The Thing is a go to movie for me around this time of year.

The problem a lot of people seem to be unable to fully grasp is that an unfaithful adaptation isn’t necessarily a bad one. The Witcher Netflix series while not faithful to the source material is a great series. The same is true for the video game series.

John Carpenter’s The Thing is completely unfaithful to the source…

$30,000 per flight hour is less than I would have expected for a massive and unique aircraft. I don’t know what Antonov was charging per hour, but I’d imagine they made a solid profit moving cargo that no other plane could. If they really can finish the 2nd airframe for under $1,000,000,000 I think it could pay for…

Farming town in Northern IL with corn and soybeans?

Yep.

I went into CF not expecting to like it anywhere near as much as I did. I honestly look forward to the next season.

The long form doesn’t go out of style either. If you go back to the old classic TG, you find stuff like car reviews of vehicles that would be in a crusher now, celebrities that aren’t even on “where are they now?” episodes driving POS cars you don’t care about and the like. But stuff like the converting cars into…

Agreed - Clarkson Farm was a nice surprise. I was not expecting to enjoy it and learn so much about farming. I will also never look at sheep the same way.  

I grew up on a small family farm and I really appreciated Clarkson’s Farm for showing some of the insane difficulty with farming. You can do everything right and if it rains too much or too little, you are screwed. Clarkson at least has the resources to buy brand new equipment. Nothing is worse than having good…

My wife is NOT a car person but she loved the old Top Gear and now the Grand Tour. She has picked up a little bit of car knowledge by osmosis and appreciates my interest in cars even though she doesn’t share it. 

This was the push I needed to finally check out Clarkson’s Farm. After the first episode, I’m really charmed by his chemistry with Kaleb. The angry dressing down after Clarkson fucked up the tramlines* was so unexpected and impactful.

Ar, aye, comesson wi yer lovage, yeh gtta grt luv Gerald, reet me bemmer? Ur? Ar.

Anyone from a country that contains this (Hatton Cross roundabout, near Heathrow) can’t complain about other countries’ roundabouts:

I’ve often argued that the best Top Gear episodes eliminated the studio entirely and did a long form film, and The Grand Tour proved to be exactly the same. Especially since the studio bits of the latter seasons of TG were almost always the worst parts of any episode, and were absolutely the worst parts of GT.

I loved CF waaaay more than I expected. I think part of it was it really allowed Jeremy to be an incompetent oaf without seeming so scripted. Plus it was really eye-opening how difficult and financially ruinous small scale farming can be.

I love them too...But I also kind of hate them.

I used to be that way, and in some ways, I still am. But, there’s a line, and once it gets crossed, I can’t separate the two. The trio hasn’t crossed that line.

Speaking of things that get old: “you’re backwards if you like X (more/less) than I do.”

I have to admit that these three still have a lot to give, and I love the fact that Amazon has gone away from the Top Gear 2 format they had early on in The Grand Tour.

Jeremy’s old british racist bit gets a bit old. He’s like that uncle you once thought was super cool and bawdy and told the best racy jokes, only to realize now that he’s a racist, sexist jackass and really hasn’t aged well.