Lady

My apartment manager's been making more than the usual amount of visits lately. No specific reason. Not like we're late with the rent. Just this or that, and it's way too much interaction than I'm comfortable with. Borrowing the laundry key, returning the laundry key. Bringing her granddaughter over to visit Judah. Telling us about her new roommate.

It's not that I mind her personally, it's more about the startle I get when anybody knocks on our door. So unexpected. So eerie sounding. And she usually knocks at times when I'm fully settled into "home" mode with "home clothes" on and doing something mundane like cleaning the kitchen after dinner.

The latest surprise visit was Monday morning after I got up and was milling around getting some orange juice. It was an unusually quiet morning for this loud neighborhood. I was probably thinking that it must be nice for Lily and Judah to get some sleep then KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. It felt like a bucket full of ice cold water was dumped on my head.

I opened the door and saw my apartment manager standing there with that face that looks like the "embarassed" emoticon, and I'm sure I answered the door with that face that looks like the "gasp" emoticon. Or maybe I just looked blank and not awake yet. Anyway, my apartment manager proceeds to tell me that we were supposed to get our windows replaced on Tuesday morning at 8 am, but the window replacer guys were here on Monday at 7:20. Nice.

She asked me if I wanted to reschedule and before I had a chance to say something kind like "excuse me, I'm not awake yet, what the hell did you just tell me?" I told her I wasn't aware that the window guys were even coming and that the rest of my family (still sounds weird to say that) was still asleep. She said okay and I closed the door.

I could hear her scamper down the stairs and tell the window guys to come back tomorrow. At least I knew she'd be knocking again in the next 24 hours. Surprise visit duly noted.

It's More Fun to Compute

I've used Apple computers for some time now. Although I call myself a Mac user, unlike a lot of Mac users I have really no hatred toward PCs or the Windows platform. In fact, I really like the Windows feature that allows your window to lock to the entire screen. And I wish that were an option in Macs. So there ya go. Don't hate PCs.

But a PC user recently told me "Macs suck" and I felt compelled to find reasons why they don't suck. And the number one reason they don't suck is the thumb. Macs don't make you use your pinky for the main modifier key. Macs use the thumb.

Just try holding down CTRL with your pinky on a PC and reach for T or Y. Weird fingering, right? Now try holding down CMND (this would be where the ALT button is on PCs for those of you using a PC keyboard) with your left thumb and reach for T or Y. Not so weird, right? Weird with the PC. Not with the Mac. There ya go. PCs are for weridos. You don't want to be a weirdo, do you?

Lips Like Sugar

With all the weather swings lately, my lips have been chapped worse than the inside of Jennifer Jason Leigh's thighs in Last Exit to Brooklyn. Combine the weather with a windy bike ride a couple times a week, and I'm in dire need of lip balm in my possession at all times.

I have a great stick of lip balm made by EO that I bought at Whole Paycheck a while ago. It lives on my nightstand and never goes anywhere. It's still going strong, despite the fact that the average stick of lip balm must have a life span of around 3 weeks. Not because it gets used up, but because it gets lost.

The other week I was at work and I couldn't bear another moment without lip balm so I walked to the nearest grocery store - Wild Oats (which has since been bought by Whole Paycheck) and bought some Wild Oats brand lip balm. Spearmint. Relief at last. I lost the Spearmint Wild Oats lip balm about 2 days later.

I decided that I must always and forever have a lip balm at work and a lip balm at home. So I found an old Berry Blast ChapStick that I previously hated and had previously decided I wasn't ever going to use again, but I brought it out of retirement so it could serve as my "work" lip balm. Brought that to work. Kept it under the Avid keyboard so nobody would steal it. But another editor took over my suite for a week and it mysteriously disappeared.

So after another bout of severe chappitude, I broke down and walked to Wild Paycheck again and bought ANOTHER stick of Spearmint Wild Oats lip balm. Lost that one in 3 days. I was about ready to remove my precious EO lip balm from its safe place at home where I always know where to find it. But then Lily told me to bring this really lame old ChapStick to work. When I say "really lame" and "old", I'm referring to that era of ChapStick where it smelled almost menthol and it had different graphics on the outside. But I was desperate for the comfort of always having lip balm nearby, so I brought it to work.

That morning, I pulled the ancient ChapStick out and I was just about to use it, when I thought to take one last look under the Avid keyboard. And out rolled the two Spearmint Wild Oats sticks of lip balm. I was going to call Lily and affirm her belief that I'm an airhead, but I was distracted by genuine work at work.

When I got home that night, Lily told me to close my eyes and put out my hands. I did, and she placed two new luxury lip balms in them. What a sweetie. Now I'm rich with lip balm and I should be good for another 5 weeks at least.

Hey Ya!

There's this fellow at work that I pass by pretty much every day. I'm convinced he's a freelancer, but I really have no clue as to whether he is or whether he's staff. He's not a person I work with directly. I see him as I head to or from the kitchen for another mug of coffee, or as I generally make my way around the office. I have no feelings one way or the other toward the guy. So when I see him in my travels through the workplace, I do the head nod and say "Hey", combined with generic toothless smile afterward.

But for some reason I get the sense that I'm not doing the right thing by finding out his name. This non-personal interaction has gone on so long that it would be odd and a little awkward to start with the introductions. Seems strange to try to get to know the guy better when we've established (through non-attempts) that our level of friendliness toward each other is about as high as it's gonna get.

Then again, do I really need to know his name? Does he need to know mine? Is it really necessary for me to know that his name might be Bob? And instead of saying "Hey" when I see him around work I can say "Hey Bob"?

I really doubt that Bob, or whatever his name is, has given this as much thought as I have. The next time I see him I'm just gonna say "Hey Bob" and forget about it.

All Apologies

I'm sorry I forgot to take the trash out the night before trash day.
I'm sorry I drank your last beer.
I'm sorry I'm e-mailing you back so late.
I'm sorry, what did you say?
I'm sorry this didn't work out.
I'm sorry you feel that way.
I'm sorry I blocked your car in.
I'm sorry I scratched your car.
I'm sorry your dog ran away with that floozy of a poodle, and I'm sure he'll come back soon don't you worry.
I'm sorry I raised my voice.
I'm sorry that we couldn't make it to your party.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I dropped your cell phone.
I'm sorry I've been such a dumbass lately.
I'm sorry this weed isn't as dank as the stuff you usually get from your guy.
I'm sorry, but your March Madness bracket didn't get turned in in time.
I'm sorry you didn't win the Oscar pool, there's always next year.
I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention.
I'm sorry, but your company fucking sucks and I'll be taking my business elsewhere.
I'm sorry you lost your sense of taste because this chocolate is to die for.
I'm sorry we don't see this the same way.
I'm sorry to hear your great-great-grandfather passed away.
I'm sorry you didn't receive those files.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I ate your lunch. I'm sorry I didn't see the name on the box.
I'm sorry those people took off with your new notebook computer.
I'm sorry I didn't remember I was supposed to water your plants while you were away for a month in that little villa you loved so much.
I'm sorry the bus schedule doesn't work like I told you it does.
I'm sorry I couldn't get your Avid question figured out.
I'm sorry I couldn't get your Final Cut Pro question figured out.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, I left my wallet at home so could you buy this round and I'll getcha next time?
I'm sorry, but I didn't receive that message.
I'm sorry I cheated.
I'm sorry I ever met you.
I'm sorry I left the cap off the toothpaste.
I'm sorry I didn't remember I was supposed to feed your fish while you were away for a month in that little villa you loved so much.
I'm sorry that the volume was up much louder than I thought it was. I'm sorry your ears are bleeding.
I'm sorry I woke you.
I'm sorry I forgot to put water in the coffee maker. I'm so very very sorry.

Hollaback Girl

WARNING: The links included in this post may or may not be suitable for work. Depends on where you work, I guess.

Recently I was at the computer and Lily was channel surfing, and she stopped on channel 502, where Gwen Stefani was performing a previously recorded live concert. Numerous songs played, none of which I knew, but then Gwen Stefani's hit song Hollaback Girl started. I stopped my computing, went to see the performance, and Lily asked "What's a Hollaback Girl?" I had no idea what a Hollaback Girl was.

I recalled a song Gwen Stefani sung back in her days in the band No Doubt. That song is called "Just a Girl" (the music video for which world-famous editor Alan Chimenti is partially famous for editing completely) Then I thought there must be some relation between being "Just a Girl" and a "Hollaback Girl." We did some research on the world wide web and we found out what the relation is:

Just a Girl

Hollaback Girl

Just a Girl

Hollaback Girl

Now you know.

500 25 thousand 600 minutes

I'm writing this immediately after watching the movie Rent, which was based on the play of the same name.

I hated that movie more than I've hated any other single movie before. I hated it so much that as I was washing the dishes afterward, I blurted out "I hate that movie so much because I wasted two hours of my life watching that piece of shit." Then I laughed at the fact that I blurted that out and resumed washing.

I hated Rent so much that I'm never watching another musical again as long as I live. I hated Rent so much that 10 minutes into the film I was thinking "I hope to God this movie is only 90 minutes. Please let it be only 90 minutes." It wasn't 90 minutes. It was 129 minutes, which is 39 minutes of excruciating pain too long. I didn't hate it so much that I wanted to tear my eyeballs out, but I need to see a movie that's good soon so I can take a firehose to Rent and power wash it out of my memory.

I knew I was gonna hate Rent so much as soon as it started. That fucking theme song is so insidious that I still can't get it out of my head a half hour later. 500 25 thousand 600 minutes! I will never watch another musical again.

I'm a Survivor

For the sake of anonymity, the person at the center of this post will remain anonymous. She doesn't want any readers to know her secret.

I have this roommate - we'll call her Lillian - and Lillian likes to watch the TV show Reba. It's the sitcom revolving around the life of Reba McEntire. After inadvertently viewing several snippets of episodes, I can't decide whether it's the life of Reba McEntire the country singer or just somebody with that name who has a sitcom. She doesn't really do any sort of work that I can perceive. Doesn't matter.

Where I'm going with this is the fact that we now have TiVo. Not really TiVo, but Time Warner Cable's version of TiVo, which they call DVR. Which is really a PVR, but maybe that name is copyrighted like TiVo. All I know is that DVR doesn't make any cartoony sounds when a button on the remote is pressed. Nor does it have a cartoony mascot icon thingy. It has no personality whatsoever, and that's fine as long as it does its job of recording television.

What I'm really getting at is that that Reba is taking up a lot of space on our DVR. Lillian did what's called a "series recording", which records Reba whenever it's on TV. It didn't take long for the DVR to start filling up to max capacity, because sometimes Reba is on 10 times daily.

Lillian has a hard time keeping up with the Reba on the DVR, and it seems like at time it's a job. "Got the DVR down to 65% full" she says. But when I go to see SportsCenter (the only series I'm currently recording), I can page down the DVR menu several times and it looks like I've been on the same page because it just has a list of about 7 lines that all say "Reba". The only perceptible clue to anything happening as I page down the menu is that slight flash of menu pages turning when the pages turn.

Recently Lillian was on one of her job-like crusades to watch and delete as many Rebas as possible in order to get the DVR down to a more comfortable level. She finished one Reba and deleted it, then said to me "I just deleted a Reba and the DVR didn't go down, it went up." Lillian was perplexed and somewhat distraught over the fact that her hard work didn't net any result, but instead did the opposite. I said "maybe it was recording a Reba while you were watching that one. There are like 10 on a day, and unless you can keep that up, it's a losing battle."

Lillian let out a heavy sigh. The she picked up the remote and watched another. Thank God there are only 125 episodes.

Evol

The other night I was heading home from work and I was almost home when I remembered I forgot to get Lily some flowers. She'd had a rough weekend and I hoped that a bouquet would help her feel a little better.

It was around 7 pm and most flower places close around that time, but I spotted a place called Gourmet Grocer on Abbot-Kinney that looked like it might have something. I took a quick spin around the store. Gourmet it was, florist it wasn't. There were three men in there, one of which was tending shop.

I stepped up to the register and asked if they had any flowers.
The shopkeep said "We usually do, but the guy who does the flowers is on vacation this week."
Aargh. I asked "Any ideas where I can get some flowers around here?"

He looked over at the other guys in the store and shouted out "You guys know of any places to get flowers nearby?"

One guy said "There's Conroy's on Lincoln & Venice". And I'm wondering why I didn't think of that because it's just huge and on a busy intersection that I drive by all the time. But the reason I didn't think of that is because every time we drive by that busy intersection, Lily mentions how much she doesn't like that place or their selection of flowers.

I said "oh right, now I remember. Conroy's". As I walked out the door thinking "okay, time to drive around some more" the third guy said "there's a flower shop maybe 40 feet down Abbot-Kinney called Sentiments (Scentiments is the correct spelling). They've got a really nice selection."

That sounded a hell of a lot more promising than Conroy's. As I walked out, I made of note of it. Not the flower place. But that if I'm ever in a bind to find last-minute flowers, ask a bunch of guys. They'll know where to go.

I'm an asshole

How's your New Years resolution going? There was a report on the radio that said New Years resolutions are good for business. Like the health clubs get a boost around New Years, which kind of pisses off the health club regulars because the gear is taken up by people who aren't really serious about fitness. They'll only be there for a month or so, then go back to their slothful ways. That's what the radio said anyway. Good for business.

And as I was listening to the report I noticed this truck.



The truck is not really the thing to notice, but the appendage below the license plate is. It's not apparent exactly what the gold part is, but I'd say it's balls. A pair of gold balls. When the truck drove, the balls kinda waggled, which made me think that they're balls and not some other thing like... well, like nothing but balls.

Which led me to wonder why somebody would put that on their truck. The fact that they've got a truck like that should convey the same message as having a gold ballsack appendage on the truck. I was thinking it might be just as appropriate to have a big gold asshole on the truck. Which led me to remembering that I hadn't actually made a New Years resolution for 2007.

So here it is: I resolve to not drive like an asshole in 2007. You can join in this one with me if you want. Just raise your right hand (or left hand if you're goofy like that) and repeat after me:

- I resolve to not drive like an asshole. I will not speed ridiculously nor race from a stop sign or stop light. I will not do that thing where you sense that the person in the next lane is trying to speed up to change lanes and get in front of you, and then speed up to prevent them from doing so.

- I resolve not to drive like an asshole. I will not talk on my cell phone while driving or I'll pull over or I'll get a headset. I will not try to navigate my iPod to that one song that I must hear immediately. I won't fuck with any gadgets whatsoever while driving. If I need to do that I'll pull over.

- I resolve not to give people a dirty look when they cut me off. Or wave my middle finger at them. Or shout or spit or any asshole-ish things that an asshole would do.

In the end, it's probably easier to just ride my bike everywhere and not drive as much. Then I can be immune to being an asshole. Nobody who rides a bike is an asshole. Ever.