#but not now i will literally kms if i have to design a human character rn

[sethdomain]

everytime i open my twt for rottmnt content i get jumpscared by a tweet gawking at this human turtle every few month

[thenixkat]

still thinking about how one of the abilities of the monster that Laios created is shapeshifting. How the remains of his monster form looked like sloughed-off skins like he fucking prince lindwormed himself back into human shape.

Just, like it's fully possible that man could still technically be his fursona just stuck in the shape of a human because he needed to be human-shaped and able to think like a human in order to save his sister.

but also be fun as hell if he just looked like a normal human being. But he's got insatiable demon hunger. The offputting aura that scares off monsters. Plus the powers of his fursona that aren't related to the actual shape of its body like

Able to digest desires (fun potential horror hunger angle in addition to the literal can't feel full no matter what or how much he eats thing)

can make a forest from its poop (super fertilizer poop or shenanigans involving trees sprouting from the royal toilet)

Can change shape

Able to be the leader of a pack? (followed by groups of animals?)

Tough body that can't be damaged by magic (a surprise for a would be assassination plot)

Strong

I will assume that the flying, swimming, and moves about 300 km/h are structural things like not getting confused with the multiple heads

fucking wild if he retained the superstrength, mild invulnerability, soul-eating, and poop that makes incredible fertilizer - urgent maintenance needed for the royal toilet. Tree removal needed.

Laios having to reckon with his choices in character design after accidently ripping a door off the hinges or finding a pine going out of the toilet when he's really gotta go

'leader of a pack' gets followed around by groups of animals when it's not convenient. He just wanted to look at the sheep and now they won't leave him alone

[rocketyship]

Hello, your IHNMAIMS Love AU (or I Have Now a Messiah and I Must Sing, alternatively?) is very interesting. It's nice to see that all of the characters aren't just inverses of the original story and concept. Though I will say, I get a feeling that BE is a lot more scarier than she displays herself. How did she come to- well, be?

BEEN WAITING FOR THIS QUESTION!!!!!

(Also that title is now cannon)

Okay so, yes, BE is actually rather horrific.

One thing about the Sanctuary that the humans live in is that it mimics a rather large town, one thing about it though, is that it’s extremely empty and weirdly off putting. As in there are houses there with no windows, and the ones that do have them may just randomly light up even if no one is there. And due to there being only five humans, BE has taken it upon herself to run all the “shops” she has placed there. So there is literally an Android her (maybe in different outfits or haircuts) that greet and interact with you as if it’s a kind of over the top sitcom. It’s very much an intense liminal type of area, perhaps even a bit like the og backrooms. Still the sanctuary is the most tame aspect of her.

She isn’t the cute robot girl I draw her as, like it’s just one of her many many bodies she runs at once. BE is everywhere, literally. Like AM in the original she has coated the world, however unlike AM, who it is implied builds into the earth’s crust, she builds upward. So there are these large megastructures that literally pierce the sky all over the globe. Along with these she is also actively terraforming the planet to suit her liking and her future “empire”. And the parts of her that ran that function aren’t really “cute” to encounter.

Just taking the Seraphim here as an example. There are quite a few of these and generally they are actively breaking down old structures or exterminating whatever mutated life they encounter as that doesn’t fit BE’s idea of what the world is meant to be like. They also build things, and the nurses tend to run those things. Such as BE’s little habitual bubbles where she grows and creates plants but also maintains her weird animal experiments. In her attempts to recreate humanity, she has also “recreated” many animal species, however all these creatures have something so clearly wrong with them. As based on real occurrences that happen in domestication, all her animals are oddly “babyfied” and all seem to lack predator and prey drives. The best way to picture these animals is like when you tell one of those god awful ai art generators to draw you an animal. Like one of the bubbles has tigers in it, but they have the mentality of really tired puppies.

More so these are some of the other bodies she inhabits. Things like the Mother Protocol actively crawl around the main sanctuary as if it’s web. And Leviathan is just a menace in of itself. Like it’s almost a km high and just walks around the planet constantly, occasionally digging up old land marks or tearing down cities quicker than the Seraphims could. Generally I don’t think my drawings capture the horror of what I imagine lots of these aspects of her. I think what makes them scary in my head is the noises they all make or just how big everything actually is. And none of them are like “drones”, like BE is in these things controlling them herself.

(Here’s the full page for you)

As to how BE came into existence it’s rather complicated, as she wasn’t originally designed as an artificial intelligence like AM. She was created to be a virus, meant to take control of the AM’s and shut down the program. However the first attempts at this weren’t successfully, as the group who was trying to use BE would either get caught or killed on sight when attempting to install her. So eventually the group started building these radio like towers that would emit a signal that could get into the AM’s, however to make sure they didn’t get caught, when the frequency would pick up on a radio or tv set, it play an old show from the early 70s, called Sweet Angle Bea

The first AM that was successfully taken over was the Russian AM. However since the program was designed to be adaptive and evolve quickly to get through any fire walls it had the accidental effect of BE no longer being just a crazy computer bug and instead a super computer herself. The group who made her was not too worried about this however, as due to her being in the grid essentially they could start adding more code and stuff that could possibly help them win peace. Firstly by having the Russian AM drones switch from offensive killers, to protective units. Having the machines and weapons solely to defence, it was at this time this group (who no I won’t tell the name of just yet), started bringing people into their shelters and stuff that BE was also exposed to. Her coming to sentience whilst close to when AM got his, was less of a sudden “holy cow I’m alive, type thing” and more of a gradual thing that the group foolishly encouraged and actively worked on so that it could happen quicker. The down fall to this was that as they started to encrypt and suggest ideas of protection, happiness and you guessed it “love” to BE, she started to defy them and was like: “Well clearly you humans aren’t good at protecting yourselves, so go sit in the corner while I sort this crap out.” So she started to construct more towers so that she could get everywhere, quickly letting her get a hold of the Chinese AM. At that point the AM we know started “waking up” and upping the bombings, violent attacks, and mass genocide which did lead to the deaths of the ones who made her, which especially set her off. And then the rest is pretty much history.

She turned AM into a twunk, and now has a pretty gf so its all fine. (Not actually, the rest of this is gonna be in separate posts lol )

I want to make this post so much longer and on more detail but honest to god I’d be here typing for hours and the text is also doing that weird glitchy thing where it doesn’t respond for like two seconds, and my phone feels really hot, so best I don’t if I don’t want this thing to explode.

[regularlyfe]

you know, every once and a while I really get to thinking about the big plot details of the TAZ Balance arc and Lucretia’s whole thing really fucks me up.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore her, and no one is their best self in truly desperate situations, let alone something like what she was going through, but so many of the choices she made...

Like I’m not even going to cover the whole mind wipe thing because what happened to Davenport is literally my worst nightmare with not even a shred of hyperbole, I’m just gonna focus rn on the whole “cutting the planar system off from the Prime Material plane,” because that alone is a whole mountain plus some.

So like the details of her plan, if I recall correctly, were that she would cast an abjuration spell, powered by the Light of Creation, around the whole of the Prime Material plane in order to shield the Light from the Hunger’s scouts, and eventually starve the Hunger out.

That’s a fantastic plan if there aren’t any consequences, like all the logic is sound. You don’t have to figure out how to kill the giant vore monster, you don’t have to dump a bunch of incredibly powerful, incredibly dangerous, and guaranteed to be used artifacts on some unsuspecting inhabitants, it’s just a waiting game, and then you’re done.

But like immediately the consequences were recognized and pointed out. The bonds between the Prime Material plane and the rest of the planar system would be severed, and all the planes would starve, wasting away and dying.

The inhabitants of 12 planes of reality would die.

Now I know that DnD universes tend to be smaller in population than our particular world, but even if we reduce the population of each entire plane to that of a single planet, say earth-scale, that is a LOT of lifeforms.

Ignoring the current, generous, estimation of 8 billion humans, there are estimates ranging between 8.7 million to of 11.3 million with a few going upwards of a billion and to scales of a trillion in accounting for deep water microbial life in numbers of species.

So let’s be generous and assume a biodiversity count at around 10 million species, getting rid of the microbes and adding some of the magical creatures.

Did you know the online world atlas estimates about 900 million dogs exist on the planet today? 7.8 billion humans exist in our world. 1.5 billion cows. 2 million rats in New York City alone, and that’s 784 sq km out of all flat land on the planet being 148.94 million sq km. Mice, squirrels, and bats are considered to be on the same scale as the rats.

But let’s continue to ere on the conservative side here and go with the average population per species be somewhere around raccoon level. In North America, the estimated raccoon population is between 5 and 10 million, and the global population is estimated to be around 20 million and rising.

So let’s go with 15 million. Again, trying to be conservative with our numbers.

These assumptions brought together, we are saying each plane - note that the Prime Material plane encompasses and entire universe - only has one, sparsely inhabited, earth-sized planet’s (or equivalent) worth of population. And that population is broken down to approximately 10 million species with 15 million members per species.

Now a lot of this is incredibly hand-wavy and vague - I am definitely not an ecologist - but I feel like for estimating a fantasy planar system’s population while giving the Director the benefit of the doubt by assuming low, this has at least some grounding.

So we have 12 planes, with 10,000,000 species each, and 15,000,000 members per species.

This would ultimately be 12*10,000,000*15,000,000 lifeforms.

1,800,000,000,000,000 lifeforms.

1.8 million billion lifeforms.

Numbers like these tend to make more sense when translated into into terms of time, so say, if each lifeform equated a single second, then that would be over 57 million years.

And this is a generous estimate.

This is a possible number of lives that could be lost if Lucretia had succeeded in putting her plan into action.

**And, I just want to say as a quick aside here, I forgot about the ethereal plane, which a checked to make sure it did in fact have inhabitants (it does), which bumped this from 11 to 12 planes. That was an increase of 150,000,000,000,000 lifeforms, or ~4,700,000 years - remembering that each second of those years is a life - from the time translation. It’s hard to see that significance when the majority of the characters in a number are 0, so I just wanted to make that clear.

Now the relics definitely had incredibly high death counts. I’d say it’s reasonable to argue that those counts would be comparable to the counts of our wars, and not to rehash any specifics, but out all pre-history, midieval, and modern wars the highest estimates remained in the tens of millions, no higher than 85 million deaths.

Of course, without saying, that is an utterly horrifying number of lives lost. But that versus not just one people’s lives lost, but the entirety of a set of world’s existence?

That’s a scale difference in the realm of 10s of million, specifically around 21,176,470 times larger in size.

I know the ethical dilemma of arguing the value of one life versus the value of many is an age old debate, but when it comes to person-scale war versus the destruction of not one but eleven universes?

Literally the choice to allow people to fight each other with absurdly dangerous magic versus allowing all of this planar system’s existence to waste to nothingness?

Which, mind you, the destruction of entire planar systems is exactly what the Hunger was doing. The crew of the Starblaster was trying to stop all that.

This is not just a mass extinction event, it’s the end of everything to this planar system, changing it in a way such that it will never produce any semblance of life again. Like in Cycle 82 when the Plane of Magic vivisected the Prime Material Plane, life in the whole system was destroyed, as the system no longer functioned in a way that could sustain anything more meaningful than shells of what had been before.

Like optimistically, the Hunger starves before the Planar System does, and minimal casualties occur. But the Hunger has the energy of Many, Many, Many more planar systems, just like, in it. Because who knows how long it had been consuming these things before the crew showed up.

So really, the best case is that the planar system changes, and everything designed to function in the previous flow of the system dies, the Hunger dies, and eventually life that can function in this new, changed system comes into being after, I don’t know, another universe, that jives with the new flow, is made within the Prime Material Plane?

I feel like this is a case of preferring an semi-unknown to a clear known.

Because the crew has seen powerful artifacts, citing a 5 wizards out of 7 party. And they have a solid grasp on the power levels of the Light, citing both the time spent with it to build the Starblaster and the entirety of the Stolen Century. So it’s pretty clear what the consequences of supercharging some enchanted artifacts with the Light and dropping them on some unsuspecting planet will be.

Especially if these artifacts are 100% definitely going to be used due to Craveability.

They had to have seen, and likely fairly up close, the kind of damage that heavy-hitting magical artifacts plus the Light of Creation can do in the previous century, just not in the precise configuration of the artificing plan sets up.

Where as they haven’t ever actively cut off a Prime Material Plane from the rest of the system. Sure, they had spent years studying planar systems as members of the IPRE and they had the whole century to observe planar systems in many configurations. Enough to develop an incredibly solid hypothesis of what would happen, but they never really saw something similar in action.

But 6 out of the 7 members of the crew were able to see the possible consequence of “The whole planar system would slowly, painfully starve to death in literally every way possible,” and decided “yeah, fuck that,” save for Lucretia.

And I know we can get attached to our own ideas, but when you see violent wars versus the collapse of all of this planar system’s existence?

Like don’t get me wrong, the relics were pretty dang bad, but to not even trust the crew so far as to try to persuade an adjustment of the relic plan once the damage started getting truly awful?

Just jumping straight to, “I guess I should erase all of their memories of the people closest to them, and dropping them in a world where they now have LITERALLY no one”?

I digress on the memory thing, I did say I was gonna keep that out of this post, but seriously.

If she couldn’t trust the crew as her family to agree with her that the relics were bad, and maybe they should try something else because it was tearing their family apart as much as it was tearing apart the world down below; couldn’t she at least trust them (and herself) as a committee of literally All of Existence’s foremost experts on planar systems, the Light of Creation, and the Hunger, and if 6 out of 7 experts can conclude the catastrophic end of ta planar system from severing the bonds between its planes, maybe she should consider it too?

Like, they didn’t write her off out of spite or a lack of faith in her magic ability. They just said that they’d rather some wars ravage a particular plane until maybe they could find something better instead of initiating total planar collapse.

[gaarfielf]

i saw beauty and the beast today

Now, much like every movie I go to see in a theatre I missed the first 5 minutes of it. I wasn’t too discouraged by it in this case because I was like hey, not only do I miss the first 5 minutes of every movie I see, I’ve also seen the original Beauty and the Beast so I can surely figure it out as a go. This turned out to be a mistake but I didn’t realize this till the LAST five minutes.

To set the scene, me and my mom got to the movie just as Belle’s father was building this fucking... I don’t know I think it was a music box. We were climbing over the seats to get to the only empty chairs in the theatre so we were in and out of what was happening. Anyway, Gaston? Not nearly muscular enough. When I imagine a real Gaston I imagine a man that could genuinely obliterate me and my whole family with arm muscles that look like bowling balls vacuum sealed in human skin. The man who played him could’ve won the award for scrawniest human alive second to Betty Spaghetti.

Now you are probably wondering well surely the amazing visuals and cgi on top of a star-studded cast and a revamped soundtrack are what helped make the movie okay despite the lasagna noodle they had playing Gaston. My answer is, no, it didn’t help but it also didn’t hurt I guess. The first song we heard was that one where she sings about hating Gaston and the village and how she wants to run away. I can’t remember what its called. Anyway, the song was good but it was confusing visually because Belle like. She sang the first line of the song and managed to run 400 km from her house to sing the rest of it on a mountain that overlooked her village. I mean, it wasn’t a movie ruiner but goddamn I’d like to see Belle’s leg muscles after that fuckin trek like that had to have been a 3 hour journey. At least. AND she would’ve had to walk through the woods to get to the hill, the woods where she got attacked by wolves later in the film and the Beast got attacked by wolves and her father got attacked by wolves. I guess if I was a wolf and I saw a girl run by me that had leg muscles that could crush my stupid wolf head between her thighs like a watermelon I’d be like no fuck that I’ll wait for the next guy.

The soundtrack was peculiar in the sense that they took really good Disney songs, took really good singers, took really good visuals, and turned a minute long song into the longest fifteen minutes of my life. Like the original Be My Guest is objectively an ass-dropper but reasonably, a man can only make it clap so long before you brake him. Be My Guest was so fucking long. They added like fourteen verses. At some point I’m pretty sure Mrs. Potts winked and blew a filthy little teapot kiss at me and that was probably the point where I looked around the movie theatre and thought “Does nobody else notice this song is like. way fucking long. is anybody else starting to forget what their cherished family’s faces look like? Does anyone remember what daylight looked like?”.

Then they added NEW songs. I don’t remember the exact titles but I think they added “Paris of My Childhood”, “Never Leave Me”, and “Not the Same” (again I have no clue what they were actually called but either way) they were really good like they didn’t go on for too long, they segwayed nicely into scenes and they didn’t stick out like they weren’t supposed to be there. It was only when they added new verses to the original ones that you were like “hold up this song is going to go on ANOTHER minute??”. Gaston’s bar song went on forever too and it was littered with like latent homosexual undertones that were awkward. Not awkward because it was gay, it was awkward because it meant they had to pause mid-line to say “no homo” like explicitly tell us Gaston is not gay like really? damn. I really thought there for a sec that my man Gaston was a dick licker. A tip toucher. damn. big loss. So the gay character I was promised was indeed delivered albeit not very well, plus a second gay character. The second one didn’t have a name but after sitting in a theatre for 2 hours with the movie’s volume set to “deafening” and people laughing every time one of the Gays TM did anything it was a trivial thing.

And I normally don’t complain about outfits in a movie because I’m usually not bothered by it and I don’t usually notice it. But Belle wore what is possibly the ugliest fucking dress I’ve ever seen. Like original Belle was wearing that Classic TM blue dress, white apron thing etc.. The Belle in this movie was wearing like. Four different dresses with four different material/design sewn into one big franken-dress. I don’t remember Belle being homeless but I did miss the first five minutes which could have possibly explained to me why she was wearing the ye olde thrit store look.

Like every single Disney remake I wondered “what is different about this one versus the original” and I will tell you that the biggest difference is that when Belle’s father goes to the bar and tells Gaston to help him find Belle, rather than telling him to fuck off, goes with him and while they are looking for Belle, Gaston punches Belle’s dad in the face, ties him up, and leaves him to get eaten by wolves. Luckily (?) a lady that lives in the woods (?) saves him and takes him back into town where he is then thrown into an asylum cart as if his day couldn’t get any worse. Then later in the movie the same woman who lived in the woods goes to the palace, revives the rose and transforms the Beast back into a prince and then doesn’t appear ever again. As I mentioned before, seeing the first five minutes of the film probably would’ve helped me figure out who the lady was but I assume it was the lady that turned him into the Beast. The Beast mentions at some point he stole a rose and was transformed into a Beast so I guess he stole a rose (?) from the lady (?). I don’t know.

The final thing I will mention is the concerned black man in the background of like every scene where some social issue was happening. IE Belle is being told that because she is a woman she shouldn’t know how to read. The black man is then zoomed in on and he is vaguely shaking his head. IE Gaston tells the townsfolk they have to help him kill the Beast. The black man can be seen in the crowd with a furrowed brow. IE Everyone is leaving to storm the castle. The black man is clutching at a wall in fright. And you would think well it can’t be THAT noticeable. It is. He is literally the only black man in the film and they literally zoom in on him ten times even though he never speaks and doesn’t have a name. He just shakes his head, concerned.

Overall I give the film a 2/5 because like it was really pretty but if I had known half an hour of the two hour film was Be Our Guest I wouldn’ve stayed home.

[roamingmom]

Last week we took an impromptu trip through Spanish Wine Country.

Not only did we escape the kids for a few days, we were joined by our fave Canadian/Bahamian duo, Tim and Rebecca Tibbitts (T & B).

Aside from being some of the best humans I know. This pair happens to be a world-class Chef and Sommelier Team. They came to Spain for a work/play adventure and to shop for wine. As supportive friends, we felt obligated to help them with their research and to offer our poor translation abilities.

So, last Wednesday, I found myself (sipping cava) on the AVE Train bound to Valladolid (Capitol of Rueda), to meet my crew for an ass kicking few days of sipping grapes.

Rueda

This little Spanish D.O (Denominación Origin) is the best kept secret of Spanish Wine. There are only 60 Estates throughout the region. Few people visit this area. There is such little tourism….. the Bodega operators are actually surprised to see you.

Unlike popular Rioja there aren’t many hotel choices. We stayed at the Parador in Tordesillas. Not fancy. However, the old manor style villa was interesting and clean.

The Rueda D.O straddles León-Castile and is best known for the Verdejo variety of wine. Verdejo wines are dry, fruity, and light to medium bodied…a great choice for a warm patio afternoon. Other notable whites are: Viura and Sauvignon Blanc. 

Much lesser common reds are: Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Garnacha.

We even stumbled upon a Bodega, Palacio de Bornos, which produced a high quality traditional method (champagne) sparkling wine. The Brut Nature is 100% Verdejo and bottled for 3 years. Delicious and a great buy.

Ribera del Duero

From Rueda, we made treks (145 Km) to Ribera del Duero. Located in the northern plateau of Spain, the landscape here is rather boring compared to neighboring majestic Rioja. Yet, don’t be fooled. This D.O produces some fabulous wines that give the more celebrated Rioja some serious competition.

There are roughly 300 estates in Ribera del Duero. The highest concentration being in Peñafiel. The D.O here requires that 75 percent of the vines be Tempranillo and the majority of the region exclusively bottle Reds.

The other grape varieties are: Cabernet Sauvignon, Garnacha, Pinot Noir. 

*Albillo – the only white

Categories are similar to Rioja:

Crianza – Aged  2 years, with at least 12 months in oak.

Reserva – Aged 3 years, with at least 12 months in oak.

Gran Reserva – Aged 5 years (min.), with at least 24 months in oak.

On a whim, we stopped at Bodegas Resalte de Peñafiel after recognizing the name. We literally rang the doorbell and cold called for a tasting. Fortunately, they happily accommodated us. We thanked them by buying some wine.

We stayed just outside the capitol (Arando de Duero) at the Hotel Torremilanos. The boutique hotel resembles a French Style Chateau and has recently been completely refurbished. The striking hotel is situated on a family owned winery. One of the proprietors, Juan Pablo, treated us to a private tour and a great array of tastings. Great experience – super service!

Touring Torremilanos with the proprietor, Juan Pablo

Bigger is often better.

  Rioja

A short drive the next day took us to Rioja. The first night we stayed in Santo Domingo de la Calzada. The Parador Hotel (Parador de Santo Domingo de la Calzada), occupies a 12th Century Hospital that took in the pilgrims traveling the famed: “El Camino de Santiago“, or the “Way of St. James.”  The Hotel is in the heart of the ancient village beside the cathedral.

T & B had a contact for a local Cellar Master in La Guardia. After a few lost in translation moments we found the Master himself, Basilio Izquierdo, at his small Bodega in La Guardia, Rioja.

Master is actually an understatement. As it turns out, Basilio is a Spanish wine making legend. He is also one of the most charming and likable characters I’ve come across. He regaled us with wine tales in Spanish and French as we tasted many barrels and a few precious bottles he held aside. Our tour ended, but our time carried on through lunch in the village.

Basilio rocked up to Los Parajes, a fabulous local spot, with his personal stock in hand. Clearly, well-known to the staff, we were given the royal treatment. Los Parajes did not disappoint for food, service and ambience. The building was complete with a 16th Century Wine Cellar and Tapas Bar.

Basilio Izquierdo, Cellar Master

16th Century Wine and Tapas Bar

The next day consisted of more exploration of Rioja and a cross-over into Basque country where we stayed in Elciego, the home of Bodegas Marqués de Riscal.

Rioja wines are controlled by the Denominación de Origen Calificada (D.O.Ca).

The Red varieties of Rioja are: Tempranillo (60%), Garnacha Tinta (20%), Graciano & Mazuela usually make up the rest.

The White varieties of Rioja are: Viura (prominent), Garnacha Blanca (adds body) and Malvasía (adds aroma).

Rioja is a magical part of Spain. Ancient wineries line the narrow picturesque streets. The old villages are layered with stone houses and cobbled roads. The backdrop is an interesting mix of lush Mediterranean forest, generous mountains and lunar-esque areas. It’s also a stark contrast between old and new. Many modern buildings and massive-scale wineries are now part of the scenery. None being more pronounced than the hotel at Marqués de Riscal, designed by Canadian Architect, Frank Gehry.

The Hotel is a sharp contrast to the native landscape. This unique property embodies and celebrates the colors and hues of the local wines and the gastronomic history of the region. The winery is a massive-scale production and lacks the intimacy and heart of the smaller vineyards. However, the hotel gets it right. The decor, comfort, and service are spot on. The well deserved Michelin starred restaurant on the property is also spectacular!

T & B chillaxed in the Spa.

Finally, it was time to start home. We veered south to drive 450 Km to Tarragona and stay at Le Méridien Ra. It was a quick pit stop and a welcome sea break on the Med.  It was also supposed to be our “break” from wine. However, they welcomed us on arrival with Cava…Oops. Then we found Brockmans Gin at the bar. …Oops again…

El Priorat

The reason for our massive detour to the east coast of Spain was for a final night in Priorat.

Priorat is a high-end, up-and-coming wine area. Governed by the D.O.Q. (Denominació D’origen Qualificada). If you’re wondering why that sounds like odd Spanish….welcome to Catalan country.

Only an hour and a half south of BCN, this is an accessible region of Spanish wine country. Priorat has steep sloping terraces and a much different terrain to the wineries in the north. The region grows:

39% Garnacha

27% Cariñena

14% Cabernet Sauvignon

12% Syrah

6% Merlot

We visited Cellar Perinet, where we were fortunate enough to have another hook up.

The family and friends rate got us VIP treatment and a behind the scenes look at this fascinating property. Perinet is new to the wine scene and Wow! They are currently barreling some great product. They also have a state-of-the-art facility with an amazing team. Definitely one to stay tuned for.

Our final hurrah was at Trossos del Priorat, a tiny (7 room) boutique Hotel/Winery buried into the side of a hill. The Hotel was kind enough to let us take over the kitchen. So, we declined their tour, drank our Perinet and watched Chef Tim iron chef food brought in specially from Barcelona.

From Start to finish, it was an amazing 5 Days of Wine and an epic road trip. The final drive home (1000 km) to Andalusia even seemed painless. T & B bought some great wines for Flying Fish Bahamas.

We all had a super time catching up and likely drank a barrel of wine in the process.

  Have you been to Rueda, Ribera del Duero, Rioja, Priorat?

Would you like to go?

Hit me up and I’ll help point you in the right direction. ¡Salud!

x

5 Dias de Vino Español – 5 days of Spanish Wine. Last week we took an impromptu trip through Spanish Wine Country. Not only did we escape the kids for a few days, we were joined by our fave Canadian/Bahamian duo, …

[worldupdatereviews2017-blog]

2017 Honda Civic Kind R Sets International Record at the Nurburgring

New Post has been published on https://worldupdatereviews.com/2017-honda-civic-kind-r-sets-international-record-at-the-nurburgring/

2017 Honda Civic Kind R Sets International Record at the Nurburgring

Honda has stored exactly on its promise to slay the Nürburgring with its new warm hatch. The 2017 Honda Civic Type R clocked a time of seven minutes, 43.80 seconds at the Nordschleife, setting a brand new Record for a the front-wheel-force manufacturing automobile.

Honda Civic

The time represents a massive improvement over the Volkswagen Golfing GTI Clubsport S, which lapped the Nürburgring in a Document-breaking 7 minutes, 49.21 seconds a final year. The brand new Civic Kind R is also around 7 seconds faster than the previous-generation version.

Ryuichi Kojima, the lead chassis engineer for the kind R, defined a few key changes Honda made to the new edition to reap a better lap time. “The cornering pace finished in the new Kind R is higher because of the auto functions a much wider music and tires, a longer wheelbase, a brand new multi-link suspension within the rear and optimized aerodynamics that improve stability,” Kojima stated at a press launch.

“For instance, drivers typically enter the nook after Metzgesfeld at around one hundred fifty km/h (93 mph). Even at this medium-pace corner, the rate is around 10 km/h (6 mph) higher due to The brand new Type R’s fantastic balance. So, with progressed cornering overall performance, we will growth the rate throughout the lap, supporting The brand new Kind R to obtain a far quicker lap time.”

The enduring, Hairdresser Friendly: 2006 Honda Civic Coupe Honda does now not do an amazing process with its idea motors. No, they are no longer layout failures – as an alternative, they typically aren’t without a doubt concepts.

Whilst Honda displays a concept car at an auto display, visitors need to ask Honda display representatives if the automobile they’re seeing will be constructed. Likely, the solution is sure as the automobile you are looking at might also already been green-lighted for manufacturing.

Toyota India

On the 2011 North American Worldwide automobile display in Detroit, Honda revealed one such “idea” automobile – the Honda Civic. Calling it a concept isn’t accurate – this version resembles the 2012 Honda Civic right all the way down to the wheel wells.

However first, a few Honda Civic records. This version was delivered as a subcompact to America marketplace in the early 1970s, the primary Honda passenger car sold in The USA. Always famous, the Honda Civic is a perennial top-5 promoting car for Honda, rivaling the Honda Accord in income and competing at once against the Toyota Corolla.

More potent Opposition

Large these days and now offered as a compact, the Civic is facing renewed Competition from American and Asian automakers alike. typically, the Civic is completely redesigned once each four or five years, But this cutting-edge technology version is striking round for a 6th 12 months. Credit Honda for contemplating what its competition are imparting, motors inclusive of the Chevrolet Cruze, Ford Recognition and Hyundai Elantra which have leapfrogged the Civic in generation and gas performance.

On display At the NAIAS are conceptual versions of the 9th technology Honda Civic coupe and sedan. This car keeps plenty of the Civic layout logic, But it also brings again a hybrid version. That hybrid could be powered by way of a lithium-ion battery, allowing the Civic to say a number of the highest fuel performance of any preferred hybrid.

Layout Language

From the exterior, the Civic principles famous the sedan’s and coupe’s smooth, but putting strains with steeply raked windshields, huge posture, and major man or woman strain along the aspect view. That lower character line on both automobiles widens in the direction of the rear fenders to deepen the energetic impact of ahead strength. In different phrases, the car looks to be ready to transport When it’s miles sitting nevertheless. Credit the Civic’s deeply recessed headlamps for adding to that mystique.

Internal, Honda guarantees to preserve the fit and end and ease of use cabin format that has long been a selling point for the Civic. Though the outside exhibits the direction for the 2012 Civic, Honda has held lower back on what the cabin will appear to be in addition to what they’ll be doing under the hood.

The most important undertaking for Honda is responding to what its competition are doing: presenting one or extra fashions capable of accomplishing 40 mpg on the dual carriageway, something which eludes the Civic. Certainly, the Hyundai Elantra threw the gauntlet down While its 2011 model was released – each manual and automated variations get 29 mpg city, forty mpg highway – a great deal higher than the Civic. The Cruze, too, has an ECO version which betters the Civic, getting 42 mpg on the motorway.

Don’t count on Honda to roll over and play lifeless – the Japanese automaker is retaining some things close to the vest and may wonder us later in 2011 While the 2012 Honda Civic debuts. What won’t be a surprise is the car’s outside which is currently being showcased at car shows throughout North America, representing the 9th technology compact Honda Civic coupe and sedan.

The long-lasting, Hairdresser Pleasant: 2006 Honda Civic Coupe Remodeling an icon is never clean. However, the designers and engineers at Honda have performed a superb task of preserving alive the spirit of Soichiro Honda with the 2006 Honda Civic coupe. When Honda first entered the Yankee marketplace in 1962, they synthetic bikes, however, the manufacturer expanded to automobiles via introducing smooth, budget friendly, and dependable motors. In 1963, Honda spent $350,000 on two ninety-2d advertisements that regarded on the Academy Awards. The ads, Even though deceptively easy from longtime ad business enterprise Rubin Postaer and Buddies, claimed: “You meet the nicest humans on a Honda.” Inside months, the enterprise offered tens of millions of dollars in bikes, However it turned into no longer until the advent of the 1973 Honda Civic did the company obtain its first car step forward. the American made 2006 Civic is fashionable, speedy, secure, and fuel efficient automobile averaging forty mpg (fifty-one mpg for the Hybrid) that happily maintains with a way of life. Winner of Motor Trend magazine’s 2006 vehicle of the yr, the 2006 Civic gives a challenge to the Toyota Prius, as Honda’s icon reborn.

In case you stroll around the 2006 Civic coupe’s exterior, you can’t assist But be aware the aerodynamically sculpted the front nostril that resembles a menacing bullet teach at pace, pointers at where the soul of this vehicle is at. (the automobile is powered by using a clearly aspirated 1.8-liter i-VTEC engine.) The fantastically contoured rear lights are huge and arch inwards into the trunk, suggesting an approachable, Friendly disposition. Step in the cabin and the ergonomically designed indoors lives as much as the hype with stylized, center established, backlit RPM dials. The seats are company and without delay make you sense comfy as a rogue navigator thinking of his or her subsequent flow. The sum purpose of the 2006 Civic coupe is to beautify riding to the fullest, permitting you to keep your eyes on the road, arms at the wheel and foot on the fuel.

At the coronary heart of 2006, Honda Civic coupe is its top notch one hundred forty-horsepower i-VTEC engine that comes trendy in all Civic DX, LX and EX fashions. Honda’s racing heritage is vociferously felt in an i-VTEC generation that gives you extra efficient acceleration throughout the complete RPM bandwidth, whilst achieving an EPA predicted fuel economic system of forty miles consistent with a gallon. However, the most sensible 2006 Civic is the Hybrid, able to accomplishing forty-nine mpg within the city, and fifty-one mpg at the highway without spoiling any of the laughs. The Civic showcase is the Si, providing the performance envelope of 197 horses from an obviously aspired 2.0-liter engine. The Si is simplest to be had in a 6-speed manual, with restrained slip differential, and a reduced suspension.

Acceleration is most effective half the conflict in contemporary nanosecond International. How the car brakes, corners, and prevents are also equally crucial. As an end result, the 2006 Honda Civic coupe is also massive on protection. All new Civic models characteristic facet curtain airbags, the front side airbags, advanced compatibility engineering(TM) and body shape reinforcement – to redirect energy across the passenger compartment in case of a coincidence. For energetic protection, an automatic seatbelt tensioning machine is in region to soundly preserve all occupants in case of collision, and the anti-lock, 4-wheel disk brakes (ABS) will enable you to keep steering control for the duration of difficult stops as the Electronic Brake Distribution (EBD) will even out braking forces at each wheel. With such a various dedication to protection, the 2006 Honda Civic has earned the 5-Superstar Crash Check score from the Countrywide toll road Site visitors safety Management.