A trio of junkers gang up against a station wagon, the kind with the wood paneling. They take turns smashing it head-on and crashing its sides, until the crumpled metal heap is pinned against a dirt wall.
Some local guys nose-dive their cars from a makeshift ramp into a dead man’s limo, and a hair stylist blithely walks away from her burning Oldsmobile. An engineering student turns to the dairy aisle for an auto repair trick that he calls “egg drop soup.”
All in all, it’s the perfect setting, one man decides, to propose to his girlfriend.
Once a month through the summer, thousands come to rural northern Baltimore County and gather round a pit about half the size of a football field for the Arcadia Volunteer Fire Company Demolition Derby.
Families spread out picnic blankets and line up for face-painting and french fries, while motor-heads lounge in the beds of pickup trucks, emptying beer coolers as they enjoy the destruction.
Each Saturday spectacle - the next is today - is like a gladiator battle on wheels.
Burning rubber perfumes the air. Heavy metal guitar and country tunes scratch over the sound system - at least when the announcer isn’t praising a pile-up or pondering the role of back tires: “Who needs ‘em? Number 59’s doing just fine without ‘em. Oh yeah!”
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From "Say Anything ...." to "Almost Famous," Cameron Crowe has made his name with movies that strike the right tone -- a bittersweet balance that's funny, melancholy, romantic and observant. It's one his idol, Billy Wilder, perfected decades ago.
Which is what makes "Elizabethtown" so curious, and such a disappointment.
In telling the story of a young man who returns to his small-town Kentucky roots after his father's death, it's as if writer-director Crowe wanted to make several movies but couldn't decide among them, so he just made them all, then trimmed for time.
Characters say and do things real people don't say
TENS of thousands of Chinese tourists are travelling to Germany to drive powerful cars at up to 150mph on the autobahns, despite fears by road safety groups that the trend will end in disaster.
Steering a BMW, Mercedes or Audi at high speeds on Germany’s motorways is the new highlight of specially tailored holidays for wealthy Chinese.
Tour operators insist that they teach their clients the finer points of western motoring etiquette before letting them loose on the estimated 5,000 out of 7,500 miles of autobahns that do not have speed limits.
The tourists are given booklets that explain the
Aldrich "Shim" Smith Forrest and Margaret Freeman Forrest observed their 69th wedding anniversary July 15. They were married in 1936 in Emporia, Va..
Both Poquoson natives, they grew up when it was a small fishing village of about 1,200 with ruts instead of roads, when travel was done on the water, doors were not locked at night and neighbors were there for each other. They remember when rules on dating and decorum were strict and social life centered around church and school.
With no movie theaters, television or cars, young people met at each other's homes for musical evenings and board games.
Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake's romance is reportedly on the rocks after a blazing row in a Los Angeles nightclub.
Onlookers claim the star couple ended up arguing during a night out at the trendy Spider Club earlier this month when Justin flirted with a "curvy blonde".
Stunning Cameron was said to be so upset she left the club in tears - alone. America's In Touch magazine reports: "The argument got so nasty that Cameron and Justin ended up leaving in separate cars."
However, the hunky singer's spokesman has denied the alleged row.
Cameron and Justin have always had a rocky relationship, which was
Dear Michael: My boyfriend is convinced he is great in bed and that he is the best lover I have ever had. The problem is that while he is extremely talented at the technical process of physically giving me an orgasm, he never does anything else.
When we decide to have sex (about once every two or three weeks, which is not nearly enough for me), we either just have intercourse without foreplay and no climax for me or he gives me an orgasm through manual stimulation.
It's all very clinical, not at all sexy. He doesn't even want to