so I love my honda and all, but I'm getting absurdly excited about the upcoming debut of the smart in america.


$15k fully loaded, 40+ mpg, and as safe as anything on the road. it'll be a few years before I trade cars I'm sure, but I may have my next one all picked out. you can bet I'll be at the "street smart" road show when they hit gso next month for a test drive.

pet peeve: being behind middle aged ladies at starbucks, walgreens, etc. who take EVERYTHING out of their voluminous purses to get to their money/cards, pay, and hold up the line while they stand there putting everything back in. it's even worse when the gals are over seventy...they usually pay with checks.

related note of etiquette: when making a deposit at a drive thru atm, pull over to the side if you have to endorse your checks, fill out the envelope, or what have you. once you have your shit together get back in the queue. that way people can conduct their business unimpeded in the meantime. I do it, but I'm nicer than most people.

I think that john d. macdonald is to contemporary fiction what carole king is to contemporary music. they've influenced everyone, they get lots of respect from other practitioners of the craft, and there's a 90% chance that whomever you ask on the street hasn't heard of them. I'm about to finish my first macdonald novel and am very favorably impressed.

I love adrienne barbeau and nicholas brendon. unfortunately I did not love unholy, which I recently got a chance to see. it tries so hard to make sense and just never does. it's like someone fed the script into a shredder, pulled half of it out of the bin, and taped it back together--wrong. the resulting hodgepodge was used to make the film. sadly I think that if it did make sense, it might have actually been worse.