Spotted in town - a prancing stallion

This appears to be a Ferrari 599 California. Or maybe it is an F12 Berlinetta. I dunno. Can't tell. Not that I see these cruising past every day. So, just like the exotic that it is, then. But what we can see is that for something from Maranello, the engine is in the wrong place, ahead of the driver's knees.

Here are some pictures, regretfully not turned out too well - blame the old cellpheun.

A tale of two kittehs

A tale of two kittehs: 

Une historie dit en portraits et des legendes.

Dramatis personae:

Kitler: Three years old (methinks). Grey and white. Possessed of a dour demeanour,  almost tending toward grim. Silent to the point of being taciturn. Possibly has some Teutonic influences, this not being far from the German part of Texas and all that.

Chhotku: Seven months old. Black and white. Kitler's offspring, although long since abandoned by her mother. Brought herself up through sheer pluck, a certain amount of good fortune and the kindness of strangers. Voluble to the point of being Gallic. Also skittish.

Narrator: Our saga begins when the narrator (playing the role of designated human servant) comes home from whatever non feline activities occupy his day. He enters his dwelling and makes to take off those ridiculous things that humans wear over their feet (their feet, like the rest of them not having evolved to the perfection that cats have). This he does with scant regard to the kitteh sitting outside waiting, yes waiting in the shade for her afternoon milk. Naturally, such bad behaviour can scarcely be tolerated.

 Human. Pour me a saucer of milk. The good stuff. None of that reduced fat 2% nonsense

But.. what about me? Its been a long day sitting around and napping under the bushes. Me thirsty!
    Mine! MINE!!!!

You do know that you are not getting away with this, right?














Whatevs. Slurp. Slurp. Sluuuurrrrp!

Fine. I just thought you should know that kittehs who don't share go a very bad place. A place where they don't let you sleep in the sun. A place where you could go for years without seeing the outside. I hear it's in the Caribbean. This is all real. A dog told me.

You there! Yes, you! Where is the milk?

We Bhattacharyas have long served as butlers and majordomos to various felines. We have emmigrated across nations, suffered through a Partition (yes, that one, the big one), trekked across the homeland again and then seen other distant lands. Through all of this, we have always had an affinity for cats. Well, cats and dogs, to be honest.

My apartment in SA is sometimes visited by a B&W cat with a toothbrush moustache. Quite naturally, she is known is Kitler. Well, Kitler had a litter and the only remaining kitten was Chhotku. That means "leetil one". The other kittens were apparently collected by a family. See, the problem here is that my apartment complex frowns upon pets. So Kitler and Chhotku have what can perhaps be called a "visiting faculty" arrangement with me. They stay out of my flat and I sometimes provide them with milk. This is Chhotku, one morning perched on the stairs above my head, wanting to know why her favourite servant is leaving for work without leaving a platter of milk out. Such is the relationship dynamic. Sigh..

Spotted in town - a 1950s MG Roadster

There are few designs as wonderfully timeless as the classic British roadster. This is not to be confused with the very different American convertible. The 'Murcan is usually a giant land yacht with its roof sliced off. The Brit is usually a purpose built, body on frame, short wheelbase sculpted delight. 
MG was known for making such lovely things. What we have here is a 1950s MG Type T something or the other. Found on a Sunday evening when I was out getting some desi groceries. I honked at the nice gent. He stopped, I gawked, found my tongue, expressed my heartfelt admiration. Nice gent and his missus turned out to be good sports and allowed me to pull the old pheun out and snap a few pics. A salute to you, friend.
 

Tomorrowlight

Aah, the neon drenched future, beckoning,

Luring, seductive, with only a tiny dash of dazzle.

From the residual radiation, that is.

Toughguys mumbling into their noodlebowls

The roving eye watches you, scans you, yes, You.

Pupils,credit, pulserate, bloodglucose and your inseam.

And the nearest billboard explodes into incandescent light...

The gorgeous biethnic avatar only wants to sell you a soda.

The rain drips, endlessly from unseen clouds.

Who has seen clouds in the Sprawl anyway?

Walking past the huddled homeless, roasting a dog.

Their ponchos swirling, adverting night classes in Esperanto.

As if.
Richety-rachety bike messenger whipping past,
An old-young face, a beautiful androgyn.
She will wake up with you, or wipe the drool off(someone has to do it)
For a quick wave of barcode, or a shot of AcetylCoA.

Stepping around formless humans (posthumans?) on the sidewalk.

Wirejunkies all. Lost to everything but the milliamps.

Until onesuch wraps his arms around you,

Brings you down. Smell gutterwash and … aftershave?

And he pulls close and whispers, “I hear him”

“I hear him scream. The ghost of Wintermute”

Ranger Creek Brewstillery

I found myself at the Ranger Creek Brewstillery on Saturday. As the name indicates, they brew beers and distill whiskey. This is becoming something of a San Antonio institution. They charged me a moderate 10 bucks at the door for two brewskies and a whiskey tasting. Came with a commemorative beer glass. Good value. Excellent beer. Here are some pictures.

The brewery itself is in this modern warehouse with some very lovely touches - wooden casks line the wall, along with some memorabilia and reviews.

  The stills and dewars are all shiny steel and chrome. The warehouse is squeaky clean. People brought their lawn chairs and made themselves comfy.



Some glassware makes an appearance near the front desk. I had never heard of something called a "nose glass" but there it is. They have quite a few whiskeys, some American bourbon style and at least one that is billed in the Scotch style. The names are very Texas. 0.22, 0.44, Rimfire, and so on. You, keen reader will have spotted that they all refer to various types of ammo. Like I said, very Texan.

There were food trucks. The Paki place is called "Rickshaw", and they serve some decent kababs. What is truly excellent there is the samosa they make. So good that it doesn't need chutney. There was also a Korean joint that I did not sample.

 

  There was live music, as you see.

 

 Some nice people, including this gent who holds Open Source very dear and this lady and her daughter who laughed generously at my more or less lousy jokes while we waited in line for more beer. Yes, there was a line and yes it was worth it when I started drinking that Belgian blonde.

This gent on the soapbox is Mike (I think?). He is the brewmaster/distiller and we find him here sharing some tips on how to taste and savour fine whiskeys. Ron Swanson would approve.

  
This is the Colonel. I was told that he is one of the owners. He welcomed the idea of me walking about with my camera.

 Aah, poor beer, all by your lonesome.

And finally, as I was leaving, I spotted this handsome old Bronco. Seriously, this car should come back.

The Buggy Shop

There is a wee buggy shop on Babcock Road in San Antonio Texas. I drive past quite often. Today I stopped to take a few pikchurs. Here they are. The first one is quite unmistakably a VW Corrado, with the VR6 engine. This was identified by Richard Hammond as a possible future classic.

 The next one in line, well the next few ones in line really is a colony of Beetles. From the aircooled, rear engined, utterly adorable old yellow to the new gen red Bug, they are all of them beautiful machines.

 

 And here is another of them old beetles.

 Aah, this one appears to be that strangest of creatures - a bastard child between Porsche and VW. One should not scoff. Porsche had a habit of spawning lovechildren with quite a few suitors. Usually the result was something of potency - the Audi RS2 and the Mercedes 500E spring to mind. This was different. The VW/Porsche 914 was conceived as a range topping replacement to the Lovely curvacious Kamann Ghia. This slant nosed targa was the somewhat disappointing result.

 In the words of Captain Reynolds.. "shiny".
The last here is another one of them Beetles. We should really have a better collective noun than 'colony'.

 

So, Bristol is supposedly coming back

The motoring enthusiast part of the internet is all abuzz with rumours that one of its rarest and oddest might be making a comeback. Bristol has always been strange - making just a handful of cars, mostly by hand ever since the '50s and being oddly reticent about them. If you wanted to know more, you would have to buy one - if the venerable Tony Crook found you worthy. So there they were, pottering around in obscurity/exclusivity that made Morgan look like the Volkswagen Group.

And so it was until they made the Fighter - a narrow gull-winged coupé powered by a true monster - the 8 litre V10 that sits under the bonnet of that lovely American insano-mobile - the Viper. This car was supposed to revive Bristol's flagging fortunes in the 2000s. Sadly, it failed. But now, it appears that Bristol is back and interested in electric drivetrains. No I see no harm there - electric cars do seem to be the future and everyone wants to do what Elon Musk has. However, there is a narrow window of opportunity before V10s are taxed out of existence. Bristol has what is reportedly a mature and eminently capable chassis in the Fighter - not made of carbon fibre exotica, but good old fashioned steel.The Mopar boffins have been fiddling with that engine too - with the 2013 Viper.

What they need to do is take that Fighter and tart it up a wee bit. Not too much, just enough to make it look like it belongs in this century. Bristol should hire some blokes from Morgan, methinks. The basic design of the Fighter is simple and elegant. The execution just needs polish. For instance just reworking the headlight housing would change the whole front of the car. That elegant castellated arse needs almost no retouching. The interior would benefit from some fancy cowhide and bespoke stitching. It can be done right, with a delicate admixture of modernities like ​a HUD and still retaining an analogue engine hour-meter. Oh, and ZF's finest contribution for those who cannot be bothered with that (reportedly) heavy clutch. Wrap all this up in a discreetly polished paintjob and you have a giant slayer. These things will still be unicorn's teeth, but the world will be a nicer place for having them around.

So, about breakfast tacos

I didn't what they were until I saw this viddy by Robert Rodriguez. This is obviously similar to any combination of ruti, paratha and roll that we have in India. It all hangs on what you put in the puur (the filling).

Years later, I found myself eating breakfast tacos at a taqueria (which is Spanish for a Mexican style restaurant specializing in tacos) - specifically a Taqueria Jalisco. Jalisco is a state in Mexico. So, my desi friend, think of it as a Chettinad style Udipi. Breakfast food with a regional theme. All good then.

Thing is, as mentioned, it all depends on what is in the puur. Here, you can get the puur filled in, or on the side (which is more or less indistinguishable from a ruti/sabji/meat dinner). The meat of course goes where most God fearing Hindus and Muslims will not - i.e- various forms of pork bacon and beef can be had. Mexicans being good friends with hot 'n spicy food, you can kick it up a notch with regular red or verde salsa (which is their interpretation of ketchup - more chunky bits and less gooey paste).

Things can be really tasty with what is on offer. Then comes the gourmet hipster variety of taco that places like Austin have for you. They will do a fish taco that is quite nice. But seeing as a properly made gourmet taco is somewhat labour intensive, you cannot expect to pay regular street taco prices for them. Which is where I come in.

So I started off by opening a tin of pepper sauce sardines. German. Those people like them some preserved fish. Chopped an onion and a habanero pepper or two. Toss 'em into light layer of light vegetable oil heated up.let thee onions brown. Pick out the fish from the cans. The fish will be soft and liable to break. No worries, we are not making a steak here. Add your preferred combo of Garam Masala and Turmeric to the onions, a wee dash of garlic paste and in go the fish. Now DO break them with the spatula. The fish need to be ground up and mixed WELL with the onions and peppers. Let this cook for a while. Toss in the pepper sauce that fish were marinated in. This completes the spices and no more salt is needed. Bear in mind that you can fluff up the body of the dish with things like sweet peas or creamed corn easily. The taste will carry and you can feed more. Finally, let this simmer until the water has boiled off, make sure to keep churning otherwise you will have a burnt crust.... and you are done!

The tacos themselves can come from soft shell tortillas. Or, if you want to go high end, then why not things like a Mooli Paratha from your local Indian store. Just heat the bread, spoon in the filling, wrap up in alfoil and serve.

'nuff said!

Somewhere in Bloomsburg, PA, there is this street.