I can just imagine Evan "Joe Millionaire" Marriott's reaction if he found out about contestant Sarah's past as a bondage film actress.

Ahem.

[In deep, gravelly voice]: "Uhh... handcuffs?... uhh... dirty feet?... uhhh... duct tape?..."

Thank you.

I'm giving serious thought to ordering Blind Date Uncensored.

There aren't many things I can't abide in this world. Self-righteousness is one of them.

Today's L.A. Times ran an article about Arianna Huffington and her new-found crusade to rid the world of SUVs because they use more oil, and oil supports countries like Iraq and the Axis of Evil. I can't even begin to tell you how much the woman makes me want to vomit, and I hate vomiting.

First of all, her crusade group is called "The Detroit Group." I find this incredibly ironic considering she's driving a Toyota Prius. A Japanese car. And let's conveniently ignore the fact that a mere 60 years ago, the Japanese were our mortal enemies and are, to this day, only the second nation to ever attack Americans on American soil. Additionally, she's taking money away from our country by supporting Toyota!

Additionally, everyone seems to be forgetting the fact that we only get 8% of our oil from the Middle East. That's the entire Middle East. Hell, we get more tons more oil from Russia than we get from the Middle East, and we were doing that even when they were our mortal enemies.

Third of all, by ditching oil in cars, Arianna is killing an entire industry of Jiffy Lubes and their clones and putting thousands of oil changers and (pardon the expression, but I've heard it before) other greasemonkeys out of business. She's ruining our economy! How are all the people changing our oil for us supposed to support themselves and funnel their disposable income back into our businesses if Arianna's out there shutting down the Jiffy Lubes?

I personally think that Arianna is wasting her time and that there's about ten bazillion other, more deserving causes that she could be putting her efforts towards. Hell, if she's so anti-SUV, maybe she could even tie that in. I mean, driving to work today, I had problems seeing some of the buildings because of all the haze & smog around, and don't SUVs also pollute the air? [insert dramatic gasp of enlightenment and alarm here]

I'm fine with my little Honda Civic. I love my car, and I like the maneuverability and the ease of parking that having a compact car affords. But there are some people who need bigger cars and trucks and SUVs, maybe because they haul a lot of stuff, maybe because they use them to store their sporting equipment when they go off on weekends, maybe because they have a lot of kids. If anything, stopping those people from being able to live their lives because they can't haul their stuff or their families around... well, that's disrupting the American way of life of being able to do what we want and exercise our freedom. And that's when the terrorists win. So, Arianna, by denying us our transportation and our ability to do these things easily, you're the one supporting terrorism.

You are the weakest link. Goodbye!

Overheard today:

So, Colin Powell is going to go before the U.N. sometime next week to provide them with pictures of trucks going into and coming out of Iraqi sites just before U.N. inspectors showed up. You know what this proves?

Iraq has trucks.

The next war will not be fought with weapons, words or diplomacy. The next war will not be manned by tens of thousands of troops off in some foreign land. The next war will be fought right here on a side street in Southern California.

The opening salvos have been fired. The bastard prick neighbors next door who wake me up in the middle of the night with their stereos, who park in our parking spots, who always seem to know just when we call the police because they stop playing the music or move their cars about three minutes before the cops actually arrive... They will pay.

This morning, the bass was thumping through the walls again. And my roommates weren't home, so I had free reign to unleash the Mobile Audio Assault System. One PowerBook. Two Cambridge Soundworks speaker and one Cambridge Soundworks subwoofer, all cranked to 10 and all pointing towards the wall -- in the subwoofer's case, leaning up against the wall. One MP3 of Ministry's "New World Order."

The war has begun.

I was chatting online with someone tonight who I've never met in realtime, and she was talking about how odd it was to meet people in realtime who you've only chatted with over the Net.

Basically, I'm the same online as I am in realtime. At least, I like to think I am. I pretty much type out what I'd say if I were speaking. And I'd like to think that I can get a pretty good sense online about someone -- I mean, if someone can't communicate decently in writing, there's probably a moderate chance they can't do so well in realtime. When you're asked a question and can only give a two-word response, I think there's a possibility that you might only give a two-word answer when asked the same question in realtime. Shyness does translate into the digital realm, as does the ability to hold a conversation.

The thing is, there's always that spark, she said. Chemistry is an odd thing. You can't really tell if someone will be exactly as they are when you speak to them using Instant Messenger.

So, have you ever met someone who you thought would be completely different based on your Internet conversations or what you read on their website?

Things that have made me happy in the past 24 hours:

- Seeing two old friends for the first time in over five years.
- Seeing Gary Coleman at the Century City Mall yesterday while I was getting lunch. He was just walking behind us, talking on his cell phone, wearing a green sweater that made him look like a little kid whose mom dressed him.
- Driving into the garage at work today, losing the signal from my satellite radio and continuing to sing the entire verse of the song I was listening to, then having the signal come back right at the end of the verse and knowing that I was right on beat and in the right spot even though I had no musical backing the entire time.
- Getting an e-mail from the dooce. Go an' help her out, won't you?
- Making one of my co-workers laugh until he sprayed coffee all over his monitor.

So there's some really good joke someone told me that compares Harrison Ford to something else and asks what's similar about them, and the answer is, "They're both fucking wood," referring to Harrison's little tawdry affair with Calista Flockhart, who's not only as flat as a board but also as painfully skinny as one. And I continue to insist that there's a picture of her in the dictionary next to the word "smarmy."

But I digress. The point is that I can't remember what the other thing is, and it's driving me up a wall. And I can't tell the joke because it makes me look dumb to attempt to do so. "So, what's Harrison Ford and... uh... uhh... Hold on, the punchline's good..."

- Did anyone happen to catch the ultimate irony in having Celine Dion -- a Canadian -- sing "God Bless America," a song that contains the lyrics "God bless America, my home sweet home"? Personally, I'd rather she go back to Canada and stay there. Not that I have anything against Canadians. I don't. I just have issues with her. Her and her disproportionately-sized head.
- Except for the Dixie Chicks, Bon Jovi, No Doubt and Sting, every single one of those performances was faked. They were playing and singing along to a recording. Case in point: Michelle Branch cannot harmonize to herself. No one can, at least not at the same time. I also found it very interesting that Shania Twain was bouncing all over the stage and clapping against the microphone, but we weren't hearing any of the banging from the microphone being hit or any breathing she was doing.
- The Oakland Raiders disgraced themselves. Completely. You can't just show up for a game and then start playing to win in the fourth quarter.
- John Madden still annoys the ever-loving bejeezus out of me. The man talks for hours about nothing, and he talks over the officials so he can continue making his nonsensical points. Watching a game where he's the commentator is like watching Seinfeld as performed by the world's least amusing Japanese kabuki theatre mime/interpretative dance group.
- When the local ABC affiliate here in L.A. did their little "watch our news show after Alias," I watched them do their 5-second recap of the Super Bowl and jokingly said to my roommate, "And tonight, police attempt to contain rioting in Oakland as the natives express their displeasure..." About three seconds after I said that, they put up pictures of people rioting in Oakland and the news anchor began talking about police battling the locals up there as they swarmed the streets, setting fire to things and smashing other things. How uncomfortably predictable.
- The "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker" commercials are some of the funniest I've ever seen. Go now and watch the rest. I said NOW, dammit!

You have one. If you don't, you're either considering getting one or you know someone who does, and they're probably telling you to get one. The all-powerful little box that instantly becomes the joy of its owner's life. Even FCC Chairman Michael Powell worships at its altar, calling it "God's machine." One of my co-workers is a proselytizer, preaching the Word of the Faith and telling others to get it even though he doesn't even have one yet.

It's amazing how much of a cult following TiVo has generated among the technologically elite. It's almost becoming equivalent to the whole secret handshake of having a Mac (Mac users can sniff each other out and instantly our respect for the other person jumps a number of points when we find out that they own and use Macs when not being forced to abide by the office Windoze machines). "Wow! You have TiVo? I didn't know that!" has been heard in my office more than once, and it is becoming well-known Who is Among Those in the Office With TiVo. Ask any of us who owns a TiVo, and we'll be able to rattle off the names of the others quite easily who also have one at home, because we've bonded and let each other into the secret society.

The one bad thing I will say about TiVo is that whoever designed the algorithms to suggest shows must've been smoking crack. Everyone I've talked to who owns a TiVo says that their machines fill up their hard drive with the complete opposite of what they would consider watching, and they have no idea where the machine is getting these notions they'd want to watch these shows. My TiVo started recording soap operas and home-and-gardening shows all in Spanish, so apparently, it thinks I'm a Hispanic stay-at-home mom. Of course, it could also think I'm a senile interior decorator. (Yes, Bill, I threw that link in there for you. You may commence with the cursing of me if you wish.)

Tonight, even the anchors on the L.A. newscasts were laughing at the people back East. Look at them! They're being silly on the ice! They're wearing these ridiculous woolen hats and mittens and heavy coats! How unfashionable!

Of course, this is a town that throws itself into a tizzy if the temperature drops below 55. I remember when I went to college and there were two people on my hall freshman year who came from Los Angeles. They put on winter coats in mid-September when the temperatures were in the 50s, and they kept asking me how I could walk around wearing only a sweater or sweatshirt. I frankly told them if they thought this was cold, they were in for a big shock.

My senior year in high school, we had a winter so cold that the temperature hovered around the zero point (that's Fahrenheit, not Celsius for all you metric people stopping by) for the better part of three months. I remember several mornings that I'd try to drive to school, but my breath would condense and frost on the inside of the windshield to the point where I had to pull off the road to use the ice scraper on the inside of the car. We had ice storms every weekend, and one morning, after my father had left, I pulled my car into the garage to melt the sheets of ice off it so I could drive it -- the resulting melting almost flooded our basement.

Because we lived in the middle of nowhere, the ice froze our power lines and we lost power several times -- a couple of times for several days in a row. Let me tell you that there is no caffeine jolt that can equal stepping from a freezing cold house (because the heat was electric and it was so cold in the house that we all slept in our winter jackets and hats and mittens and thermal underwear) into a freezing cold shower (because the water heater ran on electricity) and back out again to dry off, all to the faint glow of a flashlight propped up on the sink. There was nothing to do when the sun went down because we needed to conserve our batteries, so I couldn't read books or listen to the radio or watch the little portable TV, so we slept. And because it was so cold, we didn't sleep well and we woke up several times throughout the night. At least the food in the refrigerator didn't spoil -- it was cold enough in the house that we didn't have to worry about keeping the fridge and freezer doors shut to keep in the cold. On the downside, it meant we couldn't eat because things were either frozen solid and we had no way to heat them or they were raw and we had no way to cook them. There's only so many yogurts and bowls of cereal you can keep in the house before three people consume them all.

So, to the people here making fun of those back East who are suffering through one of the worst winters yet, I say: you fucking wimps, you have no idea what they're going through, you pansies who cry that it's getting cold when it's 50 degrees outside and bundle up in heavy coats and scarves. Given the amount of panic generated by a few drops of rain here in L.A., I think they'd have to declare a full-on state of emergency here if even a quarter-inch of snow fell.

My friends can't understand why I wasn't excited about the fact that I had a three-day weekend this past weekend. They think that if work is kicking my ass, then time away from work is what I need. What they don't get is the fact that even though I have a four-day work week, I'm still working 50 hours this week.

So after leaving work at 12:30am last night, I went to a local bar near my apartment with a co-worker. We managed to get there right at last call -- and pardon me while I digress here, but this is L.A., and I thought things would be open later here, not just until piddly 1 or 2am -- so I decided to bring out the big guns so I could actually feel a bit of the buzz since we were obviously only going to be able to order a single drink. Caught the eye of the very attractive bartender (tall, long red hair in pigtails, green eyes, great figure -- but I was not going to be That Guy Who Hits on the Bartender) and ordered a shot of Patron and a Long Island Iced Tea. This met with the approval of the guys next to us, who cheered when they heard my order. (My co-worker, on the other hand, ordered a Red Stripe. They didn't comment on that one.)

Whenever I order Patron, I still think of that scene in Vanilla Sky -- which I wasn't too fond of -- where Tom Cruise orders it and then starts yelling at the bartender, "Patrooooooooooooon!!" like he's baying at the moon. Either way, I was definitely feeling some aftereffects when we left the bar after a grueling game of Ms. Pac-Man.

So, I'm back in L.A. 500 miles later. And I have to admit, I'm not happy about this whole speed limit thing.

I'm a good driver. Not only that, I know how to drive. It's actually a skill that not many have. I can travel safely at speeds above 80mph, dodging other drivers and switching lanes, and I can do it with ease and without endangering anyone including myself. There's a lot of idiots out there who can't, and there's a lot of idiots out there who are a danger even at the speed limit.

However, I firmly believe that speed limits are slowing traffic down. If the people who can drive safely at fast speeds were allowed to, backups might happen less frequently. Co-workers and I were discussing last week the possibility of a "high-speed license," where you have to specifically qualify for this special license and maybe pay a little extra, but it would allow you to go over the posted speed limits because you had been certified by the state as a safe driver.

I know I'd definitely pay more for it. It's asinine that in an area like the Arizona desert where there's no one around for miles except for the random tractor-trailer, I have to make sure my speed stays below 90 so I don't attract attention from the Arizona Highway Patrol. It would make my life easier if I could just accelerate to a comfortable pace across the flatlands, and it would generate a little more revenue for the state licensing me if I paid extra for a high-speed license.

Kangaroo Jack is the highest-grossing film of the weekend.

Fear ye, for the apocalypse is nigh. This world is being FedExed to hell in a handbasket. Join me in prayer at the Synagogue of Rabbi Jon Stewart for services tomorrow morning.