Malaysia Air One World promo

This is sad.

We still have no idea what happened, but...

I hope my ridiculous theory about the missing Malaysian airliner is wrong.
— Tamerlane's Thoughts (@TamerlaneBlog) March 8, 2014

Academy of Art car collection

Mission accomplished. I met up with Zach and took a gander at the amazing car collection in San Francisco. I'll post more pictures later. Matthew, one of the caretakers there, showed us around and even let us peek underneath the hoods of some rare cars.

Here are four Duesenbergs (one is a "replica").

I saw this Bentley on the way back home near the bridge. That color combo is very Audi/German. The license plate translates into: "My doctor's prescription". The driver was smoking a cigar. I can't imagine the mileage he was getting in the stop-and-go traffic.

In the mean time, read up on Zach's Saab project.

Early season F1 winners

F1Outsider brought up a point about Massa and Williams. Even though the car looks very fast, it is still the pre-season. If Williams is able to turn it around and win, it will be akin to what happened with Button and Brawn in 2009.

It's clear that Renault-engined cars are struggling, but will they have their act together by mid-season? Or sooner? The following is a meaningless exercise, but I've listed the winners of the first three GPs in the seasons that Vettel ultimately won the championship. At the beginning of those seasons, did we think that Vettel was going to win it all?

2010:
Bahrain: Alonso
Australia: Button
China: Vettel

2011:
Australia: Vettel
Malaysia: Vettel
China: Hamilton

2012:
Australia: Button
Malaysia: Alonso
China: Rosberg

2013:
Australia: Kimi
Malaysia: Vettel
China: Alonso

Summit with Zach

This afternoon, I am holding a summit with The People's Wheel's Zach D. We'll be checking out some really cool cars so check my Twitter and Instagram accounts for pics.

In addition, I have lots of questions about his new Saab project.

Jaguar X-Type wagon

1,602 sold here over four years. This is my second choice. In America, they were all automatic, 3.0 liter V6, AWD.

The one that got away

In my almost daily Craigslist search for the manual V50, the default had been to look for cars for sale by owner. I didn't want to deal with used car dealers. And of course, I missed out on this one.

It was for sale in San Jose, about an hour south of me. It had 120,000 miles, which was on the high side, but this was exactly what I wanted. I called the dealership today and they said it was sold a month and a half ago. Why the hell is it still listed on Craigslist then?!

Williams F1 Martini livery

It looks like Williams is back! Felipe's career might not be over after all. And if the car is truly competitive, maybe Bottas will get a podium or two.

So, is the Martini livery really happening?

Picture via Flavio Gomes.

GAZ Tigr

These Russian war machines are all over the Crimea now. Fun fact: they used to be powered by Cummins diesels.

Barrow, Alaska, in September 2014

I just have to pay the deposit! I want to try seal and whale meat.

Belbek air force base standoff

This video shows unarmed Ukrainian soldiers marching to retake their own base. You can see and hear the Russians firing in the air and aiming an RPG and machine guns at the Ukrainians. The commanders negotiated and basically agreed to disagree. No one was injured and the Ukrainians went back to their barracks.

I think those Ukrainians really had nothing to lose. If the Russians mowed them down, it would be in front of the eyes of the world, a war would have started, and they would be immortalized as being martyrs. I think if we were in their position, we would do the same. We would be crapping in our pants, sure, but we would do the same.

And here is the badass commander, Colonel Yuri Mamchur: