Funkengroovin Wednesday - Frankfurt Airport and Beyond

How many times has VB passed through Frankfurt Airport watching all the hard working VWs, while sipping her hot latte? Too many. So this time, VB decided to do something about it. But first, she needs to point out the car below, on display at the Duty Free. The Boss Man wants this Mercedes (Mechatronik), and he wouldn't mind the blond sitting next to him, as well.

BTW, every time VB passes through the Frankfurt Airport, they seem to change everything around. It's gotten to be absolutely confusing anywhere outside the Gate B area.

(Below):
The workhorse of the VW fleet at the Frankfurt Airport, appears to be the T5 aka Eurovan. From Wikipedia: "The fifth generation of the VW Transporter hit the market in Europe late in 2003. It is a direct successor to the T4 in its looks and utility value, unlike the Microbus concept car that VW had been showing around several years prior to the T5's introduction. The Microbus concept was almost produced, but Volkswagen scuttled plans for building it due to cost problems.
The T5 Transporter is not available in the North America in any form. Instead, Volkswagen offers the Volkswagen Routan, a passenger minivan based on Chrysler LLC's Dodge Caravan."











(Below) A VW T5 truck.


The following photos were taken on the way home from The Cairo Airport.
(Below): A VW Bus passing a ginormous truck.


(Below): More of the "Riding On Top" phenomenon.


(Below): Passing a Beetle.


NEWS:
Photos of new VW ads from Brazil: "VOLKSWAGEN TRUCKS. FOR EVERY KIND OF LOAD."
(These are probably going over much better than the new Walmart milk cartons.)

A commentary from the New York Times: Be the Prius
"Motorists can drive smarter in response to high fuel prices." And also, from the same author, Don't Drive Less. Drive Smarter:
"Studies have shown significant increases in fuel economy are achievable simply by changes in driving style (a few things got cut from this piece, by the way, including an obvious one: Cruise control aids MPG — but not cruise control at 70 mph)."

Any NASCAR fans out there? Then Ask A NASCAR Driver, should be for you - again, from the New York Times, Freakonomics Blog. Go ahead, ask Kyle Busch anything you want.

Drive-ins: An American Classic Reborn
"...About 400 drive-ins presently operate in the United States, a surprisingly large number in this age of personalized, on-the-go media, but many people don't even know they exist. Today, the industry is just a glimmer of what it was once. Back in the 1950s, at the height of the drive-in era, there were 4,000 theaters showing first-run films — it was a marriage of two great American passions: automobiles and movies..."There's nothing quite like [the drive-in]," says April Wright, a filmmaker who has traveled the U.S. for her upcoming documentary, Going Attractions: The Rise and Fall of the Drive-In as an American Icon."

Prince Charles' Aston Martin Hybrid Runs On Wine
(Hiccup!)

Auto biography:'76 VW Beetle convertible is Newport couple's pride and joy
(That's Newport, Rhode Island, BTW.)

"NEWPORT It was a case of falling in love in paradise.

When Jo-Ann and Kevin Burns visited Lahaina on Maui, Hawaii, in 1978, she fell in love with the ubiquitous Volkswagen Beetle convertibles that were being used for basic transportation."

Automotive profile: Volkswagen's Heinz Nordhoff
"While working at Opel, he was noticed by Major Ivan Hirst and Colonel Radclyffe of the British Occupational Force that was running Volkswagen after the Second World War.

The pair needed someone to organize the reconstruction of the VW factories that had been ruined during the war.

Appointed VW's managing director on the first day of 1948, Nordhoff flourished because he realized the potential of one little car."

Hot Wheels of fortune
"After 40 years and 4 billion sales, Hot Wheels colectors know it's the little things that count.

Imagine paying $100,000 for a 1969 VW Kombi. And a hot pink one at that. Plus the bloody thing doesn't even start. So you won't be hearing that familiar dak-dak sound echoing through the suburbs. For all that money, the only extras are the two surfboards hanging out the rear."

Camping holidays: Heaven in a VW
"Painted egg-yolk yellow, and with the famous, cheery VW sign on the front, the van certainly looked the part; I was just worried that I might be the one letting the side down. It belonged to Andrew Stefanczyk, and is one of several that he rents out from his base in Hertfordshire. He acquired his first van last year, when his teenage son bought a wreck via eBay, and Stefanczyk saw the potential in doing up old vans to hire them out to fair-weather hippie chicks and sometimes-surfer dudes."

(A bit of satire here.)
New Book Uncovers Startling Evidence that Adolf Hitler was a Practicing Hippy
"When he was not ordering stormtroopers into Germany's neighbouring countries, Adolf Hitler would relax with a large bong and strum on his ukelele.

The dictator would often break from the serious nature of waging his campaign to "paint flowers on his VW Camper van" before driving it around the Bavarian countryside with his entourage of free-spirited fellow "magic mushroom munching hippies".


Warning: Explicit Language
George Carlin Airport Security

Smoking, Drinking, Tackiness, And A Short Lesson In Spelling

Smoking or...
How To Ruin A Cuban Cigar Box

Plaster a creepy photo of some dude on oxygen along with a warning about the evils of smoking (just wait until Fidel gets a load of this!) and you too can ruin a completely nice cigar box, plus scare the willies out of anyone who sees it. BTW, these alarming photos are not included in the warnings on cartons or packs of cigarettes - yet. What gives? VB's guess was that most people in Egypt smoke cigarettes (Cleopatras), and the government must have given up on trying to scare them (short of beating or shooting them), so why not just waste money on scaring rich folks who smoke Cubans instead. What a waste (time, money, resources....) Well, not exactly - see the article below for more.

A lot of people who buy Cubans, are probably going to be more annoyed by the fact that their wonderful cigar boxes, they use to store small, intimate objects (like we do), have been debased by a macabre photo.

Stark warnings: Egypt's fledgling anti-smoking campaign comes on strong

"Starting Aug. 1, cigarette labels in Egypt will be required to carry images of the effects of smoking: a dying man in an oxygen mask, a coughing child and a limp cigarette symbolizing impotence.

The photo of the limp cigarette comes with the warning that "long-term smoking has an effect on marital relations" — somewhat coyer than a version the European Union has recommended for its member countries, which states directly that smoking causes impotence and shows a discontented young married couple sitting apart in bed."

(VB could say more on this, but she thinks most people will scoff at this example too - the decline of the family can be directly related to cigarette smoking? Gee, and as an American, VB thought it was all due to gay marriage. Silly girl.)

"A month ago, the country's new tobacco control department was launched, though it consists of only two people in a closet-sized office with no telephones and an annual budget of just $12,500."

"Some Egyptians are convinced only light cigarettes lead to impotence. Earlier this year, the state-owned manufacturer, Eastern Tobacco Company, voluntarily put pictures of diseased lungs on some packs — but smokers just figured those packs were the ones that were harmful and switched to others, which some shopowners promptly started selling at a higher price.

"I've been smoking since I was 8 years old — I used to pick up cigarette butts from the gutter and smoke them," laughed Hussein Hassan Mahmoud, a wizened 60-year-old butcher with one eye clouded from cataracts, sitting outside his Cairo shop enjoying a cigarette.

Mahmoud goes through three or four packs of the local Cleopatra cigarettes a day, at about 50 cents a pack, and he scoffed when shown the new warnings. "People will just tear the labels off."

"I Drink Your Milkshake! I Drink It Up!"
(And VB's not too happy about it either.)
Below two photos:
Ain't nothin' like payin' to drink bottled contaminated water, when you can get super chlorinated water for free, right out of the tap! (And VB thought the taste of super fluoridated Ohio River water was bad!)

A couple of months ago, we instructed Awesome Daughter, who is back in the States, to throw out all bottles with the #7 in the recycling triangle. Some municipalities are now trying to outlaw the use of this #7 plastic. VB waited, thinking maybe Egypt would follow through, but no.... We are still receiving Nestle bottled water in #7 jugs. Mind you, the smaller bottles are not #7, just the ones everyone buys to outfit their water coolers.

From The Green Guide - "#7 Polycarbonate contains the hormone disruptor bisphenol-A, which can leach out as bottles age, are heated or exposed to acidic solutions. Unfortunately, #7 is used in most baby bottles and five-gallon water jugs and in many reusable sports bottles."

1. How to recognize the real thing. "Bisphenol-A is found in clear, hard, shatterproof plastics. Often, the letters PC (for polycarbonate) and/or the number 7 will be stamped in the little recycling triangle on or near the bottom of the container. But not every plastic stamped with a 7 contains BPAs; your biggest clue is to look for hard, see-through, unbreakable things."

(Hmm, you mean like that big plasic piece of shit VB has in her kitchen, and posted below?)

"Disposable soft-drink and water bottles, and liquid medicine containers (like cough syrup bottles), are not polycarbonate and do not contain BPA. So, while everyone is rightly having a fit about disposable bottles for environmental reasons, it's only the rigid, refillable kind that you need to worry about for health reasons. Make it easy, and remember the numbers: Only drink from those with numbers 4 and 2 in their triangles, or if need be, 5 and 1. In our opinion, don't buy any with 3, 6 or 7 (not just for BPA reasons)."

(Oh, don't forget straws people. We consumers, [and the oil companies] can have our milkshake, and drink it too. ----

Why the Oil Industry Benefits from Bottled Water Sales

(Yum - and, oh so tasty!)





Just Plain Tacky
To my neighbors, and townsfolk in Connecticut:
How tacky can you possibly be naming a street, Wisteria Lane? Are you daydreaming, wishfully thinking, or what? Have you been watching too much TV, and entranced by Nicollette Sheridan's decolletage? What were you thinking!
Do you all need a good hard smack upside the head?
(YEP!)



A Short Lesson In Spelling
Finally, for those of you still learning how to spell, fuck is spelled F-U-C-K! (VB may be a bad speller, but she knows this one for sure.)
Even though, VB thinks we all got the message, what is LFC? (VB hopes it's not the florist down the road.)