I think this race at Spa was the only Lancia win during the 1985 season. Bellof was killed more-or-less instantly. Baldi was in the lead when Bellof's death was announced. That was casting a pall over the whole event, so the organizers polled all the team managers, and everyone agreed to end the race early and go…

They look really funny, but it's probably a serious dispute to the penguins - Presumably they're fighting over one of the standard things wild animals fight about: social dominance, mates, territory or food. It would interesting to know what this fight is about.

Fun fact: Jean-Louis Trintignant, who starred in A Man and a Woman, is the nephew of the French racing driver Maurice Trintignant, who raced in sportscars and F1 in the 1950's. He won LeMans in 1954 and the Monaco GP in 1955 and 1958:

Is here any live or streaming coverage of any of the Monterey weekend events? Does anybody know?

dougzimm's story made me check her wikipedia article - Apparently, they were trying to set her up as a "honey trap" for an Obama cabinet officer, and she was on the verge of succeeding. That didn't get reported when the story first broke, but it suggests she was more effective as a spy than the original news stories…

I'd like to think that that last customer had "invoice price" and "sticker price" confused.

A less pretentious way of phrasing it would be "Eight years / unlimited miles".

"cities worth dressing up for." = heavily populated with paparazzi

Regarding the VW Phaeton:

Anna Chapman? She became a big celebrity in Russia once she got home.

Wow, it's a good thing Roger Ailes doesn't give any health advice!

Good thing the Husband in Story #2 didn't ask for a "Large Coke".

The "Aurora"/"Senior Citizen" spy plane. Back in the 90's, there was rumored to be a successor to the SR71 spy plane that could go Mach 4(?) or 5(?). There were observations of the unique "donut on a rope" contrails and sonic-boom signatures recorded by SoCal seismometers that seemed consistent with Mach 5. There…

Translation:

I've been to at least one museum that had mandatory backpack check at the front, but they made me take the laptop out and carry it with me in the museum. They were savvy enough to duck liability for theft that way.

Race history here, owned by Salzburg and then Martini teams in 1970-71:

Polak did have a lot of interesting racing Porsches in his collection. The 917-20 chassis doesn't appear to have raced as #4 in Martini livery, it was raced as #3 by Elford and Larrousse in 1971 and won Sebring. It's been seen on auction and at vintage events over the years:

Non serviam, ttfn - Lucifer@hell.org

Northern Va. is an extended suburb of Washington, DC. DC was always regarded as as being nominally southern, but especially post-WW2, with the expansion of the Defense and Federal sectors, it's become a rather middle-American mixture. Like California or New York City, many residents are originally from someplace…

Was Harper Lee on of your customers?