Ah, the Friday before a long weekend. At least for us in The States where Monday is President's Day so it's a holiday. Whoo hoo! I must admit that I had this past Monday off as well so it was a short week for me. It was a busy week nonetheless and I had a nice visit to my local BMW dealer. I had the X5 in for an oil service and a couple of little things and got it back today. I brought the E90 in as well and it is still there getting a software update which I really hope speeds up the iDrive boot up and response times. I'm getting the BMW MOST iPod interface installed. (For those who know where I got it, sorry it has taken so long to get it installed. Thank you all again!) I have got a decent E90 325i loaner. It's a stripper but it sure beats a Taurus rental car. It also makes me appreciate the E90 330i with all the options I got. I parallel parked and wondered why the passenger side mirror wouldn't tilt down - no Premium Package. I went to fold in the mirrors when I parked in the garage - again, no Premium. No xenons, which means no angel eyes , no Comfort Access. Damn I'm spoiled!

While I was at the dealer I test drove an E70 3.0si. It was Space Gray with Tobacco interior and had the dark bamboo trim. First off, I'm still not hot on the exterior of the E70. The interior is okay but a little needlessly complicated. I will say though that the Tobacco leather is gorgeous! The pictures on the BMW site do not even come close to an accurate representation. It's a really rich, dark, chocolate color. It's not close to black and is distinctively brown but it is dark. It looks fantastic! It looks even better with the gorgeous dark bamboo trim. I would choose this color combo for the interior for sure. Somewhat surprisingly, it match the Space Gray exterior well. Thankfully it did not have the third row seating which is a cruel joke.

The drive was interesting. The 3.0si felt like the E53 3.0 in that it feels a little underpowered initially but once underway feels more than adequate. Sure the 4.8i would be nice but if money is a factor, the 3.0si does just fine. The E70 must have the Sport Package with the Active Roll Stabilization. Without it the E70 will roll and wallow in a very un-BMW way. You really feel the added size and weight of the E70. The Active Roll Stabilization was impressive though. As heavy as the E70 felt, once I hit some curves it cornered very flatly and felt very planted. At that point I was still aware of the size and weight but felt very confident in the handling. The braking was excellent as one would expect from a BMW. When I got back I told the sales manager that I enjoyed it but still haven't recovered from the sticker shock induced by the E70's. There was a 4.8i there will most options less navigation, third row, and rear entertainment system and it was priced at almost $67,000! Add probably $2500 for navigation and you're bumping up on $70,000!

So this week I have been thinking about what this country is coming to, as I often do, and two items from this past week are particularly timely. We are all very aware of the "political correctness" expected nowadays and I think many of us are fed up with it. I think that our society has gotten to a point that that mediocre is considered great and sub-par is accepted. Too many efforts are made to make things easy on people and so many accommodations are made to pander to the lowest common denominator. Any little physical or emotional problem is now a syndrome. Excuses are made for everything and everyone. Take for example the recently pulled commercial from General Motors that depicted a robot dreaming about being a failure and then jumping off a bridge. GM pulled it under pressure from suicide prevention groups. I don't want to make light of suicide but come on. It's a friggin' robot, it's a robot dream, and it's a robot. (Yes, I know I said that twice.) If someone who is on the verge of committing suicide and sees that commercial and is swayed by it actually follow through with the suicide then in all reality that person is going to do it whether they see a robot dreaming about going kerplunk.

Another incident was the announcement by the American Medical Association Alliance that they want any movie with smoking to be rated R. Along with that, a study found that adults thing smoking in movies influences kids to smoke. Wow. So if there is smoking in a movie it should be rated R? Then how about the violence in movies? If the AMA wants an R rating for smoking cigarettes what would the propose for "smoking" of people? What about alcohol use? Sexual content? There really is no end. I'm not a smoking advocate but I do believe that the AMA is going too far. As I mentioned, there is no end to what could be deemed objectionable if smoking is used a basis for a rating. What's more is that this "study" finds that 80% of adults think that kids are influenced by seeing smoking in movies. So how about those 80% of adults try to be a more powerful influence and prevent smoking. I am also not an advocate for Hollywood but the AMA blaming movies for kids smoking is like blaming food for people getting fat. How about people taking responsibility for their own actions and their own kids rather than giving another target to blame. That is what really pisses me off: shifting the blame to other areas to avoid addressing the real issues. Nothing is the fault of individuals. It's the fault of the government, the media, trans fat, video games, little green men. Yeah, that's it.

Random angry moment: I HATE Carlos Mencia. Here are a couple of reasons. He steals jokes from other comedians. His main theme is unfunny racial stereotyping. Okay, I'm done.

Forget Samuel L. Jackson and his snakes on a plane, watch out for squirrels in the cockpit. Why "Hammer pants" could make a comeback. A generous offer by a restaurant that will not cost them a cent. If it wasn't dangerous enough on the roads, now we've need to worry about morons like this. What a dick! I just added two more people to my list of "People Who Need To be Exterminated". : Holy Batman! Forget winning the lottery, start a religion. Teacher of the year? Finally, a sad sign of the times.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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