For those interested:

A must attend for craft beer aficionados and foodies alike, SAVOR will offer a memorable craft beer and food experience to a limited number of attendees under the columned archways of the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium.

SAVOR the experience – enjoy a reception-style sampling of your choice of 35+ sweet and savory appetizers and 96 craft beers from 48 breweries. Converse with the luminaries of the craft beer industry – brewery owners, brewers and representatives will be on-hand – serving you your beer.

So yeah, that sounds awesome.

First up though is Jessi’s cousin is getting married down in Columbus, GA. It promises to be an event that hopefully will give me a few stories to tell at the next poker game. The trip starts tonight and we’ll be returning this Sunday. In an effort to keep miles of my wheels (which needs a cleaning), I rented an SUV from Avis. Picking up the vehicle this morning I was told that it’s a brand new ride and only has 38 miles on it. I almost feel bad for putting ~1500 miles on it this weekend.

Speaking of poker games, Jones came through on our bet last night. I bet that he couldn’t make gay jokes or just in general, not act so gay. He pulled it off but not until after he had to place two marks on his hands so he wouldn’t forget. He almost slipped up twice but ended up making it. Though it’s quite apparent his card skills go to shit if he isn’t making gay references or jokes.

The highlight for me comes at 1hr 55 minutes into the session when Marek Reichman, Design Director of Aston Martin hands over to a video showing a proof of concept for a new in-car entertainment system written in .NET 3.0 on an XP embedded platform and actually integrated inside a real Aston Martin DBS car.

Oh to be working on that team! I bet that was a lot of fun.

Motive Mag counts down it’s Top 10 animated vehicles and the Mach 5 comes in at #1 (which it should) but I’m a bit dismayed that there was no love for any of the Wacky Racers!

No Speed Buggy?!

I got this image from the Mercedes ad video in the form of a short movie called ‘The Illusive‘. You can check out the video here. [via Motor Authority]

The new “civil remedial fee” that “we” adopted in this wonderful state. Heard about these yet? I’d be surprised if you haven’t since it’s been in the news all over the place. Here is how it breaks down via MSNBC:

Starting July 1, an array of traffic offenses, from expired licenses to speeding, come with a “civil remedial fee” attached. That means a motorist convicted of reckless driving (75 mph in a 55 zone would qualify) faces not only a fine of up to $2,500 and a year in jail, but a non-negotiable $350-a-year tax for three years. The law forbids judges from waiving or reducing the fee.

So basically, we will have to pay this new tax regardless if this is your first offensive or there may have been extenuating circumstances. I’m not making excuses for breaking the law, I’m just saying that usually a first offense of some minor traffic offense that the judge may give you probation for will end up costing you money for up to 3 years.

The icing on the cake to this whole she-bang? It’s only for Virginia residents. Pep, the fines will not be enforced on out-of-towners (presumably so they keep coming back and breaking the law so we get there money). Awesome.

I should note that we aren’t the only state to do these type of fees, the fees were added instead of increasing fines and the extra money will be used to better the roads (probably in SoVa instead of around here where it’s needed more).

It does look like people are starting to notice this issue, as The Post notes, since there is a petition that has already started and has some 100,000 signatures. This naturally has politicians worried with the upcoming election in November. The problem I have with the whole situation is that there wasn’t a chance for us to vote on this. You see the other option would have been a 1 cent gas tax increase which would have gotten us close ($50 million) to the proposed $65 million income from the fees. We also haven’t had a gas tax since 1986, so that’s not too bad. As it stands now, the 1 cent tax increase is a better option since with the fees I would be locked into some sort of servitude to the state for paying my fee (remember the judge can’t waive or reduce the fee). I would be more inclined to vote for the fees if out-of-towners were included in the fees, some of the fees were reduced and maybe some leniency for first time offenders or drivers with positive points on their license.

Hopefully this issue will be talked over some more and made a bit more fair, IMHO.

Sold to a consortium led by the Prodrive founder which is awesome. Ford still has it’s fingers in the pot but they haven’t ever really tried to pull the owner card before.

Here is to hoping that some of the awesome tech from Prodrive’s P2 makes it into the next gen of Aston Martin.

Currently Listening to Brothaz REmix by Mr. Lif and Cannibal Ox

The channel programming is atrocious and more often then not, I will hear the same song on 3 separate channels not to mention that it will probably be repeated several times over the course of an hour.  I switched to satellite radio to get away from the old way of doing radio. XM gave me that and the world was bright and beautiful. Sirius seemed to like the status quo. Probably because of Mel K coming on board.

Now, the interwebs were a buzz with the news that XM and Sirius will be merging. My heart was a flutter with hopes that it was going to be XM buying out Sirius and thus restoring balance to the force.

It would appear the Empire is going to win out in this battle.

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) — Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., the second-largest U.S. pay radio service, agreed to buy its larger rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. for $4.57 billion in stock, combining the only two companies in the industry.

This is going to get interesting in the near future as more of the details get fleshed out. Hopefully Sirius’s directory of content (or whatever they are called) will be ousted and replaced with Hugh Panero.

Someone just came in and asked me what my thoughts are and I could only reply that this will either make Sirius better or the only chance for decent satellite radio has just been crushed. Time will tell.

Of course you then have the two larger then life personalities back at the same company, O&A and Howard Stern. How are the chips going to fall when merger is finalised? I’m hoping O&A win out and keep their channel and Howard can keep his channel(s) and neither the two shall meet.

Just give me my XMU and O&A and I’ll be happy again.

Here is the link to the Press Release from XM.

Currently Listening to Suffocation by Bear Colony

The original Ghostbusters Ecto 1 is up for sale for a cool $149k! Details from the Auction site indicate that somethings have been updated on the car, including a vintage AC unit and super alternator. It’s rust free and has all new interior and new paint.

Come one, we can all chip and and divy up the days each person can drive it.

via TechEBlog

Currently Listening to It’s A Beautiful Thing by Ill Bill/La Coka Nostra

For the lazy, a link to part one.

So after having myself a good cry, I collect myself and start to make calls to whomever would listen. I called my service person who came up with the first great idea, just take the battery cable from another 5 series and put it in my car. Holy sheet! Why didn’t I think of that? Oh that’s right, I was in the fetal position wheeping gently.

I then called back the service tech (which happened to be his cell phone) and asked him if he could just take the cable off of another car. “No, sir.” he told me, “BMW will NOT let us do that.” Ok, I thought, that sounded reasonable and then asked for his manager.

Again, I asked if he could take off the lead of another 5’r to which he told me that they had no 5 on the lot. I was quite shocked to hear that and was just far enough away that I wasn’t going to drive back up to the dealership just to walk around the lot and prove him wrong. I resigned myself to the fact that I won’t be getting my car that day. After some thinking, we decided to head back to Reston, so we could goto work the next day. Then, if need be, I could goto Sterling and yell at someone there.

Not to be out done by the “we have no 5 series” kick to the nards was when I got home and in the mail that was a welcome package from BMW stating that they hoped I was enjoying my new car. Salt in the wound.

The next day (Wednesday) I make a few calls to my sales person at Sterling. Towards the end of the day I get a call back from my sales person where he informs me that I have Trip Interuption service, which basically means that they will tow my car back from wherever to me.

How awesome is that? I thought it was quite good. So Thursday, the tech from IG Burton calls to inform me that my car is fixed. I replied back that I wanted the service and after a long pause he tells me he will get it setup for me.

Sure enough, that Friday morning I was pleasantly surprised to find my car being hauled of the flat bed, nicely washed and in perfect working condition.

Currently Listening to Fallen Leaves by Billy Talent

Flipping through the NAIAS coverage this morning I came across this image of the new Ford Concept vehicle called the Airstream.

I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m tired or not but this image really looks like some chick is spread eagle laying in wait.

Credit to MSN Auto for the image.

I can’t wait to see what is in store this season!

Another interesting Top Gear fact is that a few of the car scenes from James Bondcar scenes from James Bond were filmed on the same test track TG uses as well as the main track (Dunsfold Airfield).

I’m still sure that it’s not global warming, I’m a firm believer that this is just the way things happen in the world. Sometimes you have 3 severe snow storms in the midwest and we get 70 degree days.

Either way, it was nice rolling down the Toll Road with the windows down at about 95MPH..

Twas the day of Christmas and all through the house all the creatures were stirring even that lazy old dog was chasing a mouse. When what do my ears do hear but a small request for some more yellow beer. So me and brother all wrapped up in our gear, loaded up into the BMW for more beer. When to our surprise my chariot would not start.

“Well this is odd,” I said with disdain. “Why won’t your car start, bro?” my brother exclaimed.

Scratching my head I did what I thought best, I called BMW assist. “We will get a tow truck with battery pack out to you sir” said the man on the phone. “Sweet,” I thought, think soon all my troubles would be gone.

Unfortunately, that was not so. It turned out that when the tow truck called me he decided it was best not to come and fry my car. You see the latest information he had was on a 2004 545i which, probably, wasn’t much different then my car but he didn’t want to chance it. So I said fine and decided to call the service technician in the morning.

The next morning I arose bright and early and called a service tech at I.G. Burton in Milford, DE (the closest BMW service center) where he instructed me on how todo a battery reset. Again, I was a bit giddy hoping that this would fix my car. So it was myself and my dad outside dismantling the trunk of my car to get at the battery. After disconnecting the negative lead, my father thinking he was helping, closed the trunk lid.

This was of course a problem since my trunk release relies on electricity and all the electricity has been removed from the car. After about 30 seconds of panicing, I ran inside to do a search on the interweb about manual releasing my trunk. The first post I came to instructed me on how to remove my back speaker and use the manual release hatch underneath that. Fearing that I would absolutely “fuck” this up, I read further. I found another post describing that turning the key all the way to the left would do a manual release. And after about 3 tries that’s exactly what happened.

Now with my trunk lid open again and the battery completely reattached, I attempted to start my car. Again I was met with nothing, not a start up sound not anything. So I called BMW Assist again and told them to come and get this car and haul it up to the service center. When the tow truck arrived at my parent’s house again I was met with another problem.

You see the car wouldn’t allow me to turn the steering wheel or depress the brake, and the tow driver needed the car in neutral to get up on the flat bed. This would be a problem since I needed to depress the brake peddle down to get the car into neutral. Again, I called the service tech at I.G. Burton where he instructed me to steal my own car. Seriously, it’s freaky, but I won’t post it here.

Finally the car was placed on the tow truck and hauled off to the service center. All was going to be good in the world as, hopefully, this would be fixed quickly. After about an hour I get a call from the service tech saying that they got the car but they didn’t get the key to the car. “CRAP!” I had to now drive up to Milford, DE from Delmar, MD (about an hour) to deliver the key. When I got there I asked when they would get to look at my car. The Service manager told me “this afternoon.” Only problem was that it was already 2:30pm and they closed at 5pm. There wasn’t much afternoon left for them todo anything.

After visiting the one and only winery in Deleware, I got a call from the Service Manager.

“Success! Mr. Tucker we have found the problem! One of your battery cables that powers the essential systems went bad.”

“Great, when can I get my car?” I asked.

“Thursday.”

“Thursday? But you know what the problem is, why would it take so long?”

“Well, we need to overnight the part and we missed the cutoff for today.” To which I think I must have started wheeping because we quickly got off the phone.

(to be continued).

Watch me do my thang!

Frank, Jessi and I checked out the the new Double-Oh-Seven flick Casino Royale. The movie was good and actually wished it had been a bit long. My over played statement of the day is “It’s the first time in awhile (GoldenEye) that I’ve walked out of a Bond flick and wanted to be Bond.”

So yeah, it was good movie, Jessi liked the eye candy of Daniel Craig. The women in the movie unfortunately, I can’t say the same for. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t ugly but they weren’t exactly what I would consider “Bond” women.

Yeah so it was good, but there is one glaring issue I have with the movie. The whole reason I went and saw the movie. The one thing that I can always count on in a Bond flick.

The cars. Specifically the Aston Martins.

This movie promised a look at the new AM DBS. A car specifically created for this movie and eventually to be produced for the general public. You only get to see the car for ~45 seconds and maybe 10 seconds of that total was the car actually in motion. I saw more of the new Ford Mondeo then the DBS. While the new Mondeo isn’t a bad looking car, it was just a shell and only capable of 30mph. The DBS deserved atleast  10 minutes of screen time or more. The travesty!

On a side note, they did have a 1964 AM that looked a lot like the one from the first Bond movie.