Crappy Album Covers #250 — Triple Love

Today, we have a triple bill, kiddies! That is, instead of the usual two albums, this post will show three albums.

Designers for the album “Rome With Love” put in all the things that would be cliche these days (and was likely cliche then also): a Vespa Lambretta scooter, and cargo in the form of shopping things and an attractive lady wearing capri pants.

Same scooter, different guy and girl. “Berlin With Love” gives the impression to people who have never been there that Berlin is nothing more than Rome in disguise. Except that there are one or two visual cues that give a sense of Deutschland. The lady holding a beer stein, for one; an open advocacy of drinking and driving.

Hey, to heck with German engineering! Everyone knows that Italian Vespas are better! Capri pants too!

Hey… do you notice that each time Jo Basile makes another album “with Love”, there is a different guy and girl, and the Vespa seems more crowded than before? This time, there is more of a sense of formula. The Vespa, the national garb, the shopping things which are more noticeably culture-specific, but no capri pants this time.

There are others, many others… Here is another cover “From Rio with Love”, for example.

Joss Baselli (1926-1982) was born to Italian parents who emigrated to France. He is a virtuoso accordionist who plays under the pseudonym Jo Basile.  This formulaic approach lasted for 24 of his 40 or so albums. He has worked in TV and movies, and has recorded with the likes of Dick Hyman, Bobby Rosengarden, and Phil Kraus.

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Mileage on my moped

I refuse to engage in the trend for “hypermiling”. I found a way that beats all of my attempts to squeeze even more mileage out of my BMW: Don’t drive the car. For $1200 I got a used moped, and I expect it to pay for itself within 4 months.

On this moped, I have travelled about 160 km (100 mi) and have used up 3.34L of gasoline (0.8826 gallons). My mileage is thus around 113.3 miles per gallon. In metric, that is 2.09 liters per 100 km. In human terms, that means I can go about 213 kilometers on a tank of gas. The 4.47 L tank costs about $6 to fill with the cheap gas, and about $6.60 to fill with the high-grade fuel. Since the cost is trivial, I always use high-grade fuel. Compare this with my BMW: It costs $95 to fill it with cheap gas, and its mileage hovers around 17 miles per gallon.

My moped. Notice

The specs on a website I visited for this bike says that with the reserve tank, it can hold 1.18 gallons of gas (about 4.47 L).

It is a Tomos LX moped, from 2006. And, while my bike does not say “Targa” on it, I have seen identical bikes from American websites and they say “Targa” over the gas tank, while mine says “Tomos”. I am given the impression that the 49 cc engine is standard on all mopeds. My moped had been fitted with an upgraded muffler, but it does not have any adjustments made to the governor. So, my top speed on this bike with me riding on it (I weigh 220 pounds) on level ground would be about 60 km/h (about 38 mi/h).

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