Ironhead

My bike helmet had fallen to bits. Not the outside, silly, that's hard foam covered by a chocolately plastic shell. Mmm. It was the inside that was falling apart. The stuff that's supposed to be the soft cushion between my head and the actual hard helmet part. Yes, countless sweat-inducing rides had finally broken down the cushiony stuff, and what was left had become rags and bits of black soot that managed to stick to my forehead when I took the helmet off. And the velcro was now digging into my head, and that wasn't the comfy ride I was looking for.

The hard portion of the helmet seemed fine. And the rule of thumb is that you get one good wreck where you bonk your noggin against the ground, a car, whatever, then it's time to toss the helmet in the trash and buy a new one. But because I hadn't had the one good wreck yet, I figured I might just be able to buy the cushiony inside stuff.

So I went to my nearest bike shop, looked around, didn't find any, then went to the dude at the register and asked if they carried such a thing. "No, we don't sell that. How long have you had your helmet?" I said "I dunno, like four years maybe?"
"Four years, huh?" he said and I knew the sales pitch was coming. Register guy continued, "You might be able to find that inner stuff from your helmet manufacturer, but they're probably gonna say 'Four years, huh? It's time to buy a new helmet.'"

Not to be deterred by his sales pitch, I came back with "Why's that?"
Register guy told me "The elements, you know, they break the helmet down. UV rays, stuff like that."

UV rays indeed. They break down plastic covering hard foam to the point where my helmet might not work after four years of being in the sun a lot less than I am. I better get some stronger sunscreen if that's the case. Well I figured I was either gonna live with black particles and chafing velcro on my forehead every ride or I was gonna buy a new helmet. So I walked over to the helmet area and tried a few on.

This one was too weird looking, that one was too feminine. That other one was way too expensive. One of the bike shop employees saw me trying on helmets and came over and said in some Euro voice "Why don't you try dis one?" and pointed to the more expensive end of the helmet wall. I tried it on and it looked weird. He had me try on 5 more helmets before we found one that fit both my style and price range. He told me he wasn't a salesman, but a mechanic, and he walked over to the register to see if this one was on clearance. I followed him and stood, next in line.

The bike mechanic disappeared. I waited. The guy standing on my side of the register was buying the entire store and trying to figure out what else he needed. It was taking forever, and I really didn't want to buy a helmet that day anyway, so I left the helmet at the counter and walked out the door.

The next day I went to REI and bought a great helmet at 1/3 of the price and used my REI dividend to reduce the price even further. Good times. I tossed my old helmet in the trash. Wouldn't want anybody to mistakenly try to use it after all those UV rays might have secretly broken down the helmets innards.

I rode home wearing my new helmet and I could immediately feel the difference. Not only was there no sense of velcro chafe-age, there was actually more wind flow cooling my noggin! Amazing.

The next day I set out for work with my new helmet on. About 2/3 of the way there, as I turned to leave the Santa Monica beach bike path, my front tire slipped out on a swath of sand. I went to the ground so fast I can't remember it happening. Smacked my right shoulder on the pavement. I can't remember if I knocked my helmet or not. Yep, not even 24 hours after buying my new helmet, I wreck. Funny how that works.

The Man Who Sold The World

I sold my laptop computer - a 2004 iBook G4 800 mHz 40GB HD 640MB RAM AirPort Wireless - last week on eBay. It's the first item I've ever sold on eBay. It's quite the exciting experience, let me tell ya. You get to see how many watchers are watching your item. See how much people are bidding. Or how much they're pushing the bid up to anyway.

When it was all said and done, the laptop went for $430 plus $20 shipping. Not too shabby when you consider how much mileage I got out of it.

Bought it for $1099
minus $430 (eBay sale)
equals $669

Had it for 41 months
equals $16.31 a month

divided by approximately 30 days a month
equals about 54 cents a day

Not too shabby.

All About the Benjamins

The Washington Mutual Bank at 5th & Arizona in Santa Monica is a real mess. It's the most convenient bank for me to go to, but when I get there it's the most inconvenient place to be. There's always a really long line for the teller windows, and if I want to speak to a bank representative then I've got some sitting around to do.

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks it's a mess. While waiting in the teller line at the bank recently, a bank representative from the desks asked "Does anyone have a straight deposit, no cash?"

The 2nd and 5th individuals in line turned toward the bank rep and raised their hands. The 5th guy immediately walked over and sat down. The woman who was 2nd in line threw her arms up in the air and muttered something to the 3rd person in line. She turned toward the 5th guy and shouted "I was next, but you can go ahead!" She shook her head and muttered something that sounded like a blast of tourettes to the 3rd person.

Then the doors to the left of the line swung open where a man with crutches stood, trying to hold the doors open. Everybody in line turned at once to look. He yelled "Whoever's working on the ATMs, ya can't shut 'em all down at once." I turned away, as if to avoid seeing what might come next. The bald bank manager in a teller window looked up. The man yelled again "NOW TURN ON THE GODDAMN MACHINES!"

The guy behind me let out a chuckle. The bank manager quietly said "We'll get right on it, sir". The man on crutches hobbled out of his door predicament. I felt good knowing that I was about to contribute to my child's college education.

Song to the Siren

It's hot. Not unbearably hot, but summer in SoCal hot. Hot enough that sleeping at night is a bit of a challenge. Hot enough that when I go in to check on the sleeping boy, his hair is moist. Hot enough that even in loud-ville, the windows have to be left open.

Lily and I were lying in bed Tuesday night, discussing whether or not to close the windows, when we heard horrible off-key singing outside. I was convinced it was our apartment manager, because I had seen her bringing her easel and paints to the patio. Lily was convinced it was somebody else. It wasn't somebody else, and it really didn't matter much who it was, we wanted it to stop.

The choice to close Judah's window was a tough one: Close the window so he doesn't wake up from a shrill note tickling his eardrum, but potentially making his room too warm? Or leave the window open so a breeze will come through with the shrill notes? I decided to close the window but leave his door open so some air flow would get in.

We heard our manager singing the same song over and over. Same chorus again and again. I looked out the window to make sure it was her, and it was, and she had headphones on and she was snapping her fingers. Now how one can paint and snap fingers at the same time is beyond my comprehension, but she was managing it.

After our laughter had worn out and the joke wasn't funny anymore, we decided to close the window closest to the singing. I drifted off to sleep shortly thereafter, only to awake about 30 minutes later to hear the same chorus. Firework/gunshot sounds were a welcome tune the following night.

The Birthday Party

Another candle on the cake. Another year gone by. Another prime opportunity for my family (not my "new" family, but my "old" family) to make right all the crazy missteps through the years and finally find some appropriate gifts for somebody they've known this long. So when my (old) family gives a birthday present, I always hope that this year will be different.

Nope. From my sister: NOTHING! Actually, receiving nothing is better than the gifts she gives me, which over the years have included:
- A plastic blue "beehive" hairdo
- A pair of Abe Lincoln boxing puppets
- "Pee Guy": a small figurine of a latino-looking man with a plastic stream of pee going from his crotch to the base of the figurine.

Yes, all memorable and very useful indeed, but they pale in comparison with the types of gifts my mom gives me. It's always clothes. Clothes that must originate at the very bottom of the last-ditch bargain basement pile. For Lee's Birthday 2007 I got a t-shirt that is the color of poop. It's a weird brown color that has no other possible description. The kicker there is that the shirt is size 14/16. Now, I'm no XL person but I can wear adult size shirts, mom.

She also gave me two polo style shirts that, although I wear polo style shirts, would probably make the general public wonder if I had lost my way from the nearest mental facility. Does she see the clothes I wear now? Does she remember the types of shirts I wore as a teenager at home? My sincere hope is that she bought these for the homeless kids at the local shelter and they got mixed up with the fly threads she bought me. Boom, right into the Goodwill bag with the gifts.

The real tragedy here is that this gift-buying behavior is now being passed onto my son. Mom included an extra little gift pack for Judah along with the thoughtful gifts for me. With so many cute clothes for kids nowadays, how could she go wrong? Girls clothes. Yep. Poor kid.

Garbage

There are two trash bins in my edit suite. One is next to the door. One is next to the edit console. I noticed shortly after I started working there that the one next to the console was never being emptied. I noticed it because the bin was overflowing with trash, while the one near the door was consistently empty when I came in every morning.

Because the only option for speaking to the cleaning crew would be to stay much later than I'd like to, I decided to manually move the console trash bin to right next to the door trash bin every night as I left work. It worked for a while. Now for whatever reason, the door trash bin is empty while the console trash bin - which is sitting right next to the other one - is still full of the same trash when it was placed there the night before.



And I'm thinking "Why, that's odd. How could one trash bin be emptied while the other is not?" It's probably physically impossible to empty one without having it bump into the other. In fact, a person would have to be somewhat careful about not knocking over the other trash bin whilst emptying the first.

I have no idea what to do. Leave a note? Wait around to ask the cleaning crew about it? Put the entire trash bin into the other? I guess the easy answer would be for me to dump the trash from one into the other, but now this has turned into a game of who's gonna blink first. Stay tuned. I guess. If you really give a shit about the resolution of how this trash thing goes. Jeez.

Jailbait

With all the drunk driving arrests in the past year, it's kinda scary to be on the roads here in Tinseltown. Nicole Ritchie, Lakers owner Jerry Buss, Prison Break star Lane Garrison, Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, Lindsey Lohan, and Paris Hilton just to name a few. Thankfully they locked up Paris Hilton, and then locked her up again before she got behind the wheel and ran over some poor unsuspecting pedestrian on one of her late night burger binges.

Just think of how many NON-celebs are out there on the road at any given monment after increasing their BAC to a non-legal level. Joe Shmoe gets pulled over by the LAPD and ain't no paparazzi around snapping photos and selling them to the tabloids.

At least Paris Hilton got the worst punishment imaginable: Sarah Silverman ripping Paris a new one at the MTV music awards. That's gotta hurt more than enduring a few weeks in the cushy wing of the jail.

Car Wash

Our "family car", a 2003 VW Passat Wagon, hadn't been washed in a while and it was so dirty that it was becoming embarrassing. A blight on the LA car scene. Not like we took it off-roading or anything, but the air isn't the cleanest around here and the fine particulate matter tends to come to rest on everything.

As I've now done the math and came to the conclusion that it's worth it to take my car to a car wash, I put in the required procrastinating and finally found a coupon in the bulk mailers for a few bucks off the standard rate at Millenium Car Wash in Venice. I took all the extra junk out of the car - baby strollers, sun shield, miscellaneous papers - so that they could vacuum every square inch, and I drove to Millenium.

On my way there I remembered that I forgot to bring a magazine to read when the car was being washed. When I got there, I left the car with the keys in the ignition, rolled up the windows, and told the checker I had a coupon. He handed me a ticket, I paid and took a seat with the rest of the car washees. Some guy and his girlfriend bitched at the manager because his passenger seat was soaked because the window wasn't rolled up. I wished I'd brought that magazine.

A short while later the car washer guy waved my keys in the air and I handed him the ticket along with what I deemed a generous tip. I pretended to have to put something in the trunk so I could inspect the vacuum job, because I've had problems with the trunk being overlooked in the past. Clean as a new car. It felt like I had a new car. I drove off and felt like a responsible LA citizen with my clean, new-feeling car.

I had to pick up some groceries, and as I pulled into the parking lot, I saw somebody pulling out of the rockstar spot. Sweet. All mine. I pulled in and went into the store. Bought some lunchmeat, some oatmeal for the boy, and some water. On my way past the bakery section, I grabbed a glazed donut for the ride home.

As I left the grocery store and stepped onto the pavement of the parking lot, I pushed the shopping cart and hopped on for a ride to my shiny new car in the rockstar parking spot. I pushed a little too hard and had to jump down to put on the sneaker brakes. As I was rushing by, I saw a car that looked just like mine, but it had a bunch of splotches of bird shit on the hood. I thought "that's not my... is that my? Aw shit."

Yep. Car Wash Karma.

Photograph

Last week I went to the opthamologist. The waiting room was hilarious. I sat down amidst a bunch of old folks with dark sunglasses on (to help with the pupil dilation part) waiting for their name to be called. I'm hardly ever the youngest person in a crowd anymore, but I certainly wasn't in the majority there.

The beauty about the elderly is that they don't have to sit around fiddling with their gizmos and talking on phones all the time. They don't mind sitting and chatting with each other or looking around, looking out the window, sitting in the waiting room listening to the repeated slow pounding of the pile driver breaking ground on a new wing of the hospital next door. Besides, there was a brown placard on the desk that said NO CELL PHONES with a picture of a cell phone and the international NO symbol (circle with a slash through it) on top.

The waiting room became sort of lively when a 70s-ish couple came in to drop some records off. The husband wore a tan jacket and matching fedora/safari hat and he held a stack of his files in his hand. His wife hobbled in on a cane and told him to drop them off on the counter. The man held them above the counter like he was about drop them off, but the staff were running around not noticing him. The wife told him again to drop them off . He looked around and told his wife nobody would see the records. She assured him they would be seen at some point. He turned away from her and stood patiently waiting for the staff to notice him.

A blond boy who was probably 9 years old wearing glasses with coke-bottle lenses came running into the room followed by his mother and father. She was decked out in brown camouflage pants or shorts (I couldn't tell because they seemed too long for shorts and too short for pants) and brown Chuck Taylors, and she had a hairstyle like Bon Jovi from the early Bon Jovi days. She yapped on her pink cell phone while her son jumped around her asking for money. The kid wore a t-shirt that said I'M ONLY PRETENDING TO LISTEN. His dad's t-shirt read OLD GUYS RULE.

Kid: "Can I have a dollar? Can I have a quarter?"
Mom: "What happened to your cell phone?"

The father had a cane that looked like one a blind person would use (he definitely wasn't blind), but the cane wasn't as long and it had a rounded end that the dad repeatedly prodded the back of the kid's knees with.

The kid ran out and back into the waiting room.
Kid: "Can I have a quarter?"

The old man in the fedora handed him a quarter and said "Here's a quarter."
Mom: "He just gave you a quarter, what do you say?"
Kid: "Thank you"

The kid ran off again.

After many minutes, the waiting room cleared one by one until I was the last one there. The woman working behind the counter finally asked me for my health insurance card. I handed it to her and noticed that she looked like she could be a superhero in her green jumpsuit and ridiculously long black boots. She told me she'd see what was taking so long. I took my seat again, 60 minutes after I had first taken my seat.

20 minutes later I would experience what it probably feels like to have a searing cattle prod burnt into the back of my eyeballs as they took photographs. Pupil dilation is only good when you're on drugs. Thankfully I had remembered to bring my sunglasses.

Journey

My apologies for not posting last week and not even having the decency to leave a note that I wouldn't be posting. I had this really elaborate plan in mind that probably would have been the best blog ever, but well... shit happens.

We went to Spain last week, which included a stop in London for a day. Really nice. I won't bore you with details of sunny days by the pool and the beach, or experiencing historically important places, or anything of the sort. But I must say that the Europeans can teach us stupid Americans a thing or two about livin. Here's a few:

- taking a siesta
- throwing the standard architectural city plans out the window and building areas with winding streets meant only for foot traffic
- making the standard driving test far more difficult thereby taking at least half the morons off the road
- 2 dollar coins
- topless beaches
- allowing the purchase of Cuban cigars

Here's a few things they could learn from us:
- coffee to go
- putting more cupholders in cars
- there are sports other than "proper football" and cricket, and they should be shown on television 24 hours a day
- automatic transmission

Funny how most of the things they could learn from us kinda revolve around living on the go. Maybe they know something we don't.

Fake Tales of San Francisco

This week I'm in San Francisco. One of the things I miss about this city is the ability to take a taxicab to wherever you want to go. Not that you couldn't take a cab in LA, but that would be ridiculous and expensive.

Each day I walk out of the hotel and cross the street to the taxi stand. Twice now I've walked up to the driver and said "you available?" And they've replied "where are you going?" Usually, the "where are you going" question happens AFTER they've replied "yes, I'm available."

The first time I got the question, I replied "11th & Folsom". And the driver said something like "I'm not going in that direction". Funny, I thought taxicabs were ALWAYS going in your direction. That's because their main function is to drive you in whatever direction you're going. Not whatever direction they're going in, unless they happen to be going to pick up a fare, and they really oughta be more concerned with picking up that fare than wasting their time stopping for random people who just might be going to where their future passenger is waiting.

So the next time I go up to the taxi driver and ask "you available?" And the driver asks "where you going?" And I reply "you available?" The driver says "yes" and I get in the cab and tell him "11th and Folsom."

I think they'd rather hear me say "wherever the hell you want to drive so's to get a huge fare and relative tip. So let's just drive around until you're tired and I'll get the fuck out." Right. That would be like me asking a potential client how much editing they want to do before I decide to take the job. Please.

TV Party

I'm gonna bring a TV set to work and watch it. (If you know me or if you know what I do for a living, then you know that there's always a TV at work. But just go with it.) Yes, I've decided that it's time for me to be able to sit in my work chair and just kick back and watch the tube.

I could watch some home videos, or maybe tune in and watch some music videos. Perhaps an episode of a classic television show I used to enjoy as a kid. Right there on my personal TV at work. Sounds fun right? Nothing wrong with watching a little TV at work, right?

But wait, I don't need to lug a big ole TV to work at all. I've got YouTube to do my TV viewing already. And all my co-workers are doing it too! No more guilt about watching TV at work at all. In fact, several of my co-workers regularly send me links to watch videos on YouTube. And they're not just 2 minutes vids or whatever. Last week I recieved a link to a video that's over 20 minutes of a guy playing Super Mario Brothers and swearing a lot whenever Mario gets killed. If co-workers are watching over 20 minutes of a guy playing Super Mario Brothers and swearing a lot whenever Mario gets killed then it must be okay for me to watch a little TV at work, right?

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.

I Don't Like Mondays

.

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.

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

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. Like right now. 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.