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January 25, 2005

An Important Philosophical Question. [Dave at Garfield Ridge]

If you could drive any vehicle from movies or TV, which vehicle would you choose, and why?

A few weeks back on my site I linked to a now-defunct E-Bay auction from a guy selling a faithful replica of K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider.

The post inspired a debate with my buddy Chilperic concerning which was cooler: K.I.T.T., or the A-Team van.

I was shocked that anyone would even raise such a comparison. At the time, I noted that-- whereas K.I.T.T. was impervious to bullets, had turbo boost, and sounded like Topanga's teacher-- the A-Team van had few, if any, special powers. Other than looking bad ass, that is.

I concluded that the A-Team van had only the following special powers:

1. The ability to avoid getting pulled over by police, despite no change in its appearance for five seasons.

2. The ability to store enough heavy weapons to arm Bulgaria. As far as I can tell, the only explanation for carrying all those guns, ammunition, and welding equipment is that the vehicle was a +6 Van Of Holding, or had some sort of temporal displacement going on, making it Dr. Who's Battlewagon Of Love.

3. It provided a stable gun platform for accurate "intimidation" shooting out the sidedoor and windows. Without that special "NBC Family Hour" automotive suspension, submachinegun bullets could accidentally hit a bad guy in the leg, or worse, the chest.

And let me tell you, there are no sucking chest wounds during the NBC Family Hour.

So, why am I bringing this up again today?

Because someone on E-Bay is selling a replica time-machine DeLorean.

Admittedly, this is very cool. All the DeLorean style combined with Doc Brown's gadgets makes for one sweet ride.

Plus, it's not just for show-- it can make 88 mph with plenty of oomph to spare, just perfect for those times when you need to evade defrauded Libyan terrorists.

So, the question is out there to you, Ace's readers: out of any vehicle, any movie or TV show, which one is your dream ride?

We already know Ace is a fan of the last of the Interceptors.

(Speaking of Interceptors, here is a Lego version. Or, maybe you'd rather enjoy a Lego reenactment of The A-Team? Hell, they make anything out of Legos-- including, even, my Lord and Savior.)

As for me. . . hmmm. Can anyone really "drive" Optimus Prime? Or would that be like riding inside his robo-colon?

I must ponder.

-- Dave at Garfield Ridge

posted by Ace at 10:00 PM

Comments

Kitt was a flaming queen driven by hairybacked german . The A team van was a pussy wagon driven by Mr T- a man so bad he was Mohammed Alis body guard.

Posted by: loves it when amish come together on January 25, 2005 10:20 PM

I always preferred K.I.T.T.'s evil twin brother, K.A.R.R., myself. All the features, none of the attitude.

It's either that or the Millennium Falcon.

*Shudders at the concept of Autobot colon...*

Posted by: TSL on January 25, 2005 10:37 PM

waitaminute-does the DeLorean come with a trunk full of cocain? I may have to reconsider my A -team pick...

Posted by: amish on January 25, 2005 10:44 PM

Ok, first off, I am going split the categories into "real cars" and "pretend cars." In the real cars category, hands down I'd take Magnum P.I.'s Ferrari 308, even if I have to wear shorts that cause my family jewels to rest on the leather of the seat.

Prentend cars--I'm going for Air Wolf...

Wait, does that count?

Posted by: TF6S on January 25, 2005 11:08 PM

http://www.theblackbeauty.com/new_bb_movie.htm

A slightly modified Chrysler Imperial....

http://www.theblackbeauty.com/

Posted by: NRAYee on January 26, 2005 01:48 AM

You remember Goliath - the evil truck driven by Michael Knight's evil twin Garth. Well Goliath was pretty cool. But the rover things from Damnation Alley were even cooler.

Posted by: Brian on January 26, 2005 05:23 AM

Can it be from video games? I always liked the DASA-Kamov Havoc Gunship from G-Police. Plus it repairs itself over time, which is the first option you should look for in any vehicle.

Were there any movies or TV shows with flying, self-repairing 1930's gangster cars? Because that would be really sweet.

Posted by: Guy T. on January 26, 2005 05:29 AM

I would pick the M-5 Urban Assault Vehicle, from Stripes.

Posted by: Mark on January 26, 2005 09:40 AM

I'm going to have to go with an ATAT walker, at least until police cars get equipped with tow cables that can be launched like missiles.

Posted by: Sobek on January 26, 2005 09:56 AM

I think I have to go with the Aston Martin from Die Another Day. And if it's real cars we're listing, then the Vanquish 12 is still probably a good choice....

Posted by: Wiz on January 26, 2005 10:34 AM

Airwolf, gotta remember Airwolf, that was a bad copter, and it taught us all the important lesson that every cropduster and news helo had rocket launchers.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor on January 26, 2005 12:47 PM

That's the thing I never got about Airwolf-- that the bad guys *always* had helicopters.

I mean, how convenient for the obligatory 5-minute Airwolf ending:

Cue music.
Fly.
Bad Guy chopper's bullets bounce off Airwolf.
Missile launcher takes out Bad Guy chopper.
Cue scene with Jan Michael Vincent playing cello on pier.

Airwolf (and Knight Rider) certainly influenced one of the greatest Simpson's lines ever:

Announcer: We now return to "Knightboat: the Crime-Solving Boat".
Michael: Faster, Knightboat! We gotta catch those starfish poachers.
Knightboat: You don't have to yell, Michael, I'm all around you.
Michael: Oh, no! They're headed for land.
[the poachers ride onto the beach, jump on motorcycles, and
speed away]
Michael: We'll never catch them now.
Knightboat: Incorrect: look! A canal.
Homer: Go, Knightboat, go!
Bart: Oh, every week there's a canal.
Lisa: Or an inlet.
Bart: Or a fjord.
Homer: Quiet! I will not hear another word against the boat.

Yup, every week on Airwolf, there was always a canal.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on January 26, 2005 04:01 PM

Well damn, I was gonna say Airwolf, but I came in late.

So, keeping with the really-bad-80s-TV vibe, I've just got one thing to say:

Salvage One.

Posted by: Alan S. on January 27, 2005 12:28 PM

Doh... I forgot the Herkimer Battle Jitney!

Posted by: Guy T. on January 27, 2005 04:35 PM

the a-team van is by far the badest vehicle off all time

Posted by: don on March 5, 2005 05:26 PM

The Battle Jitney is by far the coolest. Consider:
- Three axles! That's 50% more than any other, except possibly the M-5, or unless kitt towed a trailer or something. I suspect there are top-loading difs in that thing.
- Beyond bad-ass looks. The grill looks like it came off of a train.
- Even more storage than the A team van.
- Endorsed by Tom Waits. TOM WAITS!!!

Posted by: braceman on March 12, 2005 09:37 AM

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What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]

TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.

Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."

Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker
Batman tries to fire Superman
Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please
I'm even on knees
Makin' love to whoever I please
I gotta do it my way
Or no way at all

Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]

TJM gives you a brief tour of his movie collection.

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
One day I'm gonna get that faculty together
Remember that everybody has to wait in line
Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine

US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.

Robert Mueller, Former Special Counsel Who Probed Trump, Dies

“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”

TJM has thoughts on Superheros and Iconography

Canadian School Designates Cafeteria And Lunchroom As "No Food Zones" For Ramadan
Canada and the UK are neck and neck in the race to become the first western country to fall to Islam [CBD]

Chuck Norris, Action Icon and 'Walker Texas Ranger' Star, Dies at 86

Podcast: Sefton and CBD have a short chat about Iran, the disgusting SAVE Act theater, Mamdani's politicizing of St. Patrick's Day, and more!

Official confirmation from the Joint Chiefs of Staff: the Warthog is now strafing Iranian fast attack boats