The Birmingham International Auto Show.

Yesterday, Becky and I went to the Birmingham International Auto Show. I've been to the one in Detroit and the Birmingham version is minuscule in comparison. It's still pretty neat though. The concept cars are always fun to look at and since there are far fewer people at the Birmingham Auto Show, you don't have to wait long to sit in the car of your choice. When I used to go to the show in Detroit, my friends and I would have a contest to see who could be the first to find the car where they forgot to disable the horn (there always seemed to be at least one). There always seems to be one at the Birmingham show as well. Becky frowns upon that little ritual, so I didn't try to hard to find it, though I did hear the horn from time to time. Also, Becky ended up "winning" a Nalgene-style bottle from the people in the Suzuki area. She was pretty happy about that.

Here are some pictures from our day.

This is a Chevy concept car.

Becky is testing out the seat in a Mitsubishi.


ALWAYS keep your eyes on the road, even when dealing with paparazzi.


Ever since I was a kid, I've always wondered why no one ever made a car entirely out of chrome, since people like it so much. Well, this it what it would look like.

That kid holding onto the chain is as shocked as I was that someone finally decided to make an all chrome car.

This looks like a concept car, but the sticker in the windshield means it isn't.




That was the leather seat, I swear.

...or was it?


The coolest dune buggy I've seen so far.

Where Do You Want To Live?

According to this list, 61% of the cities on the list are safer than Tuscaloosa. This place has about the same number of people as Sterling Heights, MI (my hometown). Only 4% of cities on the list are safer than Sterling Heights and it's a suburb of Detroit (99.7% of cities are safer). All of the largest cities in Alabama are pretty high on the list. The safest city in Alabama is Tuscaloosa and the most dangerous is Birmingham where 98.7% of cities on the list are safer.

Last Night.

There really aren't a lot of cool things that happen in Alabama, so when something comes around you have to jump at the opportunity. Good bands hardly ever come to this state. There might be someone worth seeing once or twice a year, while they are on their way to Atlanta. Last summer this state was lucky enough to host 311, Papa Roach, and Unwritten Law. Becky and I went to that concert and it ROCKED! I don't know if it's because I haven't been to a concert in a very long time, or if they really were that good.

Anyway, one of the few worthwhile performances in this state happened last night and Becky and I were lucky to get tickets to it. We tried months ago but it was already sold out. Yesterday afternoon I figured I would just check again. I really don't know why. It seems that they opened up some extra seats and we managed to get the last two of them together.

So, who did we see? Who was willing to come to this lame-ass state and entertain the minority of the population? One of my favorite comedians, Lewis Black!

This is probably the best picture of me ever taken.


My autographed ticket. John Bowman was the opening act. He's the guy on the left in the above picture. He was pretty funny, but definitely not as good as Lewis Black.