LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - NBC announced Monday morning what listeners to Adam Carolla’s radio show have known for a while: The comedian will host the broadcaster’s adaptation of the BBC’s “Top Gear.”
Carolla will join drift racer Tanner Foust and TV construction guru Eric Stromer as the show’s presenters. “Gear” targets auto enthusiasts and mixes racing, stunts, challenges and celebrity guests.
I’m very much not sure how I feel about this. Top Gear is — after Always Sunny, of course — the best show on television. (If you ignore Clarkson’s whole anti-environment thing, of course.) Why remake something that’s already that good? Aside from the whole not having to come up with an original idea bit, that is.
Well, either way, I’m going to watch it. At least once. (per-episode.)
One of my favorite things about our neighborhood is that it’s ideally set up for the Clif Bar 2 Mile Challenge. There’s a grocery, a green grocer and a TJ’s all within two miles of the house. The green grocer (Dogwoods) we’ve ridden to a couple of times for the produce run. Pavilions we walk to whenever we’re only picking up a couple of things. The TJ’s, on the other hand, has always seemed a bit ambitious to us. Our usual run there is food for the week, which we just don’t have the gear to get home on the bike. Today, however, we’re going to a Chardonnay tasting, and that’s definitely within the realm of what we can fit in the rack bag:
Perhaps the best part of biking to the store is that it feels more like a fun outing that it does an errand. It’s nice to know that TJ’s is within easy bike distance for small runs.
By way of brief product review, we use a pair of TransIt grocery bag panniers for the Dogwoods run:
They can hold our produce for the whole week and come with shoulder straps to make shopping with them easy. We even took them on a bike camp out with Fletcher’s scout troop, on which they very capably carried our sleeping bags and tent. Recommended.
If you’re going to cold call somebody pimping your candidates and rattle off a list of technologies that they are “expert level” in, please at least know what those technologies are. If you don’t know, please be honest enough to just say that you don’t. If you bullshit me on something like that — I got one today that described Lucene as a “hot new programming language” — there’s no way I’m going to trust you on other matters.
Rode in a second time this last Friday. I took a slightly different route this time, and I think it worked out really well. Part of what I’m shooting for is to ride in mostly on residential roads and skip the whole traffic bit. With a couple of exceptions — a couple of blocks on Colorado near Baldwin and Del Mar between Wilson and Hudson — I’ve more or less got it down. Something I noticed on Friday helps greatly. There are two left turn lanes at Rosemead and Thorndale, and the traffic control lines are a great place for a bike to sneak across:
Likely I could just behave like a normal vehicle, take the lane and make the turn, etc., but somehow doing that off a side road on to Rosemead seems like a less than great idea. Anyway, I don’t mind cheating in this case.
My new year’s resolution this year is to ride my bike to work at least 50 times. The first thing that I have learned from this is that I a master of excuse making. Between morning meetings, my employer’s occasional “dress like a banker” days, family scheduling, angst about being drenched with sweat at work and the good old fashioned lazy, I managed to go more than one third of the year without making any progress towards this goal. As of this week, however, I’m on my way.
The ride could not have been more pleasant. It was cool in the morning and not hot in the afternoon. Morning traffic was great. One driver waited at a four way stop and waived me through such that I wouldn’t have to come to a complete halt, which was totally cool of him. None of the cars got all up ons when I took the lane, which I did at every intersection. Exactly one car got within three feet of me. SGV drivers: thanks!
It took me about twice as long to ride — almost exactly an hour each way — as it does to drive on a bad day. (Although not an atypically bad day. Few of my drives in count as “good.”) That said, I got two hours more exercise than I would usually get, so I consider it a big time-saving win.
The home route through Arcadia’s peacock country may or may not be the best way to do things. I’m looking to avoid traveling on Rosemead or Colorado West of Baldwin, and this seemed an easy enough cut through, however I took a couple of wrong turns and ran in to some dead ends. Huntington in the morning was 100% reasonable; I’ll probably give it a go on the way home next time.
I’m planning to ride again next Thursday, and hopefully twice the week after that if all continues to go well.
Here’s the thing: the more of the rest of you hipsters who decide to maintain a Zen-like aloofness and remain above such pedestrian things like politics and democracy, the more influential my vote will be. Past evidence suggests that you are more likely to vote against me than with me, so please, don’t vote.
(True story: when I got to the Forgetful Acres rec room this morning, there was a huge TV blaring “VOTE YES ON {blah blah blah}” ads right outside the polling place. It was awesome. They turned it off when I pointed it out.)
(For those of you keeping score at home: Obama and “no.” See also CLV’s voter guide.)
The best of craigslist features the amazing Star Wars Guide to the Candidates for the 2008 presidential election. Definitely worth a read.
Hillando Clintrissian
Here’s the thing. The Millenium Falcon was hers to begin with. She only lost it to Bill on a bet. Then she got caught up in that whole Cloud City thing in the Bespin system, which proved she could govern, I guess, but she’s kinda hoping you won’t remember that she totally sold out the Rebels to Darth Vader. That’s how J’han Solo wound up encased in Carbonite and Leia ended up in a bikini on a chain. Hmmm. Actually, not so bad! And Hillando did do some nifty piloting against the New and Improved Death Star. Didn’t she also record “Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run)”?
Yesterday was such a great day in bizarre NBA news that I feel compelled to share with those of you who honestly don’t care. First up is a rare instance in which the NBA drops some grade-school science, invoking the “do over” rule:
The Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat must replay the final 51.9 seconds of their game last month because the official scorer ruled incorrectly that Shaquille O’Neal fouled out, the league said Friday.
So before the next Miami at Atlanta game tips off, both teams are going to put they players they had available during the last game on the floor, set the scoreboard to 114-111, Hawks, and play for a little less than a minute. Awesome.
The Herald cited a police report, which said Rice arrived at his wife’s house demanding to know what man she was with and what he was doing at her home in Coral Gables, Florida.
He then found the victim, Alberto Perez, hiding in a closet and began beating the man while screaming obscenities at him, according to the newspaper.
You know, it’s just sad that somebody with all the privilege of a professional athlete would… HOLY R. KELLY, BATMAN, DID HE REALLY FIND THE DUDE IN THE CLOSET!!!??? The article does not state whether or not the victim is a midget.
So there you go. Yesterday’s bizarre NBA news. I’m not quite sure how to gather all of my thoughts on the matter together, but I believe that Lakers center Andrew Bynum has some relevant thoughts on the matter:
