Misc. 11.26.05

Is anyone else floored by the dripping narcissism of that August Busch IV commercial for Budweiser?

I'm back home. Whew! Whirlwind two days. Should be good training for Christmas. Regular blogging will resume tomorrow morning.

I drove the entire length of Detroit's Eight Mile Road this afternoon. About 25 miles. The road is the northern border of Detroit and the eponymous road of Eminem's somewhat famous movie. Eight Mile is notorious as the dividing line between civilization and, well, barbarity. I used to drive along it for various reasons back in the 1980s, and from what I can tell, the road is much less insidious today than it was. Various small industries have risen to fill the no-man's lands and there appear to be respectable businesses. Yes, there are still nine (9!) strip clubs on the Detroit side alone, but only one pawn shop and a few bar-windowed liquor stores. I wouldn't want to live there, but it looks better than I remember, even though everything I read says Detroit is slipping backwards again under its current mayor.