Happy New Year's Eve, my friends! And since I'll probably be a little too hungover to deal with writing in this tomorrow, I'll go ahead and say Happy New Year! Let's hope 2003 is a little less scary than the other years in this century have been so far.

I will be starting 2003 with a new gadget -- I finally took the plunge and signed up for XM satellite radio. I get all the stuff within 3 days -- very excited. There are 101 channels at present, including one just for bluegrass, several for traditional country music and one -- I don't know what its theme is supposed to be -- that I noticed was playing Wesley Willis when I was checking out the receivers. It was meant to be, I think. Mostly my reason for purchase was just being tired of shitty Clear Channel normal radio and its chatty DJs, horrid commercials and endless repetition of the Goo Goo Dolls and matchbox twenty. But another part of it is, well, call me a cheeseball, but I believe in satellite radio. Just as FM was born of a renegade spirit and revolutionized the way the public listens to music, satellite is an answer to being fed up with shitty FM and something that, I think, will advance radio listening as we know it. Not that I want FM radio to die, for then we would lose the best kind of radio of all -- public radio. But since public radio here in our nation's capital plays bluegrass a whopping one day a week (and only half of that day) and no one at all plays Americana music, I am forced to find an alternative. I was a little bummed to find that most XM stations do play commercials, but only 2-5 minutes' worth an hour, compared with 18-20 minutes on FM. So I think I can deal. I was waiting for one of you people to get XM so I could better gauge whether I'll like it, but you are bad friends, so I had to go it alone. I think I'll like it. though. I'll report back when it's up and running.

Went to the big car show downtown today (that's where I got hooked up with XM). I wouldn't normally hang out at such an event, but Geoffrey was working there today and had an extra free ticket, so I figured what the hey. It actually was really fun. Got to check out all sorts of cars with no one trying to sell them to me, and got to sit in a few that are way above my price range, fah-de-dah. Also saw some concept cars that were purty neat. My favorite real cars that I checked out were the VW Eurovan, which of course is huge, but its top pops up for a camper and you can make beds or hanging-out areas in the inside -- camp in your car, fun stuff! Also liked the Subaru Outback -- lots of neato little tricks no other car has, very well-thought out. I sat in a new Mini Cooper and it was pretty cool. Didn't feel all that small on the inside. Not sure I would pay $22,000 for it though. Also at the car show was the billiards champ woman who Geoffrey and I see on ESPN2 all the time. She's super cool -- Jeanette Lee, if you've heard of her. She's even got a badass nickname: The Black Widow. Yeeeeeah. There also was a table about car theft prevention, and I hung out there for a while and ended up talking to a DC cop whose sole job it is to help find stolen cars. He assured me that my Jetta is pretty well steal-proof what with the computer-chip key. Hope he's right! Spiderman was also at the car show. I probably should have gotten his autograph, but I was shy.

So there are my adventures to close 2002. Off to Gaithersburg, MD, tonight to co-host the New Year's Eve party at my friend Karen's house. Should be fun times. And if not, there's plenty to drink and a Brak Show marathon on TV. Happy New Year, everyone!