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Update: My hair is awesome. I either look like a supermodel or a punk rocker. Either way works for me! Now, if I can only get it to do this all the time...

I am progressively becoming more irritated by people who have blogs who don't update them regularly. Really, what is the purpose of having one if you're not going to update it? It defeats the purpose. Besides, I'm bored and want something to read. And you people are not helping me!!

If you've read my profile on MySpace, you know that I am a NASCAR fan. Now, before you lose all interest and deem yourself too elitist to indulge in a discussion about NASCAR, let me assure you that I have been in your shoes. Well, not literally. My feet are very sensitive, that's just not going to happen. But I, too, shunned NASCAR as a redneck hick sport. And then I met my brother-in-law. Or rather, my sister met my brother-in-law. And became a NASCAR fan. They quickly tired of me making fun of their new favorite Sunday pasttime, and took me to the racetrack. My sister has always had the need for speed, as they say. She likes fast cars, fast motorcycles, and liked the movie "Top Gun," which identified the phrase "the need for speed." I hated Top Gun, and while I am a pretty confident and fast driver, I am a safety first kind of girl. Caution is my middle name. (ok, really, it's Lee, but I would be much cooler if my middle name was Caution, I assure you. Or Wonder Woman. But I digress.) So I was skeptical about the lure of a sport where cars turn left for three hours. I went reluctantly to the minor leagues of stock car racing, in Berlin, MI. We parked in a grassy field and I rolled my eyes as we trecked into the bleachers. And then the race began. The roar of the engines was deafening, there were kids parked all around me with headphones protecting their ears. I wished I had their headphones. The cars began speeding around the track, and then the crashes began. Crazy crashes. And while those were interesting, I tend to get a bit anxious about injuries and such and so I found the actual race part much more entertaining. It's interesting that we have speed limits to protect us on our roads, and then they turn these cars loose with their monster engines, and they say, "Go as fast as you can as long as you can still turn, and cut people off if you have to in order to get to the front." I was so fascinated by the whole experience. So then I agreed to watch NASCAR, as long as Kary (my sister) assigned me a driver to follow. So she assigned me the #48 car, Jimmie Johnson, in the Lowe's car. NASCAR is all about following one driver. If you follow a driver, then you care about how they do in the race, if they are driving well, if they pass another car on the inside, if they crash, if they win. If you don't have a driver, then of course it's not interesting, you have no one to root for! When this NASCAR season started, Scott had not watched NASCAR, but was interested because he was preparing for his show "The Night Hank Williams Died" and was working on his Texas accent. One of the NBC announcers for NASCAR is from Texas and has a very clear Texas accent, so Scott would watch with me just to repeat his accent. So I told my sister that Scott needed a driver, and so she assigned him car #9, Kasey Kahne. Scott loves alliteration, so it fit him well, and he became quickly hooked on watching his driver, and forgetting about the announcer. And away we went. For a while there, we were watching NASCAR every Sunday. Unfortunately, other things have gotten in the way lately, which is frustrating. Because Jimmie Johnson is running 1st in the point standings (he's leading the NASCAR championship run...if you need explanations, the NASCAR website explains things pretty well), and Kasey isn't far behind in 6th place. Only the top 10 drivers get to race the last races of the season to determine the champion, so we're both in right now. Which makes the races so much more interesting to watch, and you find yourself cringing when someone cuts your driver off, or cheering if your driver retaliates by nudging that car ever so nicely. It's a brutal sport sometimes. And sometimes it's a clean race and everyone just goes really fast. Either way, it's fun to watch. Scott and I are going to go to Berlin Raceway again this summer with my sister and brother-in-law, and we're excited to see it live, even if it is the minor leagues. The tickets for the real NASCAR race in Joliet this summer are $200, proving that NASCAR has a broad mass fanbase and can get away with charging that much for a ticket. NASCAR is the fastest growing sport in America because of people like me and Scott, who just stumbled upon it and are hooked. So before you make fun of it, turn on your TV on a Sunday afternoon (NBC, though they don't race every week. They do race most weeks from Feb. to October, however), pick a driver, and watch them go. Just make sure you pick a good one...it'll make it much more interesting! Gentlemen (and ladies), start your engines...