Month: December 2023

Holiday Viewing

Did you know that Iron Man 3 is a holiday movie? I didn’t and I have watched it, albeit several years ago, and don’t remember any Christmasy stuff in it. Well, Plex remembers. When I open the app there on the home page was a section entitled “Home for the Holidays” and Iron Man 3 was right there.

I cued up the movie and watched it. Sure enough there are several scenes that have Christmas decor in the background. In my humble opinion there was not enough to push this to be classified as a holiday movie. I probably last watched it on DVD way back in 2013 when it first came out. Maybe I even got the DVD as a Christmas present that year…still not a Christmas movie.

There were 3 other titles, of the 150 or so movies I have digital copies of, in that “Home for the Holidays” category. And one of those is also a controversial pick, Die Hard. I say no, but the listing gave me an excuse to watch the movie again. Yippie-ki-yay.

Movie number three was definitely a Christmas movie, Elf and this movie is a yearly watch. And we watched it on Thanksgiving weekend when Donna’s brother and family were here.

The last of the four, but not least, was Bad Santa. And I didn’t watch this one this year.

What was conspicuously missing from that list, it even has the word Christmas in the title, was A Moody Christmas. There are two possible reasons for its non-inclusion in the “Home for the Holidays” list. IMDB lists its title as The Moodys without the C word. But probably it is because it is an Australian TV series and TV is already home viewing. This is also a yearly must watch for me during the holidays. There are just six half hour shows with each one covering a dysfunctional family’s annual Christmas lunch in 6 consecutive years.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Christmas Edition of SORT
As of Monday, December 25, 2023 at 4:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1991 Mazda
MX-5 Miata		 1972 Volkswagen
Baja Beetle		 1963 Rolls-Royce
Silver Cloud III
A quick SORT on a rainy Christmas afternoon. All of these cars are No Reserve like last week. The auctions also all end around noon tomorrow, so if you forgot to buy a gearhead relative a present, get one of these and you’ll only be a day late.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1976 Porsche 911 Sold for $195,000 on 12/20/23
Off-Road: 2009 Porsche Cayenne Sold for $63,500 on 12/22/23
Touring: 2010 Porsche Panamera Sold for $33,000 on 12/21/23

Happy 200th Anniversary of Publication

The now famous Clement More poem ‘,’ was written in 1822, but first appeared in print a year later in the Troy (NY) Sentinel and has become better known as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’. While the original version is still published annually in quite a few newspapers, , and here on Life of Brian in 2003, it has been adapted and modified by various groups trying to make it into their own holiday poem. In the early 2000’s, someone with a lot of free time collected as many (849) as he could find and published a webpage listing them all. It was last edited in 2013, so who knows how many more there are now.

Back in 2014 I found a Miata one of unknown vintage on the Flyin’ Miata website, purveyors of all kinds of Miata goodies…

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the Counties,
The Miatas were parked, warm and safe from the Mounties;
The driving gloves had been packed, with loving care,
Knowing that next Spring they would still be there;

His ‘n her Miata owners were nestled snug in their beds,
While visions of forced-induction danced in their heads;
And mamma in her FM shirt, and I in my cap,
Were planning next year’s drives on a dog-eared road map,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I dropped my Miata Musings to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

What I saw made me weep and shook me to the core,
It was a Velocity Red Mica Mazdaspeed Miata, a two-thousand and four!
With a tall thin man driving, like a bat out of hell,
I knew in a moment it must be Bill Cardell.

“Now, ELVIS! now, TRACKDOG!
now, FILOU and TORO!
On, ANGEL on BABY!
on, CUZI and PHOENIX!
To the point of that apex!
cut the driving edge fine!
Now make that last mad dash!
all the way to the finish line!”

And I heard on the roof the sound of much fun,
The squealing and chirping of Toyo RA-1’s.
As I grabbed the car keys, and was turning around,
Down the chimney Bill came in with a bound.

He was dressed all in Nomex, from his head to his toe,
With tight fitting driving shoes so he could shift just so;
The sunglasses he wore sparkled with a dancing light,
And I thought to myself “How the hell can he see at night?”

Around the room to the stockings he raced,
Leaving Hard Dog Deuce bars and a FM Cannon Brace,
I even saw under the tree, by a moon so low and so pale,
Nothing less than a Da’Lan hitch and a brand new Tire Tail!

Bill was ready to leave, “Other slalomers yet to go!”,
And make his way through the white winter’s snow.
But he left mine till last, ‘fore he went up the flue,
I found in my stocking a brand new FM-II!

He sprang to his droptop, blipping the throttle with a roar,
And I knew right away the 2.0L was stroked, not bored.
I heard him exclaim, ere he squealed out of sight,
“KEEP the needle at REDLINE and CUT the corners Tight!”

Shortest Day Of The Year

This morning on a quick run to Fred Meyer the Mini beeped to let me know that the outside temperature was 37 degrees (so as to let me know to be careful as ice may form on overpasses.) Even though the winter solstice hadn’t actually happen yet, still had about 12 hours, it was now winter here in Fairview because this was the first time the temperature has been that low since last winter.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

There Is No Substitute Edition of SORT
As of Monday, December 18, 2023 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1976 Porsche 911 2009 Porsche Cayenne 2010 Porsche Panamera
All three of these Porsches are listed as ‘No Reserve’ so there is an outside chance of a deal here. Well…probably not on the ’76 911 Carrera.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2005 Lotus Elise Bid to $40,000 on 12/13/23
Off-Road: 2014 Audi R8 Bid to $78,885 on 12/13/23
Touring: 1940 Ford Pickup Sold for $44,000 on 12/14/23

Reacher Returns

A year ago I wrote about the second season of Reacher and how I hoped it would be in February 2023, a year after season one was released. Didn’t happen then, but it did happen a couple days ago.

Once again, Thursday night on the US’s west coast is actually Friday somewhere so that Amazon releases the episodes. Last year Amazon dropped all 8 episodes on the same day. Because that first season was available in total, I watched all 8 episodes over the span of 3 days and then was disappointed because there were no more.

In that blog post about season one I said I almost wished that they would release the episodes at the rate of one a week. Well, I got my wish sort of, this year we only got the first 3 episodes on premier day with the rest to follow one at a time on the next 5 Fridays. Now I’m kinda bummed I didn’t get to binge all eight episodes in a couple of days. There is just no pleasing some people. 🙂

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

2-Month Anniversary Edition of SORT
As of Monday, December 11, 2023 at 5:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2005 Lotus Elise 2014 Audi R8 1940 Ford Pickup
If it is good enough for Todd Deeken of Everyday Driver it is good enough for me. If I was still doing Track, Daily, Crush this would have fit into the Crush category. Maybe I need to rename this category to Classic as that is what I’ve been picking here lately.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2002 Ferrari 360 Sold for $87,000 on 12/8/23
Off-Road: 1997 Land Rover Defender Bid to $50,000 on 12/8/23
Touring: 1965 Pontiac Bonneville Sold for $31,250 on 12/8/23