Mystery Ship XXV Demystified

Meet the USS Electrician.  Built in the first quarter of the 1900s at what is now called Naval Station Norfolk, she was a 3/4-scale model of a Pennsylvania-class battleship.  While made of wood, she was more-or-less fully outfitted as a training unit for NSN's electrician's school... the class of 1921 is seen above.  The guns weren't real though, probably much to the relief of Norfolk.

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F1U USGP Delayed

Due to the gobsmackingly hideous weather, I had to go into the Duck U Bookstore for a while this evening.  As a result, I'm in no mood to write about the race.  Steven has an entertaining little writeup HERE... I'll answer his questions/comments when I do the F1U.  Meanwhile, here's a picture of Adrian F'n Sutil's Lap 1 wreck to tide you over until then!

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F1 Austin: I'm Out Of A Job

Looks like I finally managed to get Steven to watch a F1 race.  He blogged about it.

I may as well hang up the F1U!s right now.

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About That US Grand Prix Thing...

I may have a problem watching it.  There's wave after wave of thunderstorms and squall lines coming through the area.  High wind warnings are posted until 4pm, pretty much all of Illinois is under a tornado watch, except for some parts that have tornado warnings.

It goes without saying that this sort of thing plays hob with satellite reception... and that storm marked "G4" is aimed right at Pond Central.  There's a Bears game at Soldier Field at noon, and they're preparing for the worst.  61000 people in an outdoor stadium when a bad storm rolls through?  Not pleasant.

So we'll see what I get to see... stay tuned, I guess, though if my satellite goes out, there's every chance in the world my internet'll go out, too.

UPDATE: Eep.

Squall line going over pretty much as we speak.  Zero satellite feed.

UPDATE: Satellite feed is back a half-hour from the race start.  Too damn bad the station is breaking in every five minutes with weather updates.  To be fair, things are nasty just south of Pond Central... there's been a tornado on the ground about 50 or so miles south of here, for example.  We seem to be clear up here, though.  I mean, it's going to rain, yeah, and thunderstorms, but the weather nabobs are saying that Duckford should be safe from the severe weather.

UPDATE @ 1236pm:  They just temporarily suspended the Bears game, and the fans are being evacuated into the recesses of Soldier Field.  I heard Gene Steratore, the head ref for the game, say "tornado warning" and "heavy lightning".  Great googly moogly.

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F1 Quals: United States!

It was a much nicer day than we had on Friday for practice.  Then, first practice was delayed, then shortened by a half-hour, because of fog.  It was thick enough to prevent the medical helicopter from flying.  Eventually the fog lifted, P1 started, then after about 15 minutes it was red flagged... because people noticed that the medical helicopter wasn't actually there yet.  Oops.

But that was yesterday.  Today, there were some clouds overhead, but the big thing was the wind.  The Legendary Announce Team said it was gusting up to 30mph, and it was playing hob with the cars all session.  It was bad enough that when the cars were going one direction, aero grip was boosted, but the other?  Shiv Hamilton was complaining that the front end of his Mercedes felt light and twitchy.  To be sure, the cloudy sky also meant that it was cool-ish and the track surface never warmed up... meaning the tires didn't have as much mechanical grip as they should, either.  So what does all this mean for the race tomorrow?  Well, here's the provisional grid for the 2013 United States Grand Prix:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	4Time Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:38.516	1:37.065	1:36.338
2	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:38.161	1:37.312	1:36.441
3	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:38.676	1:37.523	1:37.155
4	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber-Ferrari	1:38.339	1:37.828	1:37.296
5	Shiv Hamilton	Mercedes	1:37.959	1:37.854	1:37.345
6	HWMNBN	Ferrari	1:38.929	1:37.368	1:37.376
7	Ta-ta Perez	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.367	1:38.040	1:37.452
8	Heikki Kovalaineninnie	Lotus-Renault	1:38.375	1:38.078	1:37.715
9	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Renault	1:37.821	1:37.439	1:37.836
10	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:38.082	1:38.031	1:38.034
11	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	1:38.882	1:38.131
12	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:38.894	1:38.139
13	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:38.588	1:38.217
14	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:38.743	1:38.364
15	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:39.094	1:38.592
16	Jules Vergne	STR-Ferrari	1:38.880	1:38.696
17	Adrian F'n Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:39.250
18	How Droll Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1:39.351
19	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham-Renault	1:40.491
20	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Cosworth	1:40.528
21	Charles ToothPic	Caterham-Renault	1:40.596
22	Max Chilton	Marussia-Cosworth	1:41.401

Yeah, yeah, Vettel still gets the pole.  But Nico Hulkenberg ahead of Hamilton?  Valtteri Bottas as high on the grid as 3rd in Q3 until slipping down to 9th?  BOTH Saubers in Q3?  Massa 15th?  Rosberg in 14th?  Really?  Heikki Kovalainninninnie in 8th, despite not having driven the Lotus until yesterday?  What sort of weirdness IS this, anyway?  It's Austin Weird, of course, though I suspect the proprietor of that website frowns upon F1.

So we've got a... let's call it a "blended" grid, which should make for an exciting first couple of laps while the faster cars make their way up towards the front... or leave little pointy pieces of carbon fiber scattered all over the track, one of the two.

As far as penalties go, Button got a three grid-spot penalty for passing under the red flag on Friday, while ToothPic gets a five spot for a gearbox change, and thus will be starting from somewhere near the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge.

So the race is on NBC at 1pm Pond Central time, but there'll be an one-hour pre-race thingy at noon, also on The Big Network.  You have no excuse to miss this one, and it should be worth watching... except for the whole "Vettel streaking off to another victory" thing.

See ya after!

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Name This Mystery Ship XXV

It's been a tough run for me of late, but here's a Mystery Ship for y'all.  Take your best shot!

Usual rules apply: no image searching, yadda yadda yadda.  The Mystery Ship Masters, CXT and FDM, can't guess until I say so.  Winner gets a post of their very own, barring pr0n, politics or religion.

Have at it!

UPDATE: Okay, CXT and FDM, you've been let off the leash!

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F1 on TV: 2013 United States Grand Prix

They say "be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."  Well, home it may be, but "humble" isn't a word that applies to the Circuit of the Americas, home of the 2013 United States Grand Prix!  Let's take a look at the track map:

Ah yes... who can forget this beauty?  The run up Phil Hill to Turn 1, followed by a junior-sized version of Suzuka's "S-Curves", then a whole buncha fund stuff leading to a slightly smaller version of Turkey's Quad-8 (here, 16-17-and-18, aka "Faux-8").  Easily the best Tilke track ever, perhaps because he didn't actually design it.  Instead, TilkeCorp simply built the place... and we are all better for it.

Last year's first race was won by Shiv Hamilton, who tracked down and passed 4Time Vettel for the lead late in the race.  At the time, it added extra suspense to the final race of the year, as there was still a fight for the championship.  Not so much this year, and who knows how this year's race'll work out?  I certainly don't, but I wouldn't bet against Vettel.

One driver I won't bet on is Kimi Raikkonen.  He's going to miss the last two races as he recovers from back surgery.  Convenient, that.  I'm also not going to bet on Felipe Massa, just because.  However, good news for all of us, as Massa will be on the grid next year!  It was announced on Monday that he's signed with Williams for 2014, taking the seat of NoJokeHere Maldonado and his Venezuelan Government backing.

But that's all next year.  We still have this season to finish up... and I'm actually going to complain about NBCSN.  This is arguably the channel's biggest event, and what's happening?  Quals are being tape-delayed so English Premiere League soccer can be broadcast.  The hell?  Here's the broadcast schedule as I know it:

FRIDAY
12noon - 230pm: Practice 2
SATURDAY
530p - 7p: Quals
SUNDAY
12noon - 330pm: 2013 United States Grand Prix live (one hour pre-race) on NBC.

F1U! will be annoyed by this all weekend, but we'll be here!  See ya then.

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Spiraling

I've a problem.  It's making my life miserable.  It's practically killed my blog, as my sharper-eyed readers may have noticed.  I can't talk about it yet.  But it's ruining my so-called life, and I don't mean that in a livejournal-y hyperbole-y sort of way. 

Forgive my blog the past little while.  Either it'll get better, or it'll go away altogether.  I hope for the former.

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Trying To Get This Story Out Of My Head

They used to call us "the PDI".  Poor Dumb Infantry.  Yeah.  That was before they wrapped us in a battlesuit, armed us with gauss rifles and micronukes, and watched us dominate the field of combat again.  Sure, that was close to 80 years ago now and tanks and other armored vehicles have taken the field back again, but the PDI is still a force to be reckoned with.

Which is why Mama Murphy's little boy is where he is right now, in a ferrocrete trench emplaced near the top of Hill 400 somewhere in the middle of a frozen Hell.  No, seriously, it's friggin' cold.  These battlesuits are great things, really... I'd have been dead a half-dozen times in the past week alone without mine... but I've had mine for six months, it's taken a helluva beating, and while Sparky over there tells me it's fine, the heater in this thing is on the fritz.

Now, I don't know why I'm here.  Hell, none of us know why our squad is perched on Hill 400, except that we were told to stay here and keep the bad guys from taking it.  We also don't know why the bad guys want it.  Herk over there says they want it because we've got it and they don't.  Herk's kind of a jerk.  Anyway, they do want it, awful bad it seems.  Down the slope of the hill, you can see just how bad... lot of scrap iron that used to be tanks sitting out there.  There's a whole battalion's worth of not-powered-infantry out there, too.  That makes me glad it's not summer... the snow means I can't see 'em, and the cold means I can't smell 'em, either.   Stupid, sending squishies against battlesuits... hope the idiot that came up with that idea is out there in the snow too.

This position is pretty sweet, considering that it seems to be Target #1 for the bad guys.  I mentioned the trenches already, right?  Six inches of... special... concrete, set into the side of a hill, so there's multiple feet of dirt and rock in front of it, too.  Pretty much proof against anything they've thrown at us so far.  When we get to go off duty, the... let's call 'em barracks, for lack of a better word that I can use in public... the barracks are even farther under ground, and it's warm, too.  The LT came by when we first moved in here, he said a nuke could go off over us and we'd be safe in there.

I don't want to find out.

LT moved on after saying that, haven't seen him since.  For that matter, haven't seen the rest of the company, either.  Still got plenty of ammo, though, so I guess we're still Ace Nifty.   We haven't come off scott-free, mind.  Brinks took a tank round to the chest; we're still finding bits of him around here, four days later.  The Newbie panicked and tried to win the war on his own.  Didn't work.  Hell, even Sarge got his armor opened up.  He's mostly unhurt, but he can't leave the barracks... too cold for an unprotected squishy up here.  Plenty he can still do, though his cooking leaves a lot to be desired.

All in all, if I have to be shot at, being a PDI in this defensive position is probably as good as I can hope for. 

Yeah, me and my big mouth, right?  No sooner did I write that than Sarge said that there's something big moving out there, out in the dark.  A few moments later, I could hear it, all squeaking metal and humming electric motors.  I poked my head up to look, and immediately wished I hadn't.  The built-in night vision viewers had kicked in automatically, so I got a really nice view of the something.  50 feet tall at the top of the tower.  About 120 feet long.  Guns.  Lots and lots of guns.  Herk said it first: "Ogre.  It's a bloody-bedamned Ogre!"

The fluid reclamation system in my armor got a workout just about then. 

Sarge was on the comms, trying to get permission to withdraw the squad, even while the rest of the group was getting on the firing line.  There wasn't enough ferrocrete in the world to put between us and it.  Jimmy was laughing like a crazy man... he couldn't believe that they were sending one of THOSE at us.  To be fair, it did seem like a bit of overkill to me, too.  And then it fired, and I realized we were doomed... it was a good two klicks outside of our longest-ranged weapons.  When those rounds hit, it was like a hand came down from the heavens and scooped out a chunk of the hill.  A big chunk.

The next rounds took out the top of the hill, three squaddies, and the barracks.  The rest of us scattered to the four winds... except for me.  Because I'm an idiot.  Because I never did like running very much.  But mostly because half of my left leg is gone, and that's a helluva limp to deal with.  The built-in medkit in the suit shot me up with joy juice and locked down the stump awfully quick.  Not gonna bleed out, in any case.  Yay for me.  I'm just gonna be run over by a giant self-aware unstoppable war machine.  Well, if I'm going down, I'm going to go down in style.

When the top of the damn thing's tower crested the edge of the trench, I was there, flipping it off.  It actually stopped moving, like it was either confused by what I was doing, or it was expecting me to do something else.  So I flipped it off with my other hand.

And the top of the tower, where a lot of an Ogre's sensors are located, exploded.  As did a lot of the rest of the thing.  I know now that it was a combination of bombs from a squadron of fighters, big shells from Divisional Arty, and the rest of the company finally showing up... but at the time, I just sort of stared at my fingers, wondering why I'd never managed to do that before.  The painkillers, y'know.

Anyway, it was the company Intel guy that took my picture.  You've seen it: one guy, flipping off the Ogre, better known than that Iwo Jima picture now.  Yep, that's me.  Luckiest bastard in the world.  Mama Murphy's idiot son.  The limp isn't too bad, all things being told.

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(Mini) F1 Update!: Abu Dhabi 2013

We just lost an hour's worth of work on the (Mini) F1 Update! that we'd been working on.  We are not pleased.  THIS is your F1U! for the 2013 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi.

*UGH:  Did you think 4Time Vettel would ease up on the rest of the field now that he'd won the driver's championship?  Oh heavens, if only that were the case.  The lights went out, polesitter Mark Webber had one of his patented Lousy Start^®s, and suddenly Vettel found himself in the lead out of Turn 1... a lead he would never relinquish.  Down at the other end of the field, Kimi Raikkonen, who had been excluded from Quals, decided that he could win the race in the first turn.  He tried to fit his Lotus underneath the Caterham of Giedo Van Der Garde, into a space that was going away even before he turned in.  This unwise move cost the Finn his front suspension.  However, he did get a jump on traffic back to the hotel.

There are already people baying and lowing about his leaving the circuit before the race was over, but c'mon, really?  What exactly could he do to help matters?  Give advice on how to handle the front straight?  How not to take Turn 1?  Support the team?  Considering the way this weekend has gone for the Raikkonen/Lotus relationship, I wouldn't be shocked to hear (in a few years) that he did it on purpose.

*ZZZZZZZZZ:  As the sun disappeared over the Yas Marina circuit, due to both planetary rotation and solar eclipse, 4Time Vettel made the sport ridiculous.

At one point, Red Bull's champion had a 43 second lead over his teammate in second place.  There was one stretch of time where he was two seconds a lap faster than anybody else on track.  We'd like to chalk it up to the rest of the field getting an early jump on 2014, but there's still too much to play for... no, 4Time just killed everything possible today.  It may have been the most dominating drive we here at F1U! have ever seen... and it was also ridiculously boring.

*OWTCH:  In the race's endgame, HWMNBN had just made his second pitstop and came charging out of the pit tunnel with a full head of steam.  Toro Rosso driver Jules Vergne had worn tires and held 7th place, but the Ferrari driver wanted the place badly.  Problem was, Vergne couldn't hold his racing line, drifting somewhat into the path of HWMNBN.  The Spaniard was forced to take to the off-track pavement.  His return was... exciting.

There had been complaints about the curbing at Yas Marina all weekend, and in almost the same place during Quals, Shiv Hamilton broke the rear suspension on his Mercedes.  HWMNBN's Ferrari got some good air and returned to earth with a 28G thump that set off the shock alarms that require a mandatory visit to the hospital.  Usually this happens immediately; that sort of force is usually caused by an accident, after all.  In this case, HWMNBN was complaining of some back pain but finished the race.

Afterwards, he was transported to the hospital strapped to a backboard, as seen in this picture released by his agent.  At no time was he unconscious... heck, he drove the rest of the race, finished in 5th and had the fast lap of the race.  Still, there is some question as to whether he'll be allowed to drive at the US Grand Prix.

*NOTE:  Vettel's win keeps open the possibility of tying two major F1 records.  This was his 11th race win in 2013... if he wins out, he'll tie Slappy Schumacher's 2004 season with 13 wins.  In doing so, he'd also tie Alberto Ascari's record for consecutive victories, nine.  Like it or not, we're watching something special here.

Next race is in two weeks, right here in the good ol' USA!  See you then!

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F1 Quals: Abu Dhabi 2013

Well, it's nearly 830pm, I've only just gotten home from work, and I'm not going to get to watch Quals... which is a shame, because it appears to have been interesting!  Here's the grid:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:41.568	1:40.575	1:39.957
2	4Time Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:41.683	1:40.781	1:40.075
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:41.420	1:40.473	1:40.419
4	Shiv Hamilton	Mercedes	1:40.693	1:40.477	1:40.501
DSQ	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	1:41.276	1:40.971	1:40.542
6	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber-Ferrari	1:41.631	1:40.931	1:40.576
7	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:41.447	1:40.948	1:40.997
8	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:41.254	1:40.989	1:41.015
9	Sergio Perez	McLaren-Mercedes	1:41.687	1:40.812	1:41.068
10	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	1:41.884	1:40.852	1:41.111
11	HWMNBN	Ferrari	1:41.397	1:41.093
12	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:41.676	1:41.133
13	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:41.817	1:41.200
14	Jules Vergne	STR-Ferrari	1:41.692	1:41.279
15	Don't Look Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1:41.365	1:41.395
16	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Renault	1:41.862	1:41.447
17	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:41.999
18	Adrian F'n  Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:42.051
19	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham-Renault	1:43.252
20	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Cosworth	1:43.398
21	Charles ToothPic	Caterham-Renault	1:43.528
22	Max Chilton	Marussia-Cosworth	1:44.198
	Q1 107% Time		1:47.741

The big news is, obviously, Jules Bianchi being hit with a five-grid-spot penalty for an unfortunate gearbox change.and will thus be starting from somewhere near Umm al-Quwain.  No, okay, I'm joking of course.  The sharper-eyed amongst you will have seen the dreaded "DSQ" next to Kimi Raikkonen's name.  He qualified in fifth place, his best performance since the summer break... and then his car failed scrutineering afterwards.  The FIA says that the floor of his car deflected too much in the usual tests, while Lotus said that was because the piece they were testing was broken on a curb during the session.  This explanation was not accepted, which means that Kimi Raikkonen was duly excluded from Quals altogether and will be starting from the back of the grid.

Considering the news that came out yesterday that he has not been paid by Lotus at any time this season, one has to think that Kimi is more than a little peeved.

Me, I'm more than a little tired. Race in the morning, though considering the whole time change thing, I have no idea when.  See you sometime tomorrow with a F1U!

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Halloween 2013

The classic vampire duckie.  You don't need to fear for your life, you only need to fear for your rye bread. 

Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah-haaaaaaaaaaa!

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Something Must Change

Oh look, a bird.

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F1 on NBCSN: Abu Dhabi 2013

Keenly observant readers of The Pond may have noticed that there's been something of a F1 interest decline of late... and by "of late," I mean "most of the season."  I surely can't slip anything past these clever readers, you brilliant people you.  The never-ending domination of Red Bull and Vettel has sapped much of the joy out of the sport for me.  Which brings us to Abu Dhabi, the next race on the F1 calendar.  Let's take a look at the track map, shall we?

It shouldn't come as any surprise to hear that there's probably not been a race this year that I've been less interested in than this week's.  Both the Driver's and the Constructor's championships have been won.   Abu Dhabi may as well have been designed for Red Bull cars.  The race after this one is the US Grand Prix, which has the cachet of being... well, HERE.  The race after that is Brazil, the last one of the season.  But Abu Dhabi?  What does it have going for it?

Right, exactly.  Sure, there's plenty of drama left: will Mercedes or Ferrari end up as the second-best constructor?  Will Force India, with a 23 point lead over Sauber, end up choking away sixth place?  Will Raikkonen catch HWMNBN for 2nd place in the driver's championship, which would make for really interesting news going into next year, when they'll be teammates.  Drama indeed... but the Wonderduck that would have written thousands of words for the fight for 10th place in the driver's championship between Paul di Resta (40 points) and Nico Hulkenberg (39 points) isn't the Wonderduck sitting in front of the keyboard these days.

I miss that Wonderduck.

Here's the coverage on NBCSN:
FRIDAY
8a - 930a: Practice 2 live
SATURDAY
1230p - 2p: Quals definitively not live
SUNDAY
630a - 9a: 2013 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi

I'll be here... will you?  I wouldn't blame you if you weren't, given what I've just talked about, but I hope you show up. 

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F1 Update!: Inda 2013

There was not a cloud in the sky when the Thundering Herd formed up on the grid for today's race in Upper Noida.  There didn't need to be, as the sky was invisible from all the smog.  No matter, race time approached, and polesitter Hannibal Vettel had a chance to join the F1 Immortals.  Would he manage the feat of winning four consecutive driver's championships, or would Ferrari's HWMNBN manage to extend the fight for another race?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2013 Grand Prix of India!

*NOPE:  The lights went out, releasing the straining field towards the first turn like a quarrel from a crossbow.  For Vettel, on soft tires and with nobody in front of him, this was no problem.  HWMNBN though, on medium rubber and mired in 8th place, was about to discover why the midfield is often called the "carbon fiber zone."  He lost one of the endplates of his front wing on Mark Webber's rear tire in Turn 1, then suffered a big impact with Jenson Button in Turn 4.  Thus ended any chance the Spaniard of extending the championship chase as he was forced to pit for a new nose, emerging buried in 20th and never to be heard from again.  He would finish the race in 11th, out of the points.

*THE REST:  With the question of whether Vettel would be crowned Champion out of the way early, it merely became a question of whether he would win the race, too.  By the end of the first lap, he was almost three seconds in front of the Mercedes boys and his strategy had become clear: run as hard as he could for as long as he could on the soft tires, then switch to the mediums and let everybody else pit to regain places.  After turning what were, essentially, two qualifying laps, he had nearly five seconds in hand.  What WAS surprising is that he stopped immediately after.  He emerged in 15th and immediately began his cruise to the front.  And it was a cruise, too: very few of the drivers ahead of him bothered to put in even a token effort to keep him behind.  Why bother, when he would have the benefit of DRS eventually?    By Lap 10, he was in 5th place.  By Lap 29, he was back in the lead, though he would pit a couple of laps later.  This mattered not, as everybody around him pitted slightly earlier and he would regain the lead by Lap 35.

*CHALLENGE OVER:  There was only one car showing any signs of being able to duel with Vettel today, and that was the RB9 of Mark Webber, Vettel's erstwhile teammate.  While it was questionable as to whether or not he could have caught the leader, if there was anybody in the field willing to give it a shot, it'd be the Aussie.  After all, he's retiring after the season, and it's not like the two of them are exactly friends.  Even that went the way of Vettel, when Webber's gearbox began to malfunction.  Moments later, he was told to park the car with a failing alternator.  While it's not clear if Vettel had the same malfunction, the team DID tell their young champion to stop using KERS and even his drinks button, all the better to relieve strain on his alternator.

*THE END:  A few laps later, Vettel swept across the finish line, almost 30 seconds ahead of second place Nico Rosberg in what might have been the single most dominating race the combination of Red Bull strategists and Red Bull driver had put together.  Flat-out amazing.  Not only was it his third straight win at India, and not only did it clinch his fourth consecutive driver's championship, but it also clinched the Constructor's Championship for the team as well.  Possibly even more amazing is that this is Adrian Newey's 10th constructor's championship as a car designer.  There's rumors that Newey plans to retire after 2014, to take up the challenge of America's Cup boat design.  We here at F1U! hope that happens; Newey is so good at his job that his abiltiy completely unbalances the championship.  But it takes a good driver to get the most out of the car, and that's what Red Bull has in Sebastian Vettel, four-time World Driver's Champion.  The donuts Vettel performed on the front straight after winning cost him a reprimand and €25000, but we think it was worth it.

Next weekend, they race in Abu Dhabi.  See you then, see you there!

Oh, and here's McLaren's Tooned, Ep06.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:35 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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F1 Quals: India 2013

This is ridiculous.  It's like the other drivers aren't even trying any more.  Here's the provisional grid for the 2013 Grand Prix of India:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Hannibal Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:25.943	1:24.568	1:24.119
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:25.833	1:25.304	1:24.871
3	Shiv Hamilton	Mercedes	1:25.802	1:25.259	1:24.941
4	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:25.665	1:25.097	1:25.047
5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:25.793	1:25.389	1:25.201
6	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	1:25.819	1:25.191	1:25.248
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber-Ferrari	1:25.883	1:25.339	1:25.334
8	HWMNBN	Ferrari	1:25.934	1:24.885	1:25.826
9	Sergio Perez	McLaren-Mercedes	1:26.107	1:25.365	1:26.153
10	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:25.574	1:25.458	1:26.487
11	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	1:25.673	1:25.519
12	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:25.908	1:25.711
13	Adrian F'n Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:26.164	1:25.740
14	Jules Vergne	STR-Ferrari	1:26.155	1:25.798
15	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Renault	1:26.178	1:26.134
16	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:26.057	1:26.336
17	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:26.577
18	No Joke Here Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1:26.842
19	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Cosworth	1:26.970
20	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham-Renault	1:27.105
21	Charles ToothPic	Caterham-Renault	1:27.487
22	Max Chilton	Marussia-Cosworth	1:28.138

.752 of a second per lap.  Really?  Why even bother?  Here's the F1U! for Sunday's race: "Vettel wins by 20 seconds.  What a shock."  The only hope we have is that HWMNBN is on the medium tire and Vettel on the soft.  The mediums are wearing well, the softs are going about six laps before they die... maybe HWMNBN will be able to parlay this into something other than a 7th place finish.  I'm not hopeful, but maybe.

I'm rooting for HWMNBN.  Shoot me now.

Race in the morning.  See you afterwards!

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F1 Practice: India 2013

If this was in Los Angeles, we'd say the inversion layer had moved in.  If it was in China, one would have to assume the factories were going full speed.

But this is in India, I suppose we'll have to say that the vindaloo is particularly spicy today.  The F1 homepage is claiming that it was foggy during practice, but fog doesn't change the sky color.  Fog doesn't give everything a dirty-orange hue.  Nope, we had smog out the ying-yang there in Upper Noida, which makes me wonder how that affects the engines.  I assume there's air filters, but I guess I don't really know!

One thing we do know is that the Indian cuisine claimed one driver this morning.  Paul di Resta apparently spent most of Thursday in his hotel room with a case of Delhi Belly.  Too much naan and gulab jamun, that'll do it every time.

In other news that'll send us scurrying to the loo, Hannibal Vettel was fastest in the second session... by nearly a half-second... over his teammate.  The next closest was Lettuce Grosjean, another third of a second adrift.  Did I mention that Vettel has been on the pole and led every lap of both races at India?  I think that bodes not well for HWMNBN's chances to win the Championship, particularly after he wound up with a gearbox full of neutrals in Practice 1. 

Maybe after he wins the championship, Vettel will move down to Marussia or something for a bit of fun.  Hey, we can dream, right?

Quals at 330am... see you sometime after that.

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I Need Some Photoshoop Help

Here is a picture:

In this picture from Ep09 of Hidamari Sketch X Honeycomb, the namesake of my new computer, Nori, has just hit Nazuna (aka "The Cabbage") with a sick burn.  I very much wish to make this picture my wallpaper, except for one thing: I dislike The Cabbage.  Either in the manga or the TV series, she's just a horrible, horrible character, all wimpy and pathetic.

So here's my request to you, the assembled Pond Scum.  Photoshoop The Cabbage out of the picture for me!  I really want to do it myself, but considering my rudimentary skills in Adobe's wonderful program, the universe will suffer Heat Death before I finish the task.  So I ask you, the computer wizards, the artists, the photoshoopers, to do me a favor and remove The Cabbage. 

I can make it worth your while... a complex post, a Duck U t-shirt, something like that.  Or just effusive praise and a lot of ego-boo!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:44 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Librarian & Duck Do Dinner

So just before the Duck U Bookstore closed for the day, I got a phone call from The Librarian.  As it'd been a month or so since we last saw each other, she was like "hey, dinner," and I was all like "hey, cool, where," and she was like "sushi," and I did the whole "ace nifty" thing and hung up and got the store closed and, like, boogied out to go meet her.

I'd like to apologize for that sentence.

I showed up a couple of minutes late, as I am old and slow, but as it turns out it didn't matter.  The place of sushi was as crowded as I've ever seen it... on a Tuesday, no less.  It took nearly a half-hour for us to be waited upon, another half-hour for the food to be delivered.  But when it arrived... oh, when it arrived...

Okay, yeah, my phone's camera sucks.  Chicago Board of Tourism Duckie was a gift from The Librarian, by the way, not part of the food.  I wasn't all that pleased with the Philadelphia rolls, but everything else was nummy.  My phone's obvious shortcomings as a camera aside, the sushi looked exactly like it was supposed to be used as a promotional picture for the place. 

Sorry, Vauc, we didn't get the BBQ Beef Rolls.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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F1 on NBCSN: India 2013

Namaste!  The next stop for the F1 Circus is the Buddh International Circuit in Upper Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.  It's the third time Formula 1 has made the journey to the subcontinent, and it might just be the last.  With that in mind, let's take a look at the track map, shall we?

Sadly, India is off the calendar for 2014 due to political and scheduling issues.  It's supposed to come back in 2015, but nobody knows that for sure quite yet.  So if this is the last time we experience this course, it may be a memorable one: this could be a championship clinching race for Hannibal Vettel.  Should I mention that Vettel is also the only driver to have won in India?  I think I'll just quietly draw a veil over that sad fact and move on.

It's a fast circuit without much of the mickey-mousing that Hermann Tilke is justifiably reviled for.  Having said that, it's also not a technically difficult track to drive.  For example, Singapore is a technical challenge for a driver... there's no room for mistakes and a ton of places to make them.  India?  Not so much.  The layout is wide with plenty of runoff area, so if you do make a mistake, you wind up being able to just keep on driving, no huhu.  One thing that's quite pleasant about Buddh is that there's a decent amount of altitude change: almost 45 feet in the first three turns alone.  The track's big party piece is The Carousel, Turns 10-11-12.  Over 180° of awesome banked multi-line turn... yep, in theory two cars could run through it side-by-side at speed and neither would have to yield to avoid an accident.  In practice, not so much, but it COULD happen.

Well, the Legendary Announce Team will be bringing us their usual coverage this weekend... let's see what the schedule looks like!
FRIDAY
330a - 5a: Practice 2 live
SATURDAY
330a - 5a: Quals live
SUNDAY
4a - 630a: 2013 Grand Prix of India live

You'll note the half-hour starts up there... that's the fault of India's oddball timezones.  Just tell your DVR to look around, it'll find 'em on NBCSN.

Bring your Kingfishers, we could see a Champion crowned again...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:05 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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