So I’m (almost) caught up on sleep, and here are some random thoughts of mine for your holiday weekend:

- Last night at the gym, some woman was popping her gum repeatedly so loud, it sounded like someone was snapping their fingers right next to my ear.  Never mind the fact I had an iPod in and she was about 15 feet away, it was that loud.  I turned around to see who it was, and she was as annoying-looking as the sounds she was making:  Hot pink lipstick that was overapplied, eyebrows that looked like they were drawn on with a Sharpie, and skin-tight clothes that barely contained the 42LLL-sized beach balls she had installed on her chest. 
- You know the economy’s doing poorly when the Bob’s Big Boy across the street from your office closes down.
- Has anyone really listened to the lyrics of Death Cab for Cutie’s ”I Will Possess Your Heart”?  I’m not much of a Death Cab fan to begin with, but listening to the song again makes me realize how Ben Gibbard’s deceptively sweet voice and tender melodies are masking what is actually a pretty disturbing song that basically talks about a dude becoming obsessed with a girl and telling her how he will have her, no matter what she thinks.
- Strangely enough, there are people who still believe global warming is a myth.  I found out earlier this week that one of my bosses is apparently one of them.  Awkwaaaaaard… especially when you’re writing an article on a program to raise environmental awareness.
- Happy Fourth of July weekend to everyone.  To blatantly steal a line from one of my favorite radio stations, “Lighting firecrackers out of your ass might look cool on YouTube, but please don’t try it again this year.”

So, I’m back from a whirlwind trip to Minneapolis, where I got a total of 17 hours of sleep over the course of 4 nights, drank copiously, had beer-flavored bratwurst at an indoor baseball game, saw Isaac Hayes (about whom I had earlier made a joke regarding how he was combining “Shaft” and Chef into his new superhero “Chefft"), and Rita Cosby gave me her cell phone number.  I made some cool new friends, caught up with some old ones and got screwed sans lubricant when Northwest conveniently “forgot” my seat reservations and stuck me in a middle seat going there and was going to do the same on the way back until I coughed up an extra $25 for an aisle.  We saw four bachelorette parties on Saturday night, and there was a women’s golf tournament going on with many of the participants staying in our hotel, so it was lots of fun to dispatch a friend to drunkenly hit on one of them… especially when he came back within 45 seconds with the news that she was gay.  There were inside jokes involving a Genie-Lift and ‘Fro-toes.  It’d be pretty hard to convince you I was there for work, even though I basically mainlined caffeine to get me through the day, then downed a crapload of vodka to slow me down and put me to sleep.

However, I did have actual work to do, and part of that was a request from my parents.  They knew I was flying into the Northwest terminal in the Minneapolis airport, which is where Larry Craig was caught deploying his “wide stance,” so they wanted a picture of the bathroom where it happened.  Needless to say, airport personnel have been quite open about their disdain towards being asked about which bathroom it is and how they’re trying to discourage people from searching it out.  So I snapped a shot of the first men’s room we hit after we got off the plane.  Ladies & gents, I present to you the Senator Larry Craig Memorial Men’s Room… maybe.

The Girlfriend was housesitting up in Bel-Air for a couple of nights, and she invited me up to experience the wonder that is a totally ridiculous house that someone could almost get lost in.  The kitchen had 2 dishwashers and a separate freezer and refrigerator that were both built into the walls to look like cabinets, the main living room had a gigantic big-screen TV (sadly not HD) built into the wall with surround sound speakers built into the walls, and I was walking through the house when I first got there, saying, “Oh look, a living room… oh look, another living room… oh look, another living room...” The closet/place-to-get-dressed area off the main bedroom was bigger than my living room.  There was a big in-ground pool next to the in-law house in the backyard.  Suffice it to say, the people who lived there were pretty damn well off.

However, I am glad to be home and in my own apartment again, and it’s not because I missed my HDTV.  Yesterday morning, I told The Girlfriend, “You know, these people are obviously rich and can afford a crapload of nice stuff, especially considering this huge house… so I’m a little surprised they opted for the 1-ply sandpaper toilet paper that you’d usually find in a public restroom.”

I spent last weekend out in Tucson, visiting my parents.  There were some high points and some low points — the high points mostly being able to spend time with my folks, the low points being outdoors in 109-degree heat and stopping for gas at the state line on my way home and realizing regular unleaded went up 12 cents per gallon in less than 72 hours.  It was literally highway robbery. 

What really got me angry though, was that out in the desert, there were a series of billboards, all of them supposedly signed by “God.” You know, stuff like “Believe in Me, and I will save you” and “Need directions?  All the answers are in My Book.” What I wanted to see was a billboard that said “You really want to please Me?  Quit doing such crazy shit in My name, do it in your own.” I just feel like there are so many people who use God as an excuse for the things that they do.  I’m not saying that religion is bad, and I’m not saying that faith and belief is wrong — what I am saying is that there is a ton of stuff that’s done by people who claim to be doing God’s work, and they’re hiding behind God’s name as an excuse to justify what they’re doing.  I’ve yet to meet anyone who got an e-mail or text or phone call — or a personal visit from God, telling them specifically to take some kind of action, which means every time someone’s doing something in God’s name, they’re interpreting something from the Bible and running it through their own filter.  And let’s not forget… the Bible itself was written by men.  Fallible men.

One of the expressions I use fairly often is, “I’m like Delta — I love to eat, and it shows.” So it’s not really a wonder that I’ve got a subscription to Zagat.com and check up on sites like Eater LA and belong to programs like the American AAdvantage Dining Rewards dealie.  But I started to lose faith in the last one when I got their latest push e-mail, which, naturally, was tying in with the upcoming Hallmark holiday:  “Treat Dad to a fantastic meal!” the e-mail breathlessly began.  “Your fellow dining members are a tough crowd, so when they say ‘The Best Food,’ it means a lot.  These local restaurants made the grade.  Treat Dad to a visit.”

...Except the first place on the list was Quizno’s.

So I’ve been in a bit of a lull.  Part of it is that I’ve been under the gun at work with one of my co-workers on vacation, so every single word of copy generated in my office has been filtered through me over the past 2 weeks, which can be really draining, making me feel creatively… well, drained.  The other part of it is that what else is there to say that’s not being said out there?  I’m probably thinking the same thoughts as most Americans are these days:  Gas prices are skyrocketing to the point where I’ve seen stations jack prices a dime overnight (although interestingly enough, the L.A. Times says that gas station owners are getting pinched hard too, which means it’s another example of high-up corporate greed running unchecked), prices for everything are going up as a result, people are still dying in an unpopular war, job security is not what it used to be, weather is going berserk all over the country, and every day, they’re finding something new that will accidentally kill you — now, not even the vegetables are safe.  Does anyone else feel like things are falling apart here?  Dump in the usual crap of deadlines at work and increasing commute times and all the other crap running through my head, and you’ve got a nice stew of Not Awesomeness.

My parents tend to believe that I’m a stress junkie.  Not true.  Personally, I hate stress.  Life is so much better when I can just chill out and not have to worry about anything getting screwed up.  What I am is a worrier, and my folks should know something about that — they made me this way.  The other problem is that I’ve been given plenty to worry about.  Not just that, but I’m being bombarded with it from 19 different directions all at once, thanks to the sped-up lifestyle we now lead where news is flying at us all the time and we need the latest up-to-the-second update.  Now if I fart too much after a meal, I don’t think that maybe I had too much soda, my mind starts assuming the worst — that I’ve got salmonella or listeria or Lord knows what else, simply because I’ve been exposed to so much hysteria in the news that I can’t seem to avoid.

News organizations are saying that Americans are becoming generally unhappier and that our stress levels are too high.  Personally, I kind of blame them for causing it.  When the news became more about terrifying you into watching in order to get ratings, things took a turn.  What?  Exposing a guinea pig to sunlight could make it turn rabid, causing it to gnaw through my skull while I sleep?  I must watch tonight at 11 to find out how to prevent it!  Ignorance really can be bliss sometimes, and I’m finding it harder and harder to be ignorant of things going on out there.  And I will admit that it’s partially my own fault because I do like to know what’s going on and I like to be able to intelligently hold up my end of conversations when people are talking about stuff, but at the same time, there’s so much news out there thanks to the Internet and the 25 different cable news networks and regular TV newscasts at every other hour that it’s hard to avoid — or know what to pay attention to. 

I guess what I’m trying to say among this rambling mess is that I think I’m once again hitting overload.  Time to start thinking about unplugging and seeing what life is like on a beach somewhere for a few days.  I can only hope that while I’m away, I won’t start freaking out, worrying about all the stuff going on at home that I’m missing and how I don’t know what’s happening.  I’ll just have to keep in mind that much to my own chagrin (and disappointment), the world will keep rotating normally if I weren’t around for a little while.

What is wrong with this phrase?  Three guesses, and the first two don’t count:

“...with 100% all-natural lime flavoring...”

Amp Energy Drink has been running all these commercials about the Walk of Shame™, where people are seen waking up in strange places, trying to find their clothes and stumbling home wearing the same outfits they wore the previous night.  You know, the same thing you used to do when you were in college and your early- to mid-20s, when you’d have a random one-night stand.  And for as long as I can remember, it’s been called the Walk of Shame™, but what I don’t get is why.  Hey, you got laid last night!  Unless you’re completely ashamed of the person who you slept with (which is entirely possible given the amount of alcohol you might’ve consumed the previous night), then celebrate the fact that you were attractive enough to someone that they took you home and slept with you.  Chances are, it probably didn’t happen for most of your friends and acquaintances.

So it’s finally happened.  Gas prices here in Los Angeles have breached the $4/gallon mark, and I’m not just talking about the premium unleaded.  Granted, it was Memorial Day weekend when gas prices routinely go up anyway, but I spotted a station yesterday where the low-grade unleaded was $4.03/gallon.  So what did our fearless leader do in response?  He went to the Middle East to beg OPEC to increase production so we could have some cheaper prices.  Pretty please with sugar on top?  Unsurprisingly, they said no.

Sad to say that things like this are only going to get worse, since oil is [gasp] a finite commodity and it’s going to run out!  Yes, really!  There’s talk of $5/gallon by the end of the summer, which wouldn’t surprise me at all.  So while President Moron is bumbling around in the Middle East, generally making life worse for almost everyone on the planet, no one stopped him to say, “Hey, you know maybe we ought to invest in some alternative fuels and technologies that actually work a little better than this E85 crap and that also wouldn’t cause everyone to go into a panic about a food shortage.” He wants to put a man back on the moon, but at the rate we’re going, NASA’s budget for the project will be totally consumed by the fuel needed to power the rocket to send him up there.

Not everyone is having a bad time of it, though.  The New York Times says that — surprise, surprise — the gas companies are not just rolling in the dough, they’re swimming in it.  From the Feb. 1 issue:

Exxon Mobil reported Friday that it beat its own record for the highest profits ever recorded by any company, with net income rising 3 percent to $40.6 billion, thanks to surging oil prices. The company’s sales, more than $404 billion, exceeded the gross domestic product of 120 countries.  Exxon Mobil earned more than $1,287 of profit for every second of 2007.  The company also had its most profitable quarter ever. It said net income rose 14 percent, to $11.7 billion, or $2.13 a share, in the last three months of the year.  Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, said Friday that its profits rose 9 percent to $18.7 billion last year; Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday reported net income for 2007 of $31 billion, up 23 percent and the largest figure ever for a British company.

So while we’re paying through various orifices (orifii?) and consumer confidence is going down the tubes primarily because of it, the gas companies are raking it in… and they’re claiming it’s higher oil prices that are driving their profits.  Hang on, let me see if I can understand this — they’re paying more for the product, which means their expenses are going up, and yet they’re making record profits.  Gee, could that be because of the exorbitant prices they’re turning around and charging for their product??  Naaaaah… couldn’t be.

I know that my complaining and railing against this kind of thing won’t make a difference, and I know I’m definitely not the only one who’s affected by this.  I know that I love driving and that I will continue to fill up my gas tank (despite grumbling and mentally feeling my wallet get pinched as I do it), even though my contribution is driving a Honda that gets 30+ miles per gallon.  I know that President Idiot will continue to probably line his pockets with oil money so the companies will be allowed to run unfettered, and whoever hits the White House next probably won’t have much power over the matter either.  But it doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.

So, I’ve been dating someone.  Big surprise there.  It’s been about two months, things are going well, and we just spent a weekend away up in Malibu and didn’t kill each other.  So far, so good, and this one seems remarkably mentally stable as compared to the others I’ve had the misjudgment of dating.  Then again, The Crazy™ doesn’t usually come out until I’ve been dating someone for a little while, but she seems pretty grounded.  She’s way smart (going for her second master’s!) and is even more sarcastic and dry than I am, if that’s even possible.  And her dog likes me, but I think that’s only because I walk and feed her.  (The dog, not the woman — although I do feed the woman every now and then… though she is a great cook.) So if you’re wondering where I’ve been… well, between her and work, I’ve been a little preoccupied.

Someone pulled up to me at a stoplight today and asked me where Berkeley was.  I was confused for a minute and was tempted to respond “about 400 miles north of here, you realize you’re in the wrong city?” until I realized she was talking about Berkeley Street in Santa Monica.  Of course, it doesn’t help that the block after Berkeley is Stanford, so if her next question had been “what about Stanford?,” I would’ve been really confused.

Dear Hipster Douchenozzle at the Gas Station,
Maybe instead of berating the gas station employee and telling him he’s lazy for letting someone drive off without putting her gas cap back on, you should get rid of your gas-guzzling, environment-killing Land Rover; and stop standing around the gas station talking on your cell phone since not only are you finished getting gas and acting like the self-centered oblivious ass you are by blocking a pump that someone else could be using, you’re also not supposed to be using your cell phone around the pumps, like those huge signs tell you not to do.

Dear Border Fence Wire Protestors,
Stop your whining about the Border Patrol installing concertina razor wire on the U.S.-Mexico border fence.  So what if it’s dangerous?  The fence is supposed to keep people from illegally crossing the border, and the wire is supposed to keep people from attempting to jump the fence.  What part of illegal in “illegal immigrant” do you not understand?  I wonder how many of those people who are protesting the fence wire have a fence around their homes or bars on their windows.  Why?  Because it’s their home and they’re trying to keep people from illegally entering it, and I’m sure they probably wouldn’t give a damn if someone breaking into their house cut themselves on a fence.  So why are they being so hypocritical?

Dear President Moron,
Stop sending me letters asking me to support the Republican Party and give you money.  I think I’ve made it plenty clear how I feel about you.

If all those reverends are right, and those tornadoes are happening because God hates homosexuals and people who don’t believe the same thing that all these reverends do, then how come all the damage is taking place in areas where there aren’t very many gays and that aren’t gay-friendly and have a lot of people who believe along the same lines as those reverends?  If God were truly trying to smite the homosexuals, don’t you think He/She would send a tornado to strike down the middle of West Hollywood?

So.  It’s been a busy week, what with the traveling to Denver for The Best Friend™’s birthday and the ensuing massive amounts of drinking.  Finding places that still offer $4 pitchers of beer and $4 premium drinks almost makes a guy want to move to Colorado.  Things definitely started off on a high note when I got in to Denver at 12:30am, only to be told by the rental car company that they didn’t have any cars left — only minivans.  The woman behind the counter must’ve seen the look of horror on my face, since she did some checking and found me an Infiniti FX35 to drive.  Suh-weet, especially considering I’ve been wanting to roadtest one of those things since I saw it at the L.A. Auto Show a few years ago.  That’s a hell of a step up from a Ford Focus, and I didn’t even have to pay extra for it!  It came in especially handy when I drove us up to Fort Collins to see The Best Friend™’s boyfriend play in his band, The Haggardies, who kick ass and if you’re in the Denver area and have a chance to see them, I recommend it.  They’re way entertaining and the music is good.  And on the way back, the boyfriend passed out in the backseat while The Best Friend and I sat up front, talked and sang along at the top of our lungs to some music blasting through the system.  I’ll remember that part of the night for a long time, it was one of those experiences you treasure just because it was spontaneously great.

But I digress.  There was the actual birthday night, which entailed aforementioned $4 pitchers of beer at a really dive-y bar and then a trip to a karaoke bar that had an amazing selection, so I got to sing a bunch of songs I’ve always wanted to perform.  And on Saturday night was the huge houseparty, and TBF is world-famous for her houseparties.  This party’s theme was “Crazy Hair,” so I let my hair grow out way beyond where I’d normally get it cut so I’d have the Jewfro, and I didn’t wash it the morning of the party so I was rocking bedhead like you wouldn’t believe.  Photographic evidence, as usual, is available here.

I like being there, but I like coming home.  The actual process of traveling is not my favorite thing to do (especially when your flight is cancelled and you have to downgrade from nonstop to one-stop and take a freakin’ puddle-jumper), and after a while, I start to get antsy about being away from life in general and not having my… you know, my stuff.  It just gets to the point where if you’re away for long enough, you start to feel unplugged from yourself.  While being away and getting out of your routine is nice, there’s something to be said for the comforts and regularity that is home.

- I swear, I’ve heard the phrase “work hard, play hard” so much over the past three days that I want to put in the immense amount of effort necessary to invent a time machine so I can go back in time, trademark it and watch the millions from residuals roll in.  The next person who says it to me is getting punched.
- I saw TR Knight (O’Malley from Grey’s Anatomy) at Barnes & Noble last night.  He reads just like regular people!
- I’m knee-deep in Carrier, a 10-hour series on PBS about life aboard the Navy’s aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz.  Yes, I know, I’m as shocked as you are that I’m watching PBS, but it is in HD, at least.  It’s actually pretty interesting to see the different lifestyles and personalities aboard what is basically a floating town of 5,000 people and how they all mesh (and clash) together.  I’m also pretty surprised at how candid some of the people are about how much they don’t like it and how bad things can get aboard ship.  Any thoughts I had about joining to become an F-14 fighter pilot (thank you, Top Gun) have pretty much been washed out of my system after seeing what daily life is like on an aircraft carrier.  I’d hate it.
- The new Coldplay single “Violet Hill” is completely great, and the band is actually giving away a free download of it until next Tuesday.  Do not pass Go, do not collect $200, proceed directly to Coldplay’s website and get it.  Now.

Sometimes, it seriously rules to work upstairs from The Hollywood Reporter, especially when they don’t have a conference room of their own and have to borrow ours.  Earlier last week, I rode up in the elevator with Brooke Shields and Jenna Fischer.  I made them both laugh.  Now they both totally want me and will fight over me, naturally.  Then on Thursday, I spotted Mark Harmon, Ted Danson, Blair Underwood, David Spade and Neil Patrick Harris roaming the halls.  I had to restrain myself from telling NPH how legen — wait for it… — dary he is. 

In other news, it was 83 friggin’ degrees at 9am this morning.  In Los Angeles, where it’s supposed to be temperate, and in the cooler section of town, since we’re supposed to be climate-controlled by the ocean breeze.  I invite whoever claimed global warming was a myth to spend a night in my living room.