Sun? Could it be? All of us (that's the entire population of L.A. County) trodged out to the beach today in celebration of the return of the big yellow ball and it was glorious. Bad traffic, but good times. Akhil and I have had a rough week, so we recuperated for most of the day with a walk along the beach between Santa Monica and Venice, followed by brunch and a little shopping. Speaking of shopping, our automobile search is going nowhere fast as we keep finding reasons to rule out what we thought were our best options -- especially those German ones. And we went to that darn Auto Show TWICE! Mostly, it's because of terrible reliability reports -- and in some cases, styling, which sounds like a bad reason but the crappy plastic details on some of these cars are just too horrifying to excuse. (That means you, Toyota/Lexus! What gives?!) The Prius is an exception. And the new hybrid SUVs coming out mid-year look promising -- for now, the Wagoneer lives on.