I was grounded this weekend with what is probably bronchial pneumonia. Lots of coughing, a very high heart rate from the medications, and an overall very tired feeling. Being relegated to the couch and bed all weekend, I watched a lot of television. I watched an entire afternoon of Star Wars movies. Episode 4 and Episode 5 mostly. I’m not a fan of The Muppet ShowEpisode 6 due to the ridiculous effort to cutesy-fy the franchise and merchandise the crap out of it. Okay back to the main point I came here to write.
Steven Lang has put together his own list of the top 10 worst used vehicles. You can visit it directly at THIS LINK (autos.yahoo.com). Its based on his own experience in the auto industry.
This is an interesting list and it has some very popular cars on it, VW Bug, Mini Cooper, and Jaguar S-types. I know my buddy JagGuy said his kids have had trouble with VWs of late. Engine failures with breaking in miles still left to be run. I saw a Mini Cooper in Mickey’s Garage just last week for a head gasket if I remember correctly. The job required the entire front of the car to be disassembled.
If I said, “Cutters” to you would you know the reference?
I ran across a photo today that brought to mind a movie I really enjoy every time I watch it, 1979’s “Breaking Away”. I watched this movie on a VHS tape for the first time in the early 1980’s. I was serving in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, I was going to the University of Oklahoma, I was the son of a civil servant (F.A.A.), and we were the definition of middle class in Oklahoma at the time.
So if you know this movie you can imagine it struck a nerve when I watched it. I didn’t fit in with the Greek fraternity/sorority scene at the university nor did most of my friends. I was fiercely proud of my independence and my disdain for those things I considered the realm of the rich (like food, spending money, and automobiles that ran EVERY TIME you turned the key to start them) was almost visible. My friends and I even got a softball team together and played one season in the Intramural League. We called ourselves Gamma Delta Iota (GDI). If you were a frat you knew immediately what that meant. We were outsiders. (See also, Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Better Off Dead (1985), Sixteen Candles (1984))
I paid my way through school, no help from my parents or the public through grants or loans. You see, we were middle class and I did not qualify for public assistance. As a matter of fact, my second semester I needed help with tuition. I asked my parents about “the college fund” that was supposed to be put aside from the proceeds from the stud fees on my dogs, it didn’t exist. So I asked for a loan to be paid back in two months from my Marine Corps pay. “No.” was the answer. A week after tuition was due and I had withdrawn from school, my parents bought new furniture and carpet for the house. The jumbo bonus was my mom had secured a janitor job for me at T.G.&Y. from her boss at the newspaper who it turned out was also the manager at the T.G.&Y.
Things haven’t changed too much today. The poor, or economically challenged, or what ever you want to call them get assistance from the government to go to school. The rich, you can imagine generally don’t need help getting their kids to the university. So I watch my middle class kids pay for their college with loans and a little hand from the Mrs. and I when we can. It makes you wonder if there really is a “class war” in America. The ultra-rich stay rich, the moderately rich are taxed down to the middle class, the poor are assisted in order to achieve the middle class, and the middle class remain in the middle riddled with the debt to keep them there.
/end rant
Sorry for that. You don’t come to this website for social or political commentary so, back to the movie. Well for one thing, its great. I highly recommend it.
Imagine how I enjoy this picture!
I’m already writing the sequel in my head. And frankly since there are no “new” movies in Hollywood I’m surprised some “B” studio hasn’t optioned it for a remake. They’ve remade nearly all the 1980’s great movies, time to slide down into the 70’s. Hell, they’ve remade “Robocop”….ROBOCOP! Really? How do you remake greatness? Do you think they’ll make it closer to the book like they did with the brilliant remake of “True Grit”? That’s a joke of course. The book was written after the screenplay and is different from the movie. Insert eyeroll here.
Okay, lets clear somethings up.
I have rich friends, I have middle class friends, I have poor friends. I hold no animosity in any form toward any of them. My rich friends got their money through damn hard work. My poor friends work harder than most people do and who could begrudge any of that?
This post oozes irony…
I am fiercely middle class and independent. It is ironic that I have such disdain for the Greek system yet I belong to the largest (and most deadly) fraternity in the world, the United States Marine Corps.
Today, ironically, I drive a car that only rich people could afford brand new.
I am no longer angry at my parents (deceased). It sucked at the time to be told no to my education. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t resent it at the time. It sucked a little harder to be out of school and a janitor again. But I learned a lot from that. And for the record, T.G.&Y. turned out to be one of the funnest jobs I have ever had.
I really don’t want Breaking Away remade. Please Hollywood, I’m begging you on my knees, stop re-making movies. Write something original and add to the mystic of your venerated Hollywoodland. As of the publishing of this blog post no jackass in Hollywood has planned a remake. You could see the soul of Hollywood escape the minute they started filming a live-action movie of Scooby Doo.
Once again, sorry for the soapbox, thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
This is the 42nd block of North Western in Oklahoma City. If you are a familiar with this block you have Beck’s Garage on one side of the street on the other you have VZD’s. I eat lunch at VZD’s every Monday. FYI: If you want to talk Land Rovers look for me on a bar stool between 11am and Noon.
I have never pulled up there before and seen it so empty. Not a single car in the parking lot or on the street in front. Very odd. So I snapped a picture.
Next door to VZD’s is a “salon/day spa”. So normally there is at least one or two cars parked there for the women who “do” salons/day spas. And normally Teresa Wall is parked out front as well. Teresa owns 42nd Street Candy Company. This is where I stop and pick up those fancy chocolates and candies that gets me nominated for Husband of the Year by Mrs. Okierover. I highly recommend you stop in and say hi to Teresa and get some bon-bons. You won’t regret it.
This neighborhood is known as Crown Heights. My biological mother lived at the corner of N.W. 39th and Western before I was born. How do you know that? Good question! I looked her up on the old Criss-Cross directory at the Oklahoma City Public Library. I was probably conceived in the apartment there above the house. (You probably didn’t need to know that.)
I’ve always loved this neighborhood and the great old homes found between Shartel and Western. One house on N.W. 41st street has a terracotta dragon sitting on top of the chimney.
Back to the Range Rover. I’ve got a very noisy left front spring. I think I’ll need to get it up on a lift and look at what’s going on. It’s annoying and since I just got those springs under there I should find out why it’s making those noises. Every thing else is going well so far.
I am going to the Battle of Honey Springs this weekend. So the Range Rover is going on a long drive Friday after work. I’m going to take the “Blue Highways” instead of the interstate. I’ve been listening to William Least Heap-Moon’s Blue Highways from audible.com. I’m enjoying it very much and thinking of a similar trip for some day in the future.
I used the roof rack as a platform to take a picture of our Halloween Block Party. Paradigm Church has had a trunk-or-treat set up each of the last two years. We set up games for the kids and hand out candy. We are getting quite the reputation for our “carnival”. We even have a competition between the bible study groups who theme their trunks each year.
My team has won both years. Last year we had a panel of judges, this year we let the kids/parents decide. We decorated as pirates the first year complete with a cardboard pirate ship and this year we had a Despicable Me (2013) themed trunk. We built a Gru-mobile and the shrink ray from the movies.
Everyone had a great time and the weather was perfect.
Good grief that post was all over the place! I could have made it two, perhaps three different posts. Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
Monday while everyone else was watching Beyoncé lipsync our National Anthem I was applying the embroidery to my Cherokee bandoleer bag and looking for something to watch on the boob tube. (Strange…the boob tube is no longer shaped like a boob.)
I was haunting the Encore channels because they usually have old movies I’ve never seen. Monday was a home run of epic per portions. I was surfing the channels and saw Raquel Welch was starring in a movie that was described as “a bikini clad skydiver…” I don’t remember the rest, they had me at bikini.
“Fathom” (1967). So I watched the truly too terrible to be bad movie. Think about how bad Patrick Swayze’s “Road House” (1989) is and how you still watch it every time its on. This movie was totally predictable and pretty bad over all. But it had Raquel Welch, who I would watch clip her toe nails. How on earth could this get any better? Right in the first few scenes Fathom (Raquel Welch) gets a ride from a friendly British gent and what does he drive? Yep, a Land Rover.
I snapped a shot of the screen because I felt it was my duty to all Land Rover Mankind. It wasn’t in HD so it is fairly low quality. It is likely that I will need to buy this movie on DVD so I can get a better screen capture and perhaps a video of the magic happening.
So we now have two of the most beautiful women in the 20th century riding around in a Land Rovers. I’m sure somewhere there must be a website that has all the beautiful people pictured with their Land Rovers. BINGO (Celebrity Cars Blog.com).
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