Former Chrysler plant equipment up for sale.

Dudes. Duuuuuudes… Anyone live near Delaware?

The Great American Group is auctioning off some former assets of Chrysler and the University of Delaware, including but not limited to: 6-AXIS ROBOTS, golf-carts & fork-lifts, computer-guided mills, welders, metal lathes, compressors… I am beside myself with envy.

Day Tripper

I treated myself to a new car for my birthday.

Yes, it's a BMW - 335i xDrive. Yes, I am now officially yuppie scum.

I decided to go for a little day trip to get a feel for the car. It's a dream, by the way. 6 cylinder twin turbos. 300 hp. 0-60 mph in 5.4 sec. Terrific acceleration. Fun to blow past people on the interstate.

Also it was a beautiful day. Skies don't get this blue - not like Hawaii blue anyway - often in MN. Oooh, little fluffy clouds.

I decided to drive the 2 hours south of the twin cities to humble Austin, Minnesota - home of Hormel, meat packers extraordinaire, but more importantly, home to the SPAM Museum. In my 9 years here in exile in the midwest, I have disgracefully never made the pilgrimage to the holy land of pork products - until now.

Exterior shot of the humble museum. Note the bronze farmer taking his bronze pigs to the slaughter/smelting house.

Interior of the SPAM Museum - wall of 3390 cans of SPAM over the entrance - no significance to the number, it's all they could stuff in there.

Learned cool stuff about SPAM - more than 6 BILLION cans produced since the 1930s. Confirmed comforting facts that Hawaii is that state that does in fact consume the most SPAM per capita.

What I didn't know was that Guam reportedly consumes more. Good reason to keep them a protectorate.

Saw neat examples of previous packaging and advertising, including this monotone "special economy label" can from the WWII.

Wonder if there's still viable SPAM inside...

Learned about the role of SPAM in WWII, the lend-lease program, aid to the Russians, how it was ubiquitous for US service men.

There were videos from different chefs from around the world demonstrating various SPAM recipes. Sam Choy made SPAM musubi - shot at Breakfast, Lunch, and Crab.

But the most interesting thing, for me anyway, is that they showed how to decipher the code on the bottom of every can.

Of course they had the Monty Python SPAM skit on endless loop.

I bought the requisite SPAM T-shirt - plus got a free can of SPAM with T-shirt purchase. Got a SPAM tie too. They really should have SPAM musubi for sale there. I'm totally jonesing for one and I haven't figured out how to get the shoyu glaze right. I should call my Aunty....

So then I drove back north towards the twin cities through Owatonna. I figured since I was down there anyway, I should stop in Cabela's because my technologists are always talking about it - Costco for the outdoorsman.

It got off to a good start. There was an impressive bronze statue outside of 2 bucks, well, bucking.

Detail of one of the bucks below - I shot pictures up at the blue sky a lot today.

Inside, not so fun for me. There are big tanks of fish with examples of different species from the region, but they didn't look terribly healthy and it was kind of sad. No pictures taken of the sickly fish.

The walls are lined with the stuffed heads of different species of mammalia and mounted fish - didn't take pictures of them either. They have displays with stuffed animals akin to the Museum of Natural History in NYC. I had the same reaction I had to the Natural History Museum. Sad that the kids there (and the 'rents think this is a good place to take their kids for an edjumacation while they shop for ammo) thought it was so cool. Better to see the animals alive at a zoo. Or dead on the plate. Either way.

This is the largest display, located in the middle of the store.

Off to the side of the display.

Look at the sea of haole-ness shopping for guns in the left corner. Admittedly, the gun library - yes it's called the gun library - was kind of neat. It's where they display authentic antique guns for sale - Henry repeaters, Winchesters, Colt Navy revolvers, semi-auto Thompsons, etc.

Guns and knives and bows and arrows - oh my.

I walked around a bit. Clandestinely took some pictures. Left without buying a thing.

There's a small airport not too far from Cabela's where this Thunderbirds statue lives. I stopped to take pictures of the statue.

Yet another picture I took staring directly into the sun.

And then I drove back home. I should have taken a picture of all the bug guts splattered on my previously pristine windshield.

Anyway. That was my day trip. Just wanted to share. Miss you guys/gals.

Lego Factory Makes Lego Cars

I think I may have seen this before we started Pieces of Things. Otherwise I would have jumped to post this here. There's something nice about how slow and deliberate the factory is, but if you don't have seven minutes to watch this, letting it load all the way and scrubbing through it is still pretty neat.

Crashes with a Message

Sort of. Mostly, the makers of this series of little morality plays just prove that they are completely fucking mental.

Fun Moments From the 2009 First Hawaiian International Auto Show

(With apologies to those of you who have heard me rant about this already.)

So the 2009 First Hawaiian International Auto Show didn't have a lot of concept cars or anything, probably because we live on an island, and/or because U.S. automakers probably figured it would be in bad taste to suggest that they had any ideas or anything. Anyway, guess what's back in style, according to the American car companies? Big giant cars! Trends are so funny!


Oh good. They're making a Hummer pickup truck so assholes can drive around the city and not haul their asshole stuff. Upshot: This truck seats fewer assholes! Not that many fewer assholes, but when you're out and about, every asshole that stays at home counts.


The 2009 Escalade from Cadillac is easily one of the biggest SUVs I've ever seen. Good news, though, it gets 21 miles to the gallon, the equivalent of a regular-sized car (with shitty mileage). How, you ask? Well, because it's a hybrid. You know how I can tell? Because there's a huge fucking plaque on the side of the thing telling you so. I swear, the thing could have gotten 22 or 23 mpg if it didn't have to haul this giant stupid visible-from-space HYBRID badge around.


Speaking of Hybrids: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Honda Prius!


I was all set to make fun of this car, but now that I think about it, there's something just a little bit right about having a Corvette painted like a Trapper Keeper.

One kind of neat/disorienting thing about all the cars there--The tires were all very, very clean.

Nanocars!

Now there are nanocars! Science is finished!

Ghost Ride

In order to not focus on the election too much, here is a video compilation of people getting out of their moving cars. It is a fad, apparently, among the youth. Just so long as you vote, youth!