To the lady in line at Financial Aid:

The tail is not an acceptable haircut. The tail is innately wrong. The tail went out of style almost 15 years agoish (or not). The tail should never really have been IN style. Seriously lady. CUT IT OFF!

Thank you,
those of us who have to see it.

Disgusting Behavior

God, how old am I? One week after my 30th birthday and I am saying things like, "What is this world coming to?" These are some of the headlines from the Drudge Report today.

• "Mystery of woman left in busy road..." Above the link is a photo of a woman lying bleeding in a gutter with cars swerving around her and not stopping to help.
• "Teenager raped and killed great grandmother..."
• "Elderly man killed nursing home roommate..."
• "Students ' were forced to strip...'"
• "Woman arrested for 'talking too loudly on cell phone...'"

Now, that last one? That one, I applaud.

Out of Context Quote

"It just tickled your feet and then all of a sudden it's jerking and then the whips started."

Argh

So I was just hugged by someone I haven't seen in a while. Long after the hug, his cologne lingered. LONG after the hug. That is just too much cologne and it didn't smell that pleasant anyway. :(

Lunch

Dammit! I was getting dressed after the gym this morning and realized I forgot my lunch! Luckily I still have like 6 bucks on my campus card which means I'm hitting the Student Center yet again. AND my lunch is sitting on my bed so Bax is going to spend the day attacking it to get in. AND the main lunch part (beef & rice) will not be acceptable for me to rerefridgerate and keep for tomorrow. AND If I were to go home to either fetch it or put it in the fridge, it would take me at least 20 min each way and that's really a waste of time. (Especially since I'm not 100% sure I like what I was supposed to have for lunch today.)

Not licking those toes

True story: I just witnessed a guy coming out of the men's washroom (or bathroom as you Americans like to call it) with no shoes or socks on.

a. ewwwww
b. We don't have a dress code here at UsedToBeACoolInternetCompany.com but seriously, at least put on a pair of flip flops, dude.
c. ewwwww
d. Since they don't win prizes for hitting their target, it's my understanding that many guys don't necessarily aim before they shoot.
e. ewwwww

Street Fair

When you advertise a street fair from 11:30 - 1:30 and promise food during the event, there is an assumption of the food being lunch sort. Not just cake and coffee. Cake and coffee are an afternoon snack food for like 2ish. AND really they should just say coffee & cake. A lot of us were figuring there would be FOOD not food...

Mary Kay Letourneau

The worst thing about Mary Kay Letourneau is that she has produced six children. Six! So the genes that lead a woman in her 30s to have sex with a 12-year-old boy will continue on in the world. Lovely. Of course, I will TiVO her interview on 20/20 tonight.

Fecking Nigerian Scam!

Okay intially I was amused the 1st couple of times I got the Nigerian dead family scam (or Ivory Coast or where ever the fuck), but now that I'm getting the damn emails like 3 times a week at a minimum, I'm done with my amusement. I report them as spam to Yahoo yet still they get through to my main email instead of being sorted to spam folder.

Work peeve... I go eat in the student center periodically for lunch. They need to set up distinct tape for lines because these damn students just kind of mill around so you're never sure if you are in line or just standing behind a group of random standers. Obviously I need to learn not to go at 12:00 exactly.

Disgusting

Exhibit A:
At the Fashion Square mall in Sherman Oaks, the Christmas store is going in already. In the window, they have fake trees with decorations on them.

Exhibit B:
I just received an email from Crate & Barrel bragging about their new holiday catalogue.

It is still September!

Can somebody please do the math for me?

Okay, this one has been simmering under the surface since I moved here and I've been keeping it to myself so I don't sound retarded. I don't care anymore.

Can somebody please solve the following puzzle for me?

When you are driving on the 101 Eastbound during rush hour there is a section of the freeway between Fallbrook and De Soto that usually moves at a pretty good clip. Then suddenly, there is an extra lane (yep, an extra lane, one more whole lane for people to choose from and drive fast on) and the traffic grinds to a halt.

How is that freaking possible? There is no on ramp just before the new lane appears. It pains me every day. It hurts all of my sensibilities. Is there something about the physics of freeway traffic that I don't know about that can explain this phenomenon?

Blogiversary

On December 19th, this blog will be two years old. (Read the first post. It is a classic.)

In honor of this day, I will hold a little party, which may mean me having drinks at the bar down the street by myself, and I would like for the blog to have at least 1000 total posts by that day. It shouldn't be too hard to do since we are at 746 with this post. That means we need about 3 posts per day until the blogiversary. I may need some help from those of you who don't post very often. There is something in it for you. I'll buy you a drink at the party.

A Touch of Psychosis

Are you mentally ill? Think again. Reading my test results- well, it sounds about right to me.

Personality Disorder Test
Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: Low
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Moderate
Narcissistic: Moderate
Avoidant: Low
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Low

Histrionic
People with histrionic personality disorder are constant attention seekers. They need to be the center of attention all the time, often interrupting others in order to dominate the conversation. They use grandiose language to describe everyday events and seek constant praise. They may dress provacatively or exaggerate illnesses in order to gain attention. They also tend to exaggerate friendships and relationships, believing that everyone loves them. They are often manipulative.

Narcissistic
Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by self-centeredness. Like histrionic disorder, people with this disorder seek attention and praise. They exaggerate their achievements, expecting others to recongize them as being superior. They tend to be choosy about picking friends, since they believe that not just anyone is worthy of being their friend. They tend to make good first impressions, yet have difficulty maintaining long-lasting relationships. They are generally uninterested in the feelings of others and may take advantage of them.

I am peeved at Michelle...

...for getting me hooked on that blog I found some of your life.

I go to check the damn thing this morning, and he is finished with it, leading me to believe that the owner of the memory card finally claimed it. Damn, am I bitter.

UCM #1

Unpleasant Childhood Memory #1:
Getting into a roasting hot car in the summer, with shorts on, and nearly burning the skin off the backs of my legs on the vinyl seats.

30

I was born approximately 30 years and an hour and a half ago. My stepdad asked me if I was going to start lying about my age now. Hell, no. As long as people keep saying, "You don't look 30," with sincere expressions on their faces, I will continue to tell the truth.

Oh, no! My favorite character was just killed on CSI: Miami.

I guess I am over my 30 angst.

Carson's Peeve

I just had to share a funny peeve inspired by my almost 3 1/2 year old. My mom took him to pre-school today, and he notices a little girl going through someone else's lunch. He promptly marches up to her and says, "Listen here new girl, we have rules in this school."

Love that kid. :)

The O.C. Sighting

I saw Samaire Armstrong (Anna from The O.C.) chatting on her cell phone while driving a generic I-don't-know-if-I'll-be-getting-another-big-paycheck Toyota on Santa Monica Blvd. today. She was all made up and looked quite pretty.

Friday Tidbits

A few little things to tide you over...

1. I found this blog, which starts off kind of slow but is quickly becoming one of my favorites because I love the voyeuristic aspect of it.
2. The writing in this ongoing story is not that great, but I have been reading it every Friday since 1997.
3. If you have never checked out The Morning News, I highly recommend it. My submissions that they rejected ended up here and here.
4. I better not hear anyone complaining about the bridesmaid dresses they had to wear in my wedding. It could have been worse.
5. The books I am reading right now all look like this since I am theoretically taking the GRE next month. I took it my senior year in college but since I am so old now, those scores don't count anymore.
6. I enter these contests a lot, but I never win anything.
7. Beatdown Blog from random commenter, Kate the Peon, is a kindred spirit to Peevishness & Botheration.
8. You should sign up for the Daily Candy newsletters.
9. Does anyone need a gmail account? I have 7 to give away.
10. This website is about the making of the short film Because of Mama. It contains helpful screenwriting tips.

Death by Powerpoint

Ok, I know I can chat a person's ear off, and then some... HOWEVER, when the person leading an 8-hour meeting (who also insisted on starting this meeting at 5am our time because they're on the East Coast and can't feel my pain) says, "Let's close this up by covering the action items." you'd think they wouldn't talk for another F'ing HOUR!!!

"Oh, Action Item 496? I have a presentation on that one." I about shit. I left, got lunch, came back, and they were STILL on Action Item 496! Slide three of her 27-page presentation on Action Item 496!

I hereby declare Action Item 496 to be a thoroughly beaten dead horse. The answer to Action Item 496 is, "The week of March 7th, 2005." Now shut up about it and close the F'ing Item!

Don't EVEN get me started on Action Item 497... That one fell into my lap.

L'Shanah Tovah

I don't know what it means, but today I love the Jews. A happy Rosh Hashanah to all!

The lack of Jewish folk on the road today cut traffic down to summertime levels and allowed me to get to work in my best time ever: 35 minutes.

To Smokers...

I realize we just got out of a 4 hour meeting in which there was only 1 break... BUT when we all walk out in this big group (and it is a huge group because it is all the staff & faculty) don't immediately light up. Even though we are now technically outside, we are all still squashed together and dammit, I don't want to smell your smoke or be bothered by it.

Note to asst. dean...

I've copied this fucking paperwork for you twice now. And you want yet another copy?! I should've put it that way in my response to you... you want yet another copy as opposed to my oh so polite, you would like me to make a copy for your records? Find the other two you fucking asshat!

My Star Sighting

Otherwise known as Michelle is now mad at me

Coincidence, I think not. Michelle IM's me this morning to inform me that the next time I happened across Michael Vartan when I was stalking the Alias set, that I must tell him to drop his pants. Of course I agreed right away. Who wouldn't want to see Vaughn with dropped trou.

Flashforward to lunchtime. My buddy Laura and I decide to head over to the ABC Commissary (La Salsa, need I say more?), and we decide to go the back way which takes us right beside Alias stage 4 on the left hand side, and cushy Star Wagons on the right hand side.

You know those moments when time seems to slow down? We'll, we caught a flash of black coming out of the side door of the stage and turned simultaneously. There he was in the flesh, the object of our old married lady desire. And do we say hi? The two most outgoing and friendly people that everyone on the lot knows? Not a peep escapes our lips.

Of course a hundred feet later we are coming up with all sorts of things we should have said. Dorks. We were dorks. Even four hours later we are still e-mailing each other of what we could have/should have said.

But then we put the blame on him. "Well, he could have said hi to us," we huffed.

And to top it all off, I forgot to tell him to drop his pants.

Personally, I think Michelle orchestrated the whole "chance" encounter, to see if I actually would say it, just to prove what she had known all along, I was too chicken.

Celeb-o-rama

I was volunteering at the LA Short Film Festival this weekend. My hopes of seeing some exciting celebrties in their natural habitat were dashed when several hours into my shift, the most exciting thing I saw was Teller's (of Penn & Teller) back as he lumbered into the Arclight in cargo shorts with unkempt hair.

A little while later, I saw smoking hot George Stults of 7th Heaven fame (if you can call it that). He was delicious and I turned all giggly and stupid when I asked him if he had any questions as he checked out the film promos at the festival booth.

Sunday, Ron Livingston (Office Space, Sex and the City) was very cute and polite when he asked me where he could buy a ticket for the festival awards show.

Oh, and I don't know how this figures in, but the free-tickets-to-a-screening people were not getting any takers for Wimbledon, starring Kirsten Dunst. This is supposedly a romantic comedy and not some biopic about a tennis star. Whatever. It's still a movie about tennis.

Pure Evil

Turns out I am not truly evil. I only scored 14/20.

You may not be an evil doctor out for world domination, but you do know when to strike back when you are surrounded by frickin' idiots.

How evil are you?

TV Peeve

Why do they make commercials with doorbell sound effects in them? It makes the dogs go crazy every time. Dumb dogs.

Transatlanticism

Thank you Death Cab for Cutie for making a cd so lovely and mellow that just listening to it stops me from wanting to rip the eyeballs right out of a lazyassmotherfuckingpatheticexcuseforaprojectmanager's head.

Come One, Come All

i hate skool

I hate parents who have altered their morning driving habits to take their children to school.

I hate teachers who are on the roads again at regularly scheduled times.

I hate high school and college students who drive themselves to school.

I hate school buses, long and short.

I hate everyone and everything that contributes to the 25% increase in my morning drive time since school started.

Best George Bush Quote EVER

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."—Sept. 6, 2004, Poplar Bluff, Mo.

Pills...

Two pill issues tonight...
1 - I hate it when I drop a pill. I have to find it otherwise I run the risk of Baxter eating it AND they generally don't give you a whole lot of extra pills to make up for it when you drop one.

2 - I also hate it when the pill you are taking gets kind of caught in the back of your throat so that you keep swallowing and pouring more water (or whatever) down your throat and the pill just is stuck there and you can start tasting it. GAH!

sorry

Dear Self,

I am sorry I have turned into such an old fucking biddy. I realize it is just after 9 on a Saturday night, but I am tired. I have had a long day of shopping for exercise equipment, arguing with my husband, and cleaning up after a dog who pissed herself, so please forgive if one, super strong Bikini Martini knocked me out. I got nothing left.

-Michelle