RIP Car Talk

This makes me strangely emotional. The cackling could get to be a bit much, some of the jokes were total groaners, but I always found them entertaining, informative (everything I know about cars is due to them), and down to earth.

Saturday mornings won’t be the same.

@SanFranLefty: I have a relationship with Ray because I’ve written bits for the show, so I emailed him saying I was sad, but you deserve a break now and best of luck, and he wrote the following: “You too can now kick back!! Thanks for all your help through the years. Let’s make sure we keep in touch. Ray”

Really a class act, a mensch.

@bloggie: they can always come write for Stinque.

Meanwhile, a Bostonian friend’s response: “Why couldn’t it have been fucking Garrison Keilor who retires?!?”

@SanFranLefty: On the upside, Mr Annoying Folksy Crap is also planning to retire this year.

Oh my! Now who will I consult when my Chevy Corvair Monza has a hiccup?

@BobCens: Heh.

Is that “Cens” with a “c” or with an “s”?

@Mistress Cynica: Huzzah!

@Mistress Cynica: Used to listen 30 years ago, but no longer.

Now I can listen to the Best of Click and Clack while reading Peanuts reprints and watching this.

@I’m passing for white: That would be BobCens with an “s” as in “Census”. We sat in adjoining cubicles at the Census Bureau’s finance office for way too many years, laughing at the state of the world and poking fun at our die-hard Republican supervisor (Hi Gayle!). Now he’s retired to Florida taking pictures of pelicans barfing like the one he sent me today.

@Dave H: Naw… Really?

(Hi Gayle!)

Speaking of cars, some guy drove an SUV into an office building in downtown DC a few hours ago. What’s interesting (apart from it being a block from my office/where I had lunch Wednesday) is that it’s being treated as a potential terrorist attack. What idiot terrorist thought it was a brilliant idea to drive a gasoline-soaked vehicle into an office building at 8 o’clock on a Friday night?! I mean, really.

@mellbell: I would expect that any unusual event like that would be initially flagged as a possible terrorist event, just because it’s downtown DC.

@mellbell: Maybe the “terrorist” was jet-lagged after a flight from Riyadh and forgot about the time difference.

In other news, Mister Rogers + Auto-Tune = awesome.

@mellbell: It’s about a block from where my wife works. I’m so glad no one was hurt and that my wife was well away from there by then.

Thank for alerting me to this.

@mellbell: Thanks for posting my missing linque. Which all would have seen in my post above, if not for the lack of a single keystroke. (Math is so hard…)

@matador1015: Serendipity!

@matador1015: I use any Balloon Juice comment thread to make my links because you just have to hit the “link” button instead of typing in all the code.

Oh boy: naked photos of Snooki … claw out your eyes people.

@karen marie still has her eyes tight shut: Oh I don’t mind hard-coding. It just doesn’t mix well with the occasional malt liquor.

@mellbell: Jesus, that happened across the street from where I worked in DC.