Family Guy had it’s season premeire tonight. As you may know, Family Guy is back with new episodes after being cancelled by Fox in 2002. The first show lived up to my expectations, it was the same old Family Guy, just how I like it. All day leading up to the premiere I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.

If you aren’t familiar with Family Guy, it’s kind of like The Simpsons but a little bit more cold-blooded. Maybe something like Simpsons + Married With Children + South Park. It’s not childish in the way South Park is, it’s definitely more intelligent than that. Howeverss ome viewers might be turned off by the way their smart satire is usually quickly followed up by stupid, schoolboy crudeness. You definitely have to have a special kind of sense of humor to appreciate the genious of this show. If you do, you’ll laugh your ass off.

How many times has a major network brought back a show that it had cancelled? Fox admitting that they made a mistake and ordering up 36 episodes is unheard of. Tonight’s return episode began with kind of a slap in the face to Fox. The episode begins with Peter saying:

“Everyone, I’ve got bad news, we’ve been cancelled.”

“Oh, no, Peter,” responds wife Lois. “How could they do that?”

But Peter is understanding. “Unfortunately, there’s no more room on the schedule. We’ve just got to accept the fact that Fox has to make room for terrific shows like ‘Dark Angel,’ ‘Titus,’ ‘Undeclared,’ ‘Action,’ ‘That ’80s Show,’ ‘Wonderfalls,’ ‘Fastlane,’ ‘Andy Richter Controls the Universe,’ ‘Skin,’ ‘Girls Club,’ ‘Cracking Up,’ ‘The Pitts,’ ‘Firefly,’ ‘Get Real,’ ‘Freakylinks,’ ‘Wanda at Large,’ ‘Costello,’ ‘The Lone Gunmen,’ ‘A Minute With Stan Hooper,’ ‘Normal, Ohio,’ ‘Pasadena,’ ‘Harsh Realm,’ ‘Keen Eddie,’ ‘The Street,’ ‘American Embassy,’ ‘Cedric the Entertainer,’ ‘The Tick,’ ‘Luis’ and ‘Greg the Bunny.’ But I suppose if all those shows go down the tubes, we might have a shot.”

You have to admire a comedian (Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane) who had his show cancelled, and then comes back with the power to bite the hand that feeds (Fox). How did the show make it back? Impressive DVD sales and a healthy rerun afterlife on TBS and the Cartoon Network that miraculously outperformed Leno and Letterman in ratings in the same timeslot. Fox wised up and realized that it wasn’t up to them to bring Family Guy back, they had to.

NASCAR was in Talladega, AL today. Typical restrictor plate race, which drags on and on and only gets exciting toward the end. Well, until Dale Earnhardt, Jr. made a move that ruined the day of many drivers.

During the pre-race show they played audio of the driver’s meeting, in which we heard NASCAR President Mike Helton warning drivers that they are only allowed to bump-draft on the back stretch.

Apparently, these rules applied to everyone except Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Once again, driving like an idiot, he starts bump drafting Mike Wallace into turn 1, forcing Wallace up causing Jimmie Johnson to slow up and get into the the wall and into a spin. Of course 25 cars then piled into Johnson and were destroyed as Dale Earnhardt, Jr. drove away without a scratch. After the race he blamed the whole thing on Johnson.

Dale Earnhardt Sr. was an agressive driver too, but he was a lot smarter about it. Dale Jr. needs to be fined like everyone else. Not with money, with points. Maybe then he’ll learn how to drive fair and play by the rules. But no penalty has been enforced on Jr., as that would be the unpopular thing of NASCAR to do. Their selective enforcement of the rules is getting really irritating. If it had been Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, or anyone else for that matter, there would have been penalties enforced. This favoritism is quickly making me a bigger fan of NHRA and rally racing and less of a fan of NASCAR. I think a lot of people feel the same. Not everyone is a Dale Jr. fan.

My Friday afternoon was spent at the DMV getting my MN drivers license and registering my car here in MN. Took the whole afternoon at work off because I figured it would be a long afternoon. I spent three hours standing in line at the Eagan DMV for my drivers license test. The test was pretty painless, but standing in line for three hours amongst some pretty undesirable people with all of my official personal identification documents in my pocket was a little nerve wracking.

Then I had to go over to a different DMV to register my car. Oh how I loathed the idea of standing in line for another three hours. To my delight, the Edina DMV was actually a rather pleasant experience. Stepped in the door, took a number, sat down in a nice comfy seat, and watched Toy Story 2 on the overhead TVs. Within 15 minutes my number was called, and it took about three minutes to get my plates. Too bad I couldn’t have done both things there.

So now I’m officially a Minnesota resident. Only after about four years of stalling and four years of employment in this state. And in a couple of years, hopefully I’ll be applying for residence in another state. Hopefully.

See you next time.