awesome duuuuuuude

This is officially the single coolest thing you will have seen all month.  From a few hours ago:

I just bought a brand new Toyota Corolla.  It’s got more safety features than anything I’ve ever seen in a car.  It’ll be neat in another fifteen or twenty years to see if what Elon Musk has given his Roadster will become standard equipment on new vehicles.

Seriously though, that is hella awesome.  It’s like Musk and his boffins are engineering functional Autobots....

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Two Japanese tourists, in the country for the World Cup soccer tournament, visited a Bass Pro Shop.  Somehow they found their way to the firearms department.  They could not buh-leeeeve all that magnificent firepower on sale to the general public.  The Japanese guys asked if they could touch the guns and as you can see they got the full enjoyment out of handling them.

Oh yeah, and notice that they are wearing Buc-ee’s hats.
This has to be the greatest video I’ve seen in awhile.  The look on the Japanese duo’s faces as they heft aloft various handguns, rifles and shotguns.  Doing something that is definitely not allowed in most of the world (but it should be allowed, that’s what truly free countries do).
I’ve heard lots of stories about how foreign guests here for the World Cup have been discovering the real America and being impressed by all
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Finally, some sanity is returning to Scouting.

But is it too little, too late?

On My Honor, Norman Rockwell

 

A few hours ago it was announced that Scouting America, what was formerly Boy Scouts of America, is no longer allowing transgender members and it is abandoning “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies.

It has made this vow to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has previously raised concerns about the “woke” tilt that Scouting has made in recent years.
This is a massive win for Scouting traditionalists, who have been against many of the changes that the organization has made over the past decade and a half or so.  The worst, in my belief as an Eagle Scout, was allowing homosexuals into the ranks.  Scouting’s ideals are incompatible with any sexual behavior other than monogamous heterosexuality.  A Scout takes an oath to “Keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and
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This is something I wish Dad were still here to tell about it too.  As much as he disdained computers, he would no doubt find this to be very cool…

Two days ago a Beechcraft King Air became the very first aircraft to deploy an “autoland” system after the pilot became incapacitated.  It happened in Colorado.  The Garmin Autoland that had been installed on the plane kicked in and proceeded to automatically guide the aircraft down to a safe touchdown at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.  After it came to a halt, emergency crew arrived and took care of the pilot, who is reportedly doing fine.
We have entered a new age of air flight, folks.  When this kind of thing gets to be more widely installed, a lot of people are going to be having second thoughts about going up in an aircraft.  Especially in smaller planes that may
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Premiered on CBS on December 9th, 1965.

No matter how many times I’ve seen this, I always take time to watch it again every Christmas season.  A few years ago I bought the Blu-ray containing A Charlie Brown Christmas along with the Halloween and Thanksgiving specials.

I can barely remember it, but when I was two or three years old CBS had scheduled the Christmas special for broadcast.  But a football game went over long and completely pre-empted A Charlie Brown Christmas.  I was furious!  Mom said I was really crying about not getting to see Charlie Brown.  It bothered Mom too.  Enough so that she called CBS affiliate WFMY in neighboring Greensboro to complain about it.  I don’t know what she said to them but they gave her the home phone number of the station’s general manager!  Mom let him have it, telling him it was wrong ...

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This is something that a LOT of us have waited almost thirty years for!  It was reported a few days ago that the original cut of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is coming back to theaters in February 2027!  This is going to be the first Star Wars movie as it existed before the “Special Editions” came out in 1997.  From an age when the special effects of the saga were done without benefit of computer-generated imagery.   This is the movie that shattered the bar for what practical effects could do and it set the platinum standard for every blockbuster since.  And now in time for the film’s fiftieth anniversary we’re going to behold it again in its original glory.

(I’m going to assume that “original 1977 Star Wars” actually means the print that was released prior to the premiere of The Empire Strikes Back
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Way, waaaaay back in 2011, I posted about how a bunch of good-hearted geeks pitched in more than $50,000 to crowdfund a statue of RoboCop for the city of Detroit.  I’ve wondered about this project at various times over the years (mostly whenever I’ve watched RoboCop, which hasn’t been too many occasions) and I certainly did wish them well.  But it still seemed like one of those great ideas that linger around but ultimately get nowhere.

Leave it to nerd-dom to prove this cynic wrong.

Behold the brand new $60,000 bronze statue of electric fuzz in stainless steel:

Click to enlarge.  Photo credit: Lee DeVito

Detroit Metro Times has more here about the RoboCop statue.  Maybe they should invite Paul Verhoeven and Peter Weller for the official dedication?  I’d buy that for a dollar!...

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For the past ten months the number-one question that has been asked of this blogger has been: “Do you know when the Short Sugar’s barbecue sauce is going to be for sale?”

It was back in January that Short Sugar’s Barbecue in Reidsville, North Carolina closed after almost eighty years of business.  It was news that shocked a lot of people.  I know.  For weeks it was THE item that spun the most traffic to this blog.  Folks as far away as Ireland, Australia and Brazil were coming to this site.  But that was nothing compared to the reactions that I saw on Facebook, among the people who for most if not all their lives had Short Sugar’s in the town they grew up in.  It was an institution, not just of Reidsville but of the entire state of North Carolina.

I could go on all night about that. ...

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This is already the most beautiful thing I’ve seen all week.  A Dodge Charger kitted out to look like the famous General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard goes roaring down the street in Somerset, Kentucky and jumps a ramp and goes soaring through the town’s water fountain.

Behold the stunt!

Okay, yeah the car got banged up a bit (the driver didn’t get a scratch apparently, thank the Lord) but that’ll buff right out.  Throw on some Bondo and a good sanding and it’ll be good as new!

Notice how this car is all-out faithful to the General Lee of the show.  Including the Confederate flat on the roof.  That’s a really good touch, completely in the spirit of the TV series.

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