"The new Zach Braff flick" strikes me as a bit other-worldly.  Who in the world is Zach Braff?  From the picture on the side, he looks like the love-child of Keanu Reeves and David Duchovny, but, alas, not so cute as either.  Why in the world does he have such an ugly name?

Lovely that his character drives a Prius, and finds it praiseworthy.  At least I have heard of those.  Priuses, I mean.  But really, where I live, NYC, is one of the only places in the US that one does not need to own a car, so it would not surprise me at all if many of my neighbors had never heard of Priuses, or knew little or nothing of their virtues.

Of course, I do not own a vehicle of any description, and have no intention of buying one, and in fact pray that the day is far far away when I may need to buy one.

Anyway, good for the hybrid industry, I guess, and well done, Sarah, for having that handy napkin at the ready.  By all means, try out that clever lower-taxes tactic.

Still, I mistrust people with cowardly, compromising, non-committal biblical names, named for minor biblical characters, such as "Zach" (Braff) and "Josh" (Hartnett).  However cute.  (You reach a certain age, and the cuteness does not stop you thinking: that is when you know you are old.)  (But then again, that is not the end of the world.  Believe it or not, new vistas open up.)

And why in the world are monosyllables considered sexy?  Anyway, at least "Matt" (Damon) and "Tom" (Cruise) are named for somewhat more significant characters.  And the bisyllabic "David" and "Michael" and "Daniel" are persistently popular.  And "Samuel" (always however reduced to "Sam" or, in more cuddly fashion, "Sammy") has recovered lost favor.

But what about such major but unsexy names as "Moses"?  What about "Abraham"?  What about "Isaiah," or "Jeremiah" (well, OK, the Brit form "Jeremy" works for some), or "Ezekiel," or "Elijah"?

"Jake" is a popular name for male dogs.  God knows why.  Are there now little boys also being named "Jake," short for "Jacob"?  With boys, "Jacob," the third-generation patriarch, re-named "Israel," is respectable.  Shortening it at once to "Jake" is cowardly.

Girls' names are a whole different game.  Parents feel cowardly and weirdly conservative when naming their boy babies, but feel open and free and creative when naming their girl babies.  God knows why.  Well, I have an idea, but let us pass on that for now.  Meanwhile, be assured that "Sarah" does not at all fit the fashion that I am referring to.

On Blythe Danner: Her performance as the mother in Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" is stellar.  Along with several of Woody Allen's movies, this is definitely a way to learn about classic Brooklyn, really the Athens of 20th-century America.  Also, there is the sequel, "Biloxi Blues," when the Brooklyn boy is in the Army and is sent to Mississippi.

I have no idea what the excellent Blythe Danner is doing in this way-too-fast-moving vehicle about cute kids in cars.  Not that I have anything against cute kids.  But is she so hard up to pay for take-out?  Hopefully, her part amounts to something.

Another magnificent performance by a shigtzah as a Jewish mother is that of the late Italian-American Anne Bancroft in Harvey Feierstein's "Torch Song Trilogy."  Everybody knows her, from an earlier classic performance:  Koo koo ka choo, Mrs. Robinson.

For some reason, Brooklyn-dialect language coaches have always been in demand.  I just saw, for like the twentieth time, one of the greatest comedies of all times, "Victor/Victoria," shown on PBC here in NYC, in which Lesley Ann Warren steals every scene she is in, as a Chicago gangster's moll, as well as a Chicago burlesque performer.  But does she speak Chicagoan?  Does she sound like she is from the Midwest?  No no no.  She is Brooklyn through and through.  Gott wisst es, ich weiss nichts.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

The fuelcell Equinox has a driving range of 200 miles, no mileage champ no matter how fueled. Even subcompact fuel cell cars have this same limitation. The 2-door Honda FCX will go only 190 miles on a tank.

There are dozens of impracticalities with fuel cell technology, from hydrogen gas production, distribution and storage systems to vehicle manufacture and safety features, questionable energy inefficiencies, etc etc.

Biofuels are ideally applicable in the hybrid drivetrain, but not fuel cell.

GM hybrids also fall short of expectations. Their electric motor drive systems do not propel the vehicle as much as 'assist' a standard internal combustion engine and transmission. It is important to make this distinction between the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape hybrid and the hybrid system in GM Silverado and Saturn VUE. The Toyota/Ford hybrid can run entirely on electricity, whereas GM hybrids cannot.

It matters not how 'cool' a fuel efficient car may be. GM is marketing their vehicles on 'cool', but are they being disengenuous? Are they purposefully failing to advance the more practical technologies in order to maintain a market dominance? The answer is, they're GM. We should expect nothing more.