USA Today offered the world the first real-world glimpse of the car most of us could only imagine from our childhood cartoons. Speed Racer is the first film directed by the Wachowski brothers since the Matrix trilogy.

The film is a live-action adventure starring Emil Hirsch (Alpha Dog). It promises to have a “retro future” look and will center on Speed (Hirsch) trying to make a name for himself in the racing world despite the efforts of corporate giants to foil his career.

The film also stars Christina Ricci (Black Snake Moan) as girlfriend Trixie and Matthew Fox (TVs Lost) as Speed’s older brother, Racer X.

Get a load of this first image (click to enlarge):

Okay, so I’ve been watching tons of videos over on YouTube since last Fall and have subscribed to a number of channels that I find entertaining there, for whatever reason.

Admittedly, I’ve also developed some pretty big crushes on the various girl-vloggers there. One of my favorites is LisaNova, who is known in real life as Lisa Donavan. She’s smart, funny and beautiful. After being featured on YT for some time and building up one of the Top 20 most subscribed channels, Lisa has also recently begun appearing on the sketch show MadTV.

Thought I’d share a recent video she did lampooning the ongoing debates between the presidential campaigns of Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama. Pretty smart – and indicative of how great Lisa’s videos are.

In light of my previous post concerning boats and my interest once again turning to the sea, thought I’d share a real wicked sea shanty with you from Celtic maniacs Flogging Molly.

“Salty Dog” is a rocking punk anthem that really should get your juices flowing, particularly with Pirates of the Caribbean 3 opening today.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

As always, my policy is that if anyone would like a download link for this song, just make a Comment below and ask – I’ll hook you up with a link in a comment-reply of my own (check back with this article).

Download links are automatically embedded in my RSS feeds.

So I’ve been daydreaming of sailboats again and am hoping to begin the next stage of my adventure once the car is sold. I’ll do some buying and selling up here before I head back down South, but I am intent once more on returning to the sea. I didn’t nearly get enough chance to live out my dream of sailing and living aboard last year.

And I have been poring over boats once again, wondering upon which beauty I want to fix my attention. I’m determined that this time I’m going to concentrate on larger vessels. That is, boats that are at least 35 feet long. Although they don’t flip (resell) as quickly as smaller boats, one thing is certain: they do retain their value better, even the older ones from the 1970s.

I’m already familiar with some of the boats I looked at in both New Orleans and Pensacola. The one design I’ve like for the longest time, that had the greatest value among hurricane boats I saw, was the Gulfstar 40. These were great, big sailboats built back in the early- to mid- 70s. They are strongly built, and their overbuilt fiberglass hulls have kept them on the water for many years.

I priced two of these in New Orleans that I could have had for less than $6,000 apiece. Unfortunately, the one I really wanted had deck separation and would’ve required at least $10-$15,000 in repairs. But the value is there, as each of these boats (both were 1974 Gulfstar 40s) was still worth over $74,000 ($78,000 if you have good electronics).

Anyway, regardless of what boats I work on early for investment purposes, I have begun to see examples of what my future dreamboat might look like. Among all those I’ve been checking out over the last couple of weeks, the one design that stands out is the Beneteau. Particularly those that were built in the 80s. The Beneteau are beautiful, elegant sailboats with all the characteristics I’m looking for.

I’ve included a gallery of images of these boats, taken from listings on Yachtworld. These are usually priced up in the $80,000 range. So they likely would not be my initial, next boat, obviously.

But there are tens of thousands of boats right now in hurricane yards being liquidated by insurance companies all over the Gulf, many of them with very little serious damage. I also have the contacts in the Pensacola area so that, if I wanted to pick up another hurricane boat to restore, I could do so. There really isn’t any reason why I couldn’t get one of these boats right now for $10-$15,000. It’d take some looking, and I’d probably need another five to 10 grand more in contractor work.

But the return on such an investment would certainly be worth while, as I’m sure you can imagine. More importantly, it’d put me back on the water for some time to come, traveling around the world in the manner I’d most enjoy.

Have a look and tell me what you think…

Beneteau 42 & 43 (1984-89)

The mid-80s Beneteau First Sloop 42 is an icon in the sailing world. She is truly a boat that is capable of winning regattas still today, is a comfortable boat to live on and can take you safely to any ocean in the world that you wish to cruise.

A German Frers design, she’s a pedigreed hull shape with the beautiful full belly, a fine sharp entry, and tapered stern. She sails fast! Her fine underbody and spade rudder makes her sleek, racy and responsive. There’s a reason these vessels have been sought after by ocean racers for so many years.

One of the examples below actually has already completed a four-year circumnavigation double-handed. And she’s set up to sail shorthanded.

The 432s (particularly nice with an open rear transom) were 43′ overall length, 13′ 10″ beam, 5′ 4″ wing keel draft, keel stepped mast height (including antenna) 62 feet, sufficient for all 65′ fixed ICW bridges (actually tested). The three-stateroom, two-head layout includes queen size V berth forward, queen size berth aft, and a third twin sized bedroom and 6′ 5″ cabin headroom.

Click any link below to open gallery (click left or right side of images to scroll):

This clip was sent by none other than Stallone himself out to a few media outlets and Aint It Cool News, who are under agreement to only show it for next 48 hours.

However I am posting it here in all it’s glory to give you lot the very first look at the new Rambo film, “John Rambo”. I posted just days ago the first pics of the film and the outline of it’s plot.

Now get a full-sized trailer view of the royal beat-down Stallone is going to give action fans in his final send-off of his other great, mythical character.

I pretty much skipped over the various eulogies and observations on the recent death of Jerry Falwell. I really couldn’t care much less.

But this video clip is absolutely amazing and yet more evidence that Christopher Hitchens may be the single greatest person alive today. Seriously, the man has my vote.

It’s rare that I read something or hear anyone speak and then can honestly say that I agree with everything they say. Yet I do agree with everything Hitchens says in this clip from CNN. And I mean every syllable.

It’s just awesome – and refreshing:

The final chapter of the Rambo saga is currently being filmed with Sylvester Stallone. It centers around the mythical characters’ quiet retirement in the wilds of Thailand – which is disrupted when a group of missionaries are kidnapped.

The film also stars the gorgeous Julie Benz who played the memorable Darla in both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Angel series. She currently is also costarring in the best show on television right now, Dexter on Showtime.

The first images come courtesy of AICN and an Italian newspaper:

Ever see one of those great David Blaine TV specials where he walks around doing ’street magic’? If you have, you’ll get the joke of this spoof. Even if you haven’t, it’s still pretty funny.

This is a great version of the old classic, recently featured in the opening credits of the film Alpha Dog. I’ve since learned the cover was performed by the late singer Eva Cassidy, whose voice has become legendary since her death in 1996.

The version she performed is really amazing, so I got a copy to share with you guys here.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

As always, my policy is that if anyone would like a download link for this song, just make a Comment below and ask – I’ll hook you up with a link in a comment-reply of my own (check back with this article).

Download links are automatically embedded in my RSS feeds.

for Carl…

… Consider again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

~ Carl Sagan, COSMOS