Well, my hopes for a long-ass entry today went out the window upon receiving an email from the mortgage company requiring more information and more documents from us. This time it actually came with something called a "Mortgage Loan Commitment" letter, but the commitment, of course, is conditional, making the letter almost meaningless. When do we get the loan? That's all I care about. Until then, you can keep all your pre-qualifications and conditional commitments to yourself.
It's getting pretty frustrating. The worst part is that they ask us for the same documents again and again and have trouble with anything requiring a modicum of critical thinking. For example, they wanted to know about a transfer from one of our accounts to another. The transfer was made from Bank A on the 15th of the month and received by Bank B on the 16th of the month. As it so happens, the statement for Bank A showing this transfer ended on the 15th (meaning it showed all transactions on the 15th but not the 16th). So, the underwriter of the loan saw the transfer into Bank B on the 16th, saw that the statement for Bank A didn't include the 16th, and then complained that they couldn't source the transfer! If they would have just scanned the debits of the Bank A statement they would have seen it in 30 seconds max. And this after I sent an email in which I explicitly stated the transfer was made from Bank A on the 15th! Ugh... And sadly, I'm the calm one, S had to lock herself into our bedroom and decompress she was so frustrated tonight.
On the plus side, I'm leaving for the south Puget Sound region tomorrow. (Yay!) The first time in a year and a half. I get to see my nephews and all my other family and friends. Pretty stoked. In fact, I have to go pack, so I need to wrap this up.
But I leave you with a great song I randomly heard on the radio today. The "Heart of Rock & Roll" by Huey Lewis and the News. And when I say great, I mean "great", not great. I mean vapid, cheesy, formulaic, 80s, rock song great. For these types of ditties, it's hard to beat Huey.
A few things I love about this song. The heartbeat at the beginning right before it kicks in, nice touch. The non-swear word pause, "They like it with a lot of flash, but it's still that same old back beat rhythm. That really really kicks 'em in the ..." (See you think he's going to say "ass", but he doesn't.) Also, the sax solo is pretty sweet (80s staple), and the call out of all the cities around the country. That's nice because you hear your city get a shout out, and who doesn't like that? "DC, San Antone, and the Liberty Town, Boston and Baton Rouge. Tulsa, Austin, Oklahoma City, Seattle, San Francisco too." He got both of mine.
Aah... Finally getting a chance to sit down and write this entry. I've been doing things all day. And by that, I mean I spent the entire morning and most the afternoon playing Scrabble online. It wasn't a good session. My rating dropped nearly 100 points. I just wasn't getting good tiles and got beat by a couple much lower-ranked opponents. Oh well, it happens. I did have one pretty sweet play. I had EIMORT and a blank in my rack, so a few bingos there (using all seven tiles on one play is called a bingo), MOISTER is probably the most obvious, but there was no place to play any of them. The only spot on the board for a bingo would require it to end in 'C'. So I looked for a few seconds and then laid down METEORIC... Bam! Not too shabby, if I say so myself.
I had a guy repeatedly call me a "douche bag" after a game. I was losing near the end of the game, and his clock was low (I play fast games, only four minutes total for all moves per side), so I, in a move of desperation, just put the rest of my tiles down and made a bunch of crazy, nonsensical words in the process (for a huge score), hoping that he (I'm guessing it was a dude, chicks usually don't do crap like call people names after an online Scrabble game) would be too time-panicked to challenge. But it didn't work. He challenged it, the tiles came off the board, I lost my turn, and he won.
Despite winning, he apparently took exception to my tactics (which I stand by, if you don't have time to challenge, it's your own fault for letting your clock get so low), and he started bragging and berating me. I think he used five different forms of the word "douche": douche, douche bag, douchyness, douchery, and my personal favorite, douche cock. I thought it was funny at first, so I played along for a few minutes, but it got old quick, so I just ignored him, and he went away. I find this type of behavior really weird. What do you possibly hope to accomplish? Even if you get the reaction you want, you aren't around to see it.
After my Scrabble spree, S and I went for a run, and then we helped S's friend E, who lives in the unit above us, put up some curtain rods. Now, I'm not exactly Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor, but I'm the only dude of the three of us, so by default I had to do all the "toolsy" things like work the drill and put the screws in. It went OK. S and E measured one of the windows incorrectly, which resulted in me having to "rescrew" everything (and it gave E some nice little wholes in her wall that will need to be patched), but other than that no real issues. We got them up, safe and secure. It's probably the type of thing that would've laughably easy for a halfway decent handyman, but sadly I'm nothing close to a halfway decent handyman. An online Scrabble player I am, a factotum I am not. (I added that last statement entirely, because I wanted to use the word "factotum" in a sentence.)
[Did you know Tim Allen once simultaneously had the number one selling comedy movie, book, and TV show? Did you also know that people are fucking idiots?]
Oddly enough, however, I did work construction for a summer (1999) and managed to do a good job. The trick was to a) show up on time everyday halfway sober, and b) do all the easy and lame tasks nobody else wanted to do. See, my crew was mostly delusional deadbeats and drunks who thought they had Bob Villa-esque skills, so nobody ever wanted to do the grunt work -- picking up nails or pushing a broom, etc. This type of work was beneath them. (They preferred to smoke and complain about their lots in life, instead.) So, I just did all the easy stuff that required little to no skill, took my $10/hour (which was a mini-fortune for me at that time) and went home. And by home, of course, I mean the camping pad on the floor of the friend's bedroom I was staying with.
That was a great summer actually. It was the first summer my friends and I were 21, so we used to go down to Dad Watson's in Freemont, fill up a bunch of growlers with beer, go back to the apartment and play Foosball and RBI Baseball until the wee hours of the morning. My friend JY and I literally played a 90-game season of RBI that summer. We kept stats, by hand. I still have them on my computer somewhere. Strangely, I don't recall there ever being any woman around that summer, huh, weird.
[RBI Baseball: possibly the greatest Nintendo game of all time.]
OK, that's all for this entry. I have more to talk about, but I have to go soon. Maybe I'll put up a midweek entry. I would like to start having two shorter entries per week, instead of one long one, but it seems like Saturday is the only day I have the time and energy to really sit down and crank something out.
Still waiting for the funding to come through for this damn house. Maybe the mortgage company stumbled onto my blog, saw the mean things I was saying about them in my last entry and decided to be extra slow. Or more likely they are just slow, period. Supposedly our papers are with the underwriter, and it's all just formalities at this point, but I'll believe it when I see it. Stall, stall, stall, that's all we've heard for the last three weeks. I'm not too worried, because a) everybody involved -- buyer, seller, lender, and agents -- has a vested interests in the deal going through, which means it will probably go through, and b) all the people I've talked to who have bought a house since the bubble burst have told me they had an experience very similar to ours (everybody wants to cover their ass). But, at some point we do need the actual commitment letter.
The biggest joke of this whole thing is the fact that we were "pre-approved". What the hell does that mean? If we were pre-approved, then why is it taking so damn long to approve us? Shouldn't we have received the commitment letter immediately if we were pre-approved? In fact, if we were truly PRE-approved we should have received the letter before we even applied! I hate this type of advertising BS -- meaningless labels and enticements. The sad part is that it actually works. How else do you explain that the Green Bay Packers sold $440,000 worth of their "stock" in the first 11 minutes after it went on sale, even though the stock entitles you to nothing more than the piece of paper it's printed on? Basically, if you give the Packers $275 you can say you're a partial owner. You don't get any of the powers or compensation of a real owner, but you get to say you're an owner. And people are buying it! Nearly half a million dollars in 11 minutes! That's an unbelievable amount of money spent on something I figured out how to do free. Here's how you do it. Read carefully. "I'm a partial owner of the Green Bay Packers." See, it didn't cost me a thing. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
[Please send money. We could only afford to pay our field goal kicker 2.75 million this year!]
Speaking of stupidity, the Republican primary is maintaining it's high level of entertaining farcicality. I thought we might see a bit of a dip with Herman Clown out of the running, but nope, it's still going strong. Newt Gingrich has surged to the top of many polls, mainly because many Reps just don't like Mitt Romney. I'm not sure whom to root for in this. On one hand, Romney would be far preferable as a president than any of the other GOP hopefuls (which isn't saying much) if only because there's a 50-50 chance he'll be in agreement with you on an issue on any given day (as illustrated in the funny ad below). On the other hand, he probably would be the stiffest challenger to Obama, so I don't know whom to root for. I guess, I'll root for nobody and just watch, watch and laugh. If I don't laugh, I get depressed.
[I'm sure the counter to this from the Romney camp will be that it's a series of soundbites taken out of context. To which, I would say, "Please, by all means, look into the context behind these statements. That would be far more damning to Mitt than this 4.5 minute ad could ever be."]
The most depressing part is that whoever emerges from the mire could realistically be our next president. The economy sucks, many are out of work, and most people don't understand the nature of the recession well enough to realize that Obama has been kinda sorta not terrible on the economy, while the Republicans' economic plans are downright dreadful. Right now, most oddsmakers are leaning a little toward Obama being reelected (around 55-45), but it's probably going to be really close, which is scary. Actually, a small part of me hopes a Republican is elected president in 2012. And then I hope the GOP sweeps both houses of congress and puts all their awesome policies into place. This way everybody could see just what it would be like under their governance. It would be a great experiment. Of course, it's an experiment that would probably result in some pretty severe hardships for a lot of people, and one that would put our country on the complete wrong track, but I bet it would successfully prove my point that although things are bad now, the Republican vision is most certainly not the solution. (If only we could temporarily follow an alternate branch of the time-space continuum -- a la Marty McFly in Back to the Future II -- and then return to present day, and not elect a Republican, that would be ideal. Maybe we can get Warren Buffett to invest in R and D of the flux capacitor.)
[This is a scene from a hilarious episode of "The Simpsons" in which Homer runs for sanitation commissioner. His opponent, Ray Patterson, is voiced by Steve Martin. It's slightly less farcical than a Republican primary. (The quality of the recording isn't great, but the clip is funny.)]
[After Springfield is overrun with trash on Homer's watch, the city tries to get Ray Patterson to come back.]
In sporting news, it's a good time to be an NBA hater. (Ever since the Sonics were stolen from Seattle, I've followed the NBA only to root for its demise.) The end of the lockout was rough for me. I was really hoping the entire season would be lost, but what can you do? Recently, however, the NBA powers-that-be oddly nixed a pretty fair trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers. Many people are up in arms about this, some are even implying that NBA commissioner David Stern should resign. I think ultimately this whole thing will blow over, and the NBA will continue as usual (If a scandal involving game-fixing couldn't turn the fans away, what will?), but it's nice to enjoy the chaos and disgruntlement while it lasts.
In other, non-sporting news, I see this woman in my office building every now and then who has a mustache -- a thick one. I mean, not Lech Walesa thick,
but Adam Morrison thick,
which is very prominent for a woman. It got me thinking. Is there a bigger I-don't-care statement than a mustache on a woman? It seems like it would be a relatively easy thing to get rid of. From what I gather, electrolysis is not too expensive nor very painful these days (although supposedly it can discolor your skin, which doesn't sound too great). Also, there is waxing and creams and even just taking a razor to it. All of these have drawbacks, I understand, but it seems like you could come up with a system that would keep your upper lip hairless and wouldn't be very time consuming or intrusive. There's a big stigma attached to a woman having facial hair (I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm just saying it is), so if a woman is rocking a 'stache, she must have some serious I-don't-give-shit-what-you-think in her (either that or she has an uncontrollable medical reason for it, in which case I'm an asshole for bringing this up). I certainly couldn't have one. I mean, I couldn't have the male equivalent of a female mustache (whatever that would be). I'm way too vain. And it would definitely bother me if S had a mustache. So I guess I'm vain and superficial. What can I say? Do I get points for being honest?
In my previous entry I indicated that there were 14 total people at my in-laws for Thanksgiving, but I mistakenly under-counted. There were actually 16 people there. It was madness. Good madness, but madness nonetheless.
Somehow S and I got the master bedroom to ourselves while many others slept on the floor. I'm not quite sure how things worked out this way, I certainly didn't push for it, and it didn't make sense to me, but I've learned with S's family just to go with the flow. It seems like there is some always sort of heated discussion over things like accommodations. I generally don't get involved (for one thing I usually can't understand what everybody is saying, because I don't speak Kannada or Telugu -- blissful ignorance), and then I just do what they tell me. If it means I sleep on the floor, fine. If it means I get the master bed, well, that's fine too.
[We watched this movie, "Hugo", over Thanksgiving weekend. It was OK. Not tremendous, a little slow, too artificially arty, but interesting. ]
It's also this way when it comes to paying for things -- always a struggle over who gets to pay the bill. I once witnessed S and her cousin argue for a solid 20 minutes over this. It only ended because her cousin threatened the server with physical violence if she took S's credit card. The server was a 95-pound Chinese chick, so the threat seemed credible even though S's uncle is a 5' 5" middle-aged accountant. (OK, maybe this is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the picture.) S's old childhood friends, two brothers N1 and N2, are the craftiest when it comes to paying. They'll do things like pretend they're going to the restroom and then find the server and pay the bill -- very sneaky.
Anyway, overall it was a great weekend. I must admit, I did miss the standard Thanksgiving fare -- it wasn't turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, it was roti, dosas, and chutney -- but it was delicious and I'm sure I'll have the more traditional holiday dishes over Xmas, anyway. Plus, Indians do it up right. Their food is delicious, well, except for the desserts. I have yet to have an authentic Indian dessert that I really like. S's mom made this thing that was like tortillas in sweet chutney, and I tried some, but couldn't get into it. Thankfully, there was pie, cheesecake, and chocolate to be had as well, so I didn't go unsated.
Changing the subject, we're zeroing in on buying a great house. Everything is squared away for it except our loan, which should be finalized next week. I said "should be" instead of "will be", because the mortgage company is really dragging their feet and starting to annoy us. To fair, it's more just one woman than the whole company, but she's annoying enough for everybody. It just amazes me sometimes how stupid people are. Well, she might not be stupid, she might just be lazy and apathetic. Either way, it's like, 7 million people are unemployed and you have a job. Wow.
Here are some reasons I say that. She's asked us for the same documents three times, which we've sent her three times, and then she can't understand them when she gets them. (And by the way, understanding them means being able to add three numbers. It took me 30 seconds and a calculator to figure things out.) She never uses "reply all" despite being asked repeatedly to include both S and I on all emails, and then she claimed yesterday to not have my email address at all, which is absolutely absurd being that I have 10 emails in my inbox on which we were both copied (literally, I'm looking at my Gmail now), and I sent her an email directly three days ago! Also, she sends messages like this
"Also on your 2010 W2’s that you had supply to us Mrs. [S's last name] it is showing [non-existent company] when did you work for this company need date and number if you have it."
I would be slightly embarrassed to send this to a friend, let alone a client. First, I would have pulled up the W2 to which she is referring and written the name of the company exactly as stated on the W2. As it is, she botched the name so badly that we literally didn't know what she was talking about, and S had to call her to get it straightened out. Second, and this illustrates my point perfectly, either she's stupid and doesn't know how to use basic punctuation (she really needs another period and a question mark, at least), or she's lazy and apathetic and didn't want to take the extra half minute it would have taken to proof read her message. Which is it?
And by the way, it's not like I'm expecting her emails to conform perfectly to the rules of the MLA handbook, or picking nits because of a typo (you could probably find dozens of small mistakes in every entry I've ever posted on this blog), I'm just asking for something that we understand, and that instills the smallest bit of confidence that we're in good hands. Is that too much to ask? We are essentially her customers after all. (Sadly, the guy at the other mortgage company we were considering was worse!) Well, at least her partner seems to be good.
Changing the subject again, I read an interesting article about a venture capitalist named Peter Thiel (you can find the piece here, but I think you need a New Yorker subscription to read the entire thing). He was a key guy at PayPal, an investor in Facebook and a bunch of other things, and now he's like a bazillionaire (although he recently lost a large percentage of worth by betting on a quick rebound in the stock market after the housing bubble burst -- he should've been heeding the words of my man Paul Krugman). He sounds like an interesting dude. He fairly young (44), super smart (a chess whiz), gay (a supporter of GOProud), and a hard-core libertarian, so he invests in some pretty out-there causes like the Methuselah Foundation, whose goal is basically to prevent dying, and seasteading -- building actual floating colonies in the sea that, I presume, are free from government tyranny.
[I wanted to put up the interview of Bruno with Ron Paul to tie into the whole libertarian thing, but I couldn't find an embeddable version on youtube, so instead you get this in which Bruno interviews a libertarian (certainly not a gay one). It's the second interview in the clip, but they're both pretty funny.]
It's all really interesting, and I'm down with exploring fantastical concepts like reversing aging and floating cities. (We need a health dose of investment into nutty sci-fi shit like this.) But, I can't get behind the avid libertarianism. Basically, libertarians are Republicans who can think. Like if Paul Ryan was smarter he'd be a libertarian. So the problem I have with libertarians is the same problem I've mentioned before that I have with many Republicans, they put their ideology ahead of reality. They see the world as they wish it was, not as it is. Yeah, it would be awesome if everybody was strong and smart and responsible and hard-working and made rational decisions. And it would be awesome if other people's bad decisions and mistakes and sicknesses didn't effect me. But, that's not the truth. We can either accept this, and try to forge a working society that isn't completely philosophically pure or fair, or we can go down the path of the laissez-faire ideologue. I'm not saying I know for sure where this path would take us, but I wouldn't bet much money on it being anything close to the great place libertarians think it would be.
Well, that does it for this entry. Until next week...
Sadly, I have no time for a lengthy post this week. I'm at my in-laws for the weekend in South Carolina, and it's like a zoo here. I have a little bit of peace and quiet right now, because everybody, ironically, is at the actual zoo. I stayed behind to take a little break from the chaos. I also need to save my energy. There's a 7-year old here, and she's wearing me out. We've developed a game in which I pretend to block her path and then she runs around me and giggles. It's fun, for awhile, after about the fifth iteration I'm like, "Hey, wanna learn how to do a crossword puzzle?"
All told there are 13 of us with one more arriving tonight. It's like Little India here. One nice thing about this is that I make my wife wait on me hand and foot. If she protests I say, "Sorry Babe, that's the culture. I don't want to offend anyone. We'd better just go along with it." It's been a surprisingly effective rebuttal so far.
Anyway, happy belated Thanksgiving!
[Nothing quite says Thanksgiving like the Dallas Cowboys and South Indian food.]
So the other day I'm driving home from work on US-29 in Takoma Park, Maryland. At the section of the highway I'm on there are three lanes in each direction and no shoulder. I mean no shoulder. It goes lane, six inches of yellow stripe, median moving to the left, and lane, six inches of yellow stripe, curb moving to the right. The speed limit is 45, so most the time it drives like a major freeway, but there are stop lights on it.
I'm nearly home, about a mile away, and approaching one of these stop lights. It turns yellow, so I have to make that punch-it-or-slam-on-brakes decision. I punch it, and get through the intersection fine, except for the fact that an unmarked SUV behind me lights up and starts blaring a siren. I'm getting pulled over. To quote Rick Perry, "oops".
The problem is that there is nowhere to pull over. It doesn't seem safe to stop on the highway immediately next to a lane of fast-moving traffic while completely blocking another one. I remember when I took drivers ed, 19 years ago, a state trooper came to talk to us once, and he said that as long as you slow down to indicate you aren't trying to flee, you can always find a safe place to pull over. Well, it turns out that that's not really a universally shared feeling among police officers.
I slow way down, wave my hand a few times to indicate I'm not running away (admittedly this is hard to see as it's dark out), and look for a decent place to stop.
One Mississippi... two Mississippi... three Mississippi... that's all it takes, and the SUV is next to me with the cop in the passenger's seat screaming.
"STOP YOUR FUCKING CAR RIGHT NOW!"
I stop. The officers stop their car and the following exchange occurs.
Cop 1: (approaching the vehicle) ARE YOU FUCKING RETARDED? ARE YOU A FUCKING RETARD? WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU STOP WHEN WE FLASHED YOU?
Me: (rolling down my window) I was going to. I slowed way down. I was just looking for a safe place to pull over.
Cop 1: WHEN YOU SEE AN OFFICER'S LIGHTS YOU FUCKING STOP! I DON'T CARE WHERE YOU ARE!
Me: I was told that if you don't feel it's safe to pull over, that you can find a safe place. I was just looking for a side street. I didn't think it was safe to block a lane and be so close to the other traffic, especially in the dark.
Cop 1: THAT'S NOT YOUR DECISION! LICENSE AND REGISTRATION! (I give him my credentials. He leaves. His buddy comes up to the other side of my car.)
Cop 2: ROLL DOWN THIS GODDAMN WINDOW! WHEN A COP TELLS YOU TO STOP, YOU FUCKING STOP! YOU DON'T DECIDE WHERE TO STOP! WE DECIDED THAT!
Me: OK, fine, sorry, I was just looking for somewhere safe, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong.
Cop 2: YOU WERE WRONG WHEN YOU DIDN'T STOP WHEN YOU FIRST SAW OUR LIGHTS!
Me: OK, fine, you don't have to yell. I'm right here.
Cop 2: (taking his voice down a few decibels) I'm not yelling. I'm giving you suggestions. (He says this as if yelling and suggestion giving are natural opposites. He leaves and then Cop 1 comes back to the driver's side.)
Cop 1: Do you still live in DC?
Me: No, I just moved to this area a few weeks ago.
Cop 1: Do you have a Maryland license? (He's no longer yelling. He's gone into smug, tough guy, trying-to-intimidate mode.)
Me: No.
Cop 1: You are sure?
Me: Yes.
Cop 1: Why do you think I'm asking you this?
Me: I have no idea.
Cop 1: I'm asking you this because I know you have a Maryland license. Do you know it's illegal to have a license in two different states?
Me: I don't have a Maryland license. I used to have a Maryland license. I lost a Maryland license about four years ago, maybe this has something to do with that.
Cop 1: Ever think to take care of that? (It's difficult to convey just how smug he's being at this point.)
Me: Yes, I did take care of it, when it happened. I went to the Maryland DMV, reported a lost card, and got a new one. When I moved to DC, the DC DMV made me give them this card before I could get my DC license. If it's saying I have two licenses, it's some sort of mistake on the DMV's part.
Cop 1: Well, it's on you isn't it? You're the one who's going to get in trouble for it.
Me: I'm going to get in trouble for a processing error I didn't know anything about and had no reason to assume occurred? That doesn't make any sense. I mean, what was I supposed to do?
Cop 1: Take some responsibility. Step up and take some personal responsibility.
Me: Take some responsibility?! For what?! I didn't do anything! (I'm indignant and raising my voice at this point. I look at the officer. We stare at each other for a few seconds.)
Me: I don't know what you want from me.
Cop 1: You can start by being honest, being truthful.
Me: I've been honest this whole time! What do you think I'm lying to you about? Look, I'm not a criminal. Maybe I've committed a minor moving violation, but... (He cuts me off.)
Cop 1: Don't start with that or you're really going to piss me off. (He walks away, talks with his buddy and comes back.)
Cop 1: I understand your theory about wanting to pull over where it's safe, but it's the wrong theory. When you see our lights, you stop... And slow down! (He goes back to the vehicle and they drive off.)
And that was that. No ticket, no warning, not even an explanation about why I was pulled over, other than the last sentence. (I guess I was driving too fast.) It was weird. So weird that for the rest of the trip home, I created hypothetical scenarios that would explain the officers' overly aggressive behavior. Maybe I matched the description of somebody they were looking for. Maybe they thought they turned their lights on miles ago. Maybe they were having exceptionally stressful days. Maybe, but probably not. Probably they are hotheaded, thin-skinned assholes, and they took it as a personal insult -- an affront to their authority -- that I didn't pull over immediately. When it started to click that I really didn't do anything that wrong, they had to carry on with the whole Maryland license BS as some sort of idiotic self-justification of their brutishness. That's my guess, anyway.
I told S about it when I got home, and she was beside herself. She said suggested I lodge a formal complaint (as did my friend RT), but I never thought to get the officers' names or plates. I don't even know what department they are from. Plus, ultimately nothing happened, and sometimes it's best to just let things go.
In other, much more pleasant news, S and I are buying a house in DC. It's a nice house in a nice neighborhood. I don't want to say too much about it, lest I jinx things (I don't believe in jinxes, but just in case), but if all goes according to plan we will be homeowners and moving back to DC in January. We will also be broke, but what good is it to just see a bunch of numbers on a statement? I'd rather have a house.
I can't say how much we're paying for it, because S specifically asked me to not say it on my blog. She's already annoyed that I stated my salary in a previous entry. She's weird about things like that. Or maybe I'm the weird one. I guess it's impolite to talk about personal finances, but I don't really care. We all work to make money, some make a little more than others, some a little less, what's the big deal? I remember once when S and I were dating I asked how much she made, and she wouldn't tell me. She said, "it doesn't matter," which is an odd response in that it implies the exact opposite. If the answer to a question truly doesn't matter, you just say it, you don't say, "it doesn't matter." It would be really weird if you did.
"What kind of sandwich is that?" "It doesn't matter."
I've been watching the new season of Beavis and Butt-Head. I forgot how funny that show is. It's basically the same as it was 20 years ago, except that during the cut away video parts Beavis and Butt-Head are much wittier than they used to be. During these parts, it's more like an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 than it is an old B and B episode. Watch the clip below to see what I mean.
This whole Tim Tebow thing is really something else, huh? I'm still somewhere in between the "he sucks" and "he's the second coming" camps, but after watching his final drive on Thursday, I'm starting to lean toward the latter. Whatever the case may be, it's just cool to watch him make plays like below, and then practically start speaking in tongues on the sidelines afterward. (Seriously, watch the end. He's muttering to himself.)
I've come to the conclusion that our country -- nay, the world -- would be a better place if everybody thought like me. I'm not saying it would be better if everybody agreed with me on all issues, or if everybody liked the things that I like, or took the same moral positions as I do. I'm saying it would be a better place if everybody tried to look at issues objectively and come to fact-based conclusions like I do. I'm starting to realize that many people, perhaps even most people, don't do this. They base their positions on other things like faith, ego, or predetermined ideology (how they wish things worked, not how they actually do work), and then they try to make the facts fit their stances instead of vice versa. Probably I've known for a long time that this is how many people make decisions, but the older I get, the more decisions I see being made, and in particular the more closely I follow politics, the more egregious it becomes.
[Galileo Galilei: great thinker and the most famous person whose first and last name differ by only one letter.]
And right now, mainstream Republicans are leading the charge on this backward way of thinking. Nearly all their positions on major issues, from climate change to healthcare to the economy aren't backed up by facts. They are always complaining that their critics have a "liberal bias", but it's not a bias, it's that most of they time they're just objectively wrong. (If it's bias, then God apparently has a liberal bias.) Take one of their latest BS talking points: the 2007-2008 financial crisis being caused by government agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (This "theory" was recently espoused by independent NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, as well.) This fits nicely with the simple-minded government-intervention-is-bad-markets-are-good ideology of the GOP, but of course, it's simply not true. (Fannie and Freddy certainly were involved in risky loans, but they joined the game too late, and had far too small a role in things to be anything close to a cause of the meltdown. You can read a somewhat wonkish take down of the GOP's position here or a completely un-wonkish take down here.)
[There is a legitimate chance that one of these people could be our next president. Gulp.]
The thing is, I can understand why people peddle horse crap if they benefit from peddling horse crap -- politicians spew BS to get elected, businesses spew BS to make money -- but what I can't understand is why anybody else believes it. I mean, the only reason the average citizen should care who caused the financial crisis is so that we can take the necessary steps to ensure it doesn't happen again. All we should care about is accuracy. Same thing for global warming, same thing for healthcare or any other issue -- all we should care about is getting it right.
And how do we get it right? We listen to smart people who think logically, use unbiased fact-based analyses, and who have gotten things right in the past. What we don't do, or at least what we shouldn't do, is listen to people who have a clear bias and twist facts. Do you think it's a coincidence that almost all studies cited by mainstream GOPers to back up their positions emanate from the same few "think tanks"? It's because they aren't real think tanks. They're puppet organizations, and they don't even try to hide it. Read the mission of the Heritage Foundation. How can you possibly treat as credible any study that comes from a group with such an openly biased mission? You may as well believe the doctors who were funded by the tobacco companies about the health risks of cigarettes. If the mission of a think tank isn't "to perform objective analyses and come to unbiased conclusions", then nobody need believe them, end of story. And by the way, this isn't some new crackpot way of thinking I just came up with -- it's called the scientific method. It's been around for, oh, the last 400 years. Let's use it people.
OK, I'm dismounting my high horse now.
[The statue in Thomas Circle, Washington D.C. -- a symbol of my figurative high horse.]
I've also come to the conclusion that you can be too analytic when it comes to personal relationships. My wife has probably come to this conclusion as well, since roughly 70% of our arguments start because she wants emotional support for something, and I, out of habit, offer only analytic support. For example, she recently ordered a box of checks from our main bank (we have five banks, but that's another story). Receiving them ended up being a whole ordeal, because they were sent late, and then we moved, and whatever, I don't know the story exactly. But finally, they were shipped to our new place, but we weren't home, so UPS put a note on our door. Our subsequent conversation went something like this.
S: Ugh! This is so annoying! We're never going to get these checks! D: They'll try again tomorrow and the next day. S: Nobody will be here to let them in? D: Well then, they'll take them to a distribution center, and we can pick them up when we get the chance. S: Yes, but we desperately need checks. D: We still have a few. S: Yeah, but if this whole house thing goes down, we'll need checks for everything, the deposit, the down payment, all that stuff. (We were considering making an offer on a house.) D: We can write checks from one of our other banks. We have a bunch of checks for our other accounts. S: We don't have any money in there. We need checks for our main bank. D: Well, why don't we use one check from our main bank, make it out to ourselves and deposit it into one of our other accounts. Problem solved. S: That's not the point! It's just annoying. Fine. You are right, we don't absolutely have to have checks from this bank. D: Then why did you say we desperately need checks? S: Why do you have to take everything I say so literally?! Can't you just let me be annoyed for a few minutes? You're always trying to tear a hole in my logic, instead of just letting me vent for a while. It just makes it worse. D: Sorr-y. I was just trying to help.
But of course, I wasn't helping at all, because their wasn't really a problem, other than S being annoyed. I probably should've recognized this and just said, "yeah, you're right, that sucks" and given her a hug or something, but that's not really my way. I'm not really a hand-holdy type of guy. Plus, I'm still new to the husband thing. I'm sure I'll be properly trained catch on, soon enough.
In other news, apropos of my comments last entry about the iPhone, I read a piece by Malcolm Gladwell on Steve Jobs the other day. It was really interesting. The underlying premise is that Jobs wasn't the big-picture visionary that he's reputed to be. On the contrary, he was a "tweaker", meaning he took other people's grand ideas and tweaked them so that they were much better. All of Apple's big products under Jobs, the point-and-click based personal computer, MP3 player, smart phone, and laptop tablet, all already existed before Jobs got to them. But, they all "sucked" (Jobs is repeatedly quoted using some form of this word when talking about the competition), and Jobs made them un-suck.
The article also portrays Jobs as kind of, to put it eloquently, a whiny little bitch. Apparently, he was super petulant, he would unabashedly take credit for work his underlings did, and he would get furious whenever the competition "copied" Apple's products, even though Apple had already done the same thing to some other company. There is a famous moment, when Jobs allegedly assailed Bill Gates for stealing the Windows premise, and Gates responded, "Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it."
There is a biography out about Jobs that the article frequently references. I'm considering buying it. The only thing is that I read a biography about Albert Einstein by the same author, Walter Isaacson, and it was l-o-ng. It's rough reading 800 pages on somebody, I don't care how interesting they are.
Well, that just about does it for this entry. Join me next week when I detail an encounter I had recently with a few fine, upstanding, not-at-all dickheaded policemen. I'm not going to go out looking for "fights" with asshole law enforcement officers, but when they happen, and you didn't do anything wrong, and you stand your ground, you feel pretty good about yourself.
For some reason, I've always gotten a huge kick out of people who talk differently than me. In high school, I had a friend who immigrated to the US from Korea when he was 12, and although he spoke pretty good English overall, he had a few quirks that would entertain me to no end, like he could never get the 's' at the end of a word right, even in a name ("My favorite third baseman -- Wade Bogg.") I used to poke fun at his linguistical foibles so often that my sister once claimed that the only reason I hung out with him was because I liked the way he talked. Not true, but it certainly add to the friendship. (I had a Chinese friend in grad school who had some similar speech patterns. He's the feature of this old post.)
Along these same lines, it was great being in Australia where people didn't "want to do" things, they were "keen on" them, and where Madonner is a classic pop star and Florider is a uni in America with a good gridiron squad.
Now, being in the DC region with it's large urban population (urban is the word white guys use when they don't want to sound racist, by the way), I hear other gems like "the PO-lice" and "MAC-donalds". But, my favorite is "axe", as in "let me axe you a question". I don't know why, but this cracks me up inside every time I hear it just a little bit. When my car was towed I called the DC DMV, and the automated voice suggested I go to the DMV website and read the "frequently axed questions". I laughed a little even though I was trying to track down my goddamn towed car.
["CussWords" by Too $hort. One of the most ingeniously bad songs, lyrically speaking, of all time. "Ronald Reagan came up to me and said, 'Do you have the answer? To the US economy and a cure for cancer?' I said, 'What are you doin' in the White House, if you're not sellin' cocaine? Just axe your wife Nancy Reagan, I know she'll spit that game.'" This video is highly unsuitable for work, by the way.]
My friend likened the axe-ask phenomenon to the way Southerners say "y'all". It's a pretty apt analogy, and it shows that America still has residuals of racism running through it. For ask yourself this, if there are two exactly equal presidential candidates one a folksy, "aw shucks" Southern who says "y'all", and the other an inner city black man who says "axe", who's getting elected? If Obama says "axe", does he even have a political career?
It's ridiculous too, because by and large you just speak the way you were brought up to speak. You don't have all that much control over it. After a certain age, you can't really change your speech without considerable effort. I don't think speech reflects on your personality or intelligence, just on your upbringing. I used to work with a guy -- very smart, math Ph.D. -- who said "axe" and also pronounced the "rth" sound as an "f" sound. ("In those calculations, did you account for the curvature of the Earf?") That's just how he learned to speak. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. (But of course, I also don't think there's anything wrong with me poking fun at it.)
OK, enough about that. On a different topic, S and I each bought an iPhone when we returned to the States a few months ago. I like mine so far. The apps are great, and it's pretty simple to use, but there are two main things I don't like about it. The first is that it automatically leaves open apps after you are done using them which drains your battery. To close open apps you have to double click the main button and then hold an icon until it starts to jiggle and then you can close them. Why such a process? Why not just close the app automatically when you're done with it? And if there's a good reason to keep apps open, why not have them turn a different color or glimmer or something, so you know which ones are open and can close them easily. If a friend didn't randomly show me how to close apps, I never would have figured it out. It's not really something you'll stumbled upon in regular use.
[Notice something missing from this keyboard?]
The second, much more annoying thing is that there are no left and right arrow keys in the text editor. If you are typing a text and realize you made a mistake at the beginning, you have to delete everything and retype it, or hit the screen with your finger in the perfect spot, which is very annoying for an adult male with fingers of normal adult-male thickness like myself. This makes absolutely no sense to me. How difficult would it be to add arrow keys? It's mindboggling, really. I recently read about what a micromanager Steve Jobs was. How he held up production of early Apple home computers because he didn't like the way the cursor looked. How then does the iPhone not have arrow keys? I mean, I know that Steve Jobs recently passed away, which is very sad, but I'm still not giving him a pass for this. I feel like even if I was dying of cancer, I wouldn't have let the iPhone be released without arrow keys. (C'mon, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, we all go at some point, lighten up.)
Anyway, in other news, S and I went to an Indian wedding this past weekend (in Virginia, not India), and at the mehndi party, some kids were running around and I thought it was cute, so I surreptiously started filming them. Watch the clip below before you read the rest of the entry. It's not very long. Pay attention to the really little girl in the white top and dark pants.
It's OK to laugh, the girl was completely fine. Little kids have some sort of super resilient plastic bones. My favorite part of this clip is the other little girls. They stop, watch the commotion for a few beats, and then start playing again. They're like, "Screw it. I'm just gonna go right back to jumping around and twirling my pompom."
Well, that just about wraps things up for this week. Join me next week, when I lay out just how better a place our country would be if everybody would just learn to think like me. No, I'm not being egotistical as a joke. I'm being egotistical and serious.
This week has been very busy, and it still isn't over yet. We have a big release coming up at work next week, so I'm putting in some long hours at the office. Also, we are moving tomorrow to the outskirts of DC (hopefully just temporarily), so I've been packing when I get home at night. (We hired movers for the actual move, something I wouldn't have dreamed of doing two years ago on my salary. "Movers?! Who am I, Warren Buffett?" It's nice having a real income.)
In addition to all this, we have two wedding events to attend this weekend. A mehndi party on Saturday night and a ceremony on Sunday. Sunday at 3pm, which means I pretty much don't get to watch any football. I'm not happy about this. Not at all. Who has a wedding on a Sunday afternoon?
Anyway, the upshot of my busyness is that I don't have time for a full entry this week. But don't worry, I'll be back next week with enthralling topics like what I dislike about the iPhone, and how black people say "axe" instead of "ask".
The title of this entry comes from the "Trouble with Trillions" episode of The Simpsons, one of the funniest episodes ever, in my opinion. The premise is that Homer gets in trouble for misstating his taxes and has to work for the IRS as settlement (my title is what Homer says to the IRS agent he makes the deal with). His mission is to go undercover and find a trillion dollar bill. The bill was commissioned by the government for reconstruction efforts after WWII and given to Mr. Burns "America's richest and therefore most trustworthy man" to deliver to Europe, but the bill was never received. One of my favorite lines from the episode: "We believe Burns still has that bill hidden somewhere in his house. But all we've ascertained from satellite photos is that it's not on the roof!"
Hilarious stuff, to be sure, but in reality, misstating your taxes is no laughing matter. I should know, S and I just received a notice in the mail saying that we owe the city of DC an additional several thousand dollars for 2010 taxes. At first we were indignant, thinking there is a mistake, but as we looked at our return we realized that the city was right. Basically, what happened is that part of our taxes were paid by S's former employer (for technical reasons I won't go into) -- the federal part was paid directly to the US government, but the district part was paid to us incrementally, and then we were to pass it on to the DC government. We neglected to properly explain this to our tax preparer, so he erroneously stated on our return that some of our DC taxes (the part paid by S's former employer) had already been paid directly, which it hadn't. (Our fault, I'd like to blame our preparer, but he had no way of knowing the federal-district distinction without us telling him.) And now, that's the money we owe.
Fine, we made a mistake, we'll pay what we owe in full, but here's what burns me about the whole ordeal, DC levied a $650 penalty and charged us $350 for interest. ($350! For a few months of interest on a few thousand dollars?! Talk about predatory rates. I could do better at the Payday Loans with the barred windows and the bullet-proof glass at the end of my block.) So basically, we're out $1,000 for a very honest and reasonable (in my view) mistake. And if we don't pay by the October 30th, we owe an additional $1,300 in late penalties. The letter is dated October 19th. They give us 11 days to pay several thousand dollars (thankfully, we have the money on-hand -- our down payment pot just shrunk a bit -- and the check is in the mail already). Really? This is a justifiable penalty for our "offense", a $1000 fine that could be as much as $2,300? Of course not. It's petty and punitive government bullshit, and it's exactly the type of thing that stokes the flames of the Tea Baggers and other "small government" extremists. How about something like a $50 processing fee and $150 in interest? That seems perfectly fair to me. I'd pay it with no complaints. But no, the city of DC apparently can't pass up a golden opportunity to f--- a few honest citizens in their collective a--.
I told some friends about this last night over drinks, and they think I can probably get the fines reduced if I go to the DC tax office and talk to somebody in person. At the very least, they seem confident that the district would extend the time before the additional $1,300 late fee would kick in (which is moot in our case since the check has already been sent). As one friend put it, we were probably flagged in some sort of automated system and received a standard letter, and we might be able to appeal by explaining our situation. But this doesn't seem much better to me. For one, DC doesn't exactly give you much time to appeal anything with another $1,300 fine lurking in 11 days. For two, if they're assessing large penalties that can easily be reduced through appeal, then that's bullshit too. That's what asshole credit card companies do. They put large BS fines on people's accounts, and then waive them immediately if people challenge them, knowing that not everybody will challenge. If that is fact what the city government is doing, then that's completely corrupt, if you ask me. Anyway, I probably will talk to somebody at the tax office, or send a letter, but regardless of the outcome I already think the whole process is a total crock of shite.
And as if I didn't have a bad enough taste in my mouth concerning the city, the morning after getting this letter, my car was "courtesy towed", meaning it was parked in a tow-away zone, but just moved down the block to a legal space instead of to an impound lot. Very courteous of the city -- except for the $100 ticket on my dashboard. But, in this one I basically have no grounds for complaints. It was very clearly marked that it's a no parking zone from 7am - 7pm (I parked there the night after 7pm and tried to get my car the next morning around 8:30). The thing is, every street has different rules for different permits at different times of the day (and then there is weekly street sweeping), and if you don't read all the signage carefully you run the risk of getting a ticket. If you park on the street everyday like I do, then sometimes you just forget to be diligent and get dinged. It happens.
I look at parking tickets as an expense that comes with owning a car in DC, an expense that over the five or so years I've lived in DC has probably totaled around $1,000. This might sound quite high, but it's roughly 10% of what I would've paid had I been renting a parking space all that time. So, from a strictly financial perspective, I'm way ahead by parking on the street. Convenience-wise parking on the street is worse obviously, but it rarely takes me longer than five minutes to find a spot, and when I do it's almost always closer than any available rental spot would be. When we moved back to DC a few months ago, S was sorta pushing to rent a parking space, but I didn't want to, and since I'm the primary driver, we didn't. Good move, actually. Parking spaces just aren't worth it, even if they do prevent the occasional courtesy tow.
Alright, changing topics, I went out last night, and for the second week in a row I ended up in my old neighborhood Adams Morgan. Unlike last week, I made the northward walk along 18th Street between Florida Ave and Columbia Ave, which means I was an audience member for the weekly weekend night spectacle that is "The 18th Street Shit Show". It's just a giant bacchanalian orgy -- cars are bumper to bumper bumpin' their systems, people are kissing and groping in the street, chicks are walking around with their ghetto-booties hanging out their skin-tight dresses, preppy dudes are stumbling by in flip-flops with their collars popped, thugs are standing around looking thuggish, there's a police cruiser on every corner, and everybody is devouring giant disgusting folded-over wedges of cheap pizza from grease-soaked paper plates. So basically, it's an awesome show -- once in a while. If you live there for four years, as I did, it gets old fast.
[Although you can't tell, near the white door at the intersection two police officers are questioning a very intoxicated early twenty-something-year old man. They probably should arrest him for his own safety. He seriously was on the verge of stumbling into incoming traffic.]
Actually, there was (is?) a group of home owners in the area who wanted to shut down the shit show by going after 18th street businesses' liquor licenses. I don't think they got very far, and frankly, they should be carefully what they wish for. The economy ain't supporting high end restaurants and retailers or $500,000 condos right now. If you force out the dive bars and seedy dance clubs, you're asking for a lot of vacant buildings, and I don't think that's a step in the right direction. Plus, there are some decent establishments amidst the sleaze, and during the week and the weekend days, it's actually a nice place to live. Adams Morgan is the Wolfman of DC neighborhoods and Friday and Saturday nights are the full moons. It's mild-mannered 156 hours of the week, but for those other 12 hours, it transforms into something weird and grotesque and something that should be portrayed by Benicio Del Toro in a bad movie. Wait, that last one doesn't really make sense, scratch it.
[Millie & Al's, where I spent much of last night. It's one of the myriad dive bars in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington DC.]
Very tired today. I went to sleep late and woke up early. A bunch of people were out last night, some of whom I haven't seen since being back from Australia, so despite being quite tired from working all week, I decided to join them. Here's the text I wrote to my friend:
"Cool. I'll stop by for a drink. Can't stay out too late tonite tho."
Smash cut to me stumbling into our condo at 3:47am. You should never make pronouncements like I did. You're just asking for the exact opposite to happen. Irony's a bitch.
I woke up early because S and I had to look at some houses with our real estate agent, and for some reason he only had time in the morning. Actually, I know why, he told us. It's because he has dinner guests coming over tonight. I'm not sure why that precluded starting in the afternoon, but whatever.
[A butterfly on some flowers in the yard of a house we looked at in Bethesda.]
I didn't really want to go, it was more of a "keep the peace" move, because S wanted to go, but as it turns out, I'm happy we went. We looked at two places in Rockville, MD, both of which were nice, but it's so far away from where the action is. S and I really want to stay as close to DC as possible, but we also want a decent sized house, in a decent neighborhood that's in our price range. So basically we want something that doesn't exist, but damn it, we're looking anyway. We got a little bit warmer with the third and final place we looked at in Bethesda, MD. S really liked it, I thought it was OK.
It's all very preliminary at this point, anyway. We signed a lease to rent an apartment for five months starting in November, so I don't think we'll be serious about making offers until closer to the spring, but it's a good idea to see what's available at what prices and get a notion of what we like and don't like. Or so S keeps telling me. I can never be sure with that woman. See, she enjoys things like house hunting, whereas I feel they are chores -- you do them because you have to. So, sometimes she'll exaggerate the urgency of the situation to get me to go along with her and keep my griping to a minimum (you can never silence my griping completely, I can always manage something, it's just a skill I have). For instance, when I suggested that it might be a bit early to start looking for places considering our rental lease hasn't even started yet, she told me that it can take three months to close, so we need to start right away. Then, today our agent told us it's usually 30 days, and in fact, 45 days is on the long end, so, not exactly three months. With that said, I am glad we went today, so no harm, no foul.
Changing topics completely, Herman Cain, former Godfather's Pizza bigwig, is the current candidate du jour in the Republican primary. I don't think he's winning (I'm sticking with Romney), but can you imaging if he did.? Cain versus Obama, wouldn't that be something? Not only would it be two black men vying for the presidency, but it would be two black Republicans! (Hey-o! That's my Bill Maher-esque joke. I've been getting a lot of traction out of it.)
[The seed of Herman Cain's political career. A town hall in which he challenges presidential hopeful Bill Clinton on healthcare. Cain does a pretty good job, but check out how smooth Clinton is in his rebuttal, rattling off a bunch of percentages from memory, making jokes. "Slick Willy" indeed.]
Cain's signature issue is his 9-9-9 tax reform plan. Critics claim that it would shift the tax burden away from the rich onto the middle class and the poor. I haven't really looked into it extensively enough to comment, but I don't like Cain for other reasons. I heard him go off about how if you can't find a job you shouldn't blame the government or Wall Street, you should blame yourself. Look, I get the whole personal responsibility thing, we all know people who do more bitching than they do doing when it comes to their stations in life, but for God's sake Herman, do the math. Unemployment is currently around 9-10%, that's about 4-5% higher than it was was in 5 years ago. That's about 7 million more people without jobs. What happened? Did these 7 million people quit so that they could take a government handout? Were they fired for being lazy? Of course not, they were essentially laid off when the economy tanked four years ago, and now they are struggling to get back to work. When you have five people applying for every one open position, what are the other four people supposed to do? This narrative, pushed primarily by the tea bag faction of the GOP, that people just need to buckle down and get to work, simply doesn't cohere with reality right now. Maybe I would have bought this line in the late-90's, but certainly not now. Especially not when you have people literally, lining up and protesting, not for handouts, but for jobs. People want to work. The jobs just aren't there, that's the whole problem, and to a large extent, you can blame Wall Street and the government. In 2007, they're fucked us good.
[Members of DC Jobs Or Else, protesting a constructing site.]
Completely changing topics yet again, I was almost right on the money with my Fashion Week prediction for Project Runway. I said it would be Viktor, Anya, and Joshua, with Laura and Kimberley eliminated, and I got everything right except that Kimberley made it as well and only Laura was eliminated. I didn't know that they sometimes allow four people to qualify for the final challenge. I thought it was three every season. Had I known that, I might have chosen Kimberley to go also.
And speaking of predicting things, I'm in a giant NFL survivor pool, where each week you pick one team to win, and if they do, you keep going and if they don't you're out. Whoever survives the longest wins the competition (and possibly some money). It's down to about 150 survivors from about 700, and I'm one of them. Last week I initially chose the Giants to beat my beloved (but kinda crappy) Seahawks, but I changed it at the last minute because I already had the Giants in a different smaller pool and I didn't want to completely root against my team. Great move! My pick (the Saints) came through, and the Seahawks beat the Giants in a dramatic upset. I watched it at the sports bar amid a cluster of Giants fans, and when the play below happened, oh was it glorious.
[I probably sounded just as stupid as the amateur cameraman when I watched this play.]
Well, I guess that just about puts a bow on this one.
"Ass Burgers" was the title of this week's hilarious South Park episode. Everybody thinks that Stan developed Asperger's syndrome from a vaccine, and so Cartman -- mishearing the name as "ass burgers" -- tries to trick the school nurse into believing that he has Asperger's by putting hamburgers in his butt. I thought it was funny, in large part, because I was just last week having a conversation with people about what a terrible name Asperger's is for a disorder, especailly a social disorder. My joke about it: "Asperger's! What kind of name is that? It sounds like a term the evil older brother would use in an 80's comedy, 'And if mom finds out about this, you're dead, ass burger!'" Haha... I'll have to use that one in my fictitious standup routine. Actually, this happens from time to time. I'll think of a funny idea, and then I'll see or hear that same basic idea put into action on a TV show or podcast. On the one hand it's like, "I knew that was funny!" On the other hand it's like, "Wait, now it's not mine anymore. If I say it people will think I stole it."
Completely changing topics, I played racquetball this week for the first time in years. My friend G is in a league and he set up a friendly game between us. I think he got the impression that I was a novice, because I sort of downplayed how much I had played in the past (during the 2002-2003 school year I was playing at least twice a week against pretty good competition), not wanting to come off as cocky. I won both games we played fairly convincingly, and afterward he said to me, "Yeah, you're a class higher than me." I want to join his regular league, but it's status is in limbo at the moment, because the earthquake might have damaged some of the courts, and they have to get some sort of inspection before they can reopen them. I hope it happens and I can join. It's an LGB league, but G said there are a lot of straight people in it, and even if there aren't, I don't really care. Since I've been back in DC, my social scene has become pretty gay, anyway. I'm kinda jealous of the stereotypical gay lifestyle -- the partying, the friends, the promiscuity, the disposable income, the lack of familial responsibilities. I'd be lying if I said the gay life isn't enticing, oh, except the part about having sex with other men. That part I'm not such a fan of. In my opinion, it's really the only major downside to being gay.
[It's not racquetball, but so be it. It's funny.]
Speaking of gay men, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but admit it I shall. I've gotten really into the show Project Runway this season. This is despite the fact that I don't care much for Heidi Klum. Few things are more annoying than hot people who never had to develop much of a personality or an intellect (because they're hot) thinking they are interesting and smart, because people want to be around them (because they're hot). Tyra Banks is the queen of this, but Heidi Klum isn't too far behind. ("In fashion, one day you're in, and the next day you're out," so profound Heidi, did you write that yourself?)
[What? It's a good show.]
Anyway, I like to predict before the show who I think will be eliminated. I've been correct four of the last six weeks, and it should have been five. I can't believe they sent Bert home this week instead of Laura (my pick) -- total crock. Next week is the last elimination show, and I think Laura and Kimberly are going home. That means Joshua, Viktor, and Anya will go to fashion week. I'm predicting Anya will win. She can't sew very well -- which some of the other designers resent -- but if you can come up with cool looking outfits, who cares? It's a bit like resenting a rock star, because they can't play scales.
In other news, I've started following this Occupy Wall Street movement a bit. Nobody really knows where it will go, but who knows, maybe something cool will come out of it. At least people are pissed off and doing something, that's the first step. The thing I would like to see is a clear delineation of the type of wealth in the protesters' crosshairs. It should be avarice not affluence. If you target all rich people, I think you run into problems both practical and ideological.
Practically, I don't think the US will ever go for anything resembling a wide-scale distribution of wealth or a semi-socialistic society like, say, Denmark. Already you have the right accusing the protesters of "class warfare", you don't want this to resonate with people.
Ideologically, I'm a capitalist. I think many people earn their riches by working hard and providing benefits to society. Think doctors, think innovators, think people like the recently deceased Steve Jobs (think different). Many people are driven by economic incentives to do great things, and produce great products, and they elevate and employ others in the process. (As an aside, I don't think economic incentive is necessarily material incentive. I think many times money is more a marker of status or achievement than an actual medium for exchange. I believe it was The Donald who said (I'm paraphrasing), "I've never cared much for money, except as a way of keeping score.") These aren't the people protesters should be going after, these are the people we need in a great society. The type of people we don't need are the type who prey on ignorance and fear, who get rich through the unnecessary misfortune or suffering of others, who finagle the system, who buy politicians to set the rules to ensure they get rich no matter how incompetent or damaging to society they are, these are the people we don't need. Sadly, it's this latter type of rich who seem to be gaining traction in the US, and in my view, they should be the target not just of the protesters' rage, but of all our rage.
OK, well, ass burgers to racquetball to Project Runway to Occupy Wall Street, I think I hit on a diverse enough set of topics for this week. Until next time...
