ad hoc.

I’ve gone on record saying that horses scare the bejeezus out of me, but this is such a gross display of disregard for animals I’ve heard about in a long time. Maybe the euthenasia was what was best for the moment, but WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU USING HORSES for entertainment to begin with? Animals are not put here for the sole purpose of entertaining us and making money for us. And if I read anything lauding this horse as a hero for the game, I’m gonna go postal.

I feel like joining the ALF toute suite.

Sorry to tease! There will be no week 3. I followed the program this week (I almost said “I was good this week” and then I had to correct myself. See how easy it is to get sucked into that?) but I didn’t have time to get over to a meeting. I wonder what will happen next week? Will we talk about the evils of the ciabatta bread?

I thought the BSG premiere was on at ten, and apparently it was on at nine. So from nine to ten I was walking around my house vacuuming up cat hair when I could have been, oh, I don’t know, WATCHING THE DAMN PREMIER??? I think it will repeat sometime this week. Dammit!

EDIT: Sci fi had the whole show online.

Anders as a vipor pilot? Do me!

The president is back to being a pissypants.

Love how Baltar was just aquitted from being on trial for genocide and he is all judgemental about the Baltarcult’s living quarters. That’s so like Gaius!

Glad someone actually remembered Zack Adama.

Lee is just going to work for the government? Was there an interview process? Did he submit a resume? You would think that the government was kind of in shambles right now considering all that’s happened. But no, the beauracratic positions are still in tact. I am sure the ship has an IRS on board.

Unfortunately, a lot of the people that were there last time were here this time, but a whole bevvy of annoying people showed up for this meeting. The theme this week was traffic lights, or something. I got there late. We were talking about yellow and red light foods, which I guess means foods that people have to be careful about. So it became a free for all of people shouting out their “bad foods”. Soon people were calling out, “meat!” “pasta!” “girl scout cookies!” “saltines!” “salted nuts!” and salivating and moaning, practically. I’m not sure what this was to accomplish except that we were all thinking about these foods when we left the meeting.

There is a girl in high school there, and she always has to talk for fucking 15 minutes. Someone needs to take her to speech therapy meeting to stop her from saying like avery other word. Apparently, there was some sort of international food fair at her school and she like really really wanted the indian food cuz like it smelled soooooo good, but she was all, I don’t want to eat this but like what should I eat? so she had a fruit salad. The rest of the meeting clapped for her like she cured cancer.

There was girl there who looked about ten years old. I am not going to pass judgement on this girl’s family. Oh but wait, I am. Maybe this was a last resort for them? She seemed to be there with a sister, not a parent. For younger children, I feel like putting them on a point system at that age is fucked up. If she is not eating right, then the family needs to make a change and they all should eat healthier in general and get her involved in physical activities before making her an obsessive point-counter. To make it worse, our leader singled her out and have her a whole bunch of star stickers (which are reserved for when you lose a certain number of lbs- see what I have to look forward to? A fucking star sticker) and told her to giver herself one “everytime she did something good”. She looked mor.ti.fied.

There also seems to be a father and his teenage daughter that attend together, which is not something you expect. They were in front of me at the weigh-in, and after she went, he asked her “how did it go?” (in front of everyone else, mind you) and she looked really upset and said “not so great” and he replied “well, I guess you’ll have to be good this week”. I am getting really irritated by all this “good” and “bad” talk.

I really really wanted to bring breakfast with me to the meeting because it’s pretty early and I was heading right into the city after that, but I was reluctant to because I didn’t want people to judge what I was eating, or worse, ask me how many points it was. Then again, I would like to come in with an egg McMuffin or donuts at the next meeting just to see what people say.

Apparently next week we are going to talk about “trigger feelings”, which I guess means the emotions we feel that make us want to eat. Do you think I should offer up “the fear of dying alone?” as one of them?

I can’t help but be perterbed. I think Gawker got a scoop from my blog about a posted item. Ok, that’s cool, but maybe give me a little credit? I posted this the other day, and some of the reader discussion identified who the actress was, and then this pops up on Gawker. Coincidence? Maybe. But I don’t think this was huge news going all around the internet. Thankfully someone posted a link in the comments to The DB, which helped my stats. I shouldn’t be grumpy about it, I keep telling myself that I write the DB for me, but I would jump at the chance to have it linked from somewhere like Gawker to get more readership. Because that is what keeps me motivated to keep writing it, if I know lots are reading. Grumble grumble.

Oh, I also realized that every episode of South Park ever can be watched for free off the official site.  I’m never leaving my house again. Also, matt Stone is my new husband.

Ok, so I went to a Weight Watchers meeting. There. I said it. I don’t know why I suddenly went today of all days- maybe I am just looking to have another thing that is scheduled in my week. Admitting I went is hard. It’s no secret that I do not have a model’s body, but maybe going to WW is admitting that I don’t like the way I look. I mean, I am sure others don’t like it, but it’s like announcing to the world that I agree with them about being flawed. I’m giving in.

But, the bottom line is I am going. I’m treating it like an anthropological experiment. I’m like Diane Fosse among the gorillas. On the one hand, I support the mission of WW in that it promotes healthy eating choices and lifestyle changes, and is not a fad diet. At the same time, it’s kind of a cult. People go to meetings and get addicted to going to meetings and talking and thinking about it incessantly. People see any bit of food and immediately start calculating points. Most people who have weight to lose have had an unhealthly relationship with food all their lives, and adding another sort of obsession is kind of counterproductive. People’s worlds are divided into “being good” and “being bad” depending on what they ate that day. During the meeting, one woman, let’s call her Kate, spent about 20 minutes retelling an incident where she ate half a bagel at a work function and she didn’t realze that it had like 6 points or something and how it totally ruined her day and what a disaster and she hated herself for it etc. etc. Yikes! I understand her frustration but this obsession about it really bothered me. I’m not saying just eat it and don’t think about it…but seriously, it’s a bagel.And there is this elderly couple, let’s call them the Parkers, talked to themselves during the whole meeting. And then the husband added his two cents- “I thought Bay GALS were something that men liked.” Why am I doing this?

I feel like we are trying to kid ourselves that the healthy foods taste better- I totally love vegetables and quinoa and some really fresh whole foods- but let’s be serious, things drenched in butter and sauces are obviously way better. Not saying that we shouldn’t be eating the healthy stuff, but let’s not be delusional. Someone took about 10 minutes glorifying the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray as if it were the next coming of the messiah. Please. For most of the core foods that I eat, I have to drench it in salt or Bragg’s seasoning for it to be edible. And that’s the sacrifice. I’m not going to delude myself into thinking the pad thai from the restaurant is something I wouldn’t prefer. But, most vegan healthy foods are pretty good and I’m fine with them, but I’m not pretending they’re something they’re not.

I think I also hate large group meetings with cheesy inspirational leaders, so that’s my problem first. There are always the ones that domninate the meetings, people that ask dumb questions, and people that annoy the crap out of me. Afterwards I had to stay for the new members orientation, and the other people with me were totally baffled by how the points work. Oh my god. Someone shoot me.

According to WW, my goal weight is 108 pounds. Excuse me? Last time I weighed that much I was a senior in high school and I had, oh, I don’t know…A RAGING EATING DISORDER.

I can’t wait to see the comments about this one.

I hate to get all Wes-Benley-in-American-Beauty on you, but this vision of the dead bird in the brush surrounding the Hyatt pool kind of sums up my journey.

When I go to cities, I like to get a feel for it, to understand it, to recognize the personality of it. Sacramento is fucking creepy. Not like there were serial killers skulking around, but it was just so…bland. I was staying in downtown, literally across the street from the state capital building . And it was a weekday afternoon and completely empty. It was like a set from the Truman Show. It seemed the busiest place was the downtown mall and the Hardrock Cafe. During the day I skipped out and took a walk around, and the streets were peppered with random sandwhich/smoothie shops and chotchke shops. How did they stay in business? Now, I know that I only saw a snippet of Sacramento, and I don’t mean to insult anyone’s prized hometown. But there’s not a chance in hell I would go back.

The reason I was there was for a conference. I always feel strangely zombified after conferences. For any of you that have been to a professional conference for your job, maybe you can sympathize. Sometimes being at a hotel with hundreds or thousands of people in the same profession as you make you insane with regret for what your life has become. I also sit through sessions that are boring and not at all applicable to what I do. I get stupid schwag that I will never again use. The thing that annoys me is that in my profession we supposedly promote healthy ways of coping with stress and life, and spent about 80% of our jobs on dealing with underage drinking. What do people do at these conferences? Drink like fishes and make fools of themselves. People in my profession also have an unhealthy obsession with karaoke. I sat through some smashmouth, Loveshack, and Shania Twain. Shoot me.

I missed Regina terribly, and came home to this cuteness. I had to show off her paw, because it may be the most adorable paw in the history of catness. She’s got a gray spot and dark toes! Plus the puffs of hair coming out from between her toes! Don’t you just want to take a chomp?

So well put.

I know some people will think that is directed at them, but really it’s not. It’s a good way to blow off some steam about being thrown into these conversations when you don’t want to be. At my last job I ate lunch with all my coworkers at once (which was nice, until I started my clique) and everyone would talk about calories and food content and such while I was eating my lunch. Fuck off. Now I eat lunch with people who don’t give a fuck what they eat and have extra helpings of french fries and it is awesome.

Oh, what’s even better is when I am eating something and someone wants me to explain why I am vegan and don’t eat bread, while we are eating. So I am forced to tell them: I don’t eat animals because it is mutilation, I don’t eat dairy because cows are raped repeatedly to produce milk for the masses, and I don’t eat bread because it gives me explosive you-know-what. All when we are both eating. Good times.

Is this stuff too obvious? Is it like saying the pope is Catholic?

As I came up to my apt on the elevator with my groceries, I almost lost my shit. I’d like to make this into a plaque to put up:

- If you love on the second floor, walk for fuck’s sake. The only excuses are: you are in a wheelchair or have luggage with you. And I am just talking about going up. If you are going down, I can’t even deal with that.

-I get to the elevator and press the call button. It’s lit. Someone else comes up and presses it AGAIN. It’s not going to make it come quicker, asshole. Same once we get into the elevator. Someone else comes on going to the same floor as me and presses the same button I just pressed. This makes me foam at the mouth I am so annoyed.

-People that talk on their cell phone in the elevator. The talking on the phone is annoying enough, but then shouting in their phone as they lose service.

-As the elevator door is closing, someone comes in the front gate of my building, which is about a hundred feet from the elevator and they expect me to hold the door, and then stroll on in. If you want me to hold it, at least do the walk jog thing to make sure you are making the effort!

I love how my peer generation and even younger seem to be incredibly excited about the upcoming elections. I love nothing more to engage in conversations about it and to hear people’s opinions and why they support said candidate. However what does irk the shit out of me is the barrage of facebook messages and email that just state “VOTE FOR OBAMA!”. Like getting these messages commanding me to do something will cause me to completely override any thoughts of my own about candidate issues. It’s like I am in a high school government election with “Erik 4 Prez” signs all around me.

Hi friends, my cell phone somehow landed in a puddle yesterday, and is not functioning. I don’t care that no one can call me, but that means NO TEXTING! I may die. I will be shopping around for a phone next week. I also will have no internet over the weekend. How will I live?

I got a weird “compliment” today…someone told me I dressed like a toddler. Like a “cool” toddler. The reason was because I usually wear leggings and cotton dresses and slip on flats. So, no buckles or ties or zippers. I call it “lazy chic.” I think I kind of hate the person who said that to me.

The same day, someone else told me, “you wouldn’t think it, but you are really good at speaking in front of large groups”. Can people PLEASE learn how to give compliments?

Something I have to get off my chest, because this really pisses me off. As I have mentioned, I usually don’t talk about music much with people because they usually never heard of stuff I listen to, and I get frustrated because they listen to Rihanna or something. So, once in a while, someone will take interest and actually ask me to make some cds for them as a way to discover new music. Nothing pleases me more! I actually sit and take a big chunk of time and go through my music collection and actually pick out stuff that I think they would like, based on them as a person and based on what I think they would like. It’s actually a labor of love. It’s actually the only way I can actually show true emotion towards someone. Okay, I am done, and I present it to the person, and sometimes I’ll even take the time to write up descriptions of the artists and why that person will like them. I present it with a wink and a smile, and hope for the best.

And then the fucker doesn’t even try. They either don’t even bother listening, or maybe tell me, “Oh, I liked the Madonna album on there.” (Because I almost always throw in Confessions). So, why did you EVEN FUCKING ASK ME to help you discover new music if you are just going to listen to the one artist you’ve already heard of? This is why I rarely talk about music to people.

Also, if you are reading this and thinking I am talking about you, I’m not. I wouldn’t give this blog address to people who do that.

Someone thought it would be cute to do this to my car when I was parked in my RESERVED lot in my RESERVED space. Hoe can you even do that damage? And leave without leaving a note? There goes this month’s paycheck.

This is how angry it makes me:

Dear college students,

I know that you seem to enjoy wearing flip-flops. I guess they are comfortable, even though I cannot stand looking at your mangy toes. However, please learn to walk like a fucking human and stop dragging your feet.

Love,

Me

Dear homeless teens on Telegraph Ave,

I really want to help your situation, but I haven’t figured out what role I will play. I don’t blame you for your situation like some others do, and I think you don’t deserve a lot of the treatment you get. I understand your need to make money by playing your guitar. However, do you really need to sound like fucking Nickelback?

Love,

Me

Dear leggings,

I know that you may be uber-trendy and not all that flattering, but goddammit you are so comfortable I don’t care that I look like I am in 1984. Thanks for making my Friday a bit more bearable.

Love,

Me

Dear Nada Surf,

hey, I hear you are recording a new album. I think it’s great that you won’t let your one-hit-wonder status stop you from making wonderful music and knowing that you have devoted fans out there. However, please don’t let it be a piece of shit like your last album, The Weight Is a Gift was.

Love,

Me

Dear Michael Bay,

Why the hell does every movie you have to make be a metaphorical masturbation session? It seems like you are not even trying. Transformers was actually Armageddon with a couple of lines changed.

Love,

Me

Wow, I am livid. LIVID. All the music files I have uploaded to my mediafire account have been deleted. Some troll on one of music sharing communities took it upon themselves to report all the files to mediafire. So my account and my hundreds of files have been deleted. I still have them on my hard drive, but now I have absolutely nothing uploaded anywhere to share. If this person truly did not believe in sharing music, then I would certainly would have welcomes a cease and desist message. Believe me, I have gotten them before and have obviously complied.But to do something so assinine just boils my blood. Asshole.

You all know how I feel about Halloween. Something really wrong about selling gore to kids and glorifying horrendous violence. But some of these are even more disturbing.

Nothing like dressing up as an actual ethnic identity. Way to perpetuate every steretype. Congratulations.

The other thing that baffles me are the “sexy” costumes. They make no sense! How is this even functional?

Why do aviators need to be sexy?

And detectives? Wouldn’t this ride up your butt while you are solving murders?

What’s more fun than sexualizing your child?

And the best: A Gold Digger costume. It’s a sign of the apocolypse.

Well, just for anthropological reasons, I went to the Cal v. Arizona game. I’ll tell you, I STILL do not understand football completely. I feel like an idiot. Almost as dumb as when I was three and my father took me to see Tron. Even until this day I am hesitant to watch it all the way through in fear I won’t understand it. It’s like that with football. And I consider myself a smart person. Why do most of U.S. Americans get it and I don’t? Why do they keep stopping every couple of seconds? At least in hockey and soccer, it’s pretty clear: just get it in the goal. Simple.

Well, the highlight was the halftime marching band show. They did a ska retrospective, doing a medley of Reel Big Fish, Goldfiner, Dave Ferris, and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. I know, awesome, right? I almost fell off the side of the stadium with glee. Sad thing is, these college kids were maybe eight or nine when ska was at its peak, and they don’t appreciate it. Sad.

In other news, I’ve had this blog for three years this month. I don’t know if that is sad or exciting. It’s been fun, and for those of you that have stuck along for the ride, I salute you.

I am surprised I did not start this list earlier, but I’ve decided to put them in writing. Because I am a crusty old woman. Here are some pet peeves currently on my mind:

People backing into spaces. What the hell? Like when you leave you will be in such a hurry that you can’t spare the 7 seconds it takes to pull out of a space? It takes longer to back into a space at the beginning than it does to pull out at the end. I think that people who back into spaces are incredibly entitled. Yes, that is a huge judgement. Deal with it.

People saying “1am in the morning” or “4pm in the aftenoon”. Either say the “am” part or the “morning” part. Make a fucking choice.

When I am wating at a crosswalk, and the whole street is clear except for one close approaching car. I stand and wait for that car to go by, no biggie, but then they STOP and WAVE ME ACROSS. Who the hell made them crossing guard? Furthermore, now I feel obligated to run across the street instead of liesurely walking, which was why I was waiting in the first place. Fuck.

People wearing CBGB’s shirts. They have no clue what that even means.

More bitterness to come!

So as many of you know I just moved to a college town whose college has a high-ranking division 1 football team. College football is a world I have never even begun to experience or understood. I am starting to understand it, and equally fear it. I woke up at 8 this morning with a tailgate party being set up in the parking lot directly outside my window.  I didn’t even know anyone owned copies of Jock Jams anymore. It is a really interesting study of conformity. Suddenly the world is divided into binary factions- Cal fans and Tennessee fans. I can’t believe how many Tennesee fans actually flew here for the event. I hope they get their money’s worth. It was kind of fun watching the folks from Knoxville interact with Liberalism, USA.

Also, it seems that alcohol laws are all suspended on game days. Wow. Open containers on the streets seems to be the rule, not the exception. Internalized oppression also seems to be the order of the day too, because I saw at least three women flash their breasts for blue and gold beads on my way to the coffeeshop where I am hiding out and writing this.

I guess it is great to band together with common enthusiasm…I think? But it just strikes me as weird that all these white people everywhere calling the team “their team”, benefiting from the fun and mass amounts of expensive alcohol, when in fact, a lot of the actual players and non-white and from lesser socioeconomic status. Are they being exploited for a huge amount of income for the university and the town? My guess would be a smidge.

Sigh. Only six more home games in the season.

Ok, not really about Berkeley per se, but still pretty tragic.

• I wasn’t going to talk about this, but my external hard drive broke. I had about 200GB of music on there. Yes, my livelihood. Without my extensive collection of indie rock, really, who am I? I have been dealing with it all right, but when I think about it, I get a pain in the pit of my stomach. I have been slowly re-downloading some stuff, but it is not the same. Which brings me to…
• I can only use 5GB of bandwith per week with my internet connection. WHAT? That is barely anything. If I go over, my internet connection is cut off. Do they know who I am? I am kind of a big deal, people know me. As a music pirate.
• I do not get Bravo or the Disney Channel in my cable package. That means: no Top Chef and no Hannah Montana. I’m dying here. What happens when High School Musical 2 comes out in August? I just have to miss out?

In other news, I was at a farmer’s market and got Brussel Sprouts the size of cantelopes. That kind of made my year.

Today, in People’s Park, I noticed about five homeless people with cell phones. I am not really sure how to wrap my head around that.

Every night, around 11pm, a group of guys gathers in the parking lot behind my building to smoke up and play shitty pseudo indie-folk on their guitars. I feel like it is supposed to give me the ESSENCE of Berkeley, but for fuck’s sake they are so bad. They play through most of the night, and now it has been somehow incorporated into my dreams.

I just realized there is a Hot Topic located on Telegraph Avenue. That is like having a Taco Bell in Mexico.

Three people have already asked me where Connecticut is.

been so lazy about doing laundry that you go out and BUY NEW UNDERWEAR instead? I just did that today and I think this signifies hitting rock bottom.

Also: you know you are getting old when you want to yell at teenagers on the street to stop dragging their feet. Everyone here wears flip flops which is gross enough, but they can’t even walk correctly. It’s a mess.

Also, I need to be careful what I wish for. I kvetched about living in the suburbs, but now I am woken up every hour of the night for something. Two nights this week the bar next to my building has had some sort of brawl/riot, there is a mentally ill individual who screams about Jesus every hour on the hour*, and people can’t control their car alarms.

* I understand that the mentally ill homeless person is having a much worse time than me. I don’t mean to make light of it. But dammit, I need my sleep.

Hi gals,

It’s great that you go to the gym. It’s not only a goodfaith effort for you to take care of yourself, but it is a worthwhile way to spend your time. It’s even okay when you chat with your friend on the eliptical next to you, although I can still hear your chatter with my headphones on. It’s okay. I’ll forgive that one.

But, for the LOVE OF PETER, please stop hogging the ab machine. I know that women generally don’t like their abular area. But, sitting on the machine, doing three to four half-assed reps, then sitting for five minutes picking your nails or talking on the phone, and then doing three or four more, and then calling it a day is not going to do anything. Try some upper body training. Working on your shoulders will make you look good in tank tops. Really, you don’t even need a machine. Save us all the heartache and do some crunches during commercial breaks during Grey’s anatomy. Doing a full circuit will do wonders for you. Plus, I want to get on the machine. I have a circuit training going on.

Oh, and while I have your attention, when you are in the bathroom, take five fucking seconds to lock the fucking stall. That will prevent me from walking in on you and you can save your embarassment and my annoyance.

So, I took down the Chromeo album because I got a pretty stern letter from the record label. Ok, fair enough. I understand that right now it is illegal, so I was at fault. But it just begins to infuriate me. The record labels are the ones that have their panties in a bunch. Sharing the album and spreading the word actually helps the artists, it gets the word out, especially for any band not on a major label. They don’t get a lot of their income from record sales. And not that laws should change because people are breaking them. For instance, the drinking age should not change simply because most people drink underage, nor should be marijuana laws be changed because people enjoy smoking pot. [There are reasons that these laws should be changed, but it has to do with other political/sociological needs, not just because many folks disregard it. That's another post. Let me get back to my point.] However, the times are a-changing. Record labels are still grasping to the idea that they are going to sell physical albums. It’s not happening. It’s just not the medium that people are experiencing music through. They need to change the way they market and sell music. I don’t know what that new way of marketing music would look like. But it’s sad. When I was in San Francisco, I finally got to go to Amoeba Music. Five years ago, I would have been in heaven. I mean, just look at the place! But sadly, I didn’t spend much time there. I already owned practically every album they had featured.

There is certainly a downside to all this. Some bands barely have to work to gain a following. They can form, some buzz forms on the internet, and a few months later they can even have a video on MTV. There are so many examples- Robbers & Cowards, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Arcade Fire, Tapes N Tapes….no wonder CBGBs closed. There will never be a scene anymore. We will never see another Ramones, Operation Ivy, Nirvana, Social Distortion, Minor Threat…bands form too quickly and get recognition. It’s rather sad. Kids these days rarely get attached to one band and become a true fan and listen to the entire album on repeat constantly, because they can shuffle the 10,000 songs on their ipod.

Not that I am innocent of perpetuating any of this. Although I feel I was born 20 years too late and would have loved to experience the punk movement of the 70s, I am glad I experiences SOME sort of movement. I was around to truly appreciate the Norvana breakthrough, the grunge movement, and own some cassettes and spend hours reading the liner notes.

So, unfortunately, for the time being, I will not be sharing anymore albums on here. Too bad, the new Spoon album is to die for! I’ll still put up singles, and still reccomend stuff, and I hope you’ll be able to get your hands on it somehow.