A single act of carelessness leads to the eternal loss of beauty.
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Arthur Bullard" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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12:47 pm
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Toys
Where were toys like the Casio EX-F1 when I was a kid, eh? (Ignoring the price tag for a moment):
Slow motion Youtube video of toy cars being blown up
In other news, I went to the West Oxfordshire Shooting School this weekend with some people from work. Great and pretty affordable fun. Kablam!
Photos here. Apologies to those who already saw this on Facebook.
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08:49 am
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Lovely Weather
Could be worse, could be... oh.
Tags: rain
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12:07 am
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Oxford City Fireworks
Click for bigger
Taken with my new Canon S90. A slightly pricey but impressively good compact digital camera.
Video here (on Youtube), shot with the same camera.
Current Music: boom boom boom boom boom
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11:01 am
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Fun Ways to Die
All of There I Fixed It is awesome, but this in particular qualifies for FWTD:
Petrol powered creeper
(A creeper is a skateboard-like device that you lie on and crawl under cars to fix stuff underneath).
Tags: funwaystodie
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06:08 pm
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Stornoway "Fuel Up" Lyrics
Because I couldn't find this elsewhere on the web, I've transcribed "Fuel Up" by Stornoway:
( Lyrics below cut )
Tags: music
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09:52 pm
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Obsolescence
Further to my post about when you last used a payphone:
When and where did you last use a cassette tape? Bonus points if it wasn't in your car.
Mine was probably a recording of me reading Ant and Bee stories aged about 6, and a few weeks ago when at my parents' house in Cambridge.
Tags: funwaystoobsolesce
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01:10 pm
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Fun Ways to Die
This one's unlikely to be fatal, but I think it deserves an honourable mention for sheer cowboy mechanics.
How to change a VW Beetle fanbelt in under 5 seconds. While the car is running.
( Youtube video embedded under cut )
Current Mood: aghast admiration
Tags: cars, funwaystodie
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10:42 pm
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Longbridge Way Round
OK, so the Midget was built in Abingdon, but it made a good title. This is a fun story:
Man drives MG Midget round the world to win a bet with his neighbour who said it wouldn't make it
Tags: mg cars
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12:32 am
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Downfall parodies
Every time I see another Downfall subtitle parody video - a meme that's been doing the rounds for a while, for those who haven't seen them before. Essentially people are replacing the subtitles with a humorous rant. However, I find I cannot banish the spoken German from my head, which interferes with the comedy.
Hence, I have done it properly:
( Youtube video embedded below cut )
Edit: This one is good, though!
Tags: funny
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08:37 pm
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Payphones
This article made me think, and I realised I actually cannot remember when I last used a payphone. I reckon it must be at least five years ago, possibly more.
So: do you remember when and where you last used a payphone?
ETA: My last clear memory of using one is in my first year at university (98/99). I was a relatively late adopter of mobiles and didn't get one till my 2nd year. So I think that could well be 10 years since I used a payphone.
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12:54 pm
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Fun ways to die
Being an adult should involve more stuff like this:
Jet-powered merry go round [Youtube video, courtesy boingboing]
Tags: funwaystodie
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11:12 pm
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Heidelberg
This. This is why I love Heidelberg. D'you see?
Tags: heidelberg
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05:41 pm
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Macintosh Portable
It seems that the Macintosh Portable has just turned 20 years old. I remember getting to play with one of those when they were new! While hardly portable by modern standards, I'd love to add one to my collection. Anyone got one gathering dust? ;-)
In other news, I'm off to Germany tomorrow for (among other things) the annual Hockenheim classic car event on Sat/Sun, complete with run out on the F1 track.
Tags: cars, computers
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04:41 pm
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Fun Ways to Die
This time, Trabant[1] Rallying [Youtube].
Nice recovery!
[1] East German car made of "recycled material, cotton waste from Russia and phenol resins from the East German dye industry" and featuring until 1990 a 2 cylinder 2-stroke engine.
Tags: funwaystodie
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11:36 pm
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Pretty views
( Pretty car, pretty view... )
More here, including a couple showing St Giles' fair from a distance
Tags: cars, photography
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10:30 pm
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AMOC Autumn Concours, Mapledurham
Today, courtesy of her free ticket, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ms_saffie and I went to the AMOC Autumn Concours event at Mapledurham (a stately home near Reading). Lots of shiny metal there, including the new Aston Martin One-77 (pictured) - a limited run of 77 cars, 7.3litre V12, (are you sitting down?) £1.2 million...
Complete set of photos here, on flickr.
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Tags: cars
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10:14 am
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Fun Ways to Die
brrm most definitely does have room for:
Road-legal bumper cars. Supposedly capable of 160mph :-O
Tags: funwaystodie
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05:31 pm
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Art Does Not Have Room For
This arrived through my letterbox today. I'm pretty sure I don't have room for that many:
( Image below cut )
Tags: cars, silliness
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03:36 am
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My whole life
Some of you might know that I was enough of an early adopter to get the username art on Twitter. Today, my client flags up the following message because it mentioned my name. I get a lot of these, usually referring to art-the-noun. However, this one seems to want me to give him my username with no readily apparent benefit to myself:
Art_News: @art I would be very happy to have the name @art & run with it. Art is my whole life, and you would make me eternally grateful for it.
Well, Mr Art_News: it happens to be my name. Sorry. ;-)
Tags: twitter
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10:52 pm
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Brrm brrm
 Today, in exchange for helping man the Aston Martin Heritage Trust stall for 2 days at the launch of the Aston Martin V12 Vantage (pictured right) and DBS Volante in Long Stratton, ms_saffie arranged for me to have a test drive in the new V12 Vantage. Yes, the one you saw on the last episode of this year's Top Gear [Youtube link]. It's similar to the original (V8) Vantage, but it has the 6 litre V12 engine from the DBS.
To say I was terrified of it is about accurate, when I got in. It didn't help, of course, that at £135,000 the car is worth around half of my house. The craftsmanship is amazing, and the cabin feels more like a spaceship than a car; the gauges and switches like precision-made watches in the dash. Hand-stitched leather is everywhere, and the steering wheel is covered with a soft suede-like leather.
Slide the glassy rectangular "key" into the slot on the dashboard, and hold. It lights up, and the V12 burbles into life. The clutch, accelerator and brake are not at all difficult to operate - light in action, and as you might expect a normal car to be. And of course, in the Vantage, the transmission is a normal manual gearlever, no flappy paddles. Pulling away, it all feels very familiar, and the nervousness dissipates a little. The handbrake, incidentally, is curious. It's between the driver and the door, and acts like a momentary up-down switch rather than a mechanical "locks-up" lever.
Once on the open road, the demonstrator showed me the 'sport mode' button. Press this and, despite my suspicions that not much difference would be evident, the throttle response really does increase. And, on encouragement to put my foot down, I did so.
A 0-60 time of 4.1 seconds does not adequately convey just how mind-bending the acceleration is in this car. Sure, you only get 4 seconds of fun before you hit the national speed limit but wow, those are four seconds I could repeat over and over. The soundtrack, too, is simply glorious. As the torquey engine (570Nm, three times the torque of my most powerful car) pulls away from 500(!) RPM up the rev range, the muted burble becomes a howling symphony of metal.
The handling is every bit as good as I'd been led to expect. Through a series of open left-right bends, it remained flat, manageable and giving plenty of feedback.
Sadly, I couldn't keep it all day. They say that if you ever got to sleep with the celebrity you've always fancied, it'll probably be a disappointment. But that's not the case here. Not even slightly. I have driven what is without doubt the best car I have ever and will ever drive. What's next? ;-)
Also in the set of photos from the day is A3, the oldest Aston Martin in existence, which has been painstakingly restored/reconstructed over the past ~2.5 years, using only 5 photographs as a reference. It's a beautiful old machine, and even more frighteningly valuable than the cost of a new Aston:
Tags: cars
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