OnStarrrgh

Back in March 2006, a friend took me auto-cross racing. There's a drag racing strip south of town, and the car park for spectators is turned into a quarter mile set of sharp corners and narrow chicanes with some judiciously placed orange cones. Over the course of six hours, there are four groups of racers. If you race in one group, you have to carry out a marshaling/support job in one of the other groups - in this way, they can have a full set of people watching for run-over cones and violations of racing protocol.

In each group there are about 30 cars, and each car starts off every 30 seconds around the course which takes about 40 seconds to travel around, and when you finish, you can go to the back of the line-up grid for three more runs in your group. In this way, almost 500 timed races are carried out with great efficiency.

Unfortunately, it means about 6 hours waiting for at most 8 races around the track - sitting in my friend's tricked out Subaru, though, it was excellent fun and I could clearly see the draw for those with the passion for it.

In the last group though, one car looked distinctly out of place. Amongst the street race cars and turbos, there was a large tank of a town car. It was coloured pale brown, and would not look out of place in a retirement community with some blue haired old woman peering over the wheel. The car ponderously pulled up to the starting gate, and did its best to screech off around the course. The crowd watched as this slow tank of a car pitched over like a drunken soccer mom around the curves and attempted to burn rubber on the sharper of the corners. Halfway around, however, the car slowed down suddenly, and completed the course at almost half the speed it started with. The crowd murmured amongst themselves - what had happened?

The answer came soon enough - the auto-cross drivers had rented the car from a local agency to take it auto-crossing, and halfway around the track, the OnStar emergency service intercom crackled to life, with a service person enquiring if they had been in an accident, and were they alright?

Apparently their driving was extreme enough to set off the acceleration sensors dotted around the frame of the car.

Memo to self: do not buy rental cars.

"Today is Pirate Day on N.P. Arrrrrr!"

National Public Radio (NPR for short) is the closest equivalent to the BBC in America. Partially funded through donations from the public, the style and tone is very similar to Radio 2 or Radio 4.

The stereotype says that the announcers and programmes are very dry, upper middle class, and very liberal in their approach. But that doesn't stop some brilliant little touches shining through if you listen long enough.

During the evening news, there is usually some background music playing between the news pieces, to help form a continuity to the programming. A couple of nights ago, there was a news piece on how the Sony Playstation 3 was outsold by the Nintendo Wii Gaming console by a factor of over 3 to 1. In the background was an exultant pop song by the British group Queen. It took me a few seconds to work out what tune it was, and I started singing along:

"...there's NO time for LOSERS, 'cause WE are the CHAM-PIONS...."

It took me another second to realise that Wii are, indeed, the champions....

Austin Powers

I was about eleven or twelve years old when the dentist sat back in her chair and looked thoughtfully at me.

"Well, it looks as if your mouth is too small for all your teeth to come through," she began, "so one of two things are going to happen."

I raised an eyebrow and asked, "Um, what?"

"Either the teeth that are in place will block the others from developing, which would be the ideal case, or the teeth will come through in a big disorganised lump all over the place."

I rinsed and spat out the awful tasting mouthwash that the assistant had given me, thinking about what this meant. "So you'll pull out the disorganised teeth then?"

"Yes...." she paused for a second, "... and then we'll need to put your teeth in braces for a little while."

There was another pause, whilst I considered what the future would hold for me amongst my peer group at school. Even the most charitable person would at least label me a 'portly' kid, and what with the current pair of spectacles I was wearing from the "these will be hip in fifteen year's time" end of the public health service's range, this was a flash of lightning from the oncoming storm of teenagedom.

"How long?" I asked, a little bit more quietly than before.

"Weeeeeeelllll.... if everything works out, then it'll be about three months," she smiled a perfect, albeit toothy, smile.

I wasn't that daft. I heard the conditional in both language and tone: "..and if it doesn't work out?"

The smile disappeared. Yes, that was a rumble of thunder - definitely closer now.

"It could take a little bit longer."


Ha. Ha ha. Hah hah haaaah. Seven fabulous words that do not cover the next SEVEN YEARS of my life in night-time head braces, twin tramlines permanently fixed across both rows of teeth, and a slightly dented self confidence coupled with a relieved feeling that things couldn't get much worse.

Needless to say when the braces came off, I had a small bonfire in the back garden. I burnt all the vile equipment in a foul cloud of oily black smoke, whilst I stood watching it with a perfect, albeit toothy, grin.

Nine into 6.5 does not go

So I've started homebrewing beer, and my first attempt (a rather cheeky stout) did very well. Encouraged by the success (well, I liked the taste at least) I decided to go for an English Ale, as a nod to my general Englishness. Off I went, and on New Year's Day, I boiled up the grains and then added the three packets of malt extract.

"Hold on," I thought, "...three packets? That makes it.... 9 pounds of sugar into three boiling gallons of water! More sugar equals more alcohol, so let's read the label here.... oh man, that's 7.9% beer!"

Half in joy and half in horror at the calorific load this represented, I went ahead and poured it into the fermenter. When it had cooled off to the point where living things could happily live in the nutrient broth, in went the yeast culture.

Fast forward to last night.

There's a strange high pitched whistling noise coming from the spare room - looking in, I readily identify the cause. My fermenting beer is trying to climb out of the airlock on top of the barrel. The normally clear water in the airlock is dark brown with sugar water and lots of very very happy yeast cells.

Mental note: buy a bigger fermenting barrel next time I'm in the store.

"Ooooh, a funnel! That'll be great for funneling!"

Saturday Night Live is an American comedy show that many claim had its heyday in the seventies. But just before Christmas, both J. and I watched a sketch that had us laughing out loud. The comediennes carried out a parody of National Public Radio programming to perfection - as their characters were discussing Christmas gifts, one of them asked for:
"...a wooden bowl, some oversized index cards, and a funnel."

Well, we had wooden bowls around the house, so it was a simple matter for me to present J. her first trio of `gifts' for the holidays....

...I think she's actually using the cards at work!