Simanaitis Says

On cars, old, new and future; science & technology; vintage airplanes, computer flight simulation of them; Sherlockiana; our English language; travel; and other stuff

CHEECH’S STASH

INVETERATE 17-YEAR-OLD that I am, I associate Cheech Marin with his stoner-hippie comedy partner Tommy Chong. And then in the 1990s he was Don Johnson’s partner in the Nash Bridges … Continue reading

February 17, 2017 · Leave a comment

HEY! YOU! GET OFF MY CLOUD!

PROFESSORS AT Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Vernam Group hacked Amazon Web Services, the Cloud computing business that earned Amazon more than $6 billion in 2015. Then, honest guys that WPI’s Thomas … Continue reading

February 16, 2017 · Leave a comment

PACIFIC OPERA PROJECT!

L’ELISIR D’AMORE, by Gaetano Donizetti, had its debut in Milan, Italy, in 1832. Yet this comedy of phoniness promoted by a charlatan of the highest order remains a grand operatic … Continue reading

February 15, 2017 · Leave a comment

MAKE TOMATOES GREAT AGAIN!

MODERN TOMATOES don’t taste as good as they did in the old days. Nor are today’s commercial varieties as tasty as their heirloom counterparts. How come? Is there any hope … Continue reading

February 13, 2017 · 2 Comments

MAKE LITHUANIA GREAT, AS USUAL

WHAT WITH recent executive hawking of an apparel brand tweeted and then promoted by an alternative-facted underling, I thought that perhaps my ancestral homeland might likewise profit from similar hype: … Continue reading

February 11, 2017 · 2 Comments

MODENA TO FRANKFURT

IN THE COMPANY of Paul Frère, European automotive journalist extraordinaire, I was passenger on a memorable drive from Modena, Italy, to Frankfurt, Germany. I recently came across some scrubbled notations … Continue reading

February 10, 2017 · 1 Comment

ONE BAD HOMBRE AND AN UNTOUCHABLE

I WAS thinking about bad hombres with foreign-sounding names, and Al Capone popped to mind. This is not the irrational neurologic activity it might seem: My mother and father, rest … Continue reading

February 9, 2017 · 1 Comment

WOODSMAN, SPARE THAT CO2

BURNING WOOD to make electricity? There’s enough controversy in this concept to keep us occupied for awhile, so let’s begin by considering several aspects of the matter, as discussed in … Continue reading

February 8, 2017 · Leave a comment

MEN IN HIGH HEELS

RESEARCHING A recent item on the British workplace, Parliament and women forced to wear high heels, I stumbled (could it have been the heels?) on an interesting fact: The most … Continue reading

February 7, 2017 · Leave a comment

EV UPDATE: BUT WILL IT MATTER IN THE U.S.?

GLOBAL EV SALES are trending upward by significant percentages. Not that the overall numbers are large, mind. What’s more, the U.S. situation is at best unsettled. It’s a good time … Continue reading

February 6, 2017 · 3 Comments