The Mercedes Sprinter has been in service 15 years this year. It was the first MB commercial vehicle to have a name instead of a number. MB followed with other new named vans and trucks in all weight classes.

Mercedes productions numbers are strong in this class with the T1 having over a million units sold and the Sprinter looking at 2 million units from 1995.

Sprinter is now on the road in more than 100 countries around the globe.

The King of Tonga is chauffeured around in a Sprinter boasting a particularly fine finish; extreme athlete Hubert Schwarz is rounding the globe by bicycle with an all-wheel-drive Sprinter as back up.

Little wonder that with successes like this to show the Sprinter has been the recipient of numerous prizes and trophies in the course of its career.

Winner of “Van of the Year” in various countries, the “German Commercial Vehicle Prize”, multiple winner in the van category in the voting for “Best Commercial Vehicles”, and in the category “Camper Van of the Year” in the James Cook camper van version – the Sprinter is one of the most highly decorated vans of all time.

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2010/02/05/464658.html

It was a great game. I wasn’t particularly happy with the outcome but now that it is over, the only thing before baseball season (yea!) is March Madness.

Both teams played well, the advertisements were as normal – good and for some, a little strange. The half-time show . . . wow, how sad was that?

The Who and I grew up together. Not literally of course. But really, The Who? It was just embarrassing to watch. What demographic of the NFL was that supposed to reach? Viewers in nursing homes? Or was it a price thing? Maybe they did it for free. Is so, it cost too much.

I don’t think the half-time entertainment should be older than the oldest player (not counting Brent Farve who apparently will never go away). How about some of the new bands? How about the Killers or the Fray or . . . you name one. How about maybe some Grammy winners? Or two or three?

Can we blame it all on Janet Jackson and get over it? How about this. No pop stars or boy bands, just good hard rock and roll with some country thrown in. Or maybe Pink.

If I killed 6 dogs or 6 cats or even 6 parrots in a day I’d most likely be in trouble. This kid however, lives in Spain where it is ok to do this.

“Ever since I was very small I have had this in my genes,” he told The Associated Press. “I have practically grown up with bulls.”

So, this hero, kills six bulls that have been bleeding some minutes all ready thanks to the brave Picadors, who from a horse, stab the bulls numerous times in the shoulders. Oh yeah, this is also called a “sport.”

This type of drama, which pits a young matador against six ferocious bulls, happens every now and then when a bullfighter feels brave enough to risk his life to show his courage.

Of course, he has a sword to stab the bull with when the “ferocious”  animal is finally too tired and too weak from loss of blood to continue. And five of the animals he killed took 3 tries. I wonder if they have instant replay?

This was a preseason (apparently there is a bull killing season in Spain) charity event to benefit children with autism. Now that is really sad.

The Sprinter seems to have made it into the future, the date – YR42. The place, Caprica, which is a city (I think) located on the planet Athena (I think) – and there are colonies (somewhere).

In the last episode, they (I don’t know names) were hauling a robot (or something) who has the mind (or something) representing Zoe (a teenager that got blown-up). So, the vehicle they unloaded the robot thing from was a Sprinter (07-09) that apparently had been imported to Caprica. I say imported because the name of the dealer on the door of the Sprinter was Carter Dodge Chrysler of Burnaby, British Columbia. And we know BC must be a long way from Caprica where ever it is.

The Sprinter must have been an antique. Caprica, the series, is far enough into the future that men wear hats again, monotheism is not pc, and they apparently do not have football or baseball – I know, that makes it kind of a horror show – at least the baseball part.

You can check this all out on the Syfy Channel where Caprica airs on Fridays. Hope we see a Sprinter again!

This morning I received the computer version of Camping World’s magazine, RV View.

Reading it, or trying to, while having coffee was strange. They have done it right – you can flip pages or print it or save it as a PDF file. It has nice color and the ads (which I do read) are good even pretty. Still, it will take some getting used to this method over paper. And I know Camping World has taken this all into account but . . .

What if I did want to read it while camping? Or multi-tasking (like watching TV)? On my desk with a nice large monitor it is still very small print. On my netbook, samo samo except more scrolling.

I’ll just have to live with it though and hope that one day a common format might emerge. Actually, when I commuted to San Francisco on a regular basis, I read many books on my Dell Pocket PC – do those still work? I didn’t worry about being on line or music videos and it worked just fine. Maybe I’ll dig it out of the closet and see if it will handle RV View.

I think the first rap (I don’t like) song was Rapture (I do like) by Blondie.

It is amazing to me that the election of one person can completely change the way congress works and cause a re-write of the State-of-the-Union address. There must be something terribly wrong with either the people or the system or both.

You only have to push the “Walk” button once. Standing there pushing it constantly will do nothing to speed things up.

Iran is playing us for a sucker. But you knew that right?

I was shocked to learn the “pants hanging down” fashion is over 25 years old. It should just be limited to people with no visible waist or hips (like me) who really don’t have a choice.

I agree with President O’s call for more civility in the government. We need it everywhere. Being crude, impolite and breaking the “little laws” seems common. They no longer teach “Civics” and this is one of the causes. I see people turn left on a red arrow because no one is coming. California stops are a thing of the past – they don’t even slow down now. These aren’t “furinors” or illegal aliens. These are red, white and blue born in the USA Americans.

Some legislator in California wants to make it a law that children skiing must wear a helmet. I started skiing when I was 4 – I don’t know how I survived (I did wear a helmet when racing.) without one. Actually, I didn’t wear a helmet on my bicycle – just a baseball hat; not on my horse – just a cowboy hat, not while sledding or tubing – just a stocking hat. And equally amazing, I can’t think of one friend, neighbor or schoolmate that did get hurt. If I had gotten hurt the response would have been, “Crybaby. Its your own fault. You’re the one that fell down. C’mon lets go.”

The one above was too long.

I see a lot of idiots where ever I go . . . one reason I don’t go too often.

How come, people running for office are often old? Very old. I think I would trust someone who is young, who doesn’t forget things, and plays Halo.

My college room-o , Jim S., told me nothing hurts worse than pain. He was right.

Someone told me my dad most likely had observations much like mine.