Lost Angeleno

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rants

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Open Letter

Dear President George W. Bush:

Please stop having your press conferences at 10 AM EST/7 AM PST.  This is precisely the time that my alarm goes off, and when your whiny defensive voice is the first thing I hear in the morning, it tends to start me off on a bad mood before I’ve even gotten out of bed.  Please consider having your press conferences at 6 AM EST from now on, when I am asleep, or better yet, 3 AM when no one is listening at all.

Testily yours,
Disgruntled Constituent.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Valentine’s Day Don’ts

Maybe I have no business chiming in on this, given that it’s been so long since I had a reason to celebrate Valentine’s Day I can barely remember back that far.  But I keep seeing these commercials and I can’t hold my tongue about it any longer.

Guys, no woman in the world wants a PajamaGram for Valentine’s Day.  NO ONE.  That is a STUPID present.  Don’t fall for it.  I don’t care if it comes in a special “hat box,” that does not up the ante.  It’s DUMB.

They don’t want the Vermont Teddy Bear, either.  If any man I was dating spent over $50 on a freaking Teddy Bear… well, we would have words, let me put it that way.  I don’t have a problem with Teddy Bears as a rule, but you can get cute ones at CVS for five bucks, and it better not be the Main Attraction.  The pathetic thing is that some of these are actually SOLD OUT, which means the commercials are working.  Just get flowers, guys.  It’s classic, not boring.  We like getting flowers.  Well, I like getting flowers.

Why are there never commercials on TV for what women should buy for their men on Valentine’s Day?  Help a sister out, Madison Avenue.  I suppose women should be getting their fellas Home Depot gift cards and big screen TV’s.  Or maybe the advertisers just assume we’re so materialistic that we’re just doing the receiving, not the giving.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Your call may be recorded

Whenever I call Dell (and I have occasion to call Dell pretty frequently at my job), I always get that little disclaimer, “For training purposes, your call may be monitored or recorded.”  I never like that little disclaimer, personally, but I guess that’s better than not telling me that they’re recording my each and every word.

About a month ago (a month!) I decided it was time to do some upgrades on my laptop, so I ordered a hard drive and some memory.  I also ordered a digital camera at the same time, as mine was pretty well done for and Dell had a good price on a Sony that I liked.  The memory shipped right away.  After a week or so I got an e-mail notification that the rest of my order was back-ordered and wouldn’t ship for another week or so.

I was peevish about it, but there was no emergency for the upgrade (especially since with the memory upgrade the laptop was already showing marked improvement), so I was patient.  Finally about two weeks later, I received my second shipment from Dell, which contained my camera only.  No hard drive.  I went to the Dell site to check on the order status, not really thinking anything might be amiss at this point.  The camera and the hard drive would likely ship from separate warehouses, so it wasn’t unusual not to have them at the same time.  I figured the Dell website would give me an additional tracking number for the hard drive and all would be well.

Alas.  All was not well.  The website was showing my order as completed—shipped, received and signed for.  Memory, camera, and hard drive, all had shipped, and according to the website, all had been delivered to my address and signed for.  There were no additional tracking numbers other than the boxes I had already received.  With no other options, I picked up the phone and called Dell, with a sense of impending dread.

Now, as an aside:  this is not going to be a rant about outsourced tech jobs.  I have no idea where the rep I spoke to was—she could have been down the hall, down the street, in Dell’s corporate offices in Texas, in Canada, or sitting on the beach on the tiny island nation of Niue.  It makes no difference to me, as long as the person on the other end of the phone helps me solve my issue and doesn’t take up too much of my time.  I am not one of these people who kneejerks the second they hear an accent.

All I ask is that the person I talk to isn’t stupid.  That’s all I ask.  Not that tall of an order, really.

Too tall for Dell, though.  After navigating the voice mail menu and waiting on hold for about 25 minutes, a customer service rep named Kathy got on the line with me.  I gave her a quick but thorough explanation of the problem—I had placed an order about a month ago for three items: Hard drive, memory, and camera.  Got the memory right away.  Got a notification that the hard drive and camera were back-ordered.  Received the camera.  Still no hard drive, but my order status reads as “complete” on the website and it says everything’s shipped.

Kathy read from her Dell Certified Customer Service Rep Script that she was so sorry that I had encountered a problem, and assured me in a most robotic way that she would do everything that she could in order to help me resolve the issue.  She asked for a few account details, then asked if she could place me on hold while she “investigated further.”

Twenty minutes later she got back on the phone, having apparently pulled up my order on the exact same web page I was looking at, and said, “Miss Sackerson, I see that your order has shipped in full and was delivered today.”  I told her, “Yes, I see that too, however I am holding the box and it contains only a camera, no hard drive.  Which is what I have been trying to tell you.”

It’s hard to say exactly what it was about Kathy that set me off.  I think it was her voice, which has a very strident quality to it, and her complete inability to improvise off the Dell Certified Customer Service Rep Script.  I love when I get someone on the phone who, while running through my order, can ask, “How’s the weather in Burbank?” and strike up an easy conversation.  If I’d asked Kathy how the weather was over by her, I’m pretty sure I would have heard a frantic shuffling of paper while she tried to cross-reference “weather.”

After about another half hour (honestly, I am not making this up, the whole call from start to finish took me about 90 minutes) she finally told me that she’d put in another order for the hard drive and it would be shipping in about another week.  Aggravated, I hastened to end the call.  The worst part of a conversation with a CSR is the end, wherein they ask if there is anything else they can do to help me today, and how it was a pleasure to serve me, and how much they thank me for choosing Dell, and how if I have any questions here is their employee ID number, and how I will be receiving an e-mail shortly with the details of my order, and how much they again thank me for choosing Dell, and how much they hope I have a pleasant day—GOODBYE, already.

Days went by.  Finally, a message on my voice mail from Kathy, saying that my hard drive was “in production” and would be shipping this week.  And at last, on Wednesday evening, a message from Kathy saying my hard drive had shipped.  I saved this one for posterity, because I just knew you guys would read this and think, “Man, what is Stennie’s problem?  It sounds like poor old maligned Kathy helped her get a new hard drive, after all!” 

Seriously, you guys.  You need to hear her message.  And bear in mind when you listen to it that this is a person who makes her living talking on the phone to other human beings.

Ready?  Here’s Kathy’s phone message.

See what I mean?  Did you hear where she lost her place in the script?  And I know it sounds like two separate messages that I spliced together, but I swear to you, that is one message, and YES, she identifies herself as “Kathy from Dell Computers” THREE TIMES in one message.

Anyway.  The drive finally showed up in the office yesterday.  And today, I installed it—a laptop hard drive, I installed it all by myself!  I happen to think that’s pretty fucking cool, actually.  So, thanks Kathy, for your assistance.  Please don’t call me anymore.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Surrounded by actors

The building that I work in houses, among other types of businesses, several casting offices.  One right across the hall from us is a voice-over casting office, and a few downstairs cast mostly commercials; at least that’s my guess.  As a result, we tend to have a pretty steady stream of actor types coming and going at our building at regular intervals.  Occasionally I’ll see someone who I recognize from a guest spot on TV or a commercial, or sometimes a bigger name—Martin Lawrence was here around the holidays, and today I spotted Charles Haid (Renko from Hill St. Blues) in the lobby.

But most of the time, we are overrun with the nameless hopefuls who are trying to make a name for themselves in this business we call show.  They shuffle up and down the halls, carrying their headshots and sides and murmuring lines under their breath.  Sometimes they do hilarious warm-ups to get themselves “up” for reading the two-line role of Best Friend of Main Guy in Snickers Ad.

Sometimes they are casting kids, and the lobby is overrun with little boys and girls hyped up on too much sugar and not enough discipline from Mom.  Sometimes they’re casting older businessmen and -women, and those people are pretty much indistinguishable from the people who actually work in this building, except for the carrying of headshots and the murmuring of lines.

But more often than not, they’re casting hip young twenty-somethings, and these guys and gals all look exactly alike.  The guys all have a three- to five-day growth of stubble and a fauxhawk (or occasionally longer hair that appears “tousled” and “slept on,” but it’s clear that the guy spent two hours in his bathroom and tons of product to make it look tousled in just the right way), they’re always wearing low-slung blue jeans, often with a wallet chain, expensive sneakers or loafers, and always always always—layered T-shirts.  A short-sleeve t-shirt over a long-sleeve T-shirt of a different color.  The gals are all size 0 and wearing a midriff-bearing baby-doll tank of some kind, a miniskirt or skintight low-rise jeans, and six-inch heels.  The only difference between the women is their hair color.  The men are always dark-haired.

In other words, the dudes are (inexplicably) all trying to look like the guy from Entourage, and the chicks are all trying to look like Evangeline Lily from Lost or whoever.

No one ever asked me, of course, but I always want to pull one of them aside and say, “Heads up.  You look EXACTLY like everyone else who’s gone in to audition today.  Make yourself distinctive and lose the stubble, or put on a sweater, or something.”  Because then I can picture the casting agents saying, “You know who I really liked?  I liked that one dude who shaved.”  Or, “I liked that one girl who wore sneakers instead of heels.”

Hey, listen—I just said I would blog every day.  I never promised to be interesting.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

My Many Rages

Man, I’ve fallen behind again with the blogging, haven’t I, Dear Reader.  It’s as if I thought the new design would leave you so dazzled that you wouldn’t even notice that I wasn’t adding any new content.  Did it work??  Well, I’ll try to be better about it.  My life has been a bizarre mixture of too-fucking-busy and bored-out-of-my-skull lately.  So when I have time to blog, during the bored-out-of-my-skull times, I can’t seem to think of anything to write about, and when I’m too-fucking-busy, obviously, I’m too fucking busy to blog.  Today I’ve got a bit of time and a germ of an idea, so here I am.

As many of you know, my recent move has cut my commute time from about two hours daily to about 30 minutes daily.  This has seriously curtailed several of my favorite commute pastimes, such as listening to audiobooks and catching up on the news courtesy of NPR.  And another favorite auto-bound pastime I have mostly given up, Road Rage!  That’s something I never thought I’d miss, but I guess I used to blow off a lot of steam by hollering at people in my car, because now I have all this leftover Rage that I have to expend elsewhere.  Here are some of my brand new Rages:

Presidential Address Rage:
Characterized by loud sighs, violent eye-rolls, and graduating all the way to explosive screaming upon pronunciation of the word “nuclear.”  My reaction:  “STOP FUCKING SAYING NUCULER, YOU JAG-OFF!  NO WONDER THE WHOLE WORLD THINKS WE’RE IDIOTS!!”

Coffee Rage:
I think this should more accurately be referred to as “lack of coffee” rage, or maybe “making coffee” rage.  Nothing aggravates me more in the morning than trying to make coffee.  I know, I know—I should make it the night before and set the timer.  Sometimes I have the foresight to do that, but most mornings I’m winging it over at the coffee maker.  Unfortunately, sometimes I need a cup of coffee before I can face the actual task of making the coffee.  The worst is trying to peel apart the paper coffee filters.  Usually ends in a lot of roaring and cussing.

Computer Rage:
This is the worst one.  I rarely experience Computer Rage at work, fortunately, but I get it all too frequently at home.  Manifestations range from shaking my fist at the monitor (vigorously!) to pounding unhealthily on the keyboard.  And cussing.  Lots of cussing.  I get Computer Rage at least once a week, while editing the podcast (incidentally, in case you were wondering, the podcast is online and available for downloading, podcasting and streaming, right here baby).  But it’s not just the editing process that sets me off.  In fact, the last time I got real pissed off at the computer was last week, when I discovered iTunes 7, previously raved about here in Stennieville, doesn’t actually recognize my old 3rd Generation iPod.  I plug it in and iTunes just goes, “Huh?  What’s that thing?  I have no idea what you want me to do.”  Fucker.  I can’t believe I said all those nice things about you, iTunes 7.

Song of the Day:  “All the Rage,” Elvis Costello

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Yahooligans and thieves

Dude.  Where does Yahoo get off?  Surfing the internet the other day, minding my own business as I am wont to do, don’t you know, and my eye catches an ad for My Yahoo:

What. The. Fuck.  That is mine.  They frickin’ ripped me off.  Not just the road sign idea, but “Population One,” which I stole from Robbie Fulks’s song “Rock Bottom: Pop. 1” several years ago.  I stole that way before they did.  I bet Yahoo doesn’t even listen to Robbie Fulks!  Does anyone remember when my website used to look like this?  You be the judge:

Thieves, I tell you.  Thieves.  I’m not a litigious person by nature, but I wonder if I could actually file a suit.  At the very least, I might get a little nuisance money out of them.  They’ve got pretty deep pockets, don’t they, over there at Yahoo?

Thursday, July 20, 2006

On the Move

Well, the apartment hunt is over, so all that’s left now is to actually move into my new place.  I got a warm-up for this when our office moved over the weekend, from our temporary space into our new permanent office (where I am coming to you now, live from my cubicle, Dear Reader).  I used to be an old hand at moving (in the ten years I lived in Bellingham, I moved no less than 13 times), but I’m a bit out of practice these days.  I also have way more stuff than I used to have.  It’s amazing how it all piles up after ten years.

Phase One, of course, is physically packing up everything I’m keeping, and tossing out that which I do not wish to keep.  In a lot of cases, what’s making the “don’t wish to keep” pile could just as easily be called “too much of a pain in the ass to move.”  As a result, the closets at my new apartment, which I was so excited about, are going to be largely empty when I move in.  But never fear, I’m sure I can fill them up pretty quickly.

Buster has been helping me out with the packing.  Can you spot the kitty in this picture?

Phase Two is less physically demanding, but no less frustrating, and that’s making sure all of my utilities are hooked up at the new place, and that everything at the old apartment gets disconnected and billed out properly.  This fun phase of the move involves many phone calls to 800 numbers and many conversations with disinterested minimum-wage customer service reps, and my favorite trial of all—navigating the 800 number voice mail menu.  Through my job I have become pretty adept at clicking through these menus, but the ones I hate, with the fiery passion of ten thousand white-hot suns, are the voice-activated menus.

Have you spoken to these humanoid-esque computer programs?  The one I hate the most is named “Max” and works for Sony; if you have ever contacted Sony tech support you know Max already and you don’t need me to tell you that he is right bastard.  AT&T (formerly SBC, formerly Pacific Bell, formerly… AT&T, oddly enough) has one of these voice-activated asshole computers answering their phones now and I hate him.  Here is a transcript of our recent conversation:

VOICE OF COMPUTER:  Welcome to AT&T Customer Service!  All right, to get started, please say or enter the telephone number you are calling about.
ME:  (silently taps in numbers on dial pad)
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  Thanks.  I’ll just look that up.
ME:  Take your time.
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  Okay.  In a few words, I need to know why you’re calling today.  You can say things like “tech support” or “billing.”
ME:  Billing.
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  Sorry.  I didn’t understand what you said.
ME:  I said BILLING.
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  All right, tech support.
ME:  No!  Billing!  BILL - LING.
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  Sorry.  I didn’t understand what you said.
ME:  BILLING!
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  I’m sorry, I still can’t—
ME:  BILLING!  BILLING, YOU ASSHOLE, BILLING!!
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  Sorry.  I—
ME:  FUCK YOU!  DO YOU UNDERSTAND FUCK YOU?  (Repeatedly dialing 0 button)
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  All right.  In order to transfer you to an agent, I need to know why you’re calling today.  You can say “tech support,” or “billing”—
ME:  BILLING!  BILLING!  BILLING!
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  I’m sorry, I didn’t understand—
ME:  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!  (punching 0 button repeatedly)
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you.  I’ll transfer your call to the next available agent.  Please be aware that your call may be monitored for quality and training—
ME:  MONITOR THIS, COCKSLAP!
VOICE OF COMPUTER:  Did you just call me a cockslap?
ME:  OPERATOR!

And so on until I finally get a human on the phone, whereupon the first thing out of my mouth is “You guys have GOT to get rid of that voice-activated system.”  Every disinterested CSR I have ever spoken to, at Sony or at AT&T or at Comcast or anywhere else these hideous voice-activated systems are in place, tells me that I am not the first to complain about them—everyone hates them.  Everyone I have ever spoken to hates them.  So my question is—who likes them?  Why are they in place?  And why are more companies using them now?  What was wrong with “for tech support, press 2”?  I liked that system.  I didn’t get nearly as hoarse using that system.

Phase Three is the Change of Address phase.  I’ve already filled out my form with the post office, so now it’s a matter of going online for my bank, credit card people, insurance people, Netflix, Amazon.com, student loan company, and everyone else I can think of and notifying them of my new and exciting locale.

The final phase is the actual move, the loading up of boxes and furniture and clothing and transporting it from one place to another.  And then the cleanup of the old place.  If the years have not brought me patience, at least they have brought me some common sense, so this time around I am contracting out the move and the cleanup.  It may cost me some dollars, but it will save me some sense.  Ouch.  I can’t believe you let me type that, Dear Reader.  Do you have no respect for me, or for yourself for that matter?  Puns kill.

Anyway—starting this weekend blogging may be sparse until the new DSL is hooked up, which means there may not be any Daily Trivia next week.  If you get bored, you can always go back and re-answer old questions.  Or you can always come out and help me move.

Or, you can go listen to the Hucklebug—new episode is online for your enjoyment (or not) right now.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Seattle South

This has been the view on my way to work far, far too often this year.  I don’t know about other Angelenos, but I personally moved here to get away from the rain in the Pacific Northwest, not to have it follow me.  I’ve spent the morning trying in vain to find out what the total rainfall’s been so far in Los Angeles County this year, but I’ve been unable to attain such data (hence my use of the words “in vain,” so I guess that’s redundant).

So since I have no facts to back me up, I’ll have to rely on my own sense of hyperbole.  We’ve had about seven thousand inches of rain since the beginning of this year.  Don’t believe me?  Well, prove me wrong!  I dare you to find the statistics!

When January and February brought lots of rain, I didn’t complain about it, because that’s kind of how winters go for us down here.  When it continued through March, I started to get a little antsy about it, but I thought, “Well, technically it’s still winter, and March is supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, after all,” so I tried to keep a cheerful countenance about the whole thing.

It’s April now.  Enough.  We should be enjoying bright sunny clear days and 75 degree temperatures.  I’m sick of this damn rain already.  Make it stop.  This week, the rain started yesterday, has continued today and is expected to go on through tomorrow, then we’re supposed to get a break on Thursday.  But it will rain again on Friday I’m sure, because it’s rained every Friday without fail for the past six weeks at least.

Of course, I realize things could be a lot worse.  I don’t mean to trivialize the serious weather concerns in the Midwest and along through Arkansas and Tennessee, where tornados have wiped out entire towns and caused massive loss of life and property in the last few days.  In addition to the tornados, reports are saying it’s going to be another bitch of a season for hurricanes this year.  So I’m thankful that my worst problems are flash floods and poor traffic.

But still.  Can’t we get a little sunshine down here?  Might as well move back to Bellingham if it’s going to rain like this.

Song of the Day:  “It’s Always Raining Somewhere,” Robbie Fulks (and that somewhere is apparently Los Angeles.  Who knew?).

PS:  For the Spanish language version of this story, please see Flipsycab’s blog.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

For the courtesy of other patrons

I am a child of the ‘80s, and my high school years saw a wonderful invention mass-marketed to home users—the VCR.  We got our first one when I was a junior in high school, as I recall.  The Age of Video came to stennieville with much fanfare and memorization of dialogue in such movies as The Big Chill, The Breakfast Club, and, rather improbably, a rather little-known B-western/comedy called The Frisco Kid.

I loved the video age.  Watching a movie over and over again—how awesome!  Pausing to go to the bathroom?  Ditto!  Rewinding to watch something funny over again, or because you couldn’t hear what the guy said because you were telling your sister to shut up so you could hear it?  Excellent!  The greatest invention ever, the VCR.  To date.

But the video age has done something to us in this country, especially with the addition of newer, better technology like DVD and Tivo.  Sure, it’s given us access to some great movies (and some shitty ones) in the privacy of our own home, but it’s also made us lazy.  And it’s turned us into terrible movie theatre patrons.

I went to see Brokeback Mountain on Sunday night.  It was a 7 PM showing, at the multiplex up here by me; a nice-sized little theatre with stadium seating and big comfy seats.  It wasn’t too crowded.  I got there about 20 minutes before showtime and settled in for the ads, promos, etc.  About five minutes after I got there, a couple came in and sat down behind me—I would say this couple was probably in their forties or so.

I first started to worry about them when they continued to yak it up during the Coming Attractions, but as I have been known myself to say out loud, “Did that woman just shush us?  During the PREVIEWS?” I decided to let it go.  Their talking continued into the movie—not whispers, but just talking in their regular voices.  This, I think, is the first symptom of what the video age has done to us as a viewing audience.  We talk over the movie (sometimes TO the movie) as if we’re sitting in our living room.  We’re NOT.  We can’t pause it and go back if we miss something, so please zip it.

Then, the woman’s cell phone rang.  Now, I know she sat through the same FOUR reminders to silence all cell phones as I did, but here in L.A., there’s always one.  Can’t be without the cell, not even for a minute!  To this woman’s credit (and this is the only credit I’m giving her), she did not answer the call—instead she silenced it right away, giggled somewhat guiltily, and then shut it off while her husband chided, in his completely out-loud voice, “I’m going to tell on you.”

But the worst with these people, the thing that made me move somewhere else for the rest of the movie, was that the man kept going, “Ohhh, gross!!!” every time the guys in the movie kissed.  Asshole, what fucking movie did you think you were going to see?  Do you live in a goddamn cave?  And are you 14 years old?  Grow the fuck up.  And this isn’t Mystery Science Theatre 3000, so keep the remarks to yourself.

I moved to the very back row of the theatre, to a little corner, quite by myself, and enjoyed the rest of the viewing experience.  I’m going to have to remember that back row seat next time.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Here in my car

Tonight’s blog is all about cars, Dear Reader, as I seem to have a number of auto-related things bouncing around the old brain.  First, there is my own car, Miss Kubelik.  Miss Kubelik again braved the tough drive to Oregon and back for Thanksgiving, including being stuck in a two-hour traffic jam on the way home due to snow.  Poor Miss Kubelik is now about fifty times more filthy than she was the last time I blogged about how filthy she was.  I meant to get the car washed last Friday, but of course that had to be the day it rained.  My car is so dirty right now I’m surprised other cars in the parking lot don’t get dirty just by parking next to it.  It is the automobile version of Pigpen, bringing its own little cloud of dirt around with it everywhere it goes.

My goal for the next year is to get the car paid off, and then immediately buy a new one.  Miss Kubelik has been very good to me, but she’s a transitional car at best.  I’m not really into cars, they are really just a way to get me from here to there, but I would like a couple of extras in my next car.  Like power windows, for example, and cruise control.  I mean, heated seats would be nice, but I’m really just after the basics here.

So, for the last few months I have been paying attention to other cars on the road (I mean besides picking out the ones that might kill me if I don’t get out of their way) and seeing which ones I might like to drive.  More often I am seeing the ones I would never drive under any circumstances.  You know what the ugliest vehicle on the road is?  The Cadillac Escalade EXT.  This is essentially a fuck-off huge SUV with a pickup bed tacked onto the back of it.  What a fucking monstrosity.  Someone who works in my building drives one of these monsters and it’s just horrid.  Always takes the guy like three tries to get into a parking place.

I like the idea of getting a hybrid, maybe, like the Prius.  I like the gas mileage and I love how quiet they are—pretty cool to drive a car that you can sneak up on people in.  The problem with the Prius is that it’s so ugly.  Why can’t they put a hybrid engine in a nice-looking car?  Like the Jetta, I like the Jetta.  Put a hybrid in that, man!  Or the Mini Cooper!

Couple more quick car things, including my most recent bumper sticker sighting.  Tonight on the way home I saw a bumper sticker on the car in front of me which said, and I do not lie, “DON’T ABANDON YOUR BABY!” and then some 800 number to call.  The funny thing was, I was on the way home to abandon my baby at the time!  Thank God I saw that sticker. 

Honest to God, what are people thinking?  I can maybe see picking up that bumper sticker—presumably it’s something that was given out at a “Don’t Abandon Your Baby” festival for free (because I don’t want to live in a world where someone actually spends five bucks on that bumper sticker), so I can see that you’re at the DAYB Festival and someone hands you a bumper sticker.  You don’t want to be rude so you take it, whatever.  But then to actually peel the backing off of it and affix it to your car?  What is wrong with you?  Just throw it away like everyone else!

What does it say about you if you have a DON’T ABANDON YOUR BABY bumper sticker on your car?  Do you really think you’re going to reach some frightened teen crack whore mother with your message?  You can’t possibly think that.  So instead you must think, “Well, people will know where I stand on this issue.”  Well, congratulations, asshole—you’re against abandoning babies.  How very brave.  I guess all those pro-abandoners don’t know what they’re up against.

I don’t know, it just irritates me.

And finally.  You’ll love this, Dear Reader, or at least I hope you will.  Last week on the way to work, I fell in behind a red pickup truck.  On the tailgate of his truck was a hand-painted little idyllic scene; I took a photo with my camera phone, I hope you can see it:

In case you can’t make it out, it’s a very romantic scene—a beautiful mountain stream, the sun setting in the west, palm trees gently waving.  And having a romantic rendezvous at this mountain stream is—two red pickup trucks.  Red Pickup Trucks in Love, Dear Reader.  IN LOVE!  No one understands their love, these two red pickup trucks, so they must escape the judgmental city and meet in secret at the mountain stream!  Oh, my heart breaks a little just thinking of it!

All I could think of when I saw it was the poor schmuck who painted it.  The guy probably went to an expensive art school (probably CalArts); I imagine him as a sensitive young painter, kicked out of his house by his old man because he couldn’t play football, but he was going to show them, oh yes, he’d show them all!  He was going to be the next Picasso!  The next Monet!  Instead, he’s painting Red Pickup Trucks in Love on some redneck’s tailgate.  What a life for a sensitive young artist.