Thursday, April 26, 2007

Wake Up

It's been easy waking up lately. Not easy like "Eyes slowly opening, outside birds gently singing, I glance at the clock and it's late but that's okay" easy. Easy like "Those fucking seagulls better shut up or I'm gonna throw an Alka-Seltzer feeding party. Aw shit, might as well drag my ass out of bed" easy. With all the noise you hear in our neighborhood before the alarm clock goes off, it's a breeze waking up.

The garbage trucks. The seagulls squawking at the garbage left behind by the garbage trucks. The sirens. The cars racing down Grand Blvd. The downstairs neighbors turning on the bathroom fan and slamming the toilet seat in either direction. The gardeners with their lawnmowers and their weed whackers. The sirens. And the occasional neighbor starting their car, rolling down the windows and blasting some otherwise relatively benign indie-pop like The Shins or Death Cab for Cutie. Caring is Creepy. Right. YOU'RE creepy. Fuck off and give me back my last hour of sleep.

There's also our unpredictable roommate. Sometimes he wakes up before I do and makes a bunch of noise. Other times he gets up in the middle of the night and makes a racket, which makes it impossible to sleep much less get back to sleep when the racket is over. And then there are the times when I wake up and look at the clock and I think he's gonna make some noise soon, therefore I can't sleep anymore I might as well drag my ass outta bed.

But I know of a way to solve the problem: If you can't beat 'em, drink more coffee.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Guided by Voices

The phone rang. It was the friendly folks at my cellular service provider who had decided to give me a 2nd line with a free phone too.
Her voice was loud and instructional, and I could tell she was reading from the printed page.

voice: Hello this is a complimentary call from Sprint Nextel and we'd like to let you know that in addition to our free offer, this call will not count against any of your minutes.

me: Great

voice: I'd like to speak with Mr. Gardner

me: This is Mr. Gardner

voice: Because you've been such an outstanding customer blah blah blah we'd like to offer you a 2nd line and a free flip phone blah blah blah

me: Great

voice: Would you be interested in that?

me: I'm interested

voice: So are you saying yes, you'd like to accept our offer?

me: Let me ask you this: Can I take the extra line and make it my wife's phone number and give her the free phone?

voice: I'm not sure. Are you interested?

me: I'm interested

voice: Would you like to accept our offer?

me: Well, I can't really make a decision whether I'd like to accept or not until I have information as to whether I can make the extra line my wife's phone number and give her the free phone.

voice: (pause) Can I put you on hold for a minute to see if I can answer your question?

me: Sure

A minute goes by, and the voice returns

voice: Hello? Mr. Gardner?

me: Yes

voice: I'm not really sure if we can do that or not.

me: Hmmm

voice: So would you like to accept our offer?

me: Well, I can't really make a decision whether I'd like to accept or not until I have information as to whether I can make the extra line my wife's phone number and give her the free phone.

voice: So is that a yes or a no?

me: It's neither. I can't really make a decision based on the information I have.

voice: Well thank you for your time and thank you for choosing Sprint together with Nextel.

me: Okay, bye.

The next day the phone rings and it's the same voice and the same offer is offered as if the prior conversation never happened. I explained that we'd had this conversation before and I couldn't make a decision until she could tell me whether I could make the extra line my wife's phone number and give her the free phone.

voice: Can I put you on hold for a minute to see if I can answer your question?

A minute goes by, and the voice returns

voice: Hello? Mr. Gardner?

me: Yes

voice: I have my supervisor on the line, could you repeat your question?

me: Can I take the extra line and make it my wife's phone number and give her the free phone?

voice (not the supervisor's voice): Can I put you on hold for a minute to see if I can answer your question?

me: Sure.

A minute goes by, and the voice returns

voice: I'm not really sure if we can do that or not.

I tell the voice that I can't really spend any more time on this, and she says thanks for choosing Sprint together with Nextel. The next day the phone rings and it's a different voice offering the same plan. I give my same spiel and this time the voice tells me I need to call customer relations, and that he can't do it for me. That was easy.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Money

I'm a "click here to save the environment" kind of guy. There's a mail folder I've created in my favorite e-mail program to separate all those "click here to save the environment" kind of e-mails. I feel like I'm doing my part. Clicking to save polar bears and baby seals. Clicking to save the trees from the loggers and the Bush administration. Clicking to bring the troops home. Click.

Sometimes I give money to these organizations as well. Hell, if the lobbyists for destroying the planet are throwing their money into the furnace, then I oughta be throwing my money into buying some water to put the fire out. One organization I give money to is Environment California. They do all sorts of good stuff like making sure there's no rocket fuel in our drinking water. And they use my money to stop the oil companies from putting up a zillion oil drilling platforms off the California coast and having us swim in slimy water at the beach I don't even wanna swim in. It's the least I can do.

But my favorite thing about giving money to Environment California is the fact that when I see their young minions out in front of REI or wherever asking for money, I can tell them I already give every month to their organization. Then their faces fill with glee and they thank me and back off.

One such minion started walking up to me to ask for "a moment of my time"*, but I stopped him in his tracks by telling him I'm already a member and I give every month. He then smiled and made an arm gesture rotating at the shoulder right angle bent elbow with fist moving in front of his torso toward the other shoulder. If that doesn't make sense, it's kind of a "hooray" or hoisting beer stein or "shucks" kind of motion. If that still doesn't make sense, come see me and I'll demonstrate it for you.

Well, he did that and I immediately thought "whoa, that was the dorkiest motion I've seen in quite a while, I can't believe he just did that" and I looked at his cohort standing on the other side of me like "can you believe he just did that?" The other guy was smiling too. Now I wanna give my money to some other cause, because apparently they're using my money to supply these kids with drugs. Click.

*money