"I Am A Child."

Funny. I've just posted the link to this video on the facebook wall of my friend Gary. Fourty-five minutes later, I was charged with potentially ruining a child with fanciful flights of speed and horsepower. I'm now smiling from ear to ear.

Enjoy. This is a really good one, too.

peace.

Suck it, Prius! (A Quick Thought)

As a car and motorcycle guy, I really do hope this car represents the future of consumer vehicles.

This is the Honda FCX Clarity. (See here for more.) It's powered by an electric motor that gets its juice from an on-board hydrogen fuel cell instead of batteries or a tiny gasoline engine. The fuel cell makes its electricity by combining compressed hydrogen with oxygen, meaning the only thing that comes out of the "exhaust" is vaporized water.

The thing that makes this car better than the Toyota Prius, however, is that to refill it with hydrogen takes about the same time as it does to fill the tank on an average internal combustion automobile. Therefore, this thing is way more practical than the standard electric car that runs on batteries. And since the Toyota Prius is a hybrid (which means it has a gas engine as well as an electric motor), it has a much greater carbon footprint than the Clarity.

James May of Top Gear fame believes this is the most important car produced in decades, (LOOK!) and I agree with him. Cars like this will be the saviors of our motoring future.

peace.

The Very Top

I'm going gearhead tonight.

There was a brief period back in the early part of the last decade when Top Gear aired in the U.S. on The Discovery Channel. I distinctly remember stopping by to watch James, Jeremy, and Richard during many of my numerous channel surfing escapades. I was curiously drawn to their unique brand of British buffoonery added to their magnanimous praise or unrelenting criticisms of some of the world's most expensive and revered automobiles. Even though I was no where near the gearhead then that I am now (I was a late-bloomer.) I still found the show thoroughly entertaining. So I was a bit disappointed when it quietly disappeared from Discovery's line-up.

Fast forward to somewhere around early 2008. By now, I had developed an interest in muscle cars, motorcycles, and anything to do with internal combustion. I was working at Friendly Honda-Yamaha, a motorcycle dealership in Baton Rouge, as a parts/accessories guy. So I was inundated with all sorts of fascinating vehicular shenanigans. Much of my web browsing had to do with finding information on maintaining or modifying my 2000 Suzuki SV650 or watching videos of people in cars or on motorcycles doing dope stuff. I eventually found my way to streetfire.net, and you know how these things go. You click on one link, then another, then another until making a remarkable discovery. For me, this discovery was full length episodes of Top Gear!

Between then and now, I believe I've seen about 80% of Top Gear episodes available on streetfire.net. There are still a few seasons I've yet to get all the way through and some episodes are missing for one reason or the other. But if you are interested in having a good time watching middle-aged Brits goof off with $400,000 supercars or $2000 jalopies, go check 'em out. If you're reading this from anywhere but the United States, you probably already have.

peace.