"If you can't be pretty, you might as well cause trouble" – Florence King
Posted in Car Drama and trauma, Cars as a hobby, Delight, nostalgia, Photo entries on Jan 12th, 2014
So, in 1993, I was a the wee slip of a girl you see above, clambering joyously aboard a car-hauler to inspect her Very Own Car. Most teenagers dream of their first set of wheels, and have quite specific ideas about what their dream car is. Most never do get their hands on their dream […]
Posted in Cars as a hobby, Delight, Holidailies 2013, Take A Look At This, Well I'll Be Darned on Dec 26th, 2013
Last night, to end a very silly not-argument about the word “recidivist” and its proper spelling, I took to Joel’s gigantic dictionary, a Webster’s New Twentieth Century Unabridged Dictionary from 1972. After I’d won the argument (heh) I spent a bit of time just thumbing through the tome, because I like dictionaries and just randomly […]
Posted in Cars as a hobby, Dumpster Diving, Family on Aug 19th, 2013
I come from a family of scavengers and trashpickers. So does Joel. In fact, in our early relationship, we bonded over an outing on Large Trash Day down in the ritzy Brookside district, when I scored my prized enamel-and-chrome step-stool (1950s vintage) and Joel found a banjo! When my sister and I were kids, we […]
Posted in Cars as a hobby, Lists on Mar 13th, 2013
Inspired both by Petrol Blog‘s “dream barn” series and a conversation Joel and I had at dinner the other night, I decided to write up my own “dream barn” scenario. Basically, if I had the space and the money to do so, I’d probably own five or six completely ludicrous cars simply because I like […]
Posted in Cars as a hobby, nostalgia on Feb 13th, 2013
Saw one of these down in the West Bottoms today, only the one I spotted was a really tasty shade of wine red. Similar solid, original, but grubby condition. I’ll take my camera tomorrow and see if I can snap a decent shot of it on my way home from work. It really was a […]
Posted in Car Drama and trauma, Cars as a hobby, Gratuitous Cussing, grumbles gripes and pointless bitching, Notions and Rants on Feb 7th, 2013
A reader caught a typo for me in my Kia Magentis post from the other day – I’d mis-named the Chrysler 300, a leaden and funereal 4-door sedan as a Chrysler 500 (because I have stubby-little-kid-hands and have to take my fingers off home-row to hit the number keys) and he thought I was making […]
Posted in Cars as a hobby, Oh, for fuck's sake on Feb 5th, 2013
Perhaps I’ve fallen a bit too much under the influence of the motoring website Petrolblog, which tends to concentrate on the odd, the low-budget, and the accessible, but I’ve taken to noticing unexceptional cars of late and considering their possibilities as “future classics.” A few days ago, I was out in Merriam, Kansas, finishing up […]
Posted in Cars as a hobby, Delight, Oh, for fuck's sake, Take A Look At This, Utter Silliness, Weird as Hell on Feb 1st, 2013
Because I like Top Gear and because I have a lingering fondness for drastically odd cars, I find myself browsing around in some of the more British sections of the motoring Interweb and today came across one of the most fascinating reviews of obscure, British three-wheeled cars. Now of course, even we Yanks know about […]
Posted in Cars as a hobby, Delight, Distractions on Jan 21st, 2013
I’ve long been interested in utilitarian, economy cars. Since before I was old enough to drive, I considered the cheap, serviceable runabout fascinating. Of course, I was inclined to be biased; my Dad worked on air-cooled Volkswagens as a sideline job, and we had one as a family car from the early 1980s on. I […]
Posted in Car Drama and trauma, Cars as a hobby, Holidailies 2012, Recommendations on Dec 27th, 2012
the famous DX, a photo by Meetzorp on Flickr. The 1.5 litre 1988 Honda Civic DX has enough pickup through the lower range of gears that I can get annoyed at other drivers for being slow on the takeoff. In fact, it is just sprightly enough that I can combine impatience and enjoyment in almost […]