Possumblog

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

REDIRECT ALERT! (Scroll down past this mess if you're trying to read an archived post. Thanks. No, really, thanks.)

Due to my inability to control my temper and complacently accept continued silliness with not-quite-as-reliable-as-it-ought-to-be Blogger/Blogspot, your beloved Possumblog will now waddle across the Information Dirt Road and park its prehensile tail at http://possumblog.mu.nu.

This site will remain in place as a backup in case Munuvia gets hit by a bus or something, but I don't think they have as much trouble with this as some places do. ::cough::blogspot::cough:: So click here and adjust your links. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it's one of those things.


Thursday, July 15, 2004

If you take 3, and multiply it times 5, you get 15.

That only has the most meager connection to this post--namely, that today marks Week Fifteen of the Axis of Weevil Thursday Three!

For those of you who have been busy doing other, more productive, things in that amount of time and have no idea what sort of beast this is, the Thursday Three is the result of years of painstaking research to develop a way for people to have ready-made filler material for the crevices of their blogs, without having to go to all the trouble of answering FIVE whole questions on a Friday (like they would have to do with that better-known sort of quiz you you might be familiar with).

The subject matter tends to be geared toward questions about the things one might find in the South, although anyone is free to answer or contribute, even if you have to make up a lot of stuff.

FOR TODAY’S INSTALLMENT, though, nothing at all to do with speaking with a drawl, or whether it’s proper to wear overalls to a funeral if they are new. In consideration of how slow everything was yesterday, today’s set of questions is intended to get Thursday off to a speedy start.

1) What is the fastest you have ever traveled on land? On water? In the air?

2) Which would you rather attend: Bonneville Speed Week, the Daytona 500 Speedweek, or a private screening of Speed with Sandra Bullock?

3) Which would you rather have as a pet: Speedy Gonzales, Speedy, the Kitten Born Without a Pelvis, or Flipper? (Who happens to be “faster than lightning,” at least according to his theme song.)

Now then, if that’s not enough fast things to get the day going, I don’t know what else to do! All of you go answer and leave a link in the comments below, or on the off chance you don’t have a blog, you can just leave your actual answers in the comments.

NOW then, for my answers--

For number one, I’m not real sure--I have been on the Britrail express train from London to Edinburgh, which I think is pretty fast in spots--upwards of 120 or so. The next fastest thing over which I actually had some (marginal) control was my ’69 AMX. (It looked almost exactly like this one.) It was sorta scary to drive at speed, though, due to its short wheelbase, squirrelly handling, and propensity for sudden irrational behavior. I do recall early one summer morning about 6 a.m. going to work. I was driving down Highway 78 from Forestdale to Birmingham, and decided to roll on the throttle a little bit as I was coming down the hill toward Finley Boulevard. It didn’t have air conditioning, so I usually left the window down a bit, and as I got the needle bumping up between 110 and 120, suddenly the entire vinyl headliner busted loosed from the ceiling like an airbag deploying, crashing down on top of my head. The suction of the wind going out the driver’s side window had pulled it loose, and scared the living crap out of me. Had to close the window and drive with the fan on high and vents open to keep the headliner inflated up against the ceiling, which worked fine while underway, but it sagged back down at the traffic lights.

On water was the boat my dad and I had back around the same time as the AMX--it was an 18 foot Tahiti jet (sorta like this one, except white with blue stripes) sporting a 454 cube LS-6 Chevy engine, with a tunnel ram, two big Carter AFBs and a set of wet/dry headers. Probably made around 500 horses or so, and was hooked up to a Berkeley pump with a Jetovator. It didn’t have a speedo, but based upon runs with other boats that did, it would do around 90 with a single passenger, headers dry, and the nozzle trimmed just right. Actually a very nice ride--it was a pretty heavy boat, but sat up well on its hull. Sounded like a stock car, too, which is always nice.

In the air, I have absolutely no idea--I was on a transatlantic flight on an L-1011, and they are designed to cruise at around 0.8 Mach. Then there was the time I fell off the garage when I was eight, and I think I got up to a pretty rapid clip before hitting the ground. Not 0.8 Mach, though.

For numero two-oh, I don't think I would like to see Speed again; I can’t stand Keanu Reaves, and the whole movie is pretty stupid, and I really don’t much like any role that Sandra Bullock has ever been in. She IS nice to look at, though.

You know, on second thought, I think I should have stayed with my original idea of saying, “a private screening of the 1966 classic Grand Prix with Francoise Hardy.” Now THAT would be a nice--AND, at age (or speed) 60, she is still quite a striking looking woman. As for the other two choices--Daytona 500? Eh. I like that there NASCAR, but I gotta go with the Salt Flats. Lots of space, and a smorgasbord of cars and speed, although unlike the Daytona area, there's not much else in the way of entertainment (other than going deaf and salt blind).

Final question--Speedy Gonzalez wouldn’t last long after he got into that box of Bounce, and we’d need a pool or big Jacuzzi or something for Flipper, so I suppose sweet little Speedy, the Kitten Born Without a Pelvis would have to be my choice. I think it would be nice, too, if he had a tiny little Segway.

So, there you go.


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