Thanks to our friends at BMW for tickets to the VIP night at the 2008 Canadian International Auto Show. I do enjoy fine engineering and things that go fast. This was the black tie event kicking off the show. I had a great time and saw some really cool cars.

The new offerings in the BMW line include the sporty 1 series, the X6 and the Mini Clubman.

Ford had a nice Microsoft Sync kiosk for learning about the technology and signing up for further info (lead generation for Ford). I found it a little odd that the kiosk had no way to enter Canadian addresses.

A few other Ford offerings caught my eye. The Chip Foose F-150 was on display.

I was fascinated by the Ford Airstream concept vehicle. It was like a minivan sized Airstream trailer. This was a fuel cell vehicle and the styling was quite remarkable.

All the pictures were taken with my Samsung Black Jack II.

I am in Santa Monica today and tomorrow. I am speaking at a WPP event sponsored by The Store. The event is being held at the very nice Casa Del Mar Hotel. I managed to forget toothpaste and so I headed down to the lobby to get some at the lobby store. They were out, but while I was there I found the hotel has their own chocolate bar. I of course bought a sample (and housekeeping was kind enough to supply me with toothpaste).

This chocolate bar is manufactured by Vosges. The bar 85 grams and is presented in an understated box with with the hotel logo. At a reported 62% cacao it is a little lighter than I usually enjoy. Like many of Vosges offerings the chocolate enriched with a variety of interesting flavor accompaniments. This custom formulated bard had smoked Spanish paprika, alder wood smoked sea salt and roasted almonds. The paprika and alder wood flavors were most prominent providing a very lively taste against the smooth creamy chocolate flavor. The almonds and sea salt both added a certain gritty mouth feel. I not a big fan of this texture in chocolate as it tends to make me think I have just taken a mouthful of dirt. Once past my initial reaction though the unusual flavors were quite intriguing.

Oh and one more thing, I shared an elevator Robin Williams as I was returning from the lobby. It is my general practice to show respect to individuals with a large media profile by not accosting them as they go about their life.