World democracy index

Just look at Taiwan!

Let's check out the VW XL1 in San Francisco this weekend/early next week

@thealso, a Northern Irish guy who drives weird cars all over the world, is driving a rare VW diesel-hybrid from New York to San Francisco to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer's. He is currently somewhere between Indiana and Iowa. If you're interested in meeting up with him in San Francisco, let me know. Depending on when he arrives, I'm going to try to catch him.

We are trying to raise £3000 pounds for @AlzResearchUK by driving a Volkswagen XL1 from New York to San Francisco#Thecarofthefuturepasthttps://t.co/yjngkVj2XG

— Jim Magill (@thealso) May 17, 2022

Eurovision-winning music video from Ukraine

Percentage of Population “Absolutely Certain” God Exists in Europe vs US

Regular Car Reviews reviewed the TSX wagon

They like it! And they quoted Foucault.

Sicilian train ferry

This is rad.

Facelifted Audi S8

The suspension is amazing. It's also cool that the car's body will rise 2.5" when the door opens for easy ingress/egress.

Central California Coast trip

I had to make a quick work trip down to San Luis Obispo this week. On the way back, I decided to take the scenic route-- Pacific Coast Highway. It was quite eventful.

I took Highway 101 down. It's semi-scenic, mixed in with farm land. When I got to my hotel, there were three '32 Roadsters parked in front of the lobby.

For dinner, I decided to check out nearby Avila Beach. You may recall that in the 1990s, Unocal destroyed the small coastal town with a massive oil spill. I went to Mersea, which was near the end of a pier. The meal was excellent. The old man sitting next to me at the bar hitting on the young bartender was not so excellent.

There is still a little bit of seafood processing done on the pier.

We have been watching Stanley Tucci's Italy food show on CNN and the scenery reminded me of Sicily.

The next morning, while I was checking out, I bumped into the owners of the three roadsters. I asked them what they thought of Plymouth Prowlers. They said that people are free to like whatever car they like, but a Prowler would not be invited to a '32 Roadster show. 

This red example does not have a single part from the original 1932 model car. It has 700+ horsepower. 75 fellow Roadster are expected at the hotel that day for a meetup.

Instead of driving back up 101, I took Pacific Coast Highway. I stopped to see these sea elephants near Hearst Castle. The California sea elephants were hunted to extinction. A few animals from Mexico showed up here in the 1990s and the population fortunately exploded. It was cool to watch them with a bunch of amazed European tourists.

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Near Big Sur, I grabbed lunch. The seafood platter was all frozen and out of a bag, and expensive. The gas wasn't cheap either. I saw a Bentayga and couldn't imagine how much a fill up would cost. At least the view was nice.

There were a few construction zones where everyone had to stop for long periods of time, and this is what the roadside looked like.

It's looking likely that I'll be getting the Alfa this summer. So this may be my last road trip with the Acura. At 90,000 miles, it drives like new.

Once I got back to civilization in Carmel, I came upon a broken down 240Z Scarab. The clutch had gone kaput. I offered the driver a ride but a tow truck was already on its way. I had never heard of a Scarab before. They have V8s. It looked like this:

And finally, I almost got hit by a taxi being chased by cops.

Two car chases in two weeks

The Bay Area is wild with crazy drivers. In the past two weeks, I was a "part" of two chases.

1. Two weeks go, this carjacked Porsche 911 Turbo was going over 100 mph and crashed and hit four cars. I was stuck right behind it just as over a dozen officers ran up to it.

1/2: Suspect in armed carjacking of Porsche 911 Turbo busted after he goes 100+mph on San Leandro streets, crashes - losing a tire in process - and tries to run away while being watched by ⁦@ACSOSheriffs⁩ plane pic.twitter.com/XTZVm6aoZM

— Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) April 29, 2022

2. Yesterday, I was at a red light when I saw a red minivan taxi about to rear end my car at a high speed, followed by five police cars. I decided to floor it and enter the interaction to avoid the hit. The chase continued and this was the result.

This is the aftermath of a police chase that ended at Front St and Moranda in Soledad, officers on scene say this was the car they were chasing but wouldn’t give more information. We saw another car hit off the side of 101 @KION546 pic.twitter.com/IMLcBcjmhL

— Lisa Principi (@Lisa_KION) May 13, 2022

Matt Damon Superbowl crypto ad

This was from just three months ago. What a crock of shit.