And now, the news

In Chicagoland, three police officers were injured in a brawl at a bowling alley.

Should've marked it zero.

Get down with the sickness

it took the health centre 2 whole days to discover that I had mono. During this time, my uvula had swelled up to the size of a grape and there were other forms of general unpleasantness. I believe that in my dehydrated and in-pained state, I said to the urgent care admitting person "I need urgent care.... urgently". And I meant this in a totally non-ironic way; that was what words my brain decided to string together.

What disappointed me more was that before they realized what it was that I had, that they recommended things like gargling with salt water and eating lots of chicken soup. It's 2011... those are still on the cutting-edge of medical technology? We have lasers for your eyes... you'd think that we could have something a little more complicated and high-tech for sore throats than water and salt.

Official ruling: Conservative outrage edition

Some have referred to the shift to the more-inclusive phrase 'happy holidays' as being part of this thing called "The War on Christmas".

I'm sorry conservatives, but you should know what a real war looks like. If this was a real war, our overseas engagement would entirely consist of "Hey Iraq! You're not the only country out there, so stop acting like you are."

I need to stop pretending that I know things

I learned three things while at the racetrack yesterday.
1) when a friend offers you a water bottle, do not automatically assume it contains water. Further, do not take a rather large gulp until you have ascertained whether the contents of the bottle are alcoholic. Failure to do so will result in shame.
2) It's sad when an animal with a brain the size of an apple can manage to outsmart just about everybody. For reference, that's an internal monologue no more complex than "I like sugar" or "Running time! My favorite!"
3) I somehow managed to lose money on almost everything. Even the concession stand.
"I'd like a hot dog"
"Pick a number 1 to 10"
"four"
"Nope. Try again?"
"What kind of odds are you giving on the chicken nuggets?"

More hairdryer stuff

No it's not hairdryer week at Klaused. Last night, I went to the USC stand-up comedy club's first show. The last comic of the night talked about both her father and boyfriend dry themselves off with a hairdryer instead of a towel.
Well, yeah. Doing that makes your balls feel like they're skydiving.

Hair today, gone soon

How do you know when it's time for a haircut? When you somehow manage to get your hair caught in your hairdryer.

I hate LA freeways

Some stretches of LA freeways make you wonder; is it possible for everyone to be dumber than average? Maybe idiots have a kind of hive mind, and that at the exact same time they'll all think "Man, I need to be on the 405 RIGHT NOW."

A Fact about Roosters

Roosters don't just crow at the crack of dawn. I know this because there appears to be a rooster living next door, and it will crow whenever the hell it feels like it. This is worse than last year, when I lived next to a guy who would get drunk and sing along to the doors at all hours. At least that guy could carry a tune.

Does Any mean Every?

In Santa Monica, I saw a restaurant that offered "breakfast at any time". They were closed. Now, we can trust nothing in life anymore.

LA City Traffic Impound system is run by Voldemort

In about 5 months, society thinks I will have enough of my life together to be a functioning member of society. That's not true. I let my car get towed yesterday.
My first day back in Los Angeles I saw a little flier warning that on the 14th, the street would be refinished, so cars were not allowed to be parked there. I took note of this, and immediately forgot about it.

The morning/afternoon of the 14th, I decided to get a burrito for lunch. Outside, I saw a freshly paved and coned-off street. Then the realization that that was exactly where my car had been. Had the city merely moved my car out of the way, that would have been quite nice. Sadly, it had been taken from me: location unknown. The burrito could wait - the car was mission priority number one.

A little internet sorcery revealed that LA was a large city, so the car could conceivably be in many locations. I called some government numbers and bounced around the switchboard for 30-odd minutes until I received THE MAGIC NUMBER. The employee assured me that the people behind this number would tell me where my car was.

So I called the magic number, and got an automated voice machine. I can press 2 to ... basically the number two will direct me to everything bad one can possibly do with a vehicle, likely including the (intentional or otherwise) running over of members of the opposite sex. I have no choice.
beep beep. Repeat that sound for fifteen minutes. Not even a "please stay on the line, your call is important to us" - it's not. They do not give a flying fuck about me and only want to see me go away, so they're doing everything in their power to ensure I do. Even doing what feels like an aggressive form of ignoring me.

Of course there's a "rotary phone" exception. Does anybody still have a rotary phone? If you do, I'm pretty sure you're too old to drive. I pretended that I had a rotary phone. "one moment please" the traffic voice genie said. This was promising.
beep-beep
DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT AND A FURTHER DAMMIT.

Far be it from me to suggest that former Nazis or some other group of unquestionable evil is behind the impound lot system. However, it is a distinct possibility that the people who run the impound system hang out in the same circles as these Nazis and Voldemort-worshipers; they probably read the same periodicals and have discussions on the newest forms of psychological abuse and torment.

Of course, the people behind this could also have families and children. If they do, I believe they're horrible parents - the sort who promise their children ice cream, but instead take them to the dentists office, even on occasions when a routine checkup isn't medically necessary.

Sometimes, there's a hidden backdoor built into phone systems. Saying words like "agent" or "operator" will get you a live human. I tried that. I also tried "I know the mayor". No dice.

Twenty five minutes of beep-beep later, I got a hold of a real person. I would not let them go. I told them everything I possibly could. It was like Stockholm syndrome. I loved them. I was afraid they'd leave me with the beep again, but they gave me answers. They directed me to another number. The wrong number. I called LA DOT again. More beep-beep. Then, inexplicably after about a mere FIVE minutes, another live human who gave me another number.
Another wrong number. At this point, it became clear that they had no clue where the car was. They were just giving me random tow companies, many of whom were nowhere near where my car was towed from. One of them was in France, I think.

I resorted to asking the tow companies themselves who they thought might have it, because corporations actually care about people a little bit. After a couple rounds of pass the buck, I located my car. Indiana Jones would be proud.

Just over 260 dollars and 3 hours of my time later, and I was able to get my car. All because I wanted a burrito. A burrito which turned out to be not very good. There's a lesson in this somewhere, I'm sure.

Don't worry, it's not contageous

People worry about terrorists creating superviruses. One of the ones they talk about is smallpox.. which the terrorists are going to turn into bigpox. You can defend yourself pretty easily: if you see any comically large viruses floating your way, turn around and run.

Only used by the classiest of molesters.

Mercedes Benz makes a white van. Is this the vehicle of choice for the pedophile with more discerning tastes? "Hey Kids! do you want a Ferrero Rocher?"

Official ruling

If you have space in your driveway, yet park on the street on street-cleaning days, and in so doing deprive me of a space where I won't get towed, you are an asshole.

Bather's lament

If we can build lasers and hybrid cars, why can't we build a shower where there's more than one degree of rotation between water that's freezing cold and water that's mostly lava? I feel like a freaking safecracker every time I'm trying to get clean.

Worst cremation urn ever

Upon my death, I'm donating my body to Mythbusters. It's like donating your body to science, but cooler.
Which brings me to today's weird find: a ghost-shaped urn.













It looks like a cookie jar. And when you're in the mood for a snack of something sweet, circular and chewy, coming instead across human cremains is probably the worst shock you can imagine.
Might I instead suggest the creepy clown cookie jar. Trust me, nobody's gonna look in that one.

Safety first

Guns don't kill people, Exploding bullet factories do.

what hath science done?

On some questionable medical products, they'll have the words "scientifically proven". It later turns out a lot of the time that these questionable products do a good bit of harm. So, either the people behind the product are outright lying, or they have a really bad concept of what "scientific proof" is. In reality, these packages would be more accurate in saying "scientifically possible"

Hotel, Motel, hell-on-earth inn

I arrived in Los Angeles too late to stay at my intended residence, so instead I spent the night at a reasonably-priced motel. Oh, what a mistake. For one, there was no internet available in the whole hotel. Not even for a fee. I admit, it is still early in 2011, but the previous years were 2010, 2009 and 2008... years when we, you know, had the internet.

The worst part was 6:30 this morning, when my room's alarm clock went off for no discernible reason. When you go to sleep expecting an alarm at a certain time, your body kind of mentally prepares you for the sound. This alarm hit me with all the gentleness and care of an anarchist's bomb. Frantically, I pressed the 'snooze' button. It broke free from its mounting, falling uselessly into the machine, which was still making noises. I flipped every switch and pressed every button - all I could do was to replace the loud radio with loud static, and vice versa. I eventually unplugged the infernal contraption, and tried falling back asleep. No dice.

Lots of hotels offer "amenities" and "things that work the way they're supposed to, so you don't have to fret about anything and can actually enjoy life", but how many give you a chance to actually see the machine version of Satan?

Consider it a sign

Driving through Colorado yesterday, there's lots of mountains to deal with. Just once I'd like to see a sign that says Coast! Coast! Coast!
The sign I want to get rid of is 'Watch for falling rock'. I think that having a definite chance of being killed by rock falling on the roadway is a solid indication that maybe that isn't the best place to put a busy freeway.

And you wondered what the little plastic table was for

It's a rolex, with the Domino's Pizza logo on it. Hoax? Best freebie ever? I'm just wondering how many of those little plastic tables that go on the middle of the pizza you have to send in to get one of these watches.

I'm going to win the Megamillions thing, right?

The jackpot was roughly 330 million dollars last time I checked, which makes it kind of a big deal. If you play the lottery for these massive jackpots, once you buy that ticket you start to think everything's an omen. "I just caught the yellow light: that never happens to me, so this is like, totally a sign."

I think the lottery is a tax on the unlucky.

The better way to raise funds for wikipedia

Wikipedia had its annual year-end fundraiser, which is slightly less annoying than the one NPR puts on roughly every third month.
I feel like the wikipedia fundraiser would go faster if they'd just let you click 'edit' and change the amount that they needed from 16 million to something else. I'd like to see that news report:
"the wikipedia fundraiser ended suddenly when an anonymous editor changed the amount donated from 12.5 million to 16.1 million dollars. Founder Jimmy Wales said 'well, it's on the site; I guess it has to be true'. Hang on. We're receiving a breaking update on the matter. Apparently, donors actually contributed PETER IS GAY dollars to the fundraiser."

Too rich to press buttons

You hear about rich people who have their own personal chefs. I feel like that's a luxury I wouldn't want, even if I could afford it. I'm not going to hire somebody with years of culinary training when what I usually want can be made with a microwave.

The lesson here is you don't want to hurt the feelings of someone who's proficient with really sharp knives.

You will keep writing 2010 for a week or so.

It's a new year now, in case you missed it.

I know its largely symbolic but I really like New Years. I like resolutions, I like champagne and toasts at midnight and watching the ball drop. I even like that song 'Auld Lang Syne' despite the fact that I really have no clue what it's about, what most of the words are, or if it's even in English. I know most of it is, but you look at the title and wonder. If it is English, I think it's from that time that people wrote their Ss like Fs.

Here's what I'm sure of: Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? should old acquaintance be forgot and something auld lang syne? After this, it kind of slips into a sort of haze. What I do is just sing the first bit over again, but with a different inflection to match the music. It's that same tone you use when you're concerned and asking a question, like "hey guys, is that supposed to be on fire?"

You can tell this song was from a time before the internet, because they leave the question hanging there and don't give you an answer. Google and Wikipedia mean that you no longer have an excuse for not knowing stuff. You can't just ask a question like "do you think they make banana yogurt?", and just leave it out in the open, unanswered. Most people's phones have the internet, so you can actually receive that useless fact as soon as you have curiosity about anything in the world.Because of our internetted society, I think the chorus to Auld Lang Syne should be changed to something like this:
I looked it up on my iPhone
the answer's "join in revelry"
And in the morn' when I wake up
I'll Google "hangover remedy"