really really good.  I will never take this person's word for something ever again.  However!  Attention Steven!  The character in the picture above normally wears red quarter-rimmed glasses!  Even BETTER than half-rimmed!  If you wanna see, check out Ep03 and beyond.

Just... don't pay attention to the show.  Or be at risk of diabetes, and by "at risk" I mean "you once ate or drank something that had some sort of sweetener in it."  And if you actually have diabetes, avoid Sakura Trick like the plague.  Dear god, this series will kill you dead.

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Random Anime Picture #105: Such A Day

-Hibike! Euphonium Special, Ep05

Frustration abounds.  I can't get a grip on blogging for length right now for whatever reason, despite having two projects I want... need... to finish.  Meanwhile, it feels like The Pond is stagnant, like a tiny Minnesota lake filled with muddy water and ice fishing equipment. 

I hate this.

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F1 Update: Brazil 2015

Here's what sort of race we had today from São Paulo: we spent the entirety looking at the sky, praying the distant clouds would make their way over the circuit and drop just a little bit of rain.  Anything.  Please.  We beg you.  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil!

We watched the race live.  We've read a bunch of post-race reaction.  We even went back and watched the 15 or so laps we missed when we dozed off (the F1U! team slept neither long nor well last night; by the time the 10am start came around, we'd already been up for four hours and were running on a similar amount of sleep).  We cannot come to any other conclusion but this: the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil was a dud.  The Mercedes of Nico Rosberg led wire to wire except during the pit rotation, and even then he was out of the lead for a total of two laps.  Teammate Lewis Hamilton had nothing for the polesitter, unable to mount a substantial challenge at any time.  This includes the start, where Rosberg simply got off the line better and faster and held a gap into the first turn... no pushing and shoving beween teammates this time around!  The closest we came to a Hamilton challenge to Rosberg's dominance was late in the race.  The reigning Champion cut the lead down as close as 1.3 seconds with something like 10 laps to go.  It was a false image however, as Hamilton had to light his rear tires on fire to accomplish it.  He wound up nearly eight seconds back when the race finished.

Which put paid to the so-called storyline of the race.  In the runup to Brazil, the F1 press was full of Hamilton's desire to win at Interlagos, home of his hero Ayrton Senna.  He's never won in Brazil, though it's the home of arguably his greatest moment, his first world championship.  On and on they went about Hamilton wanting THIS victory.  And he didn't get it.  And nobody really is surprised by this.  Hamilton is a great driver, maybe the best on the grid right now, but he's not so much better that he can will himself to win.  When Hamilton is behind Rosberg, he needs his German teammate to make a mistake.  Sometimes Lewis can force that mistake, often he can't.  This isn't a knock on Hamilton, nor praise for Rosberg.  It's just an observation.  Today, Rosberg didn't make a mistake that Hamilton could exploit.

Rosberg's victory also locked up second place in the driver's championship for him.  Seb Vettel, who finished third in the race, had very little room for error today.  He was 21 points behind his countryman, but with only 50 points left available he had to make sure he kept that gap from growing.  The Mercs were too good today, however, and he should be commended for only being 14 seconds behind Rosberg at the end.  His teammate, Kimi Raikkonen finished in fourth, and how dominant the Mercedes were should be evident by the information that he was the last driver on the lead lap.  That's right, the silver cars lapped the field up to Valterri Bottas's Williams in 5th today.

We also saw the Constructor's Championship pretty much finished up to 5th place today as well.  Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams, Red Bull and Force India are locked in, and how amazing is it that Williams is in third?  Two years ago, they had a grand total of five points, good for 9th place in the constructor's championship.  It's great that the second most successful team in F1 history is back... now if only they could challenge for wins.

If it sounds like we're struggling to find things to talk about regarding the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil, it's because we are.  This wasn't just a bad race, it was a boring race.  Particularly when compared to the two that came before it, Mexico and the US.  Hopefully the finale in Abu Dhabi will be better, but we have our doubts.  And then the season will, mercifully, be over.

We'll see you in two weeks!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:15 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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