I haven't been on very much lately, but there's a very good reason why I've been busy as heck: I finally got a full-time job! Starting Monday, I'll be the new Social Media Editor for Brookline Media's Autos sites, The Drive and the soon-to-relaunch Car Bibles.

I'll still be blogging about cars with more opportunities to do longer stuff, fun tangents and passion projects on top of being Extremely Online.

Please troll me, but in a polite and enjoyable way. See you in the comment section!

So, Gambler 500-ing the Volkswagen 411 was a huge success. There were folks there who knew carbs and aircooleds who helped us get it running at altitude...mostly. It still runs hot and rich. So rich. So, so, so rich. Holy crap. It's better than lean because lean burns up engines, BUT it's not great.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CO_2cO2lGcx/

Rally Chicken and Florida Puff rode along the whole time, though, as Puffalumps do. We even took it down Old Ore Road, which is a Jeep trail down the middle of Big Bend, and super fun. Only problem is, it kept stalling out because of sooty fouled plugs. They'd get covered in soot from the rich-running engine and quit working.

Which it did about halfway down the trail.

Eventually, we determined that if we just kept the revs up, it wouldn't stall. We couldn't stop, either, but hey! SPEED RUN. It only stalled out a few more times over big bumps when everything got knocked around. All the important bits made it, though, so ABG.

Then I remembered that someone on here made this meme when I was testing out a Mazda, and it all makes sense.

I don't remember who made this, but you jinxed me. My VW woes are all your fault.

This question came up at work today: https://www.thedrive.com/news/39701/whats-the-coolest-car-swag-toys-or-gear-youve-ever-gotten

Despite the fact that there's the bottom of a freakin' F1 car in my dining room and other weird stuff like a 919 'Ring lap pass and a teeny tiny Wiking model of my 411, this was still my pick for my favorite auto thing of all time:

The parsh is so good!!!!!

#TeamChicken has good taste in cars, too.

Chickens love aircooleds! (And they know where you sleep.)

One of the things I just found in my screenshots is from when someone made Fluffy Bunny the Oppo icon, heh.

Fluffy says hi.

Does this mean we can ban you now?

WE LOVE THINGS.

I saved a whole bunch of these, BTW.

The consequences of having the best birdie booty.

Shh, it is one for chickens.

...why would my bird refuse caffeine again?

Hey, she's not a duck.

I prefer a Cayenne, too, but it was a nice Mazda.

Okay, this is the meanest of them all. We have standards when it comes to our chickenbalism. That's a low blow with that nasty peanut-oil-fried inferior sandwich. Just a low, low blow. At least photoshop in some Bojangles or Popeye's.

Yeet Jim Spanfeller
Post Peter Cottontailers

Things suck! Post bunnies.

I don't think you'd get a response in its current format, to be honest. Oppo at least looked like a blog when he tried to do that, and I think it was still when it was oppositelock.jalopnik.com.

Either way, I don't recommend it unless there's someone kind of tamping down on that stuff. What makes press cars not a big grift is that they're work. You write a review and give an honest evaluation of the thing. It's not a perfect thing per se (life happened and got in the way of reviewing a couple cars I had out last year, for example), but that's generally the gist. There's at least social media posts of whatever I get nowadays, too, FWIW.

If Oppo opens back up a blog and it's getting decent traffic, I wouldn't mind if it so long as someone here is keeping an eye on what folks have gotten to review, if they've actually reviewed it and if they're doing right by whatever PR-type they've been in touch with. You don't want to gargle OEM balls or anything, but you do have to keep in mind that it's a working relationship, and be fair to the dudes you're interacting with. Base criticism of the car itself in honesty and only anger folks for good reason, in other words.

@gmporschenut-also-a-fan-of-hondas Haha, yeah. I do wonder if I should mind the cold weather stuff in case hell freezes over again.

SNOWNUTS IN THE 411 (and then paranoidly washing every nook and cranny in case any salt/kitty litter/sand/whoknows got onto it).

@midengine Solid answers. It's super hard for me to pick a cheese, haha. Also, can confirm: the Mexican food is good here.

@forsweden WE'RE NOT FRIENDS THEN, BEGONEEEEEE

I got a lot of extra slices of pizza via mistranslation on vacation. It was cool, but also a way to turbo-burnout on pizza for a few months.

Oh gosh, "thumb-detecting nut fucker" is basically the adjustable wrench's NAME now.

@texturedsoyprotein NGL, I love all the rainbow stuff this time of year. I know it's capitalism doing the pandering thing, but it's also a good color scheme.

Bring back the rainbow Apple Computer livery, Porsche.

Ha, my former employer from YEARS ago moved down near AMD in Austin...my last week there..........and made me "move" there even though it was super useless. I think I spent most of it in the multi-company-campus gym.

Sooooooooo.......can you somehow get in and upperdeck at least one of Solarwinds' toilets? Sign it "FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, COMRADES."

Alternately, what's your favorite kind of cheese? (Good parsh, as always.)

@forsweden Peppers are the best fruit.

Bonus if your friend orders "peperoni" in Italy and gets them as a surprise!

@highlander I'd eat this. Hell yeah. Looks nice and cheesy, too.

@gmporschenut-also-a-fan-of-hondas

The strainer looked nice and clean. Blades are intact with only one that's bent (but intact!). The oil cooler looks fine but meh, but we want to relocate it into more air anyway.

@shop-teacher Nice!