Our parents came to this country, escaping persecution, poverty and hunger. Hunger, Harold. They were very, very hungry. They wanted to live in a land that treated them as equals, a land filled with hamburger stands. And not just one type of hamburger, okay? Hundreds of types with different sizes, toppings, and condiments. That land was America! America, Harold! America! Now this is about achieving what our parents set out for. This is about the pursuit of happiness. This night . . . is about the American Dream! Dude, we can stay here, get arrested, and end our hopes of ever going to White Castle. Or, we can take that hang glider and make our leap towards freedom. I leave the decision up to you.

Let's reflect on the memories:
A tree falls on my car

My car hits 120,000 miles, meaning it's overdue for a tuneup

I'm reminded how expensive it can be to fill up the tank when gas prices spike

I hitch my car to a UHaul truck and drive it down to DC

My car fails the DC inspection after having rusted brake calipers and a muffler that's rusting away

I ponder the sheer number of repairs I've had to make on it in just the past year from summer 2006 to spring 2007

Burning up bills and using them to light cigars seems like a better use of money than maintaining a car

Some idiots smash my window, but don't actually take anything

But I kept the vehicle in good running order and made sure that it was well maintained. It had a full life. Goodbye, old friend.

I'm heading out to take a metro ride to the car dealership to pick up my new car.

Auto enthusiasts across the country were dismayed by the news Friday that General Motors was planning to shut down Saab, the Swedish carmaker it bought two decades ago, after a deal to sell it fell apart.

Check Jalopnik for a list of the seven cars that killed Saab.

UPDATE: Dutch supercar maker Spyker makes another offer to GM in an effort to buy Saab.

I've touched on this before in reference to offensive Christmas songs, but this applies even moreso when it comes to TV special which will be playing over and over again this month. We need to face some facts here: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is a story of how an object of oppression and abuse will willingly serve his own abusers once he can be found useful in service to the machine. The appropriate response to the other reindeer who used to laugh and call him names is to tell then to go stuff themselves-- and Santa, too -- both of whom didn't care too much for Rudolph because of his physical deformity until his red nose was necessary to bail Santa out of a jam.

And is this what the misfit toys should learn? That they must remain in exile on their island unless they, too, are deemed to have some attribute worthy of the very system that has rejected them?

What happened here is that a roving criminal or criminals trolled around the garage in my apartment complex looking to steal some GPS navigators. Seeing the bracket suction-cupped to my windshield, one of these idiots shattered my driver's-side window and reached in for the bracket to take my GPS. My GPS, however, was not there, and the malefactor(s) moved on to shatter some other guy's car window.

Seriously, I do not need this crap.

The glass repair guys show up on Thursday morning to take care of this.

It's something in the Greek genes: a mugger attempted to rob my grandmother as she was heading to the bank with the week's receipts from her flower shop, and she pulled out a knife and chased him away.

After continuing on my way and jogging a few more blocks, I realized that I gave them a bad answer. The correct answer is to point out that the question is posed wrongly. The answer is that exercising is more important than losing weight.

Identical numbers and perfect squares. Definitely celebration worthy. This combination isn't going to come around again until April 4th, 2104, but next year you can look forward to the interesting but comparably lesser date of October 10th, 2010.

$236. For a T-shirt. Only one left, kids! It's Dolce & Gabbana, so obviously it's worth it!

Given GM's ongoing bankruptcy, I was wondering if SAAB* was going to exist in any form at the end of it, or if my car would simply be an emblem of a past era, like old Studebakers. Fortunately, SAAB has found a buyer:

General Motors announced Tuesday that it had agreed to sell its Swedish unit, Saab Automobile, to a consortium led by the sports car maker, Koenigsegg Automotive.
...
Koenigsegg, an unlisted company with 45 employees based in Angelholm, Sweden, turns out just a few “supercars” — high-performance sports cars costing more than $1 million each — a year.

* "SAAB" is actually an acronym, which stands for Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (Swedish Aeroplane Corporation)

Couple accused of spying for Cuba for 30 years

A retired State Department worker and his wife have been arrested on charges of spying for Cuba for three decades, using grocery carts among their array of tools to pass U.S. secrets to the communist government in a security breach one official described as "incredibly serious."

...

The Myerses lived in a luxury co-op complex in Northwest Washington that over the years was home to Cabinet members, judges, congressmen and senators, including the late Barry Goldwater.

...

Gail Prensky, a resident of the apartment complex, was taken aback by news that neighbors had been arrested. "It's intriguing on the one hand," she said. "It's a sense of you never know who your neighbors are in a place like this, where it's so safe and pristine. And there's espionage going on?"