slowcatchupkuan

I was on top of the Bejeweled throne for a few minutes. I had the highest score at 131, 700. Look!

That’s until the stupid system decide to have a glitch and suddenly my score doesn’t count anymore. I was back at 80k ++ score. That’s cheating! No fair! I’m back at 139, 850 now, on the third place. I can’t believe i can’t beat those bimbos. My intelligence is at stake here. Wtf.

Ps// Please don’t be offended if i call you bimbo. I’m just jealous that you’re better than me. If there’s any consolation, the fact that i’m playing this stupid game means that i’m no better than you and just like you i don’t have a life.

Ok, let’s take a break from that pathetic game. I promise it’s going to be very interesting.

Last night we were discussing about Michael Jackson (i still can’t get over MJ’s death and i cried during Brooke Shield’s speech at the memorial) and other legends or icons of the decades like Elvis Presley, Beatles, Bee Gees and John Lennon. Then James Dean came into mind.

You know James Dean right?

No? Ok, i  don’t blame you coz he was from way back in 50’s.  I wasn’t even borned but i recall watching one of his classic movie on tele when i was a kid. My memory is a little fuzzy but i swear it was “Rebel Without a Cause“. For some reason i remember very clearly the red jacket he was wearing in the show.

I knew nothing of James Dean back then except for how hot he was. I have a thing for rebellious guys and he was the ultimate rebel and the essence of cool back then. I had no idea he died at such a young age of 24, it was a real shame and that he died of a car crash. I had no idea he was driving a Porsche 550 Spyder named “Little Bastard”. Little Bastard, what a name!

I did some reading about his death and “Little Bastard”  and i thought i would post some of the interesting facts here. I had goose bumps reading about the mysteriously cursed “Little Bastard” that killed James Dean.

• Dean purchased a Lotus Mk. X, but it couldn’t be delivered in time for an upcoming race in Salinas so he acquired the Porsche 550 Spyder during filming of Rebel Without a Cause instead.

• Dean hired legendary car customizer George Barris (he designed of the Batmobile for the 60’s era Batman TV show) that later painted racing number 130 on the front, sides and back with red racing stripes and the name Little Bastard on the back.

• Friends of the actor - including Barris, Eartha Kitt and Dean’s former girlfriend Ursula Andress - said that they felt that the vehicle had a malevolent presence about it. “James, I don’t like this car; it’s going to kill you,” Kitt is reported to have said to Dean while the two were out for a drive the week before Dean’s crash.
• Actor Alec Guinness (newly acquainted with Dean) upon seeing the car stated that the car was sinister, and said that if Dean got in it, he would be dead within the week.

• Prior to his death, he gave away a kitten that Liz Taylor gave to him on the set of Giant as if he had sensed he would not be back saying “some day I may go out and not come back.”

• While filming a commercial for the National Safety Council, Dean changed the words of the script from “Please Drive Safely. The life you save may your own,” to “The life you save may be mine.”

• Anticipated the road race the next day, Dean and his entourage consisting of his mechanic Rolf Wütherich and stunt driver Bill Hickman hauled Little Bastard behind a station wagon to the race. Dean with Wütherich by his side decided to drive the car instead to familiarize himself with it where he received tickets that day for going 10 miles over the speed limit.
• Hickman cautioned Dean and said that Dean’s silver Porsche was difficult to see, thanks to its low profile and silver color.
• College student, Donald Turnupseed driving a 1950 black and white Ford Tudor cut across his path and failed to see Dean causing a collision.
• Wütherich was thrown from the automobile, and suffered a broken jaw and leg but survived. Turnupseed  survived too but Dean remained trapped in the vehicle, which was crushed like a piece of used tinfoil was pronounced dead.
• Ironically Wütherich who suffered from mental illness after Dean’s accident died in a car crash in Germany many years later after several suicide attempts.
• Barris bought for wreckage with the intent of parting it out. As soon as the vehicle was delivered to Barris’ garage, it slipped off its trailer and broke a mechanic’s leg.
• Barris sold the engine to Troy McHenry and the drive train to William Eschrid. While racing at the Pomona fairgrounds, McHenry was killed when his vehicle spun out of control and crashed into a tree. Eschrid’s race car rolled several times while taking a curve, seriously injuring him. He later said that the vehicle ‘just locked up’ on him.
• Two tires that Barris sold malfunctioned simultaneously, causing the car they were on to go off the road.
• A young man who was attempting to steal the steering wheel had his arm gashed open on a piece of jagged metal.
• Another man was hurt while trying to steal one of the bloodstained seats.
• The California Highway Patrol persuaded Barris to loan them the car for a traveling exhibition.  The remains of Little Bastard were taken to a garage in Fresno, and stored there. Then, in March 1959, a fire broke out in the garage whch incinerated everything except for the Little Bastard.

• At a display at Sacramento High School on the anniversary of Dean’s accident, the bolts holding the car in place snapped. The car plowed off its display and broke the hip of a fifteen-year-old boy.
• En route to Salinas, the truck hauling the vehicle lost control, causing the driver to fall out of the cab. Although the fall from the vehicle didn’t kill him, the Porsche fell off the truck bed and landed on top of him, ending his life.
• Reportedly, while being displayed in New Orleans, the wreckage spontaneously broke apart in five separate pieces.
• The car came off of a truck two other times. Once while on a freeway, and a second time in Oregon.

• After the car tour ended, Barris had the vehicle loaded onto a box car in Florida and sealed shut to be transported via train back to California. When the train arrived in L.A., the seal was still intact, yet the car had vanished, and has not been seen since.

If i counted right, Little Bastard had directly and indirectly killed 4 and injured 6. Creepy or what? Despite so many warning Dean still went ahead and drove the car.

When i asked Mr. Bf and another male friend of mine, they would do the same just because it was a Porsche Spyder. What’s up with men and cars? If it happens that the car appeared again, would you be willing to give it a spin?

Oh well, I bet someone did a switched and the car is stashed in a garage somewhere but if it was up to me i hope the car will never be found.

Read more about it at:

http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/little-bastard-the-silver-spyder/

http://firefox.org/news/articles/1435/1/James-Dean-and-the-curse-of-the-Little-Bastard/Page1.html

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/07/03/video-tragic-irony-vintage-james-dean-driving-safety-video