The Car Show (Another American Top Gear show wannabe)

I was scanning through my Google news and more specifically Top Gear news, I noted that they have a new car show in America!  It's creatively called The Car Show.  So I decided to check it out how it stacks up with the UK Top Gear.  I have to admit that I already that my expectations were pretty low.  We already had an American TG that is mediocre (and getting better??).  The fact that it was on the family friendly Speed Channel further decreased my expectations.  TG is about manly stuff... cursing and crude jokes...etc and more specifically not Politically Correct.  So I was really not looking forward to this show.  Thankfully, your's truely will take it for the team and go through the process  and force myself to watch this shit so you don't have to. 

Moving along, this show is similar to TG and part comedy talk show.  The inherent problem is that the comedy party isn't FUNNY.  Adam Corolla has this coma inducing stare at the screen and when you combine that with his nasal voice that makes you want to change the channel.  The guy really is boring and depressing.  One thing that is truely missing is the emotion.  When you watch TG UK, you clap and are amazed at the contests and laugh at the results.  Instead of the Star in Reasonably Priced Car, you get these clowns to race toy slot cars.  Wow.  That is a big dose of excitement!!!  NOT!  I seriously hate this show.  I will delete the rest of the recorded shows on my DVR and forget this shitty show.  I used to like all car shows, now that Top Gear UK has set the bar, all the other shows are wannabes or just boring.  As Cleveland Brown or Charles Barkley would say, "Just Terrreble" 

The Toyota Rav4

Here is a tribute to the electric Rav4.

It was not the first fully electric car on the road, but you still see them (as opposed to the GM EV1).  I wonder how the Toyota and GM differ.

Fire on the 15 South

I saw this fire on the way back from Las Vegas.  It's near the outlet mall.

We are in a shitload of traffic and slowly approaching the fire on the left.

I noticed that the fire was moving!

Because the fire was on the trailer of a truck and the guy drove the truck around.

Here you can see the trailer with the boat and jetski on fire. 

Right in front of the mall.

Finally the traffic clears up!

$7 pastries

Live from Fabulous Las Vegas!

Check out the view.

Farewell Borders!

One of my favorite bookstores (isn't that funny, me saying that I have a favorite bookstore) is going away forever and live forever in the Internet.



I am not going to bullshit you, I am not a bookworm.  I am not too big on books.  What I was big on was magazines and this place rarely disappoints.  I have a 44 dollar a month magazine habit.  And that is just the minimal.  And this place would have everything to get me my fix and rarely disappoint which says something that lots of other stores can't.  I remember when all we had 15-20 years ago were Crown Books and Waldenbooks.  Both were small bookstores and nothing special.  All they sold were books and had a tiny magazine rack. 





Waldenbooks and Crown came and left and then came in Borders and Barnes and Noble.  And they came in STRONG!  These super bookstores started popping up everywhere.  They were HUGE!  They sold all kinds of stuff that you would never guess that belonged in a bookstore.  They even had a full coffee bar so you can drink your cafe latte and read books you haven't purchased (yet).  I knew the music was clearly a ripoff (in both Barnes and B&N), and so were the DVDs but that's OK.  I thought that these stores were the only ones selling Cd's.  All the music stores have already been "killed off" already.  



Something I learned about a couple of years ago did alarm me about bookstores in general.  I learned about Sales Per Square Foot (Annual).  People actually figured out the highest performing retail stores in respect to their physical size.  To put it into perspective the Forum Shops have some sort of mall record with $1,500/SF.  As for retail stores, Apple and Tiffany's do very well at the top ($4,406 and $2,700 respectively).  As for Bookstores, they are on the other side of the spectrum with $125- $275 Sales Per Square Foot.  The national average for malls is $300 to put it into perspective.  Hot Topic does pretty good at $600.    So that doesn't look good.  The fact of these mega bookstores is that they have HUGE rent and they sell (relatively) cheap goods like books.  Off the top of my head, the most expensive thing B&N/Borders had was like a DVD box set for a couple of hundred bucks.  Last time I checked, people were not lining up for those goods.  Most of people purchased books and magazines (like me!).  I would say the average purchase was what $20?  When you have a super huge store, you have super huge rent and you need to make ends meet somehow!

All these pictures are from the Borders in the Arcadia Mall.  This was the last one I knew of that was still open.  The place was like a tornado went through in there and kind of depressing.  All the stuff had been picked through and all the good stuff is gone. 

I am hoping that B&N learns from this debacle so it doesn't share the same fate in Internet Nirvana.