Cars.

[melannen]

I am back from Pennsic, have been for awhile, as you may have noticed. Pennsic was awesome, but doing it justice in a journal entry is really intimidating (as is all the other online stuff that's been piling up. And offline stuff too.) So I'm going to talk about Top Gear (that British television show about cars) instead.

Top Gear is evil.

Since I'm currently alone in a house that gets BBC America for the first time, on Monday night I decided rather randomly to put it on while doing chores, and there was Top Gear.

Two days later I wake from a sort of daze and find myself without about fifteen tabs open of Hammond/Oliver shipper fanvids on youtube.

Yes, yes, I know, we all could have predicted this would happen to me. I think this is my first ship 'ship that's explicitly m/m slash though, so that's different! (And awesome. And adorable, omg.)


And, yeah, I've listened to way too many episodes of Car Talk, ridden in too many model As, and been to too many car museums and shows to plead innocent (though I'm far, far from a real car buff): I have even been known to descend to the level of Motorweek once in a long while. But I didn't expect I'd fall *this hard* for Top Gear: I'm much more a Car Talk sort of girl. The car of my heart was the car I learned to drive in, a 1991 blue Honda Civic hatchback with no automatic anything that was dirt cheap even new, got nearly the same highway mileage as a hybrid, could turn on a dime, and coast all the way home from the tree in the middle of the road without any accelerator at all: and despite that two teenage girls learned to drive in it when it was already nearly ten, never broke down. and i still kind of regret that Mom got rid of it

So I didn't expect I'd really go for Top Gear, despite Dr. Who crossovers with the Stig: I tend to think muscle cars and the other big fancy expensive things they play with are vaguely ridiculous, largely useless, and not even attractive-looking to make up for it.

But then there was Oliver.*

And that was that. Give me the epic tale of a man and his jalopy...

*Also there needs to be a hot_daily picspam on children's educational television presenters already, or I might have to do it myself. Though it still breaks my heart that there are no good pictures of Wanda Gilmore anywhere on the internets, as far as I can tell. I can't do a hot kid's TV post without her in it! Injustice!

Also Tom and Ray need to be guests on Top Gear sometime, oh yes.

Comments

[crantz]

car things scare and confuse me. I still tell people the wrong brand for my truck sometimes.

[melannen]

I am not good with knowing models and years and things. And modern cars- with all their comuterized this and catalytic that and regenerating whatever - scare me.

But I like changing tires! And replacing batteries! Which is about the farthest extent of my car ability.

But old cars - where you can look under the hood and just see how everything works, like a Rube Goldberg cartoon - I love those.

One of the things I want to do someday but probably never will is get an old run-down car and actually take it apart and learn it like my dad and my uncles used to do. (Alas, that I was born too late: my generation does that with their computers instead. Also, I can't even keep a bike alive, so a car might be a bit too much.)

And I like stories about old cars and the people who love them.

[thedrummertobeat]

I looooooooooooooooooooooooooooove Top Gear. I merely liked cars before watching that show, and now I *love* cars. Also, it's the intersection of so many things for me: sly humour, gorgeous cinematography, brilliant music direction, amusing hosts, and British wankery. I've watched all but the first season, now, and that was only because it didn't have James May. (I adore James May.)

To be fair, they don't tend to drive muscle cars--they're pretty critical of the American car industry's fascination with raw linear speed as opposed to the European car industry's more holistic drive-sense. But man, give me a McClaren or a Veyron or an M5 and I think I'd have more fun driving than any other car on the road.

Richard's love of Oliver is adorable. I think it's awesome that he/they bought the car and transported it back to England after the Africa challenge.