OK, this is more of a Jroosh post even though he’s into movies more than automobiles lately, but I have too much integrity to claim to be a real motorhead. Nevertheless, these new VWs will catch your eye.



And they’re not electric – they’re turbo-diesel.

One thing you can’t question is the unbeatable fuel economy of this new line-up.



We’re talking 74.3mpg for the VW Polo, more than 60mpg for a Golf and more than 55mpg for the Passat, thanks to new aerodynamics and turbo-diesel engines.



The Polo and Golf models escape new London congestion charges this October and are at the bottom of the new road-tax bands.



…



I’ve just had a first drive of the new Passat BlueMotion and the fuel economy is sensational.



Combined economy jumps 5mpg from the standard model to 55.4mpg, giving a maximum range of 851 miles – which means you could drive from London to Glasgow – AND BACK – on only one fill-up of the 70-litre tank.



Engineers have tweaked the 1.9 diesel engine, making the car much cleaner. Carbon dioxide emissions fall 15g/km to 136g/km, which drops the Passat’s company car tax band from 19 per cent to 15 per cent.



And while the Passat’s body is already fairly sleek, it has had some aerodynamic updates, too.



The brake discs and rear suspension components have been covered, while the car has been lowered 15mm at the front and 8mm at the rear, allowing it to cut through the air more cleanly.

Too bad they’re only available in the UK for now. Furthermore, having driven on many of the British “Motorways”, I can tell you that regardless of mileage, driving 851 miles from London to Glasgow and back will still take you week.

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I found the link to Square America, described as “A gallery of vintage snapshots & vernacular photography”, while browsing commenter Charlie’s blog, Virile Lit:

I’ve been loving Square America for some time now and want to urge you to check it out. It’s a web site wherein the curator chronicles the history of the U.S. in snapshots he has obtained by combing resale stores, estate sales, and other dusty archives for random, found photographs he then assembles into themed web-based exhibits. The results are simply fascinating. Text doesn’t even enter into it, only the images and you.

It’s a fabulous site that sucks you in as you browse the casual, even amateurish, old snapshots that still can’t help but communicate a sense of time and place. Beyond that, I often found myself thinking, “I almost know these people — and I know I’ve seen those curtains before.” Cruise on over and spend a few minutes going back a few decades.

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The second Manival blog carnival is up and hosted this week by A Good Husband. Following Uncle Ben’s advice, I submitted last week’s post about the discussion (or lecture) from our last Fundamentals in Film class to the carnival, and it was accepted.

There are some other very interesting-looking posts in this week’s collection that I’m looking forward to reading. In particular, “Is It More Important to Be a Good Dad or a Good Husband”, “Thou Shalt Get a Job”, “7 Reasons Atticus Finch is a True Gentleman” and “Man Up: The Art of Marital Conversation” plus several more.

Check it out, and if you’d like to submit a blog post to next week’s Manival you can use this carnival submission form.

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Great story about sportsman-, I mean, sportswomanship, over on ESPN. You’ll be glad you checked it out.

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A trivia outing for Diva and Dad.

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Here’s a really fun little video posted in honor of noted cat blogger Gino:

An Engineer’s Guide to Cats.

When you are finished watching the video you will know all about “corporal cuddling”, fun games to play with your cat (and – if you’re an engineer – with unsuspecting women), and experiments in renewable energy using static electricity. The clip also notes that no cats were harmed in the making of the video, though they were annoyed.

UPDATE:
Comments have been enabled! I’m not sure why they weren’t on initially.

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I may seem a bit distracted the next few days. You see, I’ve got a large LCD TV. I’ve got HD. I’ve got DirectTV. And I’ve got an itchy trigger-thumb on my remote.

DirectTV is featuring four full-time channels devoted to the Masters the next four days. One channel is dedicated to the main broadcast feed of the tournament; a second channel to the day’s highlights. A third channel is devoted exclusively to “Amen Corner” while the fourth focuses solely on Holes 15 and 16. In case I can’t decide which one to watch, I can WATCH ALL FOUR AT THE SAME TIME on one screen, plus have access to several interactive features that will let me pull up additional information!

Let it snow all weekend, I don’t care.

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The NuttyBuddy — a next-generation upgrade on the athletic cup — is getting somewhat infamous in certain, um, parts of the blogosphere. My friend KingDavid, unpaid and unofficial spokesperson for NuttyBuddy, gave me one of the company’s promotional tee-shirts for my birthday last week. While I’ll proudly wear the tee-shirt, I don’t know that I’d go to the lengths the guy in the video below goes to to demonstrate the efficacy of this new technology.

It’s hard to tell what is more disturbing, this clown’s (let’s call him a “Crush Test Dummy”) willingly and repeatedly standing in front of the Nuke LaLoosh of pitching machines, or the constant cackling of the off-screen woman who was feeding the (supposed) baseballs into the machine. Somehow she reminded me of the sound Hillary must have made while coming up with her health care proposals.

One positive thing about this video, however, is that at the end — after taking repeated shots to the gut and thigh and a couple direct hits on the NuttyBuddy — the guy says, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have kids.”

On behalf of the gene pool and future generations, I thank him in the name of all humanity.

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TechnoChitlins directed me to the story and PHOTOS from Zombietime.

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I think this means that there isn’t a lot of cussing on this blog. Either that or the on-line rating tool had it’s wires fried while analyzing The Kool-Aid Report.

Around 1% of the pages on your website contain cussing.
This is 88% LESS than other websites who took this test.

Created by OnePlusYou

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