YOOOOOO.
I'm so lazy about posting on here. Since last time:
-Brett's friends from Oklahoma were here. One was a bartender. I guess he was a schmoozemaster cause he chatted up everyone that worked there and somehow we ended up getting about $200 worth of alcohol for free at this nice restaurant downtown. Apparently that never happens, but it did this time. It was quite the Tuesday night.
-That weekend was cityfest in Gävle. Good times, good times. They have this food called langos which is kinda like a unbaked pizza on a piece of fried bread. No red sauce but like sour cream and cheese and onions or other stuff depending which on you get. They are freaking awesome and I think they only have them that one weekend for cityfest. The previous weekend we had a kräft (crawfish) party and I got drunker than everyone else and then threw a fit when we were supposed to leave cause I wanted to party more. Everyone laughed at me. Then cityfest weekend I'm like the least drunk and everyone else wants to stay out and party and all I can think about is going home to sleep. Really gotta synch up with everyone else. Oh, but at the kräft party Gustav and Anna had just come back from Greece, and they kept pouring everyone shots of this Greek moonshine that they carried back in this like beat up plastic water bottle, like the kind bottled water comes in and then you throw out. It looked truly frightening, my first question was "Have you actually had this yet?" and my second question was "How is your vision right now?" I guess they sell the stuff at grocery stores, you have to bring your own container and then fill it out of this big jug they have er something. It was pretty good though, it didn't taste nearly as strong as I think it was. And I didn't go blind.
-This past week virtually nothing happened. Won a little money at online poker cause I've been home like everynight. And this weekend we stayed in Stockholm and just walked around on Kungsholmen yesterday, which is a pretty nice area actually, not trendy like Söder and not fancy like the fancy parts of town, but still nice. Although actually I think it is pretty trendy like Söder. But whatev. Besides seeing these giant mounds of poo in two different doorways that were obviously not from dogs, and were probably from the same person, and were truly disgusting, we found this tight store called "Grandpa" where they sold random shit. Kinda like urban outfitters a little but with less clothes. My favorite finds were this GIANT book of photos called "Swedish Fetish". It was just a bunch of people in leather, whips and chains, ball gags, tatoos, corsettes, gimp costumes, cool "Swedish" shit like that. I really wanted to buy it for our coffee table. It would be great. Although I don't think my sense of humor translates well to, you know, people. People would think I was a total perv. And they'd be right. The other find was this memory game, you know the one where the cards are face down and you turn them over two at a time, but this one had pictures of boobs. Like one boob on each card, not a complete pair. Again, hilarious. Again, sense of humor probably doesn't translate. Again, perv.

"I don't know how you guys do things in Europe..."
"New Zealand."
"Ch'yeah, probly!"

I have a new list of movies I want to see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_nasties#The_DPP_list

I hate Adrien Grenier.

The weather here has been mostly rainy and cloudy the past few weeks with a few exceptions. The temperature is like averaging 65 F, need to take jackets or you get cold out in the wind.

On TV earlier they had this really weird show called "sport opera" I guess, that's what's painted behind the commentators anyway. First they had a guy in face paint singing. Then the commentators talked about it, then they played an instant replay of what he had just sung. Then they had these dancers come on and do this really weird air-humping motion with giant smiles on their faces for like 2 minutes straight to some classic opera, then the music stopped and they danced around for like 5 minutes with no music at all. I actually liked the second part, then I wondered why the hell I hadn't changed the channel yet.

I have like 4 canker sores that refuse to go away and everytime I eat or drink juice they burn like all the volcanoes on earth are in my mouth. Damn!

So that's the update. Enjoy.

Urge to kill fading... fading... fading... OR Racecar PIX MeGaPoST!!!!!!

The rage is all gone. I'm looking forward to seeing the Batman movie at home on blu-ray someday, despite what I said yesterday. I'm sure I'll like it a little better next time now that I know it ain't king shit of fuck mountain. Axl Rose remains and always shall be king shit of fuck mountain. So disregard yesterdays rant except for that part.
Moving on...
You may recall (but most likely not) that I have been trying to go to this race team's shop here in Gävle to check out some of the new cars they have acquired since I was there last summer. In the last year their team has branched out from the guy I know and his brother plus one mechanic into like 4 more mechanics/techs plus a team captain, Stanley Dickens, a Swedish racecar driver AND the great-great-grandson of THE Charles Dickens. So they have expanded a lot I'd say. Anyway, I took Thursday and Friday off work which finally allowed our schedules to match up enough for me to make a quick visit to the shop on Thursday night. It was tiiiiiight. Not sure where to really start, I guess I'll kind of caption the pictures:

I don't think they had this one last time. Porsche Carrera Cup car. You buy these as you see above directly from Porsche for a race series specifically for these cars. They build these at the Porsche factory on the same assembly line as regular street Porsches I believe. These babies are all stripped out and have some bespoke carbon fiber work on the wheel arches and aero bits. Also has a standard roll cage. The engine is race tuned too, natch. Non-turbo. I believe Claes said they got this one from some team that was racing it in some FIA series, but I could be wrong about that. Also raced in the 24 hours of Le Mans a couple times.


My favorite part of this car, since it shares a lot with street cars, it actually uses a regular ass key, which you can see up there complete w/ Porsche keychain in the standard Porsche left-of-the-steering-wheel style orientation. I think this was a '96 model year car. Real pretty, Claes says it sounds amazing too. Unfortunately he didn't start any of them up this time : /


A view of the shop from the front door. It's in this inconspicuous warehouse out by the ocean. In the background on the lift is the 2006 GT3 RSR they were racing in their series the past few years. It's a real looker too, they started it up last time I was there. It sounds mean as hell. Porsche also, obv, from the shape.
The underside of it. Some pretty header work there. Anti-roll bar. The blog won't let me upload these in their original resolution so it's gonna be blurry, sorry.
The Porsche Lola. They had just bought this last time I was there. It wasn't looking NEARLY this good then. They fixed it all up like brand new. Here she was back in her glory days: http://www.championracing.net/2006/History/Porsche_Lola.htm
I recommend taking a peep if you like what you see in the pic. They bought it off some guy in England who bought it from the team I think. Oh, Lola is a specialty racecar manufacturer, http://www.lolacars.com/
which is why it's in the name along with Porsche. Lola made the car and it was powered by Porsche I believe. Claes said he had planned to take this thing out and see what she could do but when they were finished refurbishing it it was just too pretty to play with.
It is spectacular looking. All carbon fiber, a real racecar.

And here's the beast itself. I believe it's chassis 015R, previously raced by Graham Nash Motorsport. I'm not sure how I know that, I think Claes mentioned something in an email and I googled it. Saleen S7R. I don't think they have hardly touched this since they got it. No idea what the plans for it are. I was a little too star-struck to ask all the questions I wanted to about all the cars. And I was only there for about 45 minutes.


Cockpit. Thing had some sick gull-wing door action going on.


Engine bay, and rear. Brand new exhaust, whoever they bought this from was planning on racing it in some Nordic series, which had noise requirements. Really slick car. It was much bigger than I had expected. The street S7's look much smaller in pictures. The front is small, but the ass-end is mammoth.
On to the car they are currently campaigning:

Can ya make out what it says on the carbon intake plenum? Yes indeedy, it is an honest to god REAL Pratt & Miller C5R. Serial #011, the last example before the jump to the C6Rs that I had the privilege of watching race as a guest of Pratt & Miller at the 2007 Grand Prix of Houston. Meaning we were in the pits 2 feet from the cars. I think I've told this story on here before. Anyway, it was freaking sweet... But back to this car...
If you can see in the first pic of the engine bay, the big orange tubes that lead into tiny silver aluminum intake restrictors? Yah the orange tube is supposed to be the amount of air going into the engine, and the weeny assed restrictor is what they have to run in addition to like 200 lbs of ballast or so for them to stay competitive. I think he said they are down to about 580 HP or so. The Oreca Vipers they race against have like 800 HP and are lighter. So in summary, the C5R has to be much less powerful AND heavier in order to stay competitive. Because it is that freaking awesome in "stock" form. I know it barely makes sense, it seems like this thing should be getting spanked by cars that are lighter and more powerful, I mean that's just physics, but it is so well designed, put together, and cutting edge compared to the other cars in the series it has to be seriously handicapped. Another thing about this car that blew my mind. Claes says parts are much cheaper than for any of the Porsches they have owned. That also makes no sense, There's millions of Porsches out there and like, well, 12 of these. And yet Pratt & Miller supplies parts for "reasonable" amounts of money. Unfreakingbelievable. It was super-duper awesome to see this thing. Claes loves it. I can see why.
Well, as I wrote in a previous post, I had mentioned in an email to Claes that I would love to volunteer around the shop or at races or something. Didn't think much would come of it, and he never acknowledged it in any emails, but when I was about to leave we started chatting a little, and long story short he said he would give me a call sometime to help out at a race or something. They weren't sure when they next one was because apparently the races have been called on-off repeatedly, but probably in September. So, more pics and exciting megaposts to come!

THE NIGHT IS DARKEST BEFORE THE BLAH BLAH

So I saw The Dark Knight just now. As I told Frida, I must immediately post to my blog because if my post isn't fueled by rage then it won't be worth posting and I can already feel the rage waning. Heath Ledger. Give me a fucking break. You did a good job playing the joker in a fucking batman movie. Whaddya want, a fucking medal? OH SNAP! You died from taking too many drugs before reaching the age of 30. Whaddya want, a fucking medal? OH SNAP! Everyone's sayin' YOU JUST MIGHT GET A MEDAL! Albeit in the form of a little golden man named Oscar. Props to you for dying! I guess the cockstains in Holier-than-thouwood all gathered together at a big Film Actors Guild meeting and thought "Hmm, drugs are glamourous, obv, but how can we make them MORE glamourous??? I KNOW GIVE SOME ONE WHO OD'D AN OSCAR FOR PLAYING THE JOKER IN A BATMAN MOVIE! I mean, he died right? That MUST make his performance REALLY worth something!"
Talk about overrated, seriously. I'm so pissed right now. Mainly because I was misled into believing this movie was gonna be really awesome and worth seeing, and Heath Ledger is like some kind of acting god for pulling off playing a crazy clown badguy. Pshaw! And I don't mean a contraction of my name. When will they start giving actors awards for NOT doing drugs and depriving the world of real honest to god GOOD entertainment. Or even people who do drugs but don't turn in to fucking wah wah crybaby morons. "Oh I have so much money, oh people love me, boohoo boohoo the pressure is so tough! I need pills to go to sleep at night" Why don't you buy some prostitutes to wear you out before beddy-by time. Fucking money well spent if you look at the alternatives. Here, take Axl Rose, here's what he's got to say:

"I have a different physical constitution and different mindset about drugs than anybody I've known in Hollywood, because I don't abstain from doing drugs, but I won't allow myself to have a fuckin' habit. I won't allow it."

When's he gonna get HIS fucking medal, give HIM an Oscar, seriously. Dudes hangover-black turds on Sunday morning will now literally entertain me more than Heath Ledger can BECAUSE HE'S FUCKING DEAD. All hail Axl, this century's Mark Twain!!!!

FUCK Heath Ledger, and fuck the Jokers that made me think this movie was gonna be sweeeeeeeeet!