I'm still in the throes of the Subway addiction. It's not a Jared thing and it's not because I'm trying to lose weight, it's just one of those unexplainable phases that I go through with food. The fact that it's relatively cheap and good for me is just a big bonus. The hard part for me is overcoming the memories of when I worked at a Subway when I was in high school. I just thank whatever powers that be that I'm not still working there now. Every time I go in there, I order the same thing. Turkey sub, no cheese, mustard on the bread, lettuce, tomato, pickles and olives. It's not that I expect them to remember me. I wouldn't mind if they remembered three seconds later that I asked for no cheese and mustard on the bread instead of on the meat (and no, I don't tell them all at once, I know to tell them in stages what I want). It's hard to fault them for that, since it's just such a monotonous job. It's mindless. Day in, day out, same thing over and over and over again hundreds of times per day. I think if I had to do that on a daily basis, I'd probably go screamingly insane after a week or so and start flinging mayonnaise at people. I really can't blame them for running on autopilot along the way that they've been trained. Besides, it's not rocket science, it's putting a sandwich together. The world's not going to fall apart if I have to repeat myself to them, and nothing's going to blow up if they get it slightly wrong (well, unless I were allergic to anything they might've accidentally put in there). But I know people who would go on and on and on about how he or she had to tell them twice that they wanted extra pickles or something along those lines, and I've seen people berate the counterpeople for not getting their order exactly right the first time around. My tolerance for when people screw up may not have increased, but the time I spend dwelling on it has definitely gone down and I'm keeping my mouth shut about it a lot more.

I guess this is part of my whole kinder-gentler-thousand-points-of-light outlook on things, but I just don't understand people who need these power trips in order to make themselves feel better. One of my roommates was telling me about how the head of the company he works for was one of three people who the Kevin Spacey character in Swimming With Sharks was modeled after, and the guy makes his interns specially pick out 7 Raisinets (don't know why it's that specific number and why they have to be handpicked) every day and also cut his donuts exactly in half. This guy has made it -- he's the head of a studio, he's probably raking in the dough and can get just about anything or anyone he wants to get his hands on. So why the power trip? Maybe he feels it's his right for when he was treated like a peon or maybe he feels that he has to live up to some kind of reputation, but honestly, I just wish someone would break the cycle.

So here's a quick 10 random things about me, since I'm feeling a little scattered...

1. When I'm being mindless and just off doing whatever, I sing "The William Tell Overture."
2. Due to my overactive imagination, I couldn't watch horror films when I was younger. The first horror film I saw was Night of the Living Dead II, which I saw when I was 15.
3. My record for being pegged as older than I am is still doing pretty well -- when I'm dressed for the occasion. At the party I was at on Saturday night, my age was guessed as between 27-29.
4. Even though I'm pretty good with names, I still give names to those who my friends are involved with. One of my friends met this guy who kept asking her out to go salsa dancing, so he became "Salsaboy." Another guy she met she plays tennis with, so he's "Tennisboy." It's almost superheroish.
5. I'm not a fan of materialism.
6. I seem to have really really bad luck with blind dates. Now, one of my friends wants to now set me up with someone who's legally blind. I'm not kidding.
7. The Canadian accent appears to be coming back in force. One of my friends told me it's because I grew up in "Baja Canada."
8. The one thing I wish I'd done before leaving the East Coast is to go see a taping of "The Daily Show."
9. Light is the easiest way to wake me up in the morning. My mom used to wake me up by coming into my bedroom, ripping the blanket off me and opening the curtains. I absolutely hated it, but it got me out of bed.
10. I once slept through a 21-cannon salute, and I was only 3 feet away from the cannons. When I say that I can sleep through pretty much anything up to a nuclear detonation, I'm not kidding.

I try to keep a map in my head when I'm driving in order to know where I am and where I need to go, and I keep the picture with north being up so I don't get confused about which direction is which way. For the first month that I was out here in L.A., I kept a Post-It note on my dashboard that said "Ocean's on the LEFT" to remind me about the radical flip in that picture. Apparently, I still haven't quite grasped the concept that in order to head away from Los Angeles, I need to go east. I'm so used to heading west to get away from a city or a coastline that I nearly got back on the highway going in the wrong direction after we stopped for lunch yesterday. Fortunately, my friend was there to ask me what I was doing before I actually got back on the 10 so I could go the right way.

Out east, the road signs don't tell you what cities you're heading towards. They name the next big city and then say "and other Desert cities." That cracks me up, and I don't know why.

As expected, getting out of bed this morning was rather painful in more ways than one. I'm still fairly sore, and I'm fairly tired as well. I'm already on my 2nd cup of coffee even though I've only been here half an hour. I can see how this habit can become addictive.

Basically, yesterday was my first partial rave experience. I say "partial" because there were a bunch of other bands there that were actually playing that we saw. I have to say that out of all of them, I was really unimpressed with Oasis and Prodigy -- the guys in Prodigy basically ran around on stage singing along and swearing to their CD, and the Oasis guys generated no energy at all. During the one song that I wanted to hear from Oasis, the lead singer completely flubbed the lyrics -- to his own song! -- and then just stood there during the chorus doing nothing while letting his brother sing. On the flip side, I got to see Ozomatli play live for the first time, which was awesome, and Mos Def as well. The highlight was the rave tent -- we were in there for probably around 3 hours yesterday, and it was an amazing experience. I was a fan of Paul Oakenfold before, but hearing him live is just incredible. Words can't describe it. Your body may be sending messages to your brain saying, "Hey, we could use a rest down here, let's stop and take five," but your brain just shoots back with, "Stop being a wuss. Just process the music and move to it, there'll be no resting here until the DJ is done," and then proceeds to ignore any warnings from the body. As a result, you are completely filled with the music and you dance your ass off for a really long time, then the DJ leaves and you crash.

But I'll take it. The experience was well worth the "hangover" I'm going through right now. So after work tonight, I'll just go home and crash since I got relatively no sleep this weekend. Aren't weekends for catching up on sleep?

Coachella completely ROCKED; unfortunately it's almost 2AM and I'm just getting home after a long day that started at 9AM this morning, and I've been running on only 6 hours' sleep all day. Suffice it to say that not only am I sore in places I never even knew could be sore, I'm exhausted and I have to get up in 5 hours to put in a really long day at work.

Oh, and I got a mail bounced back to me that I never sent. Seems someone's been using my name and e-mail account to spam people. Now I have to deal with this too? Whatever happened to decency amongst people?

At least, that's what particular people think of me at the moment. I set up our new DSL gateway here in our apartment while on the phone with my parents 3000 miles away fixing their computer by giving them instructions over the phone. So I'm rather pleased with myself at the moment. Plus, I went to the gym today and found that since I've started exercising again, I've lost 5 pounds. This is definitely a good thing.

I think I realized last night why I'm having these issues with my personality at the moment. I went to a dinner party (think of the party that Catherine Zeta-Jones threw in High Fidelity except that there were about 20-25 people at this one) and it was kind of hammered home that I am no longer a beautiful and unique snowflake. Back East, I was the cool guy who knew a lot about pop culture, was a music whiz, was fun to talk to, could sing -- generally, an interesting person to be around. Unfortunately, this is L.A. Everyone is talented here. Everyone can sing or act or knows people who know people or knows a lot of pop culture or is at least moderately interesting to talk to. I'm caught up in a mild blizzard here.

The thing is that -- not to pull in another movie reference, but -- as Donal Logue says in The Tao of Steve, "Guys like us can't get by on our looks. We need to have something else to pull the chicks in." Unfortunately, when my personality no longer really distinguishes me from the other guys in the room and they're SoCal's homegrown finest who've been working out since they were 10, I'm at a disadvantage. And it's a self-perpetuating thing because women can smell fear and doubt. So you start doubting yourself a little, they can sense it so they kind of move off, which makes you doubt yourself a little more, which makes them move off a little more... It's a vicious circle.

Either way, I'm still having a blast here. My roommates are great, the house has been cleaned and I've been allergy-free so far today, my job rocks my world, and I'm surrounded by good people. Tomorrow, I'll be off to Coachella.

Oh, and that cat smell in my bathroom? The previous occupant neglected to remove the opened bag of cat food that she left in one of the bathroom cabinets. That would explain a lot of things.

Some of us in Los Angeles would like to apologize to the rest of the country for inflicting the wretched show known as "Good Day Live" on you. That nationally-bastardized version of "Good Day L.A." should never have made it past the state line. Unfortunately, now the nation has to deal with the ditzy frenetics of Jillian Barberie and Dorothy Lucey. I think I'd pay good money for someone to sneak Xanax into their morning pick-me-ups, but I unfortunately don't think it'd make much of a difference.

Discussions of the "Good Day L.A." female hosts and other wretched media personalities around town led co-workers and I to have a small pow-wow on Friday about the viability of a "Celebrity Bachelor From Hell," where the bachelor is paired up with the absolute most annoying women on the face of the Earth. We argued whether or not it would be too cruel to make the bachelor actually propose and marry one woman at the end of the show's run. Nominees included the aforementioned Jillian Barberie, Jamie White of Star 98.7 here in L.A. (she's the "wretched media personality" listed above), Joan Rivers' daughter Melissa (not to mention Joan herself), Jewel and Jenny McCarthy. Any other names that people would like to toss into consideration?

I've seen a number of people starting to take stock of their lives recently, and it seems like it's open season on revealing your innermost secrets, most personal thoughts and tragedies, and things you wish you could take back or do over. I have no problems with this. It could be the coming of the fresh season where people air out their problems as well as their houses. It's what blogs were made for, if that's what their owners choose to do with them. It's a good thing that these issues are coming out, because otherwise they'll build up inside you until you blow up and either go running around your town armed with a Super Soaker and a murderous rage, or you ball up on your bedroom floor crying uncontrollably for days on end. I know this because I have considered doing one or the other at particular points in my life.

It's been remarked by Jen that this website seems to have gone for the "new, bitter-free remix" (her words, not mine, although I like it). It's true -- I tried to leave as much emotional baggage as I could on the East Coast. And quite frankly, I have good cause not to be bitter anymore. I finally feel like I'm getting mine. I don't mean to rub it in and I don't mean to dwell on it, but I'm really happy for the first time in a long time and I think a lot of it has to do with doing something with my life that I enjoy. I hardly ever think about Evil Controlling Abusive Ex-Girlfriend Who Made My Life Hell For Two Years now. I don't argue with people as much anymore. It's kind of an odd feeling. It's like an all-natural version of Prozac. (And it comes complete with its own side-effect of weight gain just like Prozac does, though I think my particular situation has to do with all the food that appears in my workplace.)

It comes with its disadvantages. As with most cynics who are finding out what it's like to be a shiny happy person, I feel like I'm losing my edge. There's that acerbic, sardonic, smartass and sarcastically cutting edge that I seem to be missing. I don't go after people or issues with the ferocity that I used to, I don't debate as readily as I used to. So the question is, I suppose, at what cost happiness? It's like a mood change has made me a different person, not just changed my perspective on a few things.

I'm not quite sure how to deal with this. I'm still discovering some of the side effects -- a disturbing one is that I sometimes don't seem to be able to hold a conversation, because the words just don't seem to come out as flowingly as I used to be able to speak, especially around certain people. It's very odd. I sometimes feel like stopping myself in the middle of a conversation and telling people, "My apologies while I regress. The speech center in my brain seems to be de-evolving." I dunno. Maybe I'm just being too self-conscious about sounding dumb to others.

So there's my spring headcleaning. Maybe I should just stop thinking so much. Or maybe I need to start carrying my fiery-hot poker around again.

With the addition of DirecTV to my life, I'm once again able to watch my beloved MTV2. The cool videos and artists are once again flowing into my home. I can't tell you how much I enjoy the video of The White Stripes' "Fell in Love With a Girl" -- it's made totally out of Legos. However, it all comes with a compromise. I'm once again exposed to the aggravation that is Iann Robinson. It's not so much his material that bothers me, it's his blase "I'm so cool because I'm cutting edge and not into the mainstream bands like the rest of you because I'm a metalhead" attitude. For example, the network threw him in with Sheryl Crow to get an interview with her on her new album. Granted, he might not have been the biggest fan of hers and the fact that she took him along shopping as kind of a kitsch entertainment thing to amuse the viewers might not have amused him. But for God's sake, man -- respect the artist if not the art. Telling her "well, this is better than sitting in the office doing nothing and staring at a wall" when she asks you if you're having fun is not a great thing to say. Fake it. That's what being on TV is all about. MTV's been faking it for years. Just look at Carson Daly. The man said in an interview that he hates the music that he's playing on "TRL" and looks down with disdain at boybands, but he sucks it up and doesn't talk crap about them because it's not the cool thing to do on the air. Personally, I would kill for a shot to just hang out with Sheryl Crow. The fact that he had one and he wasted it so badly just makes me angry. Another bad outcome is that unless she's very gracious about the situation, it'll probably make her angry that MTV stuck her with this guy who obviously couldn't care less about her to the point of insulting her, and it might make her come off looking stuck-up on camera. It's like being on a bad date where your date has made it abundantly clear that he's more interested in the waitress than you. You can take the high road and try to just get through it with a smile pasted on your face, or you can let it get to you and blow up at the guy at the risk of looking like a bitch.

There are a few circumstances under which I don't respect the artist or the art. I know that most people say that they put hard work into whatever they've produced, but sometimes I really wonder. Jackson Pollack has a painting hanging in the Museum of Modern Art that's worth $4 million -- it's a four-foot-long rectangular beige canvas with a red stripe painted across it. That's all. And the damn thing is being venerated as a masterpiece. Hell, I could do that, and I have absolutely no art talent whatsoever. A three-year-old could do that. And this is what we consider "high art"?

I got an e-mail today from an aspiring young public relations professional who's a senior at my alma mater -- apparently, I registered with their "Help A Student" network a while back and just forgot about it.

I wrote this girl back a rather long e-mail. Even though I tried to prepare her for disappointment in her job search (having experienced so much in mine before I was able to bail on PR), I still feel good about it because when I was trying to break into the working world when I was just graduating college, I got no help whatsoever from any of the people I e-mailed or called to ask for advice.

Later on...
It seems that good deeds are repaid and karma is indeed a boomerang. One of my co-workers just offered me a pair of tickets to go to the Coachella Music Festival on Sunday. I'm so incredibly excited! Some of my favorite DJs will be spinning and some bands I rather like will be there, I can't wait.

To bastardize, "it's been a good day -- thus far." I put the modifier on there because who knows what's to come? I was having a pretty good day yesterday until I went flying down the sidewalk in Brentwood. So far, though, I've been told that I'm being trusted with filling in for someone when they go away on vacation for a week, and then we had an in-office concert from an artist that I like.

It's hard to believe that as of tomorrow, I'll have been working here for 2 months. In some ways, it doesn't seem that long and in some ways, it seems a lot longer. Time's subjective that way, I suppose. One more month until they order my business cards -- because we all know that's important in a place like Los Angeles. [wry smile]

There's a point at which we have too many TV channels. I know, I never thought the words would be generated by my brain either. But when the Video Game Channel launches and devotes an entire week to a Pong marathon, that's when I say "enough's enough." 7 straight days of a white ball going back and forth on my TV screen is where I draw the line, and I wonder how many people will actually watch this thinking something cool is coming in the next few minutes -- or if their TVs have gone on the fritz. Personally, I'd rather be playing the video games than watching someone else do it on my TV. At least when you're watching a friend play when you're in the room, you can razz them or congratulate them, but it's not much fun at all when the player isn't in the room.

Just because there's a hole doesn't mean it needs to be filled. What's next, the Plant Growing Channel? The Paint Drying Channel? The Watch The Inner Workings Of Your Local Powerplant Channel?

So I was getting ready to go to the gym, and I had the TV on. Comedy Central was airing a rerun of "SNL" with Kate Hudson, and I said "Mmmmm... Kaaaaate Huuuuudson," in that Homer Simpson-esque tone of voice. One of my roommates heard me and said he had something to show me. So I go into his room and he pulls out his high school yearbook, flips to a page and points to a picture -- a picture of Kate Hudson as a high school freshman. Kate Hudson in 9th grade doesn't really look like the gorgeous star she will become, she looks like someone's cute little sister. Which is what she is in this picture. Apparently, my roommate used to be friends with her brother who was in his grade. He and a group of his friends all had their graduation party at Goldie Hawn's and Kurt Russell's house.

He was also telling me about how his school was fairly popular with the stars and their children, and when he and my other roommate went back to their school's annual fair a few months ago, they ran into Jack Nicholson eating a hot dog, and Dave Winfield was up in the batting cage giving kids pointers. I'm not usually a starstruck person, but having grown up in Boston where the star sightings aren't prevalent, it's still odd to think that they're just normal people living their lives. It's just that most people in the country knows who they are.

I was thinking about all this on my way down to the gym when I was biking down one of the streets here. Now, people here keep their lawns meticulously manicured, so there's a small gap in between the sidewalks and the grass. Can you see what's coming? Yup, I was off in my own little world as my front wheel went into that gap, the bike flipped over and I went with it, skidding down the pavement on my side. I was okay -- after the initial "whoa" reaction -- and got up to get back on the bike to resume my trip to the gym. Unfortunately, the bike wasn't in such great shape. The front brake was broken, jammed up against the wheel and preventing it from turning. So I decided it was a sign that I should just pack it in for the night, go home and watch something mindless on TV instead. I walked the bike back to the apartment on its back wheel, turned on the TV and my brain is beginning to simmer as we speak.

I'm apparently a popular person. I turned on my cell phone just now to find 4 messages on my voicemail today. So I started going through them. Unfortunately, the first one seems to be an accidental call since it's literally five minutes out of someone's life. I'm thinking someone must've had my number punched into their cell phone address book and the phone got jostled around so it called me. The problem is that my phone has no option to skip ahead in messages. I had to listen through the entire muffled five minutes (and I'm not exaggerating, that's how long the service told me the message was) of random snippets of conversation -- which sounded like it was in Chinese, actually -- before I could delete the message.

Note to AT&T Wireless: a "skip ahead" option would be nice.

Being a new transplant to the Left Side, I'm still finding there are certain things that separate me from the masses here. One glaring thing is that I'm on time. Or at least within a few minutes of being on time -- if I show up five minutes late, I make apologies. This is apparently not the way it goes out here. Appointments seem to be flexible, saying you'll be somewhere at 9 means you'll show up around 9:30. Los Angeles is a land of the late, both in terms of making it to engagements on time and also in terms of how late people stay out. It really is like Swingers where Vince Vaughn says something along the lines of "we'll meet at my place at 9, go for a pre-party drink at 10, grab a bite to eat and then show up to the party around midnight." I have no idea how people here can keep that kind of schedule and still wake up to go to work in the morning, unless this really is a town full of unemployed actors and musicians who have no responsibilities and no place to go in the morning. Either that, or there's a secret plot between the city council and the entertainment industry to breed a new species of human who doesn't need sleep.

Also, I drive like I'm from the Northeast. It can't be helped, I already have two strikes against me. I was taught to drive by two native New Yorkers and I was schooled for several years on the streets of Boston, home of some of the worst drivers and worst roads in the world. Then again, some of the drivers here aren't so great either. I may be an aggressive driver, but I still think I'm a pretty good driver.

In other insanity, a Congressional subcommittee has been holding hearings on the funding of music education. And yesterday, pleading for more money for music education programs, they heard from Elmo. That's right, the stupid Muppet from "Sesame Street." You'd think that in order to convince Congress to give more money to these programs, they'd actually parade a real musician in front of these guys instead of some carpet and couch stuffing with some guy's hand stuck in its back.