Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Clive (who also took the pictures here of me in the various cars I was/am seriously considering) and I had a pretty decent road trip last, leaving Toronto at four (big thanks to Angela for helping me get last-minute business cards, and the same thanks but for PoHT shirts to Ryan) and arriving just before 1AM here in Carlisle. I think together we took about five hundred photos which will eventually make it to my kit car site (and some for Fishing Fury also — including an old Amphicar which is worth checking out, and hilariously, a UK kit called the Fisher Fury).

Anyway, above is me in a really incredible R.C.R. Ferrari P-4 — minus driveline this car sells for about $40k. On the right (the click-zoom pics above right), the black car is the new Factory Five GTM supercar, which sells minus parts from a Corvette donor call for a shocking sub-$20k — I'm much more into the car having seen it now in person! But the car (or one very much like it) that I'm most seriously considering is the Lotus 7-esque yellow Stalker V6 because of it's blistering performance.

As you know, my now-ex wife (and still great friend, general accomplice, and business partner, so don't read this as some bitchy “I'm getting a better car” post) Rachel drives and races a customized Lotus Elise — and ironically is also at a car show today (we met first because of our mutual interest in sportscars, not because of BME) — which is a great car, but can't even come close to comparing to the handling and speed of the various Sevens out there (yeah, sure, it's prettier, I know, but she's prettier than I am to, so what of it?). For comparison, they have similar top speeds (around 150mph), but the Stalker will turn at 1.47g (one of the hardest cornering cars in history) whereas the Elise which also has great handling, is only at about 1g. The Elise does 0-60 in about five seconds (Rachel's may be slightly faster though), but the Stalker can do it in 3.6 seconds in stock form, with customized versions hitting 60mph in under three seconds!

Best part? The Stalker costs $9k (to be clear: nine thousand dollars), and can be finished completely for about $20k (and this is fairly typical pricing for this class of vehicle)! I don't know if I'm still that much of a nutcase driver in my old age, but if I wanted to have the ultimate in performance, I think this is the way I'd go. While there are cars that have a higher top-speed, there is pretty much nothing (and perhaps literally nothing) on the road that can both out-accelerate and out-handle it. Seriously, show me another production car that'll turn reliably and consistently at 1.47g (when Road and Track tested this car I think it had about 15,000 miles on it already).

Or maybe this is more to your liking:

It was this super cool little motorized cooler that sells for $350 and up… One of the funnier things I saw all day. I've tossed some other pictures up on Price Of His Toys and will continue doing so over the next week (and Clive posted some to Turn Down The Suck as well). It was also very nice getting to meet people I've talked to online for the last decade, and lots of new people as well.

Anyway, I guess we're figuring out supper soon, and then tomorrow it's off to NYC which I'm also looking forward to. We won't make the convention unfortunately, but I hope to see a few friends, and maybe pick up another rider for the drive back as well. I'll be on and offline a bit tonight, but other than that, I probably won't be back online until tomorrow afternoon at the hotel.

A couple entries back I posted pictures of the marker drawings that Nefarious had done. Today, between work and errands, I filled in the drawing with paint so I could hang it up in my room when it's dry. The original linework is all by her (except the left arm on the big monster), and it's painted by me. So basically I'm reduced to the level of a person doing paint-by-number on a coloring book designed by a three year old, ha. Oh, my sad but happy demise as an artist.

Anyway, tomorrow afternoon or evening Clive and I take off for the kit car show in Carlisle, PA (getting there for Saturday morning after a brief crash at a HoJo or something), and then on Sunday some time we'll head to NYC, and then back to Toronto on Monday night assuming we're not totally exhausted.

There will be a BME update today, but it's going to be today, tomorrow, and Friday's updates all wrapped up in one. Other than that, I believe we are having some problems with some of the image upload problems (best I can guess is it's an interface issue with the NAS); if you're having problems uploading to your ModTracker and so on, try uploading in smaller batches or with smaller files and see if that helps…

PS. See also Monster Engine!

I'm just waiting for Jon to get back (he went fishing on the Toronto Islands today) and then a bunch of us are headed out for a quick bite. I spent much of the day hanging out with Nefarious and doing art stuff (thanks to Saira for coming and helping in the morning). I'll start with showing you (again, with great embarassment), the stage I'm at right now with my current painting… I know, it's pretty childish and it keeps changing, but I'm a simple guy with simple ideas (I mean that as a self-compliment; simplicity is a good thing — I just happen to also live a very complicated life).

Edit: Oops, I just realized that picture is kind of dark and blurry, sorry.

As I point out all the time, it's still just at the undercoat level and I'm still figuring out exactly what it's going to be. But what I really wanted to share with you is Nefarious's canvases. She's drawn them all out in marker (well, I drew the left arm on the scary monster in the leftmost painting to show her how to illustrate “scary”, but the rest is all her). I think I'm going to finish them for her in paint.

I don't know anything about childhood development stages, but I think that's pretty amazing for a little girl who's only just turned three years old? Maybe all parents feel this way; super proud at everything? But come on, you have to admit that “Little Squirrel Being Scared By A Big Squirl” is pretty cool.

Anyway, I'll have an experience update for you later tonight some time, and depending on my weekend plans (Carlilse, PA, and then NYC; 90% business trip), I'll either do a big update tomorrow with both piercing and member stuff, or I'll post in the normal order… I hate being so last minute in my plans, but that's part of the reason I'm driving, not flying, on this one.