Barren Realms?!?! I used to play at college (before I failed out). THWACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I haven't heard those words used in reference to a MUD since 1997 or so.

Not even the tacked on ones. The ones from the factory that are useless (Buick comes to mind, as do the ones on my MINI) and do not actually vent anything. Because it's hard to vent through uncut bodywork and solid plastic.

Starbucks has some common shortcuts for added espresso shots:
Redeye: +1 shot
Blackeye: +2 shots
Greeneye: +3 shots

I'm just outside of Baltimore. They closed the kids' school yesterday, too. Most likely it has to do with liability. No one wants to be the guy that says, "every other school district in the greater Baltimore area is shut down, let's bring 'em in" and then have a bus slide into a ditch. Same with the office: if…

I'm here in Maryland and grew up in Minnesota. There are 2 inches of snow on the ground after a couple hours of snow. No wind. Why was my office closed and why are my kids not in school? Oh, that's right, East Coast.

Ditto.

True story: We went into Costco for glue sticks (School Supply season). That was the only thing on the list. $380 later we left. We finished up with a round of their delicious Pizza and I helped myself to one of their new BBQ Pork Sandwiches (delicious) because a $380 box of glue sticks requires a little bit of extra…

Excellent point. However since this is 'Merica we only care about two things: displacement, cylinder count, and NASCAR.

A big +1 on the brakes. I picked up some nice pads and rotors for my wife's Audi but it was February in Minnesota so I called up Audi to get a quote for the labor. They guy told me $800. I explained that I already had the parts and just needed the labor at which point he repeated the $800 quote. Needless to say that I…

This will be the death of me. I already brew my own beer and now due to your quality journalism (with awesome links) I'm probably going to start "brewing" my own tonic. Because while bottling my own Cola is a bit too intensive to supplement my bourbon and coke fetish, apparently bottling my own tonic is quite in the…

I saw something like this at a track day. A fellow enthusiast had a Mercury Marauder and I was impressed with his eclectic choice of vehicle. 1/2 way through day 1 of the track weekend he pitted and later we all saw why: brake rotors that looked like this. The thing is he had been talking to me earlier about the…

I thought that since seals didn't have cloven hooves they would be kosher but alas, no. Wait, I'm not Jewish!

Take the PCH. It's a lot LONGER (in time and distance) but you get a lot of cool places. Like Big Sur (duh?) and San Simeon (Hearst Castle), and a whole mess of little towns that could use some Jalopnik love. I drove it back in 1998 in a borrowed Chrysler LeBaron Convertible and it was quite memorable. Change your…

It all started with the LEGO Bricks. It wasn't this particular set but it was an universal set that had an electric motor and instructions for a car. It taught me how gears work, how a basic rack and pinion worked, and a whole host of other car-related things. I'm about to blow my own kids' minds since they are about…

Sisu is the word that Mikka Hakkinen used to describe the Finnish mindset when he was teaching James May to rally. Nice.

There are quite a few possible motivations for this and I like them all. The one that sticks out in my mind is this: Common Framework means a forced infrastructure upgrade in many cases. Since we're America and we have 50 states all with their own regulations as well as innumerable communities with their own codes and…

I believe it's a screen-capture from a PBS documentary.

I'm still wishing I'd held off on buying my MINI. I would have the Ford ST in a heartbeat over my MINI. Far cheaper and more of what I'm looking for.

Not a yooper, central Minnesota. Although I have spent some time with the UP-Finn's as well.

All those Finnish names are bringing back memories of my youth. There is a rather large Finnish population in the town where I attended elementary and middle school. Raisanen, Kivinen, Woullet, Ylitalo, Houtari... so many. It was unusually common for people to have real wood Saunas (pronounced Sah - uu - nah, not…