The 2011 Ford Explorer...YOU BLEW IT

I went to the Charlotte Auto Show this evening, and saw a lot of interesting things, more of which I'll be commenting on at later dates.  One thing really stuck out though.  Ford absolutely destroyed the Explorer.

Now, for full disclosure, I have always been a GM (particularly Chevy) guy.  My family has owned seven different vehicles in my lifetime, and they have all been GMs (and, true to this commercial, I was brought home in a Chevrolet).  That being said, I have always thought the Explorer was one of the best vehicles out there.  (Sidebar: although I like the Explorer, I think Ford did a poor job of handling that rollover crisis they were having about a decade ago.  They publicly blamed it on the Firestone tires...and then they did a redesign which lowered the center of gravity and changed the rear suspension...but trust us, it was the tires.)  The Explorer was everything you expect from an American SUV: powerful, good looking, comfortable.  If you go to the Wikipedia page, you'll see that the first four generations of Explorers (1991-2010) were indeed very good looking vehicles.

However, some time in the last couple years, Ford designers woke up and said "damn, we're tired of the Explorer looking like the quintessential American SUV," and came up with this:

What?  Why?  How did you go from this and this to this?  I don't even know what to say about this, I'll just let you sit there and wonder why I pasted in a picture of one of Ford's other SUVs, only to get on Google image search and find that, yes indeed, the Explorer has been ruined.

One final interesting note: luckily, Ford did not elect to similarly ruin the Expedition.  But I won't be surprised if they do in the near future.

Can anyone explain this?  More importantly, does anyone think Ford made a good decision here?

Enrique...Enrique...Enrique

Enrique has done it again. And by 'done it again' created one of the most addictive, yet idiotic song and music video on the face of the planet. The silliness starts right from the onset:

1. For some reason, Pitbull and Enrique find themselves in front of some random room (club?), and upon opening the doors: VOILA, tons of scantily-clad, hot chicks dancing. What else would they be doing in a room full of 100 strangers? Solution: Run into the room and start dancing, of course.

2. What the hell is Enrique wearing on his head? A dead racoon? His hair looks like a mature Justin Bieber's but darker.

3. Probably the coolest part of this video is when Mr. Iglesias decides to couch surf and turns totally parallel to the ground balancing with only his feet on the couch. SO TIGHT. Where are the wires? There are wires right?


4. The video suddenly turns to crap once Pitbull utters words out of his mouth. Some of his more choice lyrics:

-"I’m a Miami boy..."  OH. Really? I thought you were from Pensacola.
-"Let’s party on the White House lawn...Pick up Barack and Michelle and let’em know that it’s on"  YES. Please do that. Glad the first family has become part of pop music culture.


5. Cut to the end: Pan to another room. Show three woman in bikinis having a pillow fight. Unfortunately for them, someone has slit the pillows and feathers are raining down on them. What a shame. Enrique appears halfway through hanging from the ceiling. Things are starting to make sense now...

Eh...I like it.

Bush vs. Obama - Who's the better swinger?

You be the judge:










(Skip to 1:35...and listen carefully)

And it's not because Bush plays more...(story)

Think Your Weekend Was Rough?

Fair warning to all you would-be partiers this weekend: if you do choose to drink alcohol, please, whatever you do, don't do any futures trading while you're blitzed.  That's exactly what one London man did one year ago:

Britain’s financial regulator disclosed on Tuesday that Steven Noel Perkins, a former oil futures broker, single-handedly engineered a jump in the price of oil a year ago and cost his firm millions of dollars with a string of unauthorized trades after a weekend of heavy drinking.

“Mr. Perkins’s explanation for his trading on 29 and 30 June is that he was drunk,” the F.S.A. said. “He claims to have limited recollection of events on Monday and claims to have been in an alcohol-induced blackout at the time he traded.” 

The article also mentions that Mr. Perkins lost $10 million for his firm and was fined over $100,000 as a result of these shenanigans.

I don't know whether to be appalled or amazed.  Most people just embarrass themselves in front of their friends or end up feeling terrible the next morning.  This guy placed a half billion dollars in trades! Nice!

Other things to avoid this weekend while drinking include using incendiary devices, attempting to dress yourself, and of course, driving.

Report: Soccer Lags Behind Other Sports on Technology

In a report that comes from the same obvious bin that includes stories like "Men Like Sex" and "Ice Cream is Yummy", Discovery News reports that, unlike almost every sport on the face of the planet, soccer has been extremely slow to adopt technology to aid referees in making correct calls.  Feel free to peruse the article and draw your own conclusions, but I wanted to point out my personal favorite quotation from the article:

UEFA president Michel Platini is in complete agreement, arguing that video replays would interrupt the flow of the game.

Umm, excuse me? Would it interrupt the flow more than, say, a grown man writhing in pain after colliding with someone else with the force of two busy workers who rounded the corner of a cubicle too quickly?  Or perhaps a player from some certain African country waiting to be taken off in a stretcher (scroll to 96:45 on) and then walking away (9th paragraph, starting with "At one point") as soon as he crosses the sideline?  Just saying.

Side note: anyone notice the button at the bottom of Youtube videos that looks like a soccer ball?  Try it out.

Sorry for the link confusion regarding the Ghana super dive.  I can't find a video of the performance incident.

oooohhh......YEEEAAAAAHHHH

This is how the world celebrated Landon Donovan's amazing game winner vs. Algeria a few days ago: