You know you're living in Southern California when the building you work in chooses to decorate the giant Christmas wreath in the lobby not with the usual silver ball ornaments, but with disco balls. I'm not kidding.

How many times do I have to say this? "Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity." Some loser just hit my site 10 times in the past 4 minutes looking for "goumba+12+days+of+christmas" -- through 3 different search engines.

Dude, get a clue: whatever you're looking for, it's not here. Returning over and over again is not going to make whatever the hell that is appear on my site.

Happy birthday, kd!

And my birthday is the 21st. I wonder what kind of decorations Bill will put up for me then...

(Psst! Still time to shower me with love. Not like I'm expecting anything, but it never hurts to try...)

I don't know what was more scary: the Marilyn Monroe not-so-lookalike who did the "Happy birthday, Mr. President Pro Tempore" song & dance at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, or the fact that Strom pulled that grandfatherly I'm-reaching-out-to-grab-your-arm-like-a-kindly-old-man to cover up the fact that he was actually reaching out to grab her breasts and then some signal went through his brain (which is only about 8% functional right now anyways) that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to do that.

Okay, so I know it's just a film written by some Hollywood person, and I know she's just an actress reading lines and being told what to do and how to act by a director, but I'm totally in love with Rachael Leigh Cook's character (Josie) in the movie version of Josie and the Pussycats. She's hot, she can sing, she's smart, she can play guitar, she's cool, she's a tomboy to the point of being able to fix trucks, she's a rock chick... My God, she's the perfect woman. Too bad she's completely the figment of someone's imagination.

So the Moron Twins next door did their thing again with the bass thumping so loudly at 1:30am that it was shaking the walls. Banging on the walls didn't help, so I went over and banged on their door and told them (in case they weren't aware of the time) that it was 1:30 in the goddamned morning and they should turn their fucking stereo down. Apparently, these guys have the mental capacity of Eric Nies, host of the defunct The Grind on MTV, because all one could do was stand there and act macho by asking me, "Excuse me, are you trying to break my door down?" (I had to knock pretty hard to be heard over the music being played, that should've told them something right there) while the other giggled like a schoolgirl. Admittedly, I was still awake and hadn't been woken up -- which would've really pissed me off -- but it was 1:30, I'd worked for around 13 1/2 hours that day, was tired and was getting ready for bed and there was no way I'd be able to sleep with my walls pulsating to the beat of Now That's What I Call Crap.

When I woke up this morning at 7:30am, I was strongly considering facing all my speakers towards their wall, putting the woofer right up against the wall and cranking up the bass output, then turning the volume up and rocking their asses with some Ministry. I wonder how well that would've gone over. Because you know, in an old-fashioned sound fight... I would win.

And I would've done it, too, had my roommate not been home and still sleeping. I have some morals and respect for others, you know.

So, usually, there's evidence that justifies the expression "a face for radio." However, in this case, the radio guys have better mugs than the popular performer pictured here.

On the left and right are the morning guys from WKTU in New York City -- Goumba Johnny and Baltazar. Can you guess who's in the middle? (Hint: It's not Monie.)



In the middle is... ...Ms. "Jenny From the Block" herself, Jennifer Lopez. I kid you not.

In other news, I finally transferred everything I needed off my old computer's hard drive, so I've disassembled the old machine and put the Almighty PowerBook up on my desk. Except I can't print. I haven't really figured out how this whole OS X thing works yet.

In other other news, I've finally found a candidate I can support: Hamster For President!

In other other other news, the scene in Big where Tom Hanks & Robert Loggia dance on the piano at FAO Schwarz is on TV right now. I danced on that piano. Ahh, New York. Like I said, New York in wintertime is pretty much the only thing I can think of that I miss about the East Coast.

It's a Hallmark conspiracy, I'm telling you. And the thing is, there's people who actually will go out and buy greeting cards and little plush toys and decorative pens for all of these holidays that someone out there is just making up. I mean, really. Some guy is sitting at a desk somewhere in Pacoima, bored out of his mind at his job, coming up with all these crazy days to celebrate things like "National Belly Button Lint Day," then he puts them up on his website, Hallmark and all those other companies who make "occasion" calendars snatch them up and market it to the rest of us. And if any of you out there actually buy any kind of celebratory present or something to mark any of these occasions, you deserve to be wasting your money.

From the files of the Radio Advertising Bureau, these are actual days/weeks/months of note taking place during the first quarter of 2003. Don't, don't celebrate any of these or I will be forced to hit you with a stick and tell you, "NO" in a firm voice.

January
National Oatmeal Month
Jan. 6-12: Someday We'll Laugh About This Week (why, is this the duly designated pub crawl week when we all get collectively drunk off our asses and sleep with lots of people we wish we hadn't?)
Jan. 13-18: National Man Watchers Week (I am not watching any men. How come there's no National Women Watchers Week?)
Jan. 27: National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day
Jan. 27: Thomas Crapper Day (he's the guy who supposedly invented the toilet, remember?)

February
National Sign Up For Summer Camp Month
Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month
Feb. 4: National Dump Your Significant Jerk Day (unobserved by 99% of the female population who will continue to complain to their Platonic Male Friends about how awful their boyfriends are and how come they never meet and date any nice guys?...)
Feb. 7: Wave All Your Fingers At Your Neighbors Day (nah, I think I'll just wave one of them at my neighbors...)
Feb. 8: Laugh and Grow Rich Day (laughing makes you get rich? Who knew? Where are my millions?)
Feb. 12: Lost Penny Day
Feb. 15: National I Want Butterscotch Day (the Carvel man is behind this one, I know it)

March
National Lawnmower Tuneup Month
National On-Hold Month (this is just an attempt by customer service departments to get away with putting us all on hold for half an hour at a time without allowing us to get mad)
National Umbrella Month
March 3: I Want to Be Happy Day
March 16-22: National Spring Fever Week
March 17: Act Happy Day
March 20: Great American Meat-Out (I don't even want to know what the people who came up with this one expect us to do to celebrate this)
March 22: International Goof-Off Day (apparently, someone didn't get the memo saying every day is International Goof-Off Day)
March 31-April 6: National Sleep Awareness Week (yeah, I think everyone on this planet is aware that they sleep. Otherwise, they think they're all actors and star in their own David Lynch films every night when they close their eyes)

Remember: Me. Stick. "NO."

I feel the urge to play some loud music very loudly. Part of it is just the mood I'm in, part of it is to get back at my next-door neighbors, who made the walls shake at 1:30am last night -- and they weren't even playing music in the room adjacent to mine, they were playing it from the room on the other side of their apartment that's farthest away from my bedroom. I swear, these two guys act like they're still in college. (Maybe they still are.) Of course, in order to have the same effect on them as it did on me last night, I should probably wait a few more hours, then point my speakers at the wall and crank it up.

And believe me, in a war of music, I would win.

Now picture me saying that in the voice of that Jamaican dude from the Red Stripe commercials who talks about the old-fashioned Jamaican stick fight. Those Red Stripe commercials crack me up. Hooray, beer!

So, every year, as Michele does, apparently, I put together a "Twisted Christmas" mix CD. The usual trite stuff... Cheech & Chong's "Santa Claus & His Old Lady," South Park songs, a few "sprinklins" of some current stuff like anti-Christmas songs by Weezer or New Found Glory and such.

Except nothing came out this year. There was one song by Sevendust called "X-Mas," but aside from that, absolutely nothing was released. And there's only so many times I can hear Linkin Park's "My December" on the radio. Someone had to have been creative enough to come up with something this year.

I honestly think that we're reaching the point where we've become so dependent on technology that we don't know how to function without it. Admittedly, I can't fathom how people did business before computers and the Internet, because they're so much a part of my life -- especially my business life -- and make my job so much easier by about a factor of a million, but at least I would know how to function if I were suddenly dropped off in, oh, say, 1955.

I had to go into work today (when news breaks, we fix it, no matter what time it breaks and stuff broke over the weekend, so I had to go in and update our news stuff for Monday morning), and over the weekend, the building is pretty much shut down. The annex parking lot where I usually park is closed off, so I park under the building in the visitors' lot, the offices are all locked up so I have to around the long way to get to my desk, and the building turns off a lot of nonessential equipment to conserve electricity.

Among this nonessential turned-off-over-the-weekend equipment are the escalators leading down to and up from the visitors' parking lot under the building. Fine. I walked up the nonmoving escalator on my way in. However, on my way back down to my car, I couldn't access the escalator because there was a guy (who presumably also worked in the building, because he wouldn't have been able to get in without the access cards) standing in front of it... looking at it. Just... staring at it.

Then, I guess he heard me coming because he turns around and says to me, "Is there another way down since the escalators aren't working?"

Pardon me while my jaw dropped to the floor in awe of his utter stupidity, but I politely suggested that he just walk down the escalator like a staircase since it wasn't moving. I swear I saw the lightbulb go on above his head, as he said, "Oh!" and thanked me and then went on down to the garage.

In this day and age, it's amazing that I haven't seen this guy listed on the Darwin Awards, but I'm guessing that so far, because the technology's working in his favor, that's what's keeping him alive and preventing him from getting mowed down by the rest of us.

New and improved! From Microsquash, it's JewBoy™ 2.0.

With system enhancements:

- Able to go from unshaven, unshowered and wearing sleep clothes to being fully functional, clean and decked out in partywear in less than 15 minutes
- Groove® plug-in allows JewBoy™ to get his funk on on any dance floor, given that the music being played is delectable
- Geographic input gives JewBoy™ the ability to recommend good bars, clubs and restaurants in the Los Angeles area
- Pop culture enhancements allow JewBoy™ to function well in any environment

I'm comfortable with the fact that I have neither shaved, nor changed out of my pajamas, nor showered, nor left my apartment at all today. This weekend is for recuperating, because life sucks when I'm sick so I'm attempting to rest and sleep as much as possible as I can. I'll be asking my roommates to turn me and make sure I face the light tomorrow; otherwise, I may wilt.

Now, on to Topic #2, which I shall entitle "Desperation: the world's worst cologne" after a line from Singles.

Y'all know that I subscribe to JDate to further my quest for a hot Jewish sugar momma. Either way, I've heard back from only one of the myriad of women I've e-mailed through the system. I've come to the conclusion that the ones who didn't respond just plain suck, because for them to not even do me the courtesy of sending a polite "decline" comment back through the system just isn't cool.

However, because that's how I feel, I'm all about sending the decline comments. I was instant messaged one night last week while I was logged into the system, though I still have problems sending them back (because they are -- as the rest of the world is -- anti-Mac, and they make it hard to do things on their system for us Macheads who will one day again rule the world). Out of courtesy, I IMed back but it apparently didn't go through because she sent me an e-mail through the system about 5 minutes later, saying how she read my profile, thought I sounded cool and fun, and here was her e-mail address and I should write her.

Tonight, a few nights later, I finally got around to clearing out my Inbox from all the e-mails that had been piling up that I hadn't answered. There was the e-mail from JDate Chick. I punched up her profile and gave it a once over... and wasn't impressed, quite frankly. So, given that I'm all about the courtesy, I sent her another reply through the system with the standard "thanks, but no thanks" system-generated message. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to get the picture. Two minutes later, I get two more IMs from her, pestering me to check out her profile again and give her a second consideration.

If I didn't like what I saw the first time around, what's going to make me suddenly change my mind if she's pleading with me to look again? As women can smell desperation on a man like my mom can sniff out a Cinnabon, men also can get that sense and are usually turned off by it. Didn't she understand that? Abject pleas aren't a good maneuver. Before she could message me again, I logged off the system. Sometimes, it's not so keen to be nice, and, although I hate doing it, being rude can sometimes get you further.

Seann William Scott (Stifler of American Pie fame) is attempting to be an action star. Dude. Honestly.