Oh, Los Angeles

Or maybe it's Starbucks I should be blaming. Or probably a combination of the two.

Anyway, every time I order a drink, at least one thing gets screwed up. I ask for nonfat milk, they give me 2%. I ask for two shots, they give me one. I ask for flavoring, they don't give me anything. Most recently, I asked for whipped cream and got a naked drink.

Now, look. Okay. I "get" that when someone asks for nonfat milk in her drink it's a somewhat reasonable assumption that she's doing it because she wants to watch her calories or something. The problem is, this isn't really true for me. I mean, I watch my calories and factor them into my decisions about what to eat each day, but my choice of nonfat milk for my lattes has much more to do with the fact that I've been drinking skim milk for over a decade now, and anything else tastes like pure cream to me. 2% milk in a latte makes me feel like I am drinking a dessert.

So when I ask for whipped cream, it's because I want whipped cream on my drink (on it, not in it), not because I'm actually so stupid that I don't understand that putting fatty, high-calorie whipped cream on my drink will more than make up for any calories saved by foregoing the 2%. But, this being LA and all, and me being healthy instead of skelatal and all, how could I possibly care about anything besides calories? A fatass like me really ought to watch what she puts in her body. I mean.

Random pet peeve of the day

People who call me at an hour when I'm clearly at work.

In case you were wondering, no, your random "hey, how's it going? Just wanted to chat" call is not important enough to interrupt work.

Um. Although blogging occasionally is :0)

He can't be serious

Now Senator Brownback is jumping on the gay-bashing bandwagon:

"I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe the United States is well-served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way."

Hmmm.

OK to be immoral in any way.

Well, play along with me for a second here, Sammy.

You're a good Christian, right? Remember that part of the Bible where Jesus says that all the law and the prophets can be boiled down into two commandments: love God and love your neighbor? Remember? Let me help you out: it's right here.

I mean, I could be real nitpicky and point out that he doesn't say anything about who has sex with whom right there. But, hell. For shits and giggles let's pretend that Matthew was secretly gay so he left that part out (thank goodness our good buddy Saul/Paul came along, huh? You know, the one who was super good at just plain loving everyone).

Let's just focus on the horrible things our country is doing, hmm? I mean. America is so messed up. We've got these crazy laws like The First Amendment that let you do things like not love God and not love your neighbor.

Dude. We can't let this go on any longer. We need to defend morality in this Godless wasteland of a country!! Down with the First Amendment!!! Hell, down with all of them!!! We need to get this country back on track! No more of this personal space bullshit! The theocratic commune has to take hold, NOW. TODAY. We cannot tolerate immorality in our country any longer!

If we do, the terrorists have already won.

Argh

I hate having allergies. I feel sick but vitamin C, etc., will do me no good. I can't take antihistamines because I'll fall asleep (and I have waaay too much work to do). And I don't have time to go out and shop for an air filter.

Dammit dammit dammit.

Pet peeve of the day

Godzilla sushi rolls.

I made up the term, but it's completely appropriate.

I don't know if this is a Japanese thing or an Americanization (read: embiggening) of one of the tastiest kinds of food around, but it's annoying.

Sushi rolls are plenty delicious with an amount of ingredients that can be rolled and cut into morsel-sized bits that can be devoured in one chomp. Why a roll needs a full inch of avocado and an inch and a half of cucumber, BEFORE FISH, I will never know.

But, look. If I'm unable to pick up a piece of sushi with my chopsticks, there's a problem. I shouldn't have to eat sushi with my hands. They have germs and stuff.

Trolls

I can never quite decide if it's smarter to just ignore them, or to argue with them. I mean, obviously logic and reasonable arguments won't change their minds, small and closed as they are, but on the other hand, I love arguing SO MUCH. I guess it does kind of make me a bully, though, if I pick on an inferior intellect. Dammit. Sometimes your brain is tired and you just want an easy target, ya know?

Havoc may stink, but it doesn't smell.

Look people. You don't "reek" havoc or "wreck" havoc, you wreak havoc. But apparently there are even federal judges who don't get this very basic point.

Today's pet peeve

It's grammar-related. I'm sure almost everyone remembers being a little kid and having Teacher say "don't say 'Bobby and me are going out.' Say 'Bobby and I.'" Teacher was correct, but I am sad to say, s/he is also responsible for a generation of people sounding like idiots. Why? Because they overcorrect. In fact, almost all of you do it. Probably 75% of my friends do it, and I am not friends with dumb people, period. So you have all these smart, talented, successful people who don't know how to speak English properly.

What am I going on about?

I'll tell you what I'm going on about: the very KEY distinction between subjects on the one hand ("I") and objects on the other ("me"). A subject acts on an object. A subject will, for example, talk to an object. A subject will never talk to Bobby and I. A subject might, however, talk to Bobby and me.

People get confused because they think, erroneously, that injecting Bobby into the conversation is what shoves me out of the way to make room for I. This is a misperception. Bobby was never the problem; he can stay, he can go -- but Bobby's place in the sentence is irrelevant. In fact, Bobby should just stay over in his yard so that people will stop aggravating me by leaving me out of the conversation and putting I in my place. Shudder.

When Bobby and I are subjects, using I is perfectly fine. Therefore, Bobby and I are going to the store. Bobby and I like ice cream. Bobby and I like people who don't butcher the English language.

Here's the rule of thumb. Before speaking (or typing! The specific thing that caused me to post this was a myspace slideshow that referred to, we'll say, "Mom taking Bobby and I to the park." I almost killed somebody), ask yourself how you would feel if Bobby wasn't in the conversation. Mom is taking I to the store. If you have a question, talk to I. Look! It's I! If your sentence sounds ridiculous without Bobby, it is probably missing something: me.

Now please stop pissing me off.

Life on crack... berry

I hate my CrackBerry. I never wanted one in the first place, but eventually people started getting frustrated with me for not promptly responding to weekend emails, so I broke down and got one, the most basic model my firm was handing out.

The thing buzzes every time I get an email. Most of the time, it's nothing important. But occasionally it is. Slightly more rarely, it is a bombastic email from a certain partner I work for, inevitably telling me how badly I've screwed up my current project.

Mostly because of the latter of these, I've come to dread that unmistakable "buzz" sound. I hear it and I can literally feel my body tense up and my heart pump slightly faster. I hate that stupid sound. Stupid CrackBerry.

So I'm sitting here and there's a loud-talking associate in the office nearby. He talks and talks and talks, very loudly. A minute ago I heard him make a humming sound (as in, "hmmmm, I will have to talk to the client about that"). I swear to God the man sounds like a BlackBerry buzz.

I feel like I've entered a surreal place. I need to get off this shit. Shiver.

Pet peeve of the day

Cashiers who hand you your change, coins on top. Coins should be placed in the hand *first* so they don't slide off the bill, and so you don't have to crumple the bill to keep the coins from tumbling to the floor. Coins first, bills on top. Is it really that difficult??

On a more humorous note:

The car insurance company who took care of my claim when Rudolfo broke his bum has taken to sending me flyers with insurance rates, trying to get me to switch over.

Um.

What I recall is that, yes, the claim agent was very nice, but he was *way* too eager to give me money. I told him that I didn't really think it was the fault of their client, it was really no one's fault, and the repairs were not that expensive, so I didn't care about making a claim. The agent was surprised and said he had never had anyone say that before. I said that I didn't see the point in raising her insurance rates to make a few bucks for myself, but if they were going to raise her rates then, duh, of course I'd take the money. He said he couldn't tell me any information about her rates, but that the company had already accepted liability for the accident. Read: her rates are going up.

Now why would I want to be insured by someone who raises rates when the other driver *says* she's not concerned about pursuing the claim???

Confirmation that our tax money is being wasted

on dangerous people like me who dare to try to bring pocketknives onto the plane, rather than people who forge invalid id cards in an effort to prove how useless the government is. The dude who actually did this probably thinks they need to step up security, but I have a much better idea -- just document better who goes through security. ID cards all have magentic strips on them by now, so swipe them for a quick criminal background check. That way, you'll have to be a legal citizen to fly anywhere or go into government buildings, and TSA will be able to screen out 95% of the people who get in currently who are actually likely to do any damage. I mean, seriously, so much time and money gets wasted on stuff that doesn't even matter.

Now this is just embarrassing

"If we have offended any Christians I would ask them to forgive us, which seems to be one of the main tenements in the New Testament," actor Paul Bettany, who plays Silas in the film, said with a smile during an interview with CNN's Brooke Anderson at Cannes Tuesday.

From a cnn.com story on The Da Vinci Code. "Tenements"? Seriously??

I don't have time to go into the actual underlying controversy in the piece, though I would like to talk about it later. But I just had to point that out. Come on, Paul, you're a Brit. I thought you guys were supposed to have the whole English thing figured out better than us Yanks.

Oh thank God

After this year, they're laying the Hummer out to pasture. I seriously Do Not understand the appeal of these cars. They're big, they're ugly, they're expensive, they're a road hazard to anyone else driving near you, they're bad for the environment, and they're bad for the economy. If I was more idealistic and naive, I'd hold out hope that they'd get rid of trucks too. Yech.

Speaking of retired cars, I wish they'd bring back the DeLorean. Door-hinge kits, while cool, just aren't the same.

In what universe is it right

that Kellie is *safe* after a performance like last night's, and CHRIS and PARIS are in the bottom three????? WTFFFFF????

That's it. I'm buying a house.

I think most normal people "get" that living in an apartment complex means that occasionally you'll have to put up with some noise. Particularly on weekend nights or during major party-worthy events, like, oh, let's say, the Super Bowl.

So yesterday, I hosted a Super Bowl party in my apartment. Even though the game itself sucked, my party was quite awesome. It'll take me a good month or so to clean up my apartment, but it was worth it. I had fun and my guests were happy, so it was a good party.

Except for one thing.

The game ends around 7ish, and my friends decide to play some DDR, as I had invited them to do. They're having great fun and I'm loving the fact that my different friend-groups are getting along so well. Hooray for me helping to forge new connections! Call me self-absorbed, but there's something wholly satisfying about throwing a good party. And I threw a *good* party. Up until the game was over, that is. My friends get to playing DDR at a completely reasonable hour and within fifteen minutes, I shit you not, I get a phone call from my landlord.

Apparently my whiny downstairs neighbor can't take the "dancing" (even though it's only two people at a time. Two whole people, imagine that!). Which makes me especially pissed off considering that I just bought an extra dance pad so that people could have a dance-off. Now, I can understand being upset if there's waaay too much noise at a late hour. I myself have put up with such irritation, to my great chagrin. But this was seven-freaking-thirty, on freaking SUPER BOWL SUNDAY. My landlord, poor beleaguered soul, had taken this whiner's call *in the hospital*, where he was tending to his *sick wife*. Oh, gee, he must feel so bad for her and her problems. He apologized for calling me and worried that she might get mad, so maybe I should go apologize.

I walk back into the living room, first to apologize to my guests, because in my mind they're the ones being put out by all this. I mean, seriously, how are they supposed to sober up if they can't sweat it off? If anyone got in an accident last night I'm blaming Ms. Whiny McWhinerson. Then I go downstairs to apologize to Crazy Lady herself.

I put on my nicest, sweetest face and apologize, explaining that we were playing a dancing game on the Playstation and we'll stop playing it now. I even invite her up for some beer and super bowl food. She declines and tries to explain herself away by saying that the dancing makes her bathroom door shake.

That's right.

She doesn't have migraines.

She doesn't have cats that go crazy and tear up her curtains when there's noise upstairs.

She doesn't have a chandelier that's about to fall from the ceiling.

Her. Fucking. Bathroom. Door. Makes. A little. Noise.

On FUCKING SUPER BOWL SUNDAY she can't even give me an inch.

I cannot WAIT to get away from crazy people like this. Apparently now I won't be able to have a legitimately fun party DURING THE DAY ON THE WEEKENDS because it might not be whisper-soft enough for the Whiniest Neighbor On The Planet.

GOD, I so need to get my own place.

Loud bug noises

I think there is a special place in hell for whoever invented the car horn that plays "La Cucaracha." There is absolutely no reason for a horn to be that loud and obnoxious. Not to mention, it does a really poor job of accomplishing what horns are really for: emphasizing to other drivers, in addition to the bird you flip them, what major assholes they are. If someone hears "La Cucaracha" after cutting you off, it's going to make her laugh at you, and rightly so. Not only are you so slow that you made another driver impatient enough to cut you off, you're stupid enough to buy that inane melody for your car.

In particular, I despise whoever decided to sell and install that irritating horn in the car of the construction worker who works on the building next to my apartment, beginning at 7 AM every day. Nothing like waking up to "La Cucaracha" and power drills bright and early after spending the better part of the previous night drinking.

If I found a way to break the horn, that wouldn't count as vandalism, right? I mean, for something to be vandalism, it has to cause damage -- and *anything* has to be better than that stupid song.

The joy of SoCal life

I can generally deal with traffic. Really, I can. Sure, it's annoying when there are too many cars for anyone to move very quickly, but at least then we're all in the same boat. When it's just too crowded to move, no one's to blame.

But what I really hate, what *really* burns me, is when people could easily, legally, safely go faster... and they don't!!!!!!

Adding insult to injury, these people always, *always* box me in. They go exactly as fast as the moron next to them (next to them is not always a moron. Sometimes it is just crowded in the adjoining lane) and don't get the picture when you weave in and out of the lane behind them. Safely. I mean, change lanes in a very safe but obviously impatient manner. Yup, very safe and legal.

On such an occasion, why not get the hell over???!?!?!?!?!?!

I mean, besides having some sick desire to drive people like me to psychotic paroxyms of irritation.

I still think Hyde Park (Chicago) drivers are the worst on the planet. But there are some *bad* LA drivers who would get along quite well with them.

Maybe I should take up boxing.

I am going to kill my neighbor

I understand that the subject of this post could be quite damning indeed if my neighbor turns up dead in the morning. Right now, though, I don't even care because I would probably sleep better in prison.

My retarded neighbor is playing some kind of psychotic New Age techno music at some insane hearing-damage level. At first I tried to ignore it. Then I tried stomping around my apartment LOUDLY (I'm upstairs; this person is downstairs) -- and keep in mind I'm generally a quiet walker. I don't even slam the doors like my next-door neighbors do at whatever hour they happen to come home at night or leave in the morning.

And, I have to say, I've been a pretty good neighbor. I'm a generally friendly person. And I invited all my neighbors to my holiday party a few weeks ago (my landlord came and one of my neighbors called to say he couldn't make it). I've only had someone, er, spend the night a couple times, and generally not, oh, the NIGHT BEFORE THE DAY EVERYONE HAS TO GO BACK TO WORK AFTER THE HOLIDAYS. And anyway your neighbors can't masturbate to psychotic music unless they're seriously fucked up. I'm just sayin'.

Since I can't sleep I'm going to play DDR, on full blast, and stomp the hell down onto the dance pad. That way I kill two birds with one stone: I annoy the fuck out of my retarded inconsiderate neighbor AND I make up for the fact that there's no way I'll be able to make it to the gym now in the morning (good thing my personal trainer is out of town, because I have to pay for those sessions whether I make them or not).

If that doesn't work I'm totally putting Star Wars or Jurassic Park or something on full blast.

God, my stupid neighbor is retarded.

More Air-Travel Joy!

I made it to Colorado in one piece.

No thanks to United, though.

United delayed my flight for no good reason. I'd made sure to leave work early to give myself plenty of time in case of traffic and other potential problems. Of course, this meant once I got to the gate I had tons of time to kill. So I took a seat at the bar right across from my gate, which had no information even displayed yet about my flight. I got to chatting with some girls at the bar who were going to the same place as me. At one point, a gentleman nearby mentioned to us that our flight had been moved to the next gate over. No big deal -- 83 to 84 is not a huge walk in LAX.

I glanced again at the screen on 83, which said San Antonio. When it was time to board, I looked at the departure board, which said my flight was boarding out of gate 84. I walked to the gate and asked the woman there if the flight to Colorado Springs was boarding yet. No, she said, they're going to board the San Diego flight first. I noted that the departure board said my flight was boarding. She shrugged and said we weren't boarding yet.

I took the opportunity to duck into the ladies' room. When I emerged, they were nearly finished boarding people for San Diego. The woman announced that they would shortly be boarding Flight 6496 to Colorado Springs. I had a moment of panic.

My ticket is for Flight 6494.

I rushed back to the departure board, only to see that my flight was listed as "closed," having boarded at gate 84. Confused, I ask the woman at the gate what's happened. She looks at my ticket and tells me my flight boarded at gate 83.

Excuse me??

My plane was literally sitting out there doing nothing and they wouldn't let me on. Bastards! The agent at gate 83 even had the audacity to say she'd told us they were boarding and that it was my fault for getting a drink at the bar. Right. I'm so irresponsible that I get here HOURS early for my inexplicably delayed flight and don't want to sit around in perpetual boredom, opting instead for a less boring location a whole 20 feet from the boarding area.

I started to panic. I've been kicked off of United flights before and it wasn't an experience I cared to repeat.

Fortunately, the gate 84 agent was nicer. I think she felt bad because she realized she'd made a mistake when I asked her if my flight was boarding. She got me a seat on the next flight to Colorado Springs, leaving in about 45 minutes. So, instead of getting home at an early enough hour to spend some quality time with my family, I got home late and went straight to bed.

At least I don't have to hound them for a free ticket this time. Last time it took them like 6 months to give me one.

I want a transporter beam.

Phone fun

I got a notice the other day that my phone bill is late. I've had it for a while and meant to pay it, but first I wanted to call them and point out that they've overcharged me, AGAIN. Which is just no fun, because they have limited business hours, meaning I have to call while I'm at work. And even though lately I have no work to do, I just don't like having to call the phone company while I'm at work. It's just WRONG of them to make me do that. And then they make me wait on hold forever, which means getting a sweaty ear or having to close the door and turn on the speakerphone. But I already closed the door once this morning to take a nap (I'm not lazy, I just didn't get much sleep last night. Hehe) and my firm generally has an open-door policy. Someone definitely noticed, too, because they slid an envelope under my door when the mail people came by this morning. But it looks like I'll have to do it since the bill is due tomorrow and I really don't want to lose internet for what would surely be a week or so (once they cut you off, it takes them FOREVER to hook you back up).

Sigh. Stupid Verizon.