Danica Patrick won her first Indy race this past weekend at Twin Ring Motegi. She overtook two time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves in the final laps of the race. Motegi is considered a difficult track because of its asymmetrical oval shape. Corners 1 and 2 are wide open, but 3 and 4 requires a down shift of 1 or 2 gears. The tighter turns also make it more taxing on the cars and drivers.

I’m not really sure why, but during the past several months I’ve developed an insatiable appetite for self enrichment.

I had a brief stint with French, which is making a comeback now that my computer is a more hospitable environment for Rosetta Stone. I tried it out for a couple weeks about 6 months ago and I still remember some stuff. That’s a pretty good testament for the program.

I’ve been taking piano lessons for a few months now, and I also just bought a guitar to carry around the house while pretending to know how to play. I figure I’ll actively engage in one musical instrument at a time, so I probably won’t be taking any guitar lessons until I feel I’ve made considerable headway in piano; I’m getting there. In the mean time I’m trying to make sense of the guitar tabs on my own.

As soon as I get my dSLR I’ll be on a mission to take pictures of anything and everything. Hopefully I’ll be able to build a somewhat respectable photography portfolio.

And finally, this week Shields and I are planning to go check out this Krav Maga place near us. Then we’re gonna start picking fights. Douche bags everywhere, beware!

It’s even more breathtaking in HD. This is the intro for the European version. The US version was just released today and I don’t know how to capture, but I’m sure they’ll pop up soon.

When I heard the award of “Green Car of the Year”, this wasn’t what I had in mind. So why did Green Car Journal give the award to the Tahoe Hybrid? Well, they say that it’s deserving because the Tahoe Hybrid gets “50 percent better fuel economy than a Tahoe powered by a standard 5.3-liter V-8″ and it has “a fuel efficiency improvement of up to 30 percent compared to similar vehicles equipped with a standard V-8″. That all sounds well and good on paper. But 50% improvement upon an embarrassing 14mpg is little to boast about.

Finally the RockBand guitar is sold separately. Now the band is complete. I decorated it with a memorabilia from SXSW signed (thanks Ming) by the lovely Veronica Belmont, the Sexiest Geek of 2007.

On an episode of HIMYM, the crew was sharing stories of their most embarrassing moments. I realized that I can’t really think of any in my life. I’m sure I’ve been embarrassed on numerous occasions, but I don’t recall anything that was extremely unpleasant. Well, I did something yesterday that is now officially one of the dumbest things I have ever done. It wasn’t really embarrassing in a “Oh no, now I’m embarrassed!” sort of way, but more like “Man, I’m such a retard that I’m a little embarrassed for having done that.” On the upside, nothing tragic happened, and it could have been sooooo much worse. Now I’m gonna be a total dick and not tell you what happened. Besides, the build up probably overshadowed the actual event that you’ll probably be disappointed.

I’ve installed a lightbox just because it’s cool and it lets me post bigger pictures with style. The first post that benefited from this is the previous Evangeline Lilly post. You can navigate the lightbox by clicking on the image itself or using the left-arrow, right-arrow and the escape key on the keyboard. I might go back and implement it on some of the old galleries.

I’ve been trying to get everyone I know to get on Twitter. Most of the time I’m met with “I don’t wanna know what someone is doing every single second“. Then I have to explain to them that that’s not what Twitter is about, that it’s like a blog that you can post to quickly from your phone. By that point they have already zoned out and started thinking about what witty things they should put on their AIM or Facebook away messages, neglecting the fact that Twitter is all those things, but better. But don’t just take it from me, here’s what Dooce has to say about Twitter.

The whole point of working out with a friend is so that you can use each other as an obligation to go work out. And it works. I think at one point I actually went to the gym 5 times a week, which is an impressive accomplishment for me. But sometime it’s pretty easy to get out of it since Dennis and I are both lazy bastards. This is how a conversation with Dennis usually goes:

“Work out at 6?”
“Sure, and then rock some RockBand?”
“Sweet. Wanna grab some food after that?”
“I’m kinda hungry, I’d rather eat before that.”
“Hmmmm… Wanna just skip working out and go get food?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“I’ll be there in 30 minutes.”

I started watching CBS’s How I Met Your Mother back in September of last year, at the beginning of its third season. Last night’s episode was by far the best I’ve ever seen. It also had the show’s highest ratings ever. Granted that was probably because it had Britney Spears as a guest star, and I have to say she wasn’t all that bad. As an added bonus, Sarah Chalke was also in the episode as a doctor, how appropriate. What a perfect episode to have Spears draw in the audience, I bet they’ll pick up a ton of regular viewers from this.

The show is presented by the voice of Bob Saget from the future. He is telling his kids the story of how he met their mother and the whole story arch is about who she will be. The lead character (Ted) goes through different relationships which never seems to works out, while a woman with a yellow umbrella, whose face is never revealed, makes cameo appearances. This yellow umbrella girl is alluded to as being “the one”, but he always ends up not meeting her. In last week’s St. Patrick’s day episode (also a good one) she was at the same bar that Ted was at. Now you’re all set up to watch last night’s episode, although I strongly suggest you watch the St. Patrick’s day episode first.