One of my all-time favorite blogs, dooce, has shuttered her doors today. Basically, she says that her blog has caused her too much emotional strife with her life and relationships with others in order to continue. I am truly sad to see her go, since I appreciated her always-amusing and mildly sardonic view on life. Plus, she has kick-ass taste in music. Either way, I really wanted to meet her in person when I moved to L.A., but that seems like it's just not going to happen since she hasn't returned my e-mails.

Having a blog definitely affects your life, and vice versa as well. When I was unemployed, I wrote all the time because I had things to say and time to express them. People even noted when they linked me that I "updated frequently" (although I'm not sure if that's good or bad). Now that I'm gainfully employed, I write a lot less because I have a lot less time and I also have more social outlets -- not that I would trade this job for the ability to write more in my blog, or for anything else for that matter. I don't usually censor myself too much because I know that most of the people that I write about don't read my blog, and either way, I probably wouldn't have many bad things to say about those that I know personally anyways. But I can see why some people feel the need. Being outspoken can be a dangerous thing sometimes, it can hurt others and it can cause a lot of uncomfortable feelings and tension between people. It's a fine line to walk. With some of the views I've expressed here, I'm sure that I've definitely offended more than a few people. The question is, do I continue with the possibility of doing it at others' expenses?

My answer is yes -- kind of. I've tried to be careful of other people's feelings when speaking specifically of people in my life (except those that deserve it -- like Emotionally Disturbed Roommate who made my life difficult and deserved the comedic poking at his expense), I've tried to preserve a bit of anonymity for those who I do know personally if I write about the problems I have with them, and those who disapprove of what I'm writing don't have to read it. I have the right to talk trash about our government, I have the right to complain about the abject stupidity or rudeness of some people, I have the Constitutional freedom to free speech. Our society is getting heavily caught up in this whole politically correct thing and, as one of the comics I saw on Saturday night said, "Political correctness is ruining humor. Humor is most often done at others' expenses, but it's just a joke. It might be better off for all of us if people just laughed it off instead of running to call their lawyers."

However, I'd like to offer an apology if I've offended anyone I know with anything I've written here. But as I've said before, everything contained here is nothing more than my own insanity spewing forth out on the Internet. This is my therapy, this is my outlet. You're welcome to join the party if you like, but recognize the responsibility that comes with joining in.

Bye, Heather. I will miss you.

Okay, so I know I've said before that I'm not a coffee person. I've never developed a taste for it, I'm not dependent on it, it's not a morning habit for me. But I was so sluggish this morning that when I went to fill up my mug with water and I saw the coffee machine sitting there, it was like I saw the light from above shining down on it to penetrate through the haze of my fatigue and point it out to me. (So I exaggerate a little. It wasn't a light from Heaven, just the halogen lamp above it.)

So I poured myself a cup. A tall cup. With a decent amount of non-dairy creamer & sugar, since I like my coffee light & sweet -- and no, I won't bring the Airplane reference into play here. And I've downed it. Half an hour later, I feel fully awake and I'm ready to roll.

Lord help me, I've discovered another quick-fix. This could be dangerous. I better get myself another cup before I crash, just to make sure that the caffeine sets in for the long haul today.

What I don't understand is how a product like Sweet 'n' Low can have no nutritional value whatsoever. It's not like I'm putting cardboard in my coffee, this is an actual substance that I will consume, yet it has no calories and no fat and no anything. Maybe it's special Coffee Fairy Dust?

Leave it to Queen to be able to make the lament of a single word say so much. And I am lamenting this morning, because thanks to my mother, I'm genetically predisposed to react to cat hair. I hacked myself to sleep last night and entertained myself listening to the music in my chest, and I had some rather interesting dreams last night as well. The dreams shan't be discussed. But a full review of the Lung Symphony Orchestra's performance will be forthcoming by the resident music critic.

So does anyone know how to cleanse a room of cat hair? I'm already running an air purifier all the time, I'm going to try to get a steam cleaner to use on the carpet. I'm not moving again. I like this place, I like these guys.

If it's not one thing, it's another. Maybe if I reached up my nose far enough, I could rip out my sinuses... Damn, I feel a Ralph Wiggum-ism coming on.

By the way, they're making a sequel to Dude, Where's My Car? It's going to be called Seriously Dude, Where's My Car? Seriously.

I went to see Lewis Black last night, and I am so glad that I took the opportunity to finally see him live even though it meant I had to drive an hour each way to get way the hell out to Anaheim and back. I laughed so hard my cheeks hurt after the performance. I waited around after the show and got the opportunity to briefly meet him and tried -- though I think failed miserably -- not to gush effusively. It's a little hard not to when you meet one of three men whose stylings you've adopted out of sheer respect and appreciation of their work (the other two being Jon Stewart & Denis Leary). He's really nice in person, much calmer and personable than his on-stage act. But I thoroughly enjoyed myself. On the way back, traffic backed up on the 5, and I saw one of the strangest things I've ever seen. A cop car -- California Highway Patrol -- put on his lights, cut through the crowd of cars and zoomed to a point about 5 cars ahead of where I was. He then stopped dead in the middle of the road, keeping us all behind him (and quite frankly, who wants to pass a cop car sitting in the middle of the road?). After a minute or two, he started moving again, but was swerving all the way across five lanes of highway and back. It was really odd watching him, it was almost like he just decided to have some fun on the road. Anyone from California who knows what he was doing, please let me know.

I bought an air purifier over the weekend to try to get some of the cat hair out of the room. It's doing a halfway decent job -- I woke up this morning and felt okay, but started sneezing and wheezing a bit later on. I think it's because I was spending time in the bathroom which hadn't really been vacuumed, so I'm going to move the purifier in there when I get home and see what happens. I've got the thing running on "high" all day, so hopefully it'll make a difference.

It seems that everywhere I go, I'm hearing that damn Pink song. Personally, I can't stand Pink. I don't think she's a good singer, I don't like her songs, I think she's unattractive and I think her "I'm a tough girl so I can do what I want" act is wearing thin. Over the past two days, I've heard that "Get This Party Started" song in three different commercials and again this morning as part of a promotion for this new national morning show that the local Fox affiliate is launching, and every time I hear it, I can't help but replace the lyrics with "I'm selling out/So you better get this money started."

The move is DONE. It was actually really quick -- took just about two hours to get everything into the truck, move in and unload it in the new place. Emotionally Disturbed Roommate seemed to find a partner in Emotionally Disturbed Landlord, who both apparently were pestering the movers about how much stuff I had and where I was going (according to the movers, who told me that information and then asked, "Were they like this all the time, and was it hard to live there?"). If they were so concerned, I wonder why they didn't ask me. Either way, I'M GONE. Woo hoo!

The new place is great, aside from the fact that I'm still in the throes of a bit of an allergy attack because the previous inhabitant had a cat and the place hasn't been fully de-catted. I've never understood what it's like to have asthma until now, and I'll never begrudge someone a moment's rest if they're having problems breathing. I also seem to be having massive computer problems, so I'm using one of my new roommate's laptop at the moment to get online.

DirecTV is a godsend. I cannot believe the wonder of it all. I will probably still be glued to it Monday morning when it's time to go to work. Lord a'mighty, there's so many damn channels!

Emotionally Disturbed Roommate attempted to triple-team me tonight, bringing along two of his friends to confront me. Being that I'm of the mindset that it's not cool to discuss other people's finances in front of perfect strangers added onto the fact that I was feeling considerably outnumbered and uncomfortable, I put him off. When I got home from the gym, I happened to catch him on his way out. He didn't think he had done anything wrong, he told me how he felt that I was brusque with him (the example he gave was that earlier tonight when I came home, he invited me to share some dinner with him & his friends and I said, "no thanks, I'm actually late for meeting someone" -- which I was, but I still don't see how that's brusque. Just because I turned him down, that's not an insult. But then again, this is one of the reasons why I consider him to be emotionally disturbed), and I just kind of let him let off steam and spout off his wishes for peace & harmony & goodwill amongst men (specifically, the two of us). If he wants it, fine. I'll leave him with that, I'm only going to be here for another 36 hours.

My next question is: in that Mitsubishi commercial featuring "Days Go By" by Dirty Vegas, what the hell is that girl doing? It's not car dancing. I have no clue what the hell it is. Either way, she's completely turned me off from buying a Mitsubishi (even though I had no desire to do so before seeing that commercial) and I can't hear that song -- which I think kicks ass, so it makes it harder -- without seeing her do that I'm-so-funky-check-me-out passenger seat groove in my head.

Abject panic is not a good thing to wake up with. The doorbell woke me this morning just before 9AM, and when I pushed the intercom to see who it was, the response "the movers" immediately shot my blood pressure through the roof. How could they be a day early? I specifically made reservations for Saturday morning. And if they were a day early, would they be available to come back tomorrow when they were supposed to?

Someone else was at the front door to the building directing them around to the back entrance as I sprinted down to catch up with them, still wearing my pajamas. Thankfully, it turned out that the movers were there for the people across the hall from me, so I was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief. Unfortunately, I still wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep, and I was out of packing tape so I couldn't do any more packing. D'oh.

I don't normally post forwards of any kind, but I really really liked this one. The author is unknown, but it's still really good:

Make Every Minute Count
- To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who has failed the final exam.
- To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
- To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the soldier on leave.
- To realize the value of ONE DAY, ask a daily wage earner who has four kids to feed.
- To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the family who wait in Critical Care.
- To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who has missed the flight.
- To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who has survived an accident.
- To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.
So treasure every day, make every minute count for eternity.

So I blew off the gym tonight. I did some moving. That counts for something. And I need to give my body a rest from working out every single day anyways, right? Yes, I can rationalize just about anything.

Either way, I took the opportunity to catch up on some e-mails, including one from Sara, who's my Blogger Insider partner for this round. So here's her questions & my answers: 1. What is your first memory from your childhood?
Umm... I don't actually remember much from my childhood. I don't think it was that memorable. I just kind of have snapshots in my head, but nothing real contiguous. I think the earliest thing is trying to nap in the backseat of the big-ass '77 Chevrolet Impala on one trip to Queens (New York City) with my mom to visit my grandparents, and trying to use a map as a blanket and the fact that I got upset that I accidentally ripped it. I think I was around 4 at the time. I guess I've been respectful of other people's property for a long while.

2. Do you have a Palm Pilot or other PDA you use?
Believe it or not, this technogeek does not have a PDA. Hell, I didn't even have a cell phone for several years -- had one after I got out of college but gave it up because I just wasn't using it enough to justify the costs -- until I moved to L.A. and had to get one.

3. What's your favorite food and why?
I have a bunch. I like pizza, burgers, sushi, burritos, chocolate, Chinese food... I can't really explain why I like them so much, except for the fact that I love the taste of things. I get really bad cravings & I go through phases of indulging these cravings for a while. Right now, I seem to be in the midst of an addiction to Subway's turkey subs.

4. Do you think that the post office has raised the prices of stamps too high?
They do need to survive and compete against both e-mail & services like FedEx & UPS, so I can see why they'd need to. I personally don't mail a lot of things, so it doesn't affect me that much. But I can't understand why they pay their workers so much when every time I've gone to the post office, I see one or two people working the window while the others stand around and chat even though the line of customers is hellishly long.

5. Did you file your taxes on time? E-file or regular paper?
My taxes were filed back in February, believe it or not. An old family friend runs one of the H&R Block offices near my parents' house and I trust her a lot more than I trust many people with my money, plus she probably knows some kind of tax laws that can get me money back that I don't know about, so she did my taxes for me.

6. Now that you are settling into your new neighborhood, what's one thing you wish you could have taken from your old town?
The restaurants. There's one really good burrito place and one really good sushi place in the town I moved out of, and they were both really cheap but had great food. You can't find great food that's cheap in L.A., you have to actually pay for quality here.

7. Is there any cancer or diseases in your family? If so, are you worried about how that effects you?
My family has a history of coronary disease. My dad had a heart attack when I was in high school, my uncle has had 3 -- his first when he was 28 -- and my grandfather died of his third. I'm definitely worried about it, but I'm still in that "it won't happen to me" kind of mindset. I exercise in spurts and I sometimes watch what I'm eating when my weight balloons, but I definitely rollercoaster -- haven't been able to keep a steady weight in a very long time. Hopefully, I also have some genetic material from my mom's side of the family, who has strong hearts, and it seems to show since my cholesterol level is well within acceptable limits. At least it is now.

8. Do ever read Cosmopolition or Glamour, just to see what women really read & think?
Whenever I can get my hands on them. Those magazines are so funny to read. It's not so much to read what women are thinking, it's what they're being told to think. But I guess there's a certain voyeurism that comes with it.

9. If I had seen you on the street and been asked to describe you, what would be the thing that you would hope stuck in my mind? What would be the thing that you would hope I would forget?
I'd hope you forget that I'm a little tubby, though not much. Most people seem to remember my personality though. I seem to make quite the impression, and in a short amount of time as well. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

10. Do you snail mail out cards for birthdays, anniversaries or do you email them?
I actually don't mail out cards and such for occasions. I usually just write a quick e-mail saying "happy [insert occasion here]!" because I think it's a little more personal than buying a card or searching for a card online. Cards are ephemeral, they don't last, people usually just take a look at them, smile and then throw them out. I don't need to waste server space or bandwidth or paper to tell someone that I remembered their birthday/anniversary/etc. and thought fondly of them. I remembered and sent them my good wishes & goodwill, the sentiment is what counts.

And that, dear readers, is all I wrote.

Tune in tomorrow night, when Emotionally Disturbed Roommate and I sit down for a "small talk" that he specially "scheduled" for he & I to have after I get home from work! (His words, not mine.) Lord only knows what insanity he's going to bring up to throw at me, and I'm really sick of his crap. I may need divine intervention or extra amounts of patience, or I may seriously go off on him. Maybe I'll do it anyway, just to see if I can make him cry.

Checking my e-mail this morning, I found another e-mail or two from co-workers -- one of which was sent at "high priority," which I really didn't think the situation warranted, especially since it was the next morning already -- saying that "we normally keep leftovers for the staff." I e-mailed back saying that I knew that was normally the case, but there was just so much food and there was no room for it in the fridge despite the fact that an entire tin of chicken was already being refrigerated, so it would've spoiled before the morning and that's why I did what I did. I had no idea that people here would be so possessive of their leftovers to the point of letting them go bad rather than giving them away to people who could use them.

Like I said last night, it's kind of odd that something like this would make me feel guilty. I'm not trying to take food out of other people's mouths deliberately -- especially not my co-workers -- but I thought these were reasonable circumstances under which people would understand. Was what I did wrong?

I went back into the kitchen about two hours after dinner & found a ton of leftovers sitting out on the table, despite the fact that the fridge was already full. So I IMed my boss and asked if it would be all right if I made arrangements to donate the leftovers to a shelter or soup kitchen, which he said would be fine. At his suggestion, I e-mailed the entire office to let them know so that they'd also be able to take whatever food they wanted before I gave it away, but that they had a little time since I needed to find a place still open that would accept it and I was soliciting suggestions on places and I would be happy to take it over myself. I was a little discouraged after a few phone calls to shelters, who told me that they were closed for the night and no one would be available to accept the food. But what really discouraged me was the fact that one of my co-workers told me flat out, "Well, just make sure everyone knows. I mean, you're taking food from us!" Biting back acerbic words about how these people don't have food at all and we've already all eaten, I merely said that there was another full container of chicken left in the refrigerator. The second blow came when someone else I worked with, someone who I respected, thought was really cool and smart (and will admit to having a mild crush on) answered my e-mail by saying that most shelters won't take leftovers because of possible spoilage, but the killing blow came when she wrote something along the lines of "besides, homeless people don't want other people's leftovers. Why bother?"

I was fairly stunned, seeing as how I thought that if they're that hungry, homeless people will eat just about anything in order to survive, especially given the fact that I've seen them rummaging through trash cans to find leftover food thrown out. But I was more stunned by the response itself, especially from someone I thought highly of.

I was surprised to see how polarized the office was on the topic -- people who volunteered their help and thought it was a great idea, and people who looked down on it. Either way, I managed to find a shelter that was open, made arrangements and drove the food over. Also, I called up my best friend who was just getting home from a night out, so I went by her place to pick her up & we went together. So the night ended on an up note after all, I guess.

They served us chicken halves for dinner tonight at work. Literally. It's like they took chickens, cooked them, sliced them in half and that's what we got. In addition to huge tubs of mashed potatoes and beans. So much for the diet tonight, I suppose, since I'm such a sucker for mashed potatoes. I'm completely in food coma right now.

On another food-related note, I've never really understood the saying "drink like a fish." Technically, fish don't drink that much. I'd say we should change it to "drink like a camel," but once they fill up, they're done for a few days. I drink all the time. People here have commented on how quickly I drain my mug of water. So, the reason why you've all tuned in. Emotionally Disturbed Roommate & I had it out last night, eventually. He'd brought over one of his friends who was also a "landlord" (though I wouldn't consider him a landlord at all -- he's sharing a room in an apartment that he's renting from a landlord) in order to try to double-team me, apparently. He went through half a dozen irrelevant excuses and reasonings why he is justified in holding my deposit that I'm due (including "well, I've been good about putting the mail out for you when it comes" -- which it's true, he has, even stacking it in order of size and neatly placed in the corner of the dining room table -- and "I've never had to deal with this, I grew up a Jewish boy," to which my response was "So? I did too," and inwardly I was wondering what the hell this had to do with anything, since if anything, I should be able to claim the background trophy since I grew up in East Nowhere and he grew up in a major metropolitan area and had been living in the apartment and renting out the spare room for over 2 years so he should be better versed in this situation than me by far). He told me that he thought I was scolding him -- he used the exact words "I felt like I was a child being told to go to his room" -- when I kept telling him over the phone that I didn't have time to talk to him and I'd talk to him when I got home that night, though he just didn't seem to get the fact that my work really does have priority over him and I really didn't have the time to deal with his insanity when he called. At this point, I was starting very much to feel like a parent, and even though the guy's 32, I tend to think he's got the maturity and worldliness of a 7 year old.

So, in the end, because he kept asking when he was getting his keys back -- to which I responded "well, when am I getting my deposit back?" since he just didn't seem to get it -- we finally worked it out that he will pay me in cash on Saturday morning when I move out and I will hand him the keys on my way out. There. That should satisfy all of your drama cravings, since I've been getting requests for more episodes of "The Days of Our Insane Emotionally Disturbed Roommates." However, be forewarned that barring some unnatural circumstances, this series will be airing its finale this weekend. No amount of letter-writing, petition-signing, or pleading over e-mail or IM or phone will bring it back. The network executives are pulling the plug.

I e-mailed one of my friends back East and asked him to pick up a handful of Big Game lottery tickets for me. I figured that with the jackpot well over $300 million, it's worth a shot. I usually buy a few tickets for fun when the winnings hit that high.

Needless to say, I probably won't win. The chances of me winning are worse than me getting run over by a bus while getting struck by lightning and being swept up in a tornado all at the same time. But supposing I were to win. I'd do the requisite charity donations -- I probably would want to build some kind of homeless shelter or soup kitchen -- and I'd buy myself a nice car & get a kick-ass apartment, but there's one thing I want to do first.

Were I to win the lottery, I'd want to get all my friends together from all over the country, fly them all first-class to Disney World, where I'd reserved a large block of rooms in one of the nicest hotels. Then we'd all spend a week or so there partying, running around the Magic Kingdom & EPCOT & Disney-MGM, riding all the rides and going to the clubs at Downtown Disney every night. I'd pay for the whole damn thing out of my lottery winnings -- plane fare, hotels, meals, alcohol, park passes... it'd be a blast.

One can dream, can't he?

Subway is giving away free cookies all day today. I realize this might be a little late in the day for the East Coasters to hear about this, but I thought I'd pass it along anyways. I know this because I am currently battling an addiction to Subway's turkey subs, although, as one of my co-workers says, there's worse things I could be addicted to.

I am home, and I am awaiting Emotionally Disturbed Roommate's knock on my door. He was in the shower when I came home. At least I'm sticking around instead of running off to the gym like I want to. I actually was invited to go to a show tonight, but I'm staying here in order to babysit him. This just hasn't been a good day.