I should probably stop looking at German car magazines...

The forthcoming Audi A7 (autobild.de)
The forthcoming BMW CS

And the new BMW 5-Series

If I were to ever win the lottery, I don't think there would be a garage big enough to accomodate all of the cars I would like to have.

I used to like NASCAR....

This is a 2010 Ford Mustang.

NASCAR would like you to believe that THIS is a 2010 Ford Mustang. But it is not.

First, we get the pointless-as-tits-on-a-boar "Chase" "playoff" scheme.

Then we get the abomination that is the "Car of Tomorrow".

Then they give us this "Mustang," apparently, sadly, with Ford's blessing.

It's not as if we needed any more evidence that NASCAR has become a gigantic stinking dungheap.

Witness the hatchet job that NASCAR did in trying to get the Mustang compliant with the "Car of Tomorrow" template to be used in the minor-league Nationwide Series, starting in 2010. The last I checked, the new Mustang didn't have a trunk. But that's not what NASCAR would have you believe. Toyota and Chevrolet haven't been done any favors by the new Nationwide rules either.

Ford and Mustang fans should be marching with pitchforks and torches on NASCAR's Daytona Beach headquarters.

Chevy fans should be thankful that GM didn't let NASCAR butcher the awesome new Camaro in a similar fashion. Their reasoning here, as told by GM Racing Director Mark Kent to autoextremist.com (emphasis mine):

"We've looked at racing the Camaro, and one thing that we do not want to do is to force a car where it shouldn't be. As we looked at NASCAR, for example, we took a very hard look at running the Camaro in the Nationwide Series. That was a request made of us by NASCAR. We've had a tremendous partnership with NASCAR, so we took a very hard look at it. At the end of the day, because of the quest for very close competition and the need to have templated bodies in that series, we just felt that by forcing the Camaro into the Nationwide templates, we were compromising the lines of an iconic car. At the end of the day, we could not get the Camaro in the Nationwide Series to satisfy our requirements."

It's hard to tell what value, if any, the automakers are supposed to derive from NASCAR participation anymore. The automakers are third-class citizens behind the drivers and sponsors. The cars bear no resemblance, either inward or outward, to the cars that we can buy in showrooms. When was the last time you could buy a new car with a carburetor?

They make very nice Christmas lights in Ingolstadt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjkJCDCxDys

The War On Christmas...Where Do I Sign Up?

On October 11, I went to the Meijer store in Defiance, and what did I see?

Christmas decorations.

Yes, Christmas decorations. On October 11th.

OCTOBER!!!!

Almost 3 full weeks before HALLOWEEN, for crying out loud. Never mind that one could have bought any of this stuff for half price last December 26.

What's next, tinsel on Labor Day? Reindeer on the 4th of July?

Enough already. You shouldn't be able to buy Yuletide bric-a-brac anywhere outside of Frankenmuth, MI before Thanksgiving.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE Christmas. A lot. I enjoy giving and receiving gifts. I (grudgingly and in a dilatory fashion) send Christmas cards. I like all the baked goods. I don't even mind going to church at unusual hours for Christmas Mass.

But I'm not ready for any of it in f---ing October.

I'm reminded of a "Sesame Street" skit where the characters pondered what life would be like if it were Christmas every day. The first couple of days were pretty cool. Then the garbage started to pile up. The mail wasn't getting delivered. No work was getting done. Most importantly, Christmas lost its special qualities. I feel like we're at that point. The relentless, inexorable expansion of the "holiday shopping season" erodes the meaning of the winter holidays.

I'd like to get through Halloween. Halloween's not my thing, but I've got no beef with those who enjoy it.

I'd like to give Thanksgiving its due. It's about having a nice meal and spending time with friends and family - not a religious/commercial extravaganza. Shouldn't we be allowed to enjoy that before turning our attention to Christmas?

A "War on Christmas"? No. I've got no use for those who complain about multi-religious holiday displays on public property or kvetch about store clerks who don't say "Merry Christmas."
It's time for a different sort of War on Christmas. It's time to send a message to the retailers - we're sick of the expansion of the holiday shopping season.

DON'T BUY ANY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS BEFORE THANKSGIVING!!!

11/1

Municipal elections today in one of my favorite cities, Montreal. Follow the results here:

http://election-montreal.qc.ca/actualites/detail/Election-Montreal-Actualite-20091030-2.en.html

Good Night from Loose Field. Drive Safely!

Golden is Thy Tate...A weekend at Notre Dame 9/19/09

Me, Paul, Katrin, Jim, Renata, & Mark

Paul & Katrin are smiling....but not as much as when they saw me coming up the stadium steps.

Notre Dame's Golden Tate (from MSNBC Sports)

Lucas County Arena - Open House

Images from the Open House for the new Lucas County Arena, the home of the ECHL's Toledo Walleye:

Spike, the mascot

Lots of neat stuff in the team shop.

Montreal, on further review

1. I saw enough of Montreal to convince me that I need to return. I left enough tourist-guide recommendations on the table to justify another visit. Plus, I want to see a hockey game next time around. Like Rick Steves says - always assume you'll return.

2. It takes far greater talent than I have as a traveler, to find a bad meal in Montreal. I want to check out the poutine and spruce beer place on rue Charlevoix that Samantha Brown visited, and render a verdict on the Fairmount-vs.-St. Viateur bagel debate. I HIGHLY recommend m:brgr. http://www.mbrgr.com/

3. The people in charge of Amtrak need to go to Canada, ride the train, and take notes.

4. I believe the bilingual style of the Montreal Impact PA announcer is worth emulating.

5. Montreal - France with training wheels. I did my best to stick with French, but enough people are bilingual, that I could have gotten along fairly well without it. I was able to order food en francais, and get what I thought I ordered. A girl is cute when she greets with "Bonjour-Hi!", but it simply doesn't work when a guy says it. There's just no way to make it sound manly.

Why Am I Laughing? Read This!

I want to put in a plug for my friend Jim Knaus's new book, Why Are You Laughing?, a collection of humorous anecdotes and wisdom from his adventures in financial planning.

You can buy it here:

http://www.authorhouse.com/bookstore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=59786

The $44 Steak Salad, or What Happens When A Man's Stomach and Penis Gang Up on His Brain

On the TV show Northern Exposure, one of the minor characters, Maurice Minnifield, once pronounced that "The man is a simple creature, governed by two things - his stomach, and his penis." (or something like that)

Oh, how that's true.

I've just returned from a vacation in Montreal, one of the great food cities in North America. The most enjoyable of the eateries I sampled was m:brgr, an upscale burger joint owned by the proprietors of the highly-regarded Moishe's steak house. (website here: http://www.mbrgr.com/english.html) It was a short walk from my hotel, and it was a bit expensive, but worth it.

I first sampled m:brgr on a Sunday evening. I got a burger with grilled pineapple, grilled mushrooms, and blue cheese. Since it was the special of the day, the fries were free. I washed it all down with Boreale Blonde beer. Quite tasty.

My last night in Montreal, I decided to patronize m:brgr again. This time, with a simple plan: to try their smoked-meat poutine, a potentially delightful combination of two Montreal delicacies, smoked meat (think corned beef), and poutine (a combo of french fries, cheese curds and a beef(?) gravy).

My theory worked as follows:

Smoked Meat = Good

Poutine = Good, therefore:

Smoked Meat + Poutine = Double Plus Good

It was only potentially delightful, because I never got to try it and find out for sure.

I hadn't counted on Nathanielle, a lovely femme Quebecoise, being my server that evening. After briefly explaining the intricacies of the menu, Nathanielle mentioned that the special that evening was a steak salad (that was not on the menu) with truffles and a fried egg (this is where my stomach comes in). Which actually sounded quite good, considering that I had gorged myself on a smoked meat sandwich earlier in the day. Vegetable intake seemed like a good idea.

I was also overcome by the friendliness and beauty of my server (here's where the penis comes in) and felt an urge to impress by ordering something as decidedly sophisticated as a steak salad with truffles.

So, ignoring my internally-stated mission, I ordered the steak salad.

Cost of the steak salad with a pint of beer: $44, with tip

Cost of the poutine avec viande fumee: $10.

You know what stinks? I didn't even get her phone number.

New Soccer Gear

Manchester United's new jersey. Looks nice, but is it safe yet to wear anything with a big AIG logo on it?
Hertha Berlin away (l) and home(r). Like the away one better.

Wolfsburg has switched to adidas from Nike.

St. Pauli revealed these nifty designs.

The sharp new Hamburg SV jersey from adidas.

Brondby of Denmark introduced new blue away jerseys for this season

Werder Bremen switched from Kappa to Nike gear. The white jersey on the left looks best.

All pictures from footballshirtculture.com

What I'm doing on my summer "vacation"

Hey! I haven't spent much time here lately.

I'm not technically "on vacation" (yet). But I am enjoying the lighter non-tax-season schedule.

I've been to 8 minor-league baseball games in 3 different ballparks (Toledo, Fort Wayne, and Columbus). I will be attending 5 or so Columbus Crew games. I'll be doing track photographer duties at 7 different county fairs this summer. My cousin Nick is getting married next weekend.

As to vacation, I'll be spending a few days in Montreal in the first part of August. I'm looking forward to it - it's my first extended vacation since the 2007 Germany trip. Before I leave, I'll be taking in a Tigers game in Detroit with my friend Dave Kelly & his family.

Don't ask which movies I've seen lately. I'm stuck in a pop-culture death spiral - I don't think any current movies are worth the $12 to see them in theaters. When you don't go to movies in the theater, you don't see the previews for movies you might find worthwhile. And on and on and on.....

Take care.

When people stop being polite...

Here's a hilarious blog about the filming of the upcoming season of MTV's Real World in Washington, DC, written by folks who live in the neighborhood near the Real World house:

http://antirealworlddc.blogspot.com/

Ganz Schleswig-Holstein traumt von Liga 3!

Holstein Kiel celebrates their Regionalliga Nord championship. They will play next year in the German 3.Liga.

Which of these belong in my closet?

Toledo has a new hockey team this coming season, the Walleye. I'm trying to decide which of their 3 jerseys I should buy. Here's the black alternate jersey, my favorite.
Here's the blue (away?) jersey.

Here's the white (home?) jersey.

I always knew the Germans had good taste in cars...

It appears that the German car magazine Motor Klassik has discovered the pleasures of my first car, the mid-80's Chevy Monte Carlo SS:

http://www.motor-klassik.de/auto_U_technik/fahrberichte/hxcms_article_505417_14702.hbs

Random bits of stuff....

Items that maybe I only care about:

Here's a nice article from Terry Pluto about John Carroll's (nationally-ranked) basketball team in today's Plain Dealer:

http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/blog/index.ssf/2009/02/john_carrolls_mike_moran_keeps.html

The USL-2 champion Cleveland City Stars have posted their 2009 schedule here:

http://www.clevelandcitystars.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=280&Itemid=107

It appears that they still have not settled on a location for their home games - internet sources of dubious reliability have mentioned John Carroll and Baldwin-Wallace as possible home fields.

And the Columbus Crew have posted their 2009 schedule here:

http://web.mlsnet.com/schedule/scoreboard/season.jsp?team=t102

An open letter to GM CEO Rick Wagoner, Bob Lutz,...

The Cadillac Converj hybrid concept car, shown at the Detroit Auto Show(photo:Los Angeles Times)

...or, for that matter, anybody at GM that will listen:

PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, BUILD THIS CAR!!!!!!

You saw that ugly piece of junk Lexus hybrid - this car would blow that nasty thing out of the water.

As an accountant, (and I am sure you have accountants to tell you the same thing) I would point out to you that any additional uses that you can come up with for the Chevy Volt platform will spread out development costs and make it easier for you to charge a lower price for the Volt.

Though I am not an engineer, I would be pleased to volunteer my services should the Converj require a "real-world" testing environment. I'm not located far from your Detroit headquarters.

Yours sincerely,

Jake

Liebe Ingolstadt: Teil Zwei

The Audi Sportback concept, shown at the Detroit Auto Show (photo:Canadian Auto Press)

Einmal in Schwarz oder Dunkelblau, bitte!

Oooooh....a Bundesliga card game

Yeah, I know it's lame for 35-year-olds to collect sports cards, but geez, it's Topps, it's the Bundesliga, it's a card game, what could possibly be wrong about it?

Ab jetzt im Handel:

http://www.kicker.de/match-attax

The 2009 Derby website is online

The official 2009 Kentucky Derby website is now up and running. You can find coverage of the prep races and profiles of leading contenders here:

http://www.kentuckyderby.com/2009/

Less than four shopping months till the Derby!

I'm having a Kentucky Derby party again. The ladies still have four months to buy their hats to commemorate the occasion:

http://www.ladydianehats.com/