72 Gran Torino ain’t bad, 67 Impala wins though

Last night I finally got round to watching the highly rated “Gran Torino” starring the fantastic Clint Eastwood as Walt Kowalski. A Korean war vet, Clint is disgusted that his neighbourhood is becoming infested with people he used to kill. Hmong family next door get embroiled in a gang war, as the gang leader, the cousin of the boy living next door tries to get him to join the gang, become a man and leave his gardening behind. At first the boy resists, but then decides to do the initiation, which is to steal this from Clint’s garage….

A mighty fine 72 Ford Gran Torino that Clint helped put together back on the assembly line. The theft goes awry when Clint stops the kid from stealing it. The kid is then told to help Clint out, at the family’s request as he dishonoured them. Clint unwillingly accepts and slowly begins to learn about the kid, his life and the family next door. He starts liking their food, helping them out and keeps an eye out for them. The gang return and burn the kids face with a cigarette. That is the final straw for Clint who takes action into his own hands. A great story, and a sad ending which I won’t spoil, go watch the film. Another classic by the great man, and included a sweet car in the Gran Torino.

That being said, this beauty wins the classic muscle car debate.

It’s a 67 Chevrolet Impala, and you can see it being driven by Dean or sometimes Sam in the great series Supernatural :D:D With it’s hearty exhaust, rock music blaring, and the secret armoury in the boot, you can’t beat it :P:P

Now here’s a fairytale come true. At the Winter Olympics over in Vancouver, Alexandre Bilodeau won Canada’s first Gold medal on home soil, having failed at Montreal 76 and Calgary 88. His event is the Mogul, or freestyle skiing, basically going hell for leather down a slope edging off bumps and performing 2 jumps in a speed of around 25 seconds. The extra special part of the fairytale is that his inspiration is his older brother, who at a young age was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy and was told he’d never walk again. Now at the age of 29 not only is he still walking, he still skis. What a heart-warming story of the Olympics. It needed one after the death of the Georgian kid killed in the Luge warm-ups. Here’s an old clip of Mogul skiing with a 1080 on the jump, just to give you an idea.

The knees must ache like hell after a run like that, and the daredevil inside gets let loose on the jumps. One of the most graceful jumps in the iron cross. Quite superb.

Well that just about does it for another day, apart from DotD. The winner is a repeat winner as I gave them the award not so long ago. Someone who drives a black Toyota that is unable to park. I even stuck a post it note on the car saying “selfish git, learn to park properly” But the note wasn’t acted upon as they still park like a douchebag, taking up 2 spots instead of leaving room for someone else to park, selfish cunt might be the next post it note :P