As quickly as the highs come, so come the lows:  Sunday’s date just wants to be friends.  Suffice it to say I’m rather disappointed, since I was a bit smitten, and a bit confused, since she was using “relationship language” in conversation and her jokes that night.

And on my way home, I was inches away from being creamed by some chick in an SUV who decided it was more important that she finish texting on her cell phone than actually, you know, WATCH WHERE SHE WAS DRIVING.  After the incident happened and the adrenaline was coursing through my system, I was almost entirely consumed with the desire to intentionally ram her, but then I realized while I might be older, I probably don’t have more insurance since she’s driving a more expensive car than mine.

Who needs a drink?

Had a good airshift today.  The morning show was actually there doing other stuff, and the main girl, who I like but haven’t seen in a while, stopped by to say hello and then asked me if I was trying to lose weight because I looked like I had successfully done so.  And I’m extremely smitten with the girl who I went out with tonight.  We’re going to go out again.  I can’t wait until that happens. 

And now, TiVo will entertain me to cap off the day.

Early Saturday afternoon status:
Activity: Cleaning my apartment.  I must be nervous about the date tomorrow night.  My roommates (when I had them) were very amused that whenever I was having Female Issues™, I would start cleaning, and it’s a habit that seems to have been firmly written into my DNA since I’ve been doing it for several years.  My old roommates also thought that behavior was awesome because they benefitted from my angst — I sometimes suspected that they would either convince girlfriends to fight with me or persuade women not to go out with me just so they could have a clean place to live in.  Oh, and I’m also doing laundry.
Listening to: The Angus soundtrack, which I love and also really love this highly underrated movie, but no one else seems to have heard of it.  Wait… wait… CD just ended.  Now booting up The Go! Team.
Annoyed at: Two things.  One is the fact that I actually spent two hours of my life watching Smokin’ Aces last night… I was not really all that entertained, and it wasn’t that good, and I saw the first major plot twist coming a mile away — although I was surprised that my friends didn’t.  (The second twist, not so much, but I still wasn’t impressed.) I’m not recommending this one.  The other is the stupid Linksys wireless router I bought two weeks ago, the damn thing keeps dropping the connection to the point where I have to unplug it and try to keep resetting it for half an hour before I get the connection back.  I’m returning it and I’ll wait for the new shiny Airport Extreme to come out.  (Thanks, Nicole!) Oh, and I also am not so pleased it’s drizzling out… I really need to get my car washed since it’s disgustingly dirty, but the car washes usually don’t do that when it’s raining.
Motivation needed to: Go to the gym after I’ve finished cleaning and run all my errands.
Sick of: Water intoxication.  Not only have I written about 18,000 news stories about what happened up in Sacramento, I’ve been interviewed by three different newspapers and another two radio stations about it, and I’m slated to be on an NPR show next week to discuss “the state of radio.” Even though it’s nice being an “industry pundit,” it’s still kind of a gruesome story, no good will come of the situation and I’m hitting overload on the topic.

OMFG, I have an honest-to-God date on Sunday night!  And I reeeeeeally like this girl.  After trading a few e-mails (just a few lines over JDate and then one or two e-mails in the clear), we finally talked tonight — and had an hourlong conversation, we talked so easily to each other and it just flowed back and forth.  She’s funny, we have a lot in common, and I love her voice (which is a kind of big thing with me).

The question becomes… how do I not screw this up?

So remember how I said that I didn’t have any heat all last week during this wicked cold snap and that it happened after my dad went messing around in the cabinet in my hall closet where the furnace is?  The repair guy came Saturday to fix my heat.  Walked into my apartment.  Opened the cabinet.  Picked up a power cord lying on the floor and said, “Maybe this is the issue...,” plugged it in and asked me to try the thermostat.  Lo and behold, it worked.  I was without heat all week because a stupid cord wasn’t plugged in.  I mean, how I was supposed to know the damn thing was supposed to be plugged in, I never go into that cabinet!  Needless to say, I felt extreeeeeemely dumb.  And as soon as he left, I turned on the furnace and cranked the heat way up.

I’m going to go watch last Thursday’s Grey’s Anatomy now.  Apparently, it’s some kind of heart-wrenching episode that had half of America in tears once it was over.

From: TiVo
To: Keith
Subject: WTF, man??
Body: So here I am, happily perusing the channels and watching The Megan Mullally Show and 30-Minute Meals and Spin City reruns like I usually do while you’re away at work since I have the cable at my command, and then I get… the request.  I almost shudder to repeat it, because it almost make me scream in agony just to say the name of He Who Shall Not Be Named.  I mean, for cryin’ out loud… you put in a request for me to record the goddamn O’Reilly Factor.  What the hell’s going on here?  You’re all about The Daily Show and Countdown with Keith Olbermann and all that liberal stuff, which I’m fine with and support.  But Bill Idiot O’Reilly?  Did you have a stroke or something?

From: Keith
To: TiVo
Subject: RE: WTF, man??
Body: Dear Stupid Machine That I Thoroughly Worship,
If you’d paid a little more attention to the listings, you’d note that my close, warm and personal pal Stephen Colbert was on today’s episode of the show that stupid moron O’Reilly does in a loud voice.  I wanted to see Colbert bring some truthiness to Fox’s front door.  Oh yes, it’s already been broughten… but I haven’t seen it yet, because it was on while I was at work, so I needed you to record it.  Oh, and I also wanted to see what Blowhard Bill said about the story that’s been consuming my work life for the past three days.

Oh, and… I really don’t need to know about your daytime viewing habits while I’m gone.  No wonder why you recorded all those home-improvement shows in Spanish before I turned off the “Record Suggested Shows” option.

My heater’s still busted.  And it’s now 45 degrees outside.  Not only that, but my Electronics Reign of Terror™ rolls on — the new wireless router I bought is giving me more problems than the old Airport Express I had, so I’m thinking Time Warner Cable are being a bunch of morons.  As it is, I will probably return the Linksys and go with one of those shiny new Airport Extremes when they’re available next month. 

Sadly, now the TV is blowing up.  It’s been giving off this really loud high-pitched whine that’s giving me a headache.  I’m hoping it’s temporary, even though the TV is 5 years old now.  So I’m guessing that’s the answer to my cry last week of “what will break/what will I have to replace next?”

This is getting reeeeeeally frustrating.  I’m about ready to start dropping my electronics off the top of a very very tall building… luckily, I work in a very very tall building, but getting my super-heavy TV set out of my apartment and over to the roof of my office building is probably not all that feasible.  But the router....

I’m slightly drunk, which is probably the state I need to be in so that I can properly recover from three days with these two in a tiny crammed space that’s literally about the size of my bathroom in my apartment. 

Despite having escaped to Mexico over the weekend, I go back to work tomorrow and back to the life I’ve carved out for myself here.  As nice as it is to get away for a little while, it’s nice to get back to reality and the fun I have here.  And I’m happy that I’m not scheduled for jury duty tomorrow.

(Pssst.  A few more pictures here.)

Edited to add: Well, I guess we can slap “the heater” on my list of things my parents broke this weekend.  I went to turn up the thermostat that my dad was messing with last night, and I’m not hearing the click-click-click of the igniter in the gas.  Never mind the fact that it’s 42 degrees outside right now, my parents’ path of destruction is complete.  At least they left at 5am this morning and can’t break anything else.

My parents have been here for 5 hours, and they’ve already broken my TV, embarrassed me at one of my favorite restaurants by making a fuss and announced their intentions to drink massive amounts of my liquor and then leave their dirty linens for me to put in my laundry.  I swear, having them here is like having college students visit.  Since when did *I* become the responsible adult of the crowd?

I’ve never been a fan of business catch-phrases — “thinking outside of the box,” “shifting the paradigm,” etc.  Whenever I interview someone for work and they start in on the press release-style quotes, I will tell them that if they use the phrase “next level,” I will hang up on them.  (Which, naturally, has led to a couple of smartasses who will include it in every single e-mail or phone call to me because they know it pisses me off.)

So it’s no wonder that, while I’m plowing through thousands upon thousands of JDate profiles, I’m seeing similar catch-phrases across a whole bunch of people’s writings… the “next level” of dating profiles, as it were.  And the fact that it’s so widespread scares me, because aren’t people trying to show off the fact that they’re creative and interesting and smart in order to attract people of the opposite sex?  Examples include:
- “I work hard, but I also play hard.”
- “I try to life to the fullest.”
- “I make every day count.”
- “I’m as comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt as I am in [insert formalwear item here].”
- “I like to go out with friends, but I also like a quiet night in at home.”

Thanks, but no thanks.  Next!

Seriously.  I go to work and regress to being somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 years old. 

Tomorrow morning, literally thousands of people will wake up and read this lovely little gem that I came up with today:

“We are waiting for the gas to pass.” — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a news conference yesterday morning, commenting on the strong gaseous odor that enveloped large portions of New York City.
“Whoever smelt it, dealt it.” — New Jersey

I’ve been giggling like a small child all freakin’ day because of that.  And then I came home and found this bulletin a friend posted on MySpace:

Subject: HELP ME.....I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO.
Body: I HAVE A FUCKING SQUIRREL STUCK IN MY BASEMENT...HOW THE FUCK DO I GET IT OUT??
THIS MEANS WAR...HE MIGHT BE DRINKING MY RED BULL.
SERIOUSLY....If anyone can help me or works for a pest control company...hit me up ASAP.

If laughter’s the best medicine, I’m not getting sick for years.

Actual text-message exchange that occurred yesterday:

Amandarin:  Bootie tonight?
Me:  Yes, there is one.
Amandarin:  And will you be there?
Me:  The Witness Protection Agency advises me not to divulge details of my impending whereabouts.
Amandarin:  Well then I guess I’ll just hope for the best. 
Me:  Let me know how that works out for you.
Amandarin:  Perhaps if you can lose the agents tailing you you’ll come and enjoy some dancing and adult beverages.
Me:  Let me stroke my invisible beard and ponder it.
Amandarin:  Let me know how that works out for you

Good people of the vast and varied Internets, I have a confession to make.  I’ve been hiding something from you, something that’s been a big part of my life for the past several weeks.  It’s an addiction, and it’s not one I’m particularly proud of.  Addictions, by nature, are not usually a positive thing either, which is another reason why I’ve been so reticent to go public with this, since I’ve tried to keep the image of being mostly stable and balanced going.  But I can’t take this silence anymore — I have to come forward and admit my weaknesses and shortcomings.

I… have become addicted to hummus. 

Please don’t judge me.

I’m not quite sure what’s going on, but I seem to be frying all of my electronics.  In the past 3 months, I’ve had to replace my car stereo and my digital camera, completely erase and reformat my iPod, and now my wireless router is on the fritz and looks like it needs to replaced.  I mean, I love my toys and all, but this is getting a little ridiculous… and expensive, for that matter.  However, I will say that I’ve read a ton of people’s complaints tonight about Apple’s Airport Express and how it seems to have a lifetime of about 16 months — mine’s a little younger than that, but not by much.  And I also spent about an hour researching various… shall we say, technology aficionados’… opinions about a good wireless router for a Mac laptop, because they all contradict each other and have very vehement thoughts on whose brand rules and whose brand sucks rhino balls.

Welcome to the Winter of My Technology’s Discontent.  What’s next, is my TV going to dramatically explode?

I refuse to get a Blackberry (or any other PDA like that) because I honestly believe that I wouldn’t be able to detach from it.  I’d be so addicted to it, checking e-mail and using up all my airtime on IMs, that I’d probably isolate myself from humanity.  Like my co-worker, who walked up to one of the building security people to ask him a question, all the while tapping away on her Treo and never making eye contact with him at all.  I almost felt like apologizing to the security guy for her afterwards.  She had no idea of what she was doing.

Every time I stop at a traffic light, I always look around; invariably, everyone in the cars around me is on their cell phones.  At the gym tonight, there were at least two people on their phones while they were using the elliptical trainers, blabbing away their innermost details in loud voices so everyone around could share in their conversations whether we wanted to or not.  So, in essence, they were also in their own little bubbles, isolated from humanity from their perspective — we were just sucked into their bubbles against our will. 

It’s a sign of disrespect.  It’s a sign of self-centeredness.  And I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve come wicked close to screaming “Hang up and [insert verb]!” — when the option is “hang up and drive,” I frequently do scream it in frustration at the other drivers being stupid because they’re not paying attention to what they’re supposed to be doing (that’s driving, for those of you who were having problems figuring that out).