Once again, the corporate overlords at Inbev and their marketing wizards decided to try their hand at a premium lager. You might have noticed their targeted advertisements…on billboards… Much like last summer they put out a limited release to appeal to the more discerning, but unapologetically American crowd. All 300 of us….
This is my review of Budweiser Discovery Reserve American Red Lager
….that’s 40,000 gallons of Western Slope snowpack from the 1980’s
This time around they are commemorating a momentous occasion that has a significant anniversary this year…
No, not this guy.
Not these guys, either.
Its the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11. Yes, the first moon landing is only 15 years away from qualifying for Medicare! Budweiser isn’t the only ones putting out special products to commemorate what is arguably America’s greatest achievement: landing cis-gendered men on a rock in space and bringing them back alive. Obvious companies such as Fisher and as Omega, are marking the occasion given their ties to the space program of the era. In addition, not so obvious companies like Zippo who makes a product that nobody on a spacecraft would be caught dead with. Montegrappa, who makes a fountain pen that retails for the price one could cross-shop with a pretty awesome car. Finally, the Royal Australian Mint is also jumping on the bandwagon with a commemorative piece to mark the occasion.
Okay, maybe the gold coin is worth the price given its tied to the price of gold…
Okay, I might get the space pen…
The moon landings and NASA in general seem to at odds with libertarian thought. On one hand, especially at the time, there was absolutely no commercial impetus for space travel. Today it is certainly a different story.
A popular argument for continued tax funding of NASA is the size of the overall budget. “It’s just 0.5% of the Federal Budget.” 0.5% of the $3.4 Trillion Federal Budget is $18.4 Billion that should be spent down here. “It only costs $54 per citizen to fund NASA.” It cost each citizen $0 for Space X to launch a sports car.
Musk estimated the cost of the space Tesla at $90 million, to which numerous people said “It would be better spent down here.” Funny how that number pales to the almost $20 billion a year and the $20 billion in failures for NASA. So many are willing to offer up other people’s money, but when it comes to our own tax dollars, the government never seems answerable.
With all the nostalgia for NASA taken into account, they really don’t need our tax dollars, just a fund raiser of private donations. For $1,000 NASA will name a star or planet after you, for a $1 million they will send your ashes up to rejoin the stars from whence we came, and for $1 billion they name the first Martian base after you.
Great. So my great-grandkids might die on Mars at the “Michael Bloomberg Center for Human Progress” at Olympus Mons. Even still, one could argue tax dollars are still paying for Space X, given they are applying today’s guidance systems to rockets perfected in the 1960’s…by NASA, and their biggest customer for the near future are still going to be…NASA and DOD.
That will certainly change. Private investment in space based start-ups have already reached billions, asteroid mining is only a few years away, and there are even space blockchains. A quick answer is of course no, there will be no need for NASA.
Once you leave a certain distance from Earth how is anybody going to be able to realistically regulate anything? Ventures in space will likely require levels of interpersonal cooperation between individuals we have not yet considered. I will however admit even if a government program costing billions of dollars may not have been needed to get us off this rock…ultimately that’s what initially did it. It is something else that can be added to the list of things better handled by people willing to risk their own fortunes. Its one thing for us all to fail miserably together on Earth, why do the same thing across the universe?
Too bad though, in spite of all the nostalgia surrounding the event being commemorated, the beer should be better. It is not terrible, but the Apollo Astronauts probably won’t trade their whiskey-based cocktails before launch for this. It is malty, almost too malty—even for me. It has little body and is otherwise best described as better than that other stuff they make.
I might get the pen. Budweiser Discovery Reserve American Red Lager 2.3/5
I might get the pen
But will you splurge for the clip?
and a phone?
And the thing that goes up?
I seem to remember Budweiser doing something similar prior to making Budweiser Select a permanent fixture. It was in a green bottle to make it exotic. I recall it being decent, actually, especially considering it was coming from a mass market brewery. Nothing special, but a nice change of pace from standard Budweiser.
I actually like baseline Budweiser. It does what it says on the tin, as the saying goes. It’s a standard, inoffensive adjunct American-style pilsener. People buy Budweiser for the same people eat at McDonald’s. I’m not against them diversifying or trying new things, but it always seems to work about as well as when McDonald’s tries some new “bistro-style” sandwich.
Oh, and re: NASA. My wife used to get in arguments with a friend of mine over NASA. She was a teacher, and he’s still an aerospace engineer for the Navy. He can’t get him enough NASA. He thinks they should get way, way more funding. He’s also an unapologetic statist and about as Progressive as they come, in a “it would be nice if you agreed but it doesn’t matter because the government can just force you to go along with it, neener-neener” kind of way…which, come to think of it, may explain why we haven’t spoken in several years. Anyway, my wife–herself no stranger to Progressivism–makes the point you do: why are we spending money doing Stupid Human Tricks when we could be spending that money on, oh, grants for new textbooks, infrastructure, tax refunds, literally anything else? His point, besides the “it’s really not much of the budget” is that NASA is why we have stuff like cell phones and various other things. Her point is that, no, NASA happens to be a vector for scientific research because budget money got diverted that way, but that’s an “is-ought” fallacy; whose to say those things wouldn’t have been developed absent NASA? Hell, without the distraction of trying to get some pilot to stick a flag on the moon before the Russkies maybe we would’ve been able to focus on the practical applications of that research directly.
“He can’t get him enough NASA. He thinks they should get way, way more funding.”
so that they can manage to not get out of low earth orbit for another 50 years?
If you’ve seen one of Earth’s moons, you’ve seem them all.
I think someone is not recognizing the importance of the development of Tang.
I will not stand around while you denigrate Mr. Poon!
Are you saying his attitude is too tanguine?
Orange you gonna answer the question Pope ?
I’ll try not to get mixed up in this
Zing!
I could see some justification for military space travel IF it were known that other countries intended to somehow attack US soil from space, but that’s about it.
This goal of just landing on barren rocks in the solar system is stupid.
I mean, I think it’s neat, there are legit scientific goals for doing stuff like that, and there probably is a role for a governmental presence in space if for no other reason than to protect scientists and rich weirdos from other governments who want to shoot at them in orbit, but I don’t see it as a thing that requires the government in order to happen. I definitely don’t see a valid reason for government to act as a gateway to space exploration.
I cannot think of a single legit scientific goal coming out of manned space travel other than studying “effects of space travel on humans.” Any actual science coming out of the space program has come from unmanned probes.
Yeah, that would basically be it. It would be sending people into space to get better at sending people into space. Which isn’t a silly goal if it’s part of a greater effort towards making space travel a normal thing.
Ahem. You’re only a few months away from needing astronaut diapers.
They’re useful for stalking exes across the country. And Tang.
Wrong. What about the processed food sticks? Those were awesome!
The correct name was “Space Food Sticks”.
Yummy, and space-age technology, all in one bite!
The internet and packet switching basically came from DARPA.
As if it wouldn’t have been invented 9 months later by someone else.
I’ll have you know every piece of tech in you iPhone was designed and funded by government researchers…
Of course none of those assholes thought to put all that together and make an iPhone,
A beer like Bud has its place. I find sex-in-a-canoe beers great under certain conditions. For example: After a hot day working or recreating outdoors, an ice-cold Bud still dripping from the cooler can be very satisfying.
“A beer like Bud has its place.”
Remaining in the bottle, unless I’m not paying for it and have no other beer to drink, then I’ll drink it. But there’s something wrong with it. For lack of a better way to describe it, it has an industrial chemical like taste, like they put rubbing alcohol in it to add the alcohol after the brewing.
Yeah, exactly. It’s a lawnmower beer. There are a lot of small breweries that will do like a cream ale or an adjunct lager either ironically or because they’re going to make the best damn Budweiser they can, and they’re missing the point. If I want to spend $15 on a six-pack, I’ll get something more interesting. Budweiser is budget session beer that doesn’t taste like it will make you go blind. Also, an oft-overlooked feature of beer like Budweiser is that the mild taste won’t overpower any food you eat with it.
Yes. To be fair this one is good for a 4th of July BBQ with a few friends that don’t really care, but will notice you bought something out of the ordinary.
Paint Your Booster: Apollo – What Might Have Been by Paul Hogan
How to get aerospace engineers to cheer a speaker (who later turned it into readable form, and then expanded on it into this book) who attacked government paying them directly or indirectly via their government contractor employers to do their jobs.
If you disagree with Paul Hogan and think NASA is a national treasure, then why not get people to donate to pay for it?
Kinda like they did in the 80s, to restore the statue of liberty? Stroh’s was behind a series of 5K and 10K races.
My mistake, it was 8Km. From an article in The Oklahoman in 1985:
“Last year, 140,000 people in 123 cities entered the inaugural Statue of Liberty running event. Those entry fees may have equaled Liberty’s original $400,000 building cost in 1884. However, to help cover the $230 million remodeling expenses, Stroh’s and other sponsors took advantage of America’s current craze physical fitness.”
And what is wrong with Trump? I mean besides being an icky rethuglican and racist. He wants to cancel any planned moon missions so they can go to Mars instead? LOL, give me a fucking break, they’ll never even manage getting back to the moon, let alone Mars.
Oh, we’re going back. How else will we ever be able to “celebrate” the first transgender on the moon?
Oh god, that makes me ponder the fact that there will definitely be complaints that there are “too many white males in space”. If NASA is still around, they’re going to fund 20 missions a year just to assuage these complaints. They’ll blow
billionstrillions of dollars to make sure the moon is visited by a transgender lesbian Muslim in a wheelchair.‘…there will definitely be complaints that there are “too many white males in space”’
https://spacenews.com/spacesuit-issue-cancels-first-all-female-spacewalk/
They tried to get ahead of the game and when it turned into a PR nightmare they claimed it wasn’t intentional.
I only wish you were joking.
The actual tweet: “NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon. We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!” Going to the Moon part of the mission to Mars. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/07/trump-wants-nasa-to-go-to-mars-not-the-moon-like-he-declared-weeks-ago.html
“The Trump administration is adding an additional $1.6 billion to NASA’s $21 billion 2020 budget request to kick start plans to return American astronauts to the moon in 2024[.]”
https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/05/13/trump-adds-1-6-billion-to-nasas-2020-budget-request-to-kick-start-2024-artemis-moon-mission/
CWCID
“The Trump administration is adding an additional $1.6 billion to NASA’s $21 billion 2020 budget request to kick start plans to return American astronauts to the moon in 2024[.]”
I’m sick of these dates. Have been for a long time. Just STFU and say you are going now and do it, you fucking pussies. We did it 50 years ago. It’s like saying we’re going to invent TV sets again in 2024. STFU.
‘Budweiser isn’t the only ones putting out special products to commemorate what is arguably America’s greatest achievement:’
Yeah, Kubrick really was ahead of his time.
I keed, I keed.
A Bockwork Orange
*standing ovation, tosses garlands*
Bock to the Future?
Y’all are really taking advantage of the birthday absence.
“It is malty, almost too malty—even for me.”
Still better than overly hoppy, the preferred swill of American hipsters everywhere. Just put way too much hops in it and give it a crazy looking label and name and the hipsters will drink it.
meh hops make everything better. or bitter? i get the two confused. either way go ipa.
I like a hoppy beer, but it seems like for the past five years small breweries are just taking bundles of whatever hops they can find and cramming them into beer. It’s gimmicky and ham-fisted.
I dislike IPA. The hops is so overpowering that it all tastes the same, bitter as fuck. Don’t like it.
If you can find this, you might like it.
It’s Ballantine IPA. Pabst took Ballantine’s portfolio over and makes it now, or at least did as of a few years ago. Very, very rarely I’ll see it around me; I think it’s more common up in PA and thereabouts. Anyway, it’s hoppy, but not crazy hoppy, and the hops they use are English, so it has a very different hop character than most IPAs you see on the market. It’s more herbal than citrus. If you happen across some, give it a whirl. It’s not my absolute favorite, but whenever I see it I buy as much as I can.
I’ve seen it around, so its common in philly if not the rest of the state. I’ll pick some up when I go out for groceries later today.
I’m sure I’ve seen that before around here, but never tried it. I’ll give it a try if I see it again.
IPA are on the threshold of too hoppy for me. I’ve had some less hoppy IPAs that I’ve liked, and I’ve had a metric shit ton of IPAs that tasted like I was drinking grass beer with an extra helping of shame.
I think you can go too far the other way too. Super dark porters and stouts that taste like coffee grounds mixed with motor oil.
True talent is shown in the midrange.
And BTW, Inbev already has a good beer. It’s called Stella Artois.
You drunk already?
No, but apparently everyone else is passed out, since they stopped commenting hours ago.
I actually did fall asleep watching baseball.
I’d be shocked if the US Mint isn’t offering something too.
Oh duh, it’s in the article. *sigh*
What, you read an article? That’s not very Glib like.
I’m still waiting for someone to sue Bud Light now for their latest advertising (and packaging) claiming it’s made with only 4 ingredients: Water, Barley, Rice, Hops.
They left out one that’s kind of important to beer making.
Hitler ?
Speaking of Hitler, the German’s are once again hellbent on destruction.
Needz moar commie
Good. They need to see the real thing up close (and for many of them, again), not the lite version the CDU brings. It’s the only way they’ll learn.
I thought they were supposed to be smart.
Yeah, because it’s a really smart idea to say you’re going to ban the internal combustion engine when so much of your economy depends on the highly sought after automobiles that you build. Germany is jumping the fucking proverbial shark.
They and nearly all of the other European countries have been down this road. They went broke. They must have a learning disability.
Yeah, but you can sit in a public park totes nekked in Germany, so there, take that you deplorable!
Corn syrup?
Rice? that be bad beer.
I think the ingredient missing is love. or dedication. or patriotism.
Rice can be used to make some good beers, as can corn, or any other adjunct. The patriotism would be when they tried to rename it America last summer.
*cough*
Bud Light is the default beer of choice for large social events here in Red Solo Cup Country because it’s so milquetoast that almost nobody feels strongly enough about it to hate it. I personally see almost no discernable difference between what I’m drinking and what I’m pissing out after the fact.
To paraphrase a line from a Monty Python skit: Drinking Bud Light is like having sex in a canoe; It’s fucking close to water.
Damnit Pie!
Unicorn poop?
Bald eagle feathers. It’s bald eagle feathers, right?
Orphan slave labor?
Alcohol?
^ This guy gets it
Piss?
Posters of scantily clad women?
They left out one that’s kind of important to beer making.
Love?
Ha!
https://babylonbee.com/news/england-forced-to-recognize-trump-as-king-after-strange-woman-lying-in-pond-lobs-a-sword-at-him
A fine tribute to the Holy Grail. But Donald must be king, “He doesn’t have shit all over ‘im.”
honestly, in libertarian America there would have been a lot of money to throw about space stuff earlier and thus NASA may never have been needed. i think there were rocket pioneers in the 20s before governments…
“i think there were rocket pioneers in the 20s before governments…”
Bah! Nothing has ever been done without government! You didn’t build that!
If not for all the taxation and hiring away of science/engineering personnel, we might have had cell phones and Internet by the ’70s. Without viewing alternate timelines, we don’t really know, but neither do the NASA proponents when they say that these things “would have never been invented without the space program”.
A lot of things were invented during WWII that turned out to be useful for consumer products – are they going to argue that WWII was all worth it in the end?
It ended the Depression – totally worth it!
Alright guys, have a good day. I’m off to grab a bite and then head over to a brewery anniversary party.
Today’s beer review reading beverage. I like it.
….that’s 40,000 gallons of Western Slope snowpack from the 1980’s Heh……I preemptively peed in MS’s pool. That snow pack would not pass a drug test btw.
I knew it smelled like quaaludes in my backyard!
I’m just lazy as hell today. I’m not even leaving the house. I spent 3 hours in traffic yesterday driving a total of about 20 miles. I don’t even want to see the inside of a car or a road today. So which is better for a lazy day, gin or scotch? I still haven’t decided, the research must continue. *switches from gin back to scotch again*
I’m going to go out and do some yardwork shortly. I just want to see the green grass and blue sky after being in the stupid fucking office all week. There’ll be plenty of time for laziness later tonight.
I’m also going to put a pot of homemade spaghetti sauce on the crock pot – probably about 6 quarts of sauce total. I also have 3 pounds of pork/beef meatball mixture that I’ll fry up and plop into the sauce later. AND a crapload of white and red wine.
I usually drink Scotch neat, so gin and tonic would be my favored drink for a lazy summer day. But there’s nothing wrong with Scotch on the rocks, so… Why not go with both?
I have a gallon container of my fresh salsa in the fridge and a pot of my gumbo soup on the stove. Plenty of stuff to drink, except beer, I’m out of that. Tanqueray gin, a decent gin, and Highland Park 12 year old single malt scotch, which I find very good for the price. I drink the scotch on a couple rocks and the gin I’m mixing with ginger ale. I don’t have any outside space at the moment, except my 7′ x 15′ veranda. I just sold the only house we owned here in the states and we’re looking for something to buy here soon, with anywhere from a couple of spacious decks to around 5 acres. Acreage freaks out my wife because she’s a city girl and has never mowed any grass. I told her to not worry because I have a great deal of experience with lawn tractors.
Scotch has a notable absence of pine sap in it, that makes it no contest.
Gin is better for day drinking and hot weather drinking. You can reward yourself with a scotch this evening if you’re still conscious.
83 F at the moment and 45% humidity. So it’s not too hot. I have all the windows and patio doors open and no AC, it’s pretty comfortable.
Ugh. Waiting for the plumber to call.
The hill my house is on is solid sandstone with a layer of deteriorated sandstone atop that. The top layer is sliding slowly down the hill. This causes my water main to shear off. I woke up to a most beautiful day today and discovered the water main had sheared off yet again right at the meter. God, I hate plumbing.
Now I have to go muck around in the goddamned mosquitoes, mud and chiggers, spit, curse and throw things. You all know I am quite good at cursing and spitting yet I don’t think my skills are up to this task. I may have to invent some new curse words.
I wash born here, an I wash raished here, and dad gum it, I am gonna die here, an no sidewindin’ bushwackin’, hornswagglin’ cracker croaker is gonna rouin me bishen cutter.
If there’s a man that can create the verbiage necessary to deal with that situation, by God, you’re just the curmudgeonly misanthrope to rise to that task, Suthen. Hope the plumber gets things sorted soon.
Maybe you need something like this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gregraisman/1194774436/
(seriously, sorry about the problems)
I spent my free time the past several days removing, bleeding and re-installing the clutch master cylinder on a 98 Ford Ranger. I found the best words for such a task is “fucking cunts” and goddamn asshole cunt motherfuckers” in reference to the jackasses who designed that clutch system. Nooooooo, the clutch system with the master on the firewall and the slave on the outside of the transmission worked too well for a hundred fucking years, so let’s fuck that up and put the master under the clutch pedal and the slave inside the transmission. If I ever meet a Ford engineer I am kicking him or her in the nuts.
As to water main sheering, perhaps a flex fitting? Big ass piece of rubber hose w/compression fittings?
Could you sink a couple of piers down to the stable sandstone to anchor the foundation.
And this is why good ole building codes and zoning are so important, someone should have stopped Suthen before he built on a slippery slope.
In my wanderings today I spotted a Games Workshop store and popped in to browse. Turns out they were having a pre-order launch event for their new paints. Since it involved playing around with new paint without having to buy it, and getting to keep the models I painted, I stayed and tried out the contrast paints.
My assessment – they’re washes, some of which have more pigment than washes used to carry.
So, they can be useful, but they’re not the magic as advertised. Best results were on cloaks, and other ‘cloth’.
I painted This Dude
And This Other Dude to see how the paints work.
Nice. Those are much better than anything I ever did.
I’m currently sipping a “milkshake” IPA. Weird beer. Not an over the top IPA, but at the end of the finish, you get this hint of vanilla milkshake.
Just poured an Evan Williams with a splash of Perrier.
Got a ribeye thawing on the counter.
Watching “Happy!” on Netflix with the wife.
Strumming my new Epiphone Hummingbird, and it sounds real nice. Right out of the box it was set up perfectly. Liw action. Tuned it up and it stays in tune. Sweet natural tone, without it being too loud or “majestic”.
It’s gonna be a good day.
OT: Kitchen-Aid stand mixers. Worth it?
I know they’re very highly regarded, but some products also decline in quality while coasting on brand name recognition. Are Kitchen-Aid stand mixers still as good as they used to be? I want one mainly for kneading wet, sticky bread doughs that are difficult to work by hand. I also like the idea of using those pasta roller and meat grinder attachments.
Does anyone have one that they have purchased in the past few years? Has it held up?
How long is a past few years. Mine is less than a decade old, and is still running fine. My mother’s is a few months newer, is still running fine, and survivied a housefire.
I have only once managed to stop the motor with the massively heavy chocolate chip molassas cookie dough during the latter stages of mixing. Mind you this dough is similar to almost set concrete in consistancy and weight. Once I reduced the amount of dough in the bowl from “Threatening to spill”, it ran fine again.
I wish I had a specific answer for you about recently made ones.
I inherited mine from my grandfather, and it has the Hobart manufacturing stamp on it. It’s an absolute beast.
The biggest problem with the new ones is that people use them beyond what they’re rated for. You can’t make 10 lbs of Churro dough with a 1/3 hp machine; it’s going to burn out.
My favorite attachement: the rotary shredder.
If I’m shredding 5-6 vegetables to make bibimbap, it only takes a minute.
You can’t make 10 lbs of Churro dough with a 1/3 hp machine; it’s going to burn out.
Ya, I bumped up a recipe of pizza dough to get one more crust out of it. My mixer seized after about a half hours use. I was making a bunch of pies and cooked my mixer. I am not sure if it was the larger recipe, or the constant use for an extended time.
Mmm…. burnt wire smell….
No burnt wire smell. It just seized. I think the gears froze/broke. I have yet to take it apart and see what happened but I miss the mixer.
Yeah, the biggest complaint for the newer models is stripped gears.
It was hardly new. I bought the thing in the mid 90’s. Not an antique like yours by any means. The only thing I inherited from my grandpa was an afghan blanket he crocheted. God it is ugly.
Yes and yes.
Not what they used to be, but none of us are. Ours gets a lot of use, has held up to it, but there’s a weird defect in the pasta roller- the place where the set-screw is used to hold it in is drilled improperly, so we’ve had to really crank down on the screw to keep the attachment in place. Other than that…
The roller or one of the cutters? I have a spare roller if you want it.
The square part that fits into the main mixer assembly.
Oh, I meant I have a whole spare unit.
Thanks everyone – I just ordered one (The sexy-ass copper color, too)
I’ll be sure to post a picture of the first ciabatta loaf that I make with it.
I do like that color.
Then again, I’m partial to metallics.
I had one years ago and it shorted out or something. Just stopped running completely despite rather light use. As that was right as we were moving, we just gave it to a neighbor rather than packing it. When it did run, it did fine work.
Last year, my wife’s grandmother gave us her stand mixer, which is a Hamilton Beach that appears to be from the 60s. It doesn’t have all the attachments or the capacity of the Kitchen Aid, and it weighs a friggin ton, but it’s a horse.
I was going to say that there are some other options (Bosch and Electrolux/Ankarsrum) that tend to be heavier built, but I think you’ll be fine with what you got.
Kitchen-Aid stand mixers. Worth it?
A stand mixer is certanly worth investing in.
That particular brand/model is probably worth debating.
Does anyone have one that they have purchased in the past few years? Has it held up?
I bought my artisan model in 2013, and it’s still chugging along. There was an issue with them switching to plastic gears in the years prior, but they had gone back to metal by the time I bought mine.
I thought about upgrading to the professional model a few months ago, but the color has to stay the same (according to the wife) , and they haven’t made the professional model in the pear color that we have.
The only things I don’t love about the artisan model are the shitty dough hook and the design of the bottom of the bowl (you’re guaranteed to have a little bit of unmixed at the very bottom no matter how you adjust it) . Everything else about it is great. I’ve done sausage, linguine, pizza, cake, whipped cream, pie dough, and dozens more foods in the thing and
Awesome. Sounds like that thing is the AR-15 of the kitchen – customizable, reliable, and available in any color you want.
Number one reason I want it is kneading wet and sticky bread doughs that can’t be worked by hand. Which dough hook is the shitty one – the one that looks like a pirate hook, or the spiral thingy?
Number two reason is to eventually buy the pasta roller attachment and kick up my pasta game with some homemade noodles.
I had some really good red lager at the Portsmith Brewery in Ohio. We wandered in there while staying in the nearby state park. Bar was built from plywood which appeared to be unfinished. But beer, pizza, and music was good and the staff was super friendly. One of those fun nights that unexpectedly materialized.
I spent my free time the past several days removing, bleeding and re-installing the clutch master cylinder on a 98 Ford Ranger. I found the best words for such a task is “fucking cunts” and goddamn asshole cunt motherfuckers” in reference to the jackasses who designed that clutch system. Nooooooo, the clutch system with the master on the firewall and the slave on the outside of the transmission worked too well for a hundred fucking years, so let’s fuck that up and put the master under the clutch pedal and the slave inside the transmission. If I ever meet a Ford engineer I am kicking him or her in the nuts.
Ouch. I hope they did that after ’91 (the model year of my Explorer).
I took a fatwa against some Ford engineers a few years ago over the three ’08 6.0L diesel engines I am the proud owner of.
I was laughing at that comment also. I too have fantasized about kicking various design engineers in the nuts. Many times.
My former boss used to say that all the German engineers worked for BMW and Mercedes, and the ones not so good worked for [German company who’s piece of equipment we were currently having issues with]
I can vouch that the same thing is true for the Swiss — the inside of my Mettler-Toledo titrator was obviously designed by a frustrated watchmaker with something to prove.
I am not sure what year they did it but it is a dumb as dog shit design. Too many places air can get trapped. It has had a soft pedal since I got it and then would not go into gear one day. Low and behold it was way low on fluid and I am a dumb ass and never check such things. The throw out bearing started making noise a bit before that and I have been hoping it is all related to the low fluid and it just needed bled. I plan one more bleeding and then if it is still noisy, out comes the transmission to change the slave cylinder/throw out bearing combo unit. From my research, F150’s of the same vintage have the same stupid design.
An awful lot of doodads are designed by people with no practical experience with that particular doohickey or they have no expectation of ever having to repair/replace it themselves. One of the few problems I have with this house is that all of the hose bibs are sweated on…inside the brick facade. They are at the age now where they are beginning to fail. Having to use open flame inside a wall terrifies me. When I get ready I will have to remove a couple of bricks, saw off the copper tube and a compression male threaded fitting is going on it.
Service access is part of the process, but it just doesn’t matter as much any more: we’ve basically tripled how long automotive parts that the service aspects aren’t a primary consideration.
Remember when plugs and points were an annual R&R?
Remember valve jobs?
They still need service. (not points so much) Remember when you could access plugs without tearing apart half an engine? I think part of the purpose of inaccessibility is so consumers take it to the dealer for maintenance.
It’s snowing. Yay!
*it’s really closer to little sleety ice balls.
You know who else had little sleety ice balls?
The snow miser?
Alaskan debutantes?
We just had some hail.
As to beer, I moved on to this. It is different.
I miss my old ’70s BMWs. they were simple, straightforward, fun-to-drive cars. There wasn’t anything on them that didn’t need to be there. You could just about completely disassemble and rebuild them with 10, 13. and 17 mm wrenches.
Now… nix, nay, nein.
Who owns such obscure sizes? I mean, those aren’t even real units.
/Imperial units for life.
0.05577 king’s feet
all better now
My next car will be a ’70s baja beetle. Enough with these new fangled automobiles.
Don’t alot of those Baja Beetles have Ford transmissions installed?
Don’t be a buzz kill e.
Not trying to buzz kill. I want a baja too. But unfortunately I have to get a proper daily driver right now. My shame— I’m seriously considering buying a Kia Sorrento this week.
I was kidding, and talk to Yufus. He loves his kia.
Kia? Designed by Koreans and Assembled by Americans? Recipe for disaster.
My wife drives a Kia Forte. It’s pretty nice, and has been reliable. I’m confident in a Kia.
Kia Sorrento is not stylish or fun to drive, but it’s better than the hoopty Toyota I’m rolling right now.
The wolf is real. He’s big and bad and right outside your door.
Lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee questioned senior FBI and Homeland Security officials this week about their response to white supremacist violence.
This was the latest in a series of hearings, led by Democrats, to gauge the Trump administration’s commitment to fighting a threat that federal agencies deem the most lethal and active form of domestic extremism.
——–
President Donald Trump consistently downplays the threat of white nationalist extremism, which he’s dismissed as “a small group of people.”
Michael McGarrity, assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, bristled when lawmakers suggested that, given the apparent disinterest from the top, federal authorities might not be taking the far-right threat seriously enough. McGarrity bluntly stated, more than once, that racially motivated violent extremists are the deadliest and most active of domestic terrorists.
“We’re not playing with the numbers here,” McGarrity said. “We arrest more domestic terrorism subjects [before they stage an] attack in the United States than we do international terrorism.”
———
Without a domestic terrorism statute, said McGarrity of the FBI, authorities are restricted as to how much they can police speech and conduct that’s offensive, but protected under the First Amendment.
That damn Constitution.
They keep saying that white nationalists are “the most dangerous” group of domestic extremists, but they still avoid mentioning the fact that they are in fact a tiny number of people, many of whom are undercover federal agents.
And I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – we need to get federal funding away from NPR pronto. There’s no reason to have a state-funded media outlet other than propaganda.
Considering the number of racially motivated murders committed by members of inner city gangs, that’s laughable.
No no, when that happens it’s gun violence. Reclassifying things to make the statistics look better is a classic Leftist move. Kinda like how the Fort Hood shooting is workplace violence.
Without a domestic terrorism statute, said McGarrity of the FBI, authorities are restricted as to how much they can police speech and conduct that’s offensive, but protected under the First Amendment.
Ya, that won’t be abused. Fuck Off Slaver.
I said it before, and I will say it again. The FBI needs to be disbanded.
Good god, for some fucking reason I scrolled down to the “Popular on NPR.org” section and saw the story:
Is YouTube Doing Enough To Stop Harassment Of LGBTQ Content Creators?
The Leftist immunity to self-awareness is astounding.
“…authorities are restricted as to how much they can police speech and conduct that’s offensive, but protected under the First Amendment.”
Ya’ don’t say.
Not to worry. A domestic terrorism statute would trump that musty old constitution.
And fuck autocorrect for capitalizing trump. Idiots.
My next car will be a ’70s baja beetle.
Nice. A lot of people around here drive those stupid fucking side-by-side ATVs on the street. You could go out and find (or build) a really nice Meyers Manx for less than half of what those things cost. And it will go around a corner without tipping over.
Damn, and I thought I knew everything about classic Vee-Dubs incl after-market, etc.
Thanks. I’ll be in my bunk.
Something like this, for instance.
No roll bar? Seems like a self correcting problem.
it is a dumb as dog shit design. Too many places air can get trapped.
It’s really fucking hot inside that bell housing. Brake fluid breaks down, eventually.
I have been telling myself I should flush new fluid through mine. Sometimes, on a hot day, it really doeasn’t want to go into gear, like after backing out of a parking spot. Bad sign.
Just poured another bourbon. Now we’re watching “Final Destination “ on Netflix. It’s hilarious.
Unintentionally hilarious, which is the best kind.
Almost like Sharknado.
Yeah, those FD movies are good stupid fun.
I haven’t stooped to Sharknado, though.
If you are going for campy you might as well go all the way.
Two words….Blood Sand (or as I see it now titled The Sand)
Turned it on one late night when I couldn’t sleep and spent the entire movie with my jaw hanging and thinking “They literally spend zero dollars making this movie”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3399484/
And if you think Sharknado is dumb and campy you obviously haven’t seen this masterpiece:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430334/
Thank you. Looks awful.
Ugh I think I saw that one.
No roll bar?
Steve McQueen warn’t no sissyboy.
Not like that pussy Alec Baldwin
“I’ll work with Martians. If—and the if is critical—they’re willing to cut spending and reduce the debt.” – Ted Cruz @ https://newrepublic.com/article/122310/extraterrestrial-vote
A little history behind NASA that everyone seems to forget: it was all bought/contracted from Hughes Aircraft Company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_Aircraft_Company
(That’s a wiki worth reading more than once).
Hughes put the first geosynchronous communications satellite in orbit in 1963. I have a close friend whose family had multiple generations who worked at Hughes, in its heyday, going back to “the Old Man himself” as they would say. One elder family member told me that when he started there that he had his choice to go into the space/lunar program side of the house or into missile technology and his exact words were: “It was obviously a dead-end technology. Once we did Surveyor [the unmanned soft landings and soil scoops, then return to Earth], it was only a question of whether or not we could make the capsule life-sustaining.” He still says it to this day (now in his 80’s).
People using NASA as some kind of proof of the need for government, or as some sort of disproof of libertarianism, really should look at how NASA was formed. It’s not like the scientists came out of “government scientist” schools. They’re still educated at private universities, some public, too, but the commercial world of all of those LA-valley tech startups from the 60’s that turned into RocketDyne and a million others, was where NASA was truly ‘born.’
Cleaning house
The Rodham family apparently were trying to do a Billy Carter impression and capitalize on rich and famous relatives in the White House. Say it ain’t true but I guess would be grifters are wannabees too.
What in tarnation?
https://duluth.craigslist.org/for/d/duluth-unique-swing/6907514065.html
Oh, a smoker, no interest on my part. Was that a Wisconsin import?