the cousin was right

So homeless guy has decided to contact my insurance company and make a claim for his bicycle and a "trip to the emergency room."

He says that his leg took the "full brunt of the impact" (lie) and that when he fell over (lie) he landed on his bicycle (lie on top of lie) and wrenched his back (lie lie lie). He also says that a witness saw the whole thing (BIG LIE).

In the 20 minutes while we were talking that witness must have been invisible because I didn't see him or hear him. Maybe he was a ghost like in Topper, out to right a wrong and get his wings. But, gee, it's weird that the Fire Department and Police didn't hear about hobo's injuries or damage. The insurance company can't understand why a report wasn't filed.

So this guy's out to bilk me out of my vast millions and more than anything else it really, really disturbs me that people are as bad as we think they are. That honesty is a dead practice. That help isn't good enough, because someone can squeeze you for more. That he thinks because I have a car and a job that I'm in this comfort zone to cart his load of manure that is his life on the street.

I told Geico that if he was asking for a new bike I wanted his old one. I think that's fair.

Goin' Bollywood

Don't know much about Bollywood, but I know what I like. Took me forever to figure out where I'd heard this before ... It's from "The Inside Man" -- Chaiyya Chaiyya (Dil Se) (dude, not to ruin it, but they die at the end of Dil Se ... are all Bollywood pictures like that?)

Goin' Hollywood

Found this description of the Silent Theater on Fairfax listed on a CitySearch site.

Rumors of blood on the lobby carpet and ghosts in the projection room have titillated Angelenos for years. Silent-film fans John and Dorothy Hampton opened this movie house with Cecile B. DeMille's "The King of Kings" in 1941 just as Nora Desmond's close-up was fading to black. But it was the headline-grabbing murder of their slick-talking protege, Laurence Austin, by a hired gun who sprayed the theater with gunfire in 1997, that cemented the house's place in Hollywood lore.

"sprayed the theater with gunfire" ... it all took place in the lobby with one or two shots in the theater-proper. I don't know about ghosts in the projection room ... that's possible.

Based on the blog, it looks like they're showing some super fantastic stuff.

Sometimes I miss LA.

Opportunity Knocks and Reality Bites

It was raining this morning and I was running late, so instead of riding my bike to work I drove, with the intention of driving home at 10 to pick up the bike and ride to school. When I left work, I was a little late, sure, and in a little bit of a hurry and when I got to the BIG INTERSECTION I only looked left to turn right. I didn't see any pedestrians crossing, so I just looked left, and then went to turn right. That's when this homeless guy named Kevin crunched into the front of my car.

Since I'm not an asshole, I pulled over and we examined his leg (dime sized bruise that may or may not be from my car) and his bike (a fecking Schwinn Frontier All-Terrain) which had about an inch of ding in the back tire rim that was sticking on the back brake. So it's no big deal and he's fine, and he wants to settle it there, and I say "Settle what? It was your fault too, you know." That's when he called the cops (I said "Go ahead") who sent firemen who looked at him, looked at his bike, looked at the reflector that had popped out of the front bumper of my car, and spent more time trying to fix that than they did talking to Kevin. "If there's no personal injury and no property damage, I'm not sure what it is you expect us to do." "Well, she said it wasn't her fault." Dude. So then we had to wait for a cop.

Now, mind you, I never said I wasn't at fault. I should have been looking, but I was damned if I was going to let him yack at me about bike law and take NO responsibility. He was riding against traffic and then he tells me that it was okay to do so because he was on the sidewalk! Dude! But I'm patient, waiting for the cop to come and sort him out, and I'm just not going to push it, until he says "This doesn't mean much to you, but I've never been hit by a car before."

That's when I let him have it. Fucko, I have been hit by a car while obeying the traffic laws and people usually take off, that's why I stayed. And here's another thing, you're a fucking vehicle, which means you belong on the street riding with traffic. Even if you go against it, for whatever reason, there are bike lanes an BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET so you have no business being on a sidewalk where people walk. You don't see cars riding the wrong way on a sidewalk, do you? It's because of a-holes like you that we can't get any decent legislation passed in this town. So don't fucking preach law at me, meat, until you know what you're talking about!

and then I calmed down.

He maintained that he was right because the light was green. cahhhhhhhh why can't we make people take bike tests like driver's tests and make them carry a license? Yeah, and guess what, the cop showed up and told him he was a vehicle and the law was that he had to ride with traffic on the street, so he was wrong.

I said I'd help him get the rim fixed (being a Schwinn that should take 2 whacks with a ball peen hammer), because he had 3 teeth and lived at the mission. Cousin/roommate thinks this guy will try and take me to the cleaners because I agreed to do help out ("It admits fault!"), but since he hasn't called me I'm guessing that the work was free or maybe he's the hobo with the heart of gold and realizes that he had some fault just like the cop said.

But where's the compensation for my mental anguish? boooo hooo hooo. Got to class on time, but was crying in the rain all the way here -- by the way, have I mentioned that the rain pants are so choice.

the end

For Sale: 1 slightly used soul $40 obo

Yesterday I spent an hour answering questions about my personal life for the University of Michigan. I told them going in that it was going to be boring, but they thought I was being funny. For $40 I told them when I first had sex (I thought physics-math was hard, try going back in time that far) and the last time I had sex (so when Belgium beat Germany in the World Cup that was ... hmm ...) and whether or not I wanted children or thought I would have children at some point, and did I have any physical limitations that would keep from from having children.

It left me feeling a little guilty. I don't have any physical limitations ("How about [fill in health issue]?" no. "How about [fill in psychological issue]?" no) and yet I had to be honest and answer no and no to want and foresee children in the future. It's not that I'm career-oriented and junk, I just don't think it's a good idea for me to have a kid that I can't afford -- sure, I've got a full-time job (there were about 7 questions about that), but with a kid that gets impacted and there's no way it would work. Not only that, but I just don't have any patience for that kind of thing (a question they didn't ask). But there's this residual feeling of waste -- hundreds of women can't have children and you can, so why aren't you, you layabout!

So I went out and blew the $40 right away at St. Vincent de Paul and Goodwill. Got some nice binoculars to look at the M42 next time the night is clear WHOO HOO!

What fucker said that?

I'm really irritated with this whole school thing. You know, some classes are useful, but some I just have to be in because requirements tell me I have to be there, so the idealistic vision of actually learning new things in class is really a reality. All of the classes where I could learn stuff, I've already taken, and all that's left are the classes where I've got to fill time -- including the Journalism shite, which I've totally lost interest in. This is not training to be Lois Lane, it's training to be J.J. Hunsaker, and I guess I kind of knew that going in, having worked in Marketing before and knowing that it lies somewhere between whoring and being a lobbyist, but when condition you to accept that as positive business practice ... jaysis, it's no wonder Fox News is popular. Nothing will change as long as universities are churning out bright-eyed hookers who suck up to current media thinking that "turning it up a notch" is actually a good thing to do. That's how we get things like Temptation Island and The O'Reilly Factor.

So I thought I would be an English major instead and I'm seriously tempted to cross over to the rebellion against the evil empire, especially considering that I'm on the slow track to graduating late anyway, but my heart's just not in it anymore. What do I want to be when I grow up? Non lo so.

To tie into the Withnail & I quote above, I heard a kid talking LOUDLY on his cell phone about what he was learning in his Religion of Islam class. It was explained as : "So there's that Mohammed or whatever guy, and, like, basically it's like Muslim is the same as, like, Christianity. Dude, seriously. It's the same thing, just said by different guys." That Mohammed guy ... was he important and stuff? Whatever, yeah. I hope he can remember it for the final.

Is a degree really worth the paper it's printed on? I guess I'm not one to talk. Although I got a 66 on the second Economics midterm, so I'm actually improving in some small way. I heard others say proudly that they scored a 43 (Yeah! Dude!), 47 and 48. Hooray for the curve.

Find your neutral space.

I think I'll just open all my entries with a quote from "Withnail and I" because it's such a fine film with many fine lines ("If I dose you, you'll know you've been dosed.") and it's especially appropriate because I was thinking about Danny only yesterday as I left the Econ exam. I studied for that effer for 3 days, including an hour and a half leading directly up to it.

Still couldn't make it all work.

So I was freaky and hysterical, full of despair -- "Mein Gott, what do I have to do to understand this shite?!?" that kind of thing -- and then I stopped and found my neutral space, man, and decided to go into the art museum on campus and see the Buddhist art exhibit.

And, really, where does Econ fit in the greater sphere of existence? My GPA? What does it matter? There's a bigger picture. -- and that picture is Hell, by the way, and it resembles Dante's Inferno in many, many ways, but the Buddhists have a lot more paperwork to do.

This isn't one of the scrolls at the Schnitzer (this one is part of the Kagel Collection), but it's fairly representative. Basically people are getting tortured all over the place (tongues cut out for lying; sawed in half for ... I don't know, doing something bad) while the head guy discusses procedure with his many assistants. In most of the scrolls the head man appears to be in mid-sentence, probably going over the TPS reports with some minion, while some hapless mortal gets crushed in a vice.

Great stuff.

Reminded me that art and books are all that really matter. Give me art on a bad day and I'm good to go.

And art with people getting punished hell while paperwork is going on ... mannnnnnnn, what a tonic. Reminds me of when I used to come home after a bad day and watch Gallipoli -- no matter how bad my day was, it wasn't that bad.

FORK IT

I got an F today. It was on an Economics quiz. [shock. horror.]

Part of me is worried big about the exam on Wednesday, and part of me is just done with it. Marginal Cost vs. Marginal Benefit ... what the f..k is my marginal benefit in this? Because it's costing a fortune in time, money and emotional strain. I really hate crying on the bus.

Whatever. 3 more weeks to go. Carry me down.

Veda .... oh Veeeeeeeeeedaaaaa

Veda is a cat./She is a Si-a-mese/She likes to play with toys/She is so ea-sy to please/I think she is just swell/I really like to dwell/On herrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Okay, I can't do it. Doesn't sound a thing like "Venus". Besides, every time I want to sing "Venus" I hear my pop say "You know how we used to sing this song in high school?" (no, dad, no! "Oh peeeeeeeeenis .... oh peeeeeeeeenissssss")

And so this is Veda, the replacement pet. She's settled in, thanks to the double-hangovers last weekend incapacitating myself and the cousin/roommate which left us incapable of doing anything but watch 1970s movies and pet the cat. She likes her purple caterpillar (shown above) and my socks, and is well on the way to being trained as a dog-cat. (She's currently swinging around one of my dirty socks from the laundry. I'm going to train her to walk on a leash one day, you'll see.)

Her other early morning favorite past-time is wrestling down the scratch post. She's pinned it here and has earned a rest.

I'm Becoming My Mother

Which isn't all bad -- if I can start out by saying so. She's good people, mom. She's a sailor's daughter and good fun on a road trip. My little brother has told me before that I sound like mom on the answering machine and, like mom, I've reached the point where I can no longer handle my booze after 3 (in my hey-day I could take down 7 ... then 5 ... now it's 3). But the most telling aspect came after a visit to the doctor this week.

I'm 5'4".

Friends, I used to be 5'5.5".

It doesn't help that I'm also a wee bit heavier than I'm a'pposed to be, but all this time I thought I had some wiggle room because 147 and 5'5" isn't toooooo bad. But at 5'5"? No wonder I've got a belly! So everything squashes down (which is kind of okay since I've always had an absurdly long torso), but then it squashes out around the middle (not okay). Mom does not have that specific problem, although she is definitely shorter now than she was 5-8 years ago. But it's not osteo-blahblah. In fact, doc says I'm way healthy n' junk with 103% on the pulmonary test and effed up good blood, but I'm exhausted by my shhedule and have to go to bed at 8 for a while -- oh yeah, and I have disk compression. Boh. Che faro? Can't be helped, although it's not a bad time to start on the calcium.

kooky hooky

I'm supposed to be writing my film paper (Godard's use of jump cuts), but I can't seem to make it all come together. I'm actually supposed to be at work because, technically, since I'm out of school at 3 I can ride my bike back to work to be there to close the day ... but, man, I can't do it. I was hysterical yesterday just thinking of how far behind I am at school and how I could use this time for school stuff, and here I am blowing it off. But the sun came out today for the first time in weeks and thinking about Godard is really ridiculous. And I just saw that my friend D Wilton commented way back on a post and I didn't even see it, which reminds me that I don't talk to friends anymore or do anything but write papers and study the number of light-years in a parsec and what excites an electron and junk like that, and training two people at the same time and that's hard and dealing with weird morale issues in the office and that's harder and what the hell kind of life is this?

So I'm going to go watch some YouTube.

Or Oprah.

Or drink a Guinness.

Or watch Oprah on YouTube while I drink a Guinness. That's what all of my fellow students do. It's time I tapped into that lifestyle, man. Look! It's 4:20 whoooooooooooooooooo!

Vergeltung

I don't know if it was because it was midterm week, if it's the work at pressure and pressure at work, or what the hell made me do it, but last night I mixed. And then I worried.

Not only did I mix, but the first was gin. As reported here not too long ago, gin was my first drunk and for years, years, years, I couldn't touch the stuff. I couldn't go near it. I had to chew Razzles just at the thought of the taste. I've been working my way back slowly, and started off last night with an innocent enought Richmond gimlet. Well, the lime juice ran out and we were still talking and having a good time, so like a beginner-drunk, I changed to pomegranate vodka martinis. Mother of mercy -- it was the end of Rico.

I haven't felt like this is in ages. I went through two (count-em, two) bags of pretzels and I'm still shaking. I haven't done any homework and my inability to move nearly got me trapped watching "Watership Down" on cable -- thank God the cousin/roommate stepped in and saved me with "Urban Cowboy". Speaking of, I'm shocked SHOCKED that my pal Joey, who is in both my media and my film class, had never heard of "Urban Cowboy". And he calls himself a cinefile ... I mean, sure, he's about 19 or something, but still. I watch movies made before my time all the time. But what a reminder that today's fad is yesterday's forgotten.

Cahhhhhhhhhhh I wish I could forget yesterday, but it keeps coming up again.

nouvelle vague

Found this while trolling for Godard clips on You Tube. Wonderfully sweet.

2008 Testing - Raikkonen sets searing pace

World Champion Kimi Raikkonen continued Ferrari's domination of Forumla One's Bahrain test by setting a searing pace at the Sakhir circuit for the second day in a row.

I really don't think I need to add to that.

Domination, friends. Dom. I. Nation.

Holy smokes! I just realized it's Fat Tuesday and we haven't even stocked up on fish yet. feck.

The Law of Diminishing Marginal Benefit

Just took the first Economics midterm and apparently failed it. You know on "Cash Cab" when they get one wrong and then just continue to get the following questions wrong until they're thrown out on the street? It was like that. I was doing well, I thought, until question 14 and then it all just kept going right downhill. There were 10 questions in one group all related to the same equation and I'm pretty sure I got one right, but the rest were guessed. If the answers didn't match any of the ones listed it's "None of the Above" right?

So for the last 30 minutes I've been replaying the same New Order song over and over like a sullen teenager and trying to scrape it together to study for the next two midterms.

School is a drag.

Speaking of drags, I finished "God's Chinese Son." Everyone dies. Badly. Well, except for God's Chinese son, who dies of illness and escapes the slow death by dismemberment that his generals get. Man, those crazy Taipings. I'm trying to balance out the bummer by reading the comic-novel "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" ... which is making me laugh out loud while sitting in public places. I highly recommend it.

B B See?

God bless the Eugene Public Library.

Not only did they have "Green For Danger" (Criterion as well ... I've got tingles), but they also have the beloved series "Danger UXB" as well as "Reilly: Ace of Spies" which I once watched all 12 episodes of one lost Sunday in San Francisco -- swear, all of a sudden it was 3 in the afternoon and I was still in a bathrobe sitting on my bed. I'd spent the entire morning and afternoon drinking coffee and eating PopTarts because it was on KQED so no commercial breaks to make real food in the kitchen downstairs (barely enough time for the bathroom, but the less said on that the better).

If only they had "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" -- that would be Great! Supah!

Taxes Blow

Do it one way and I'm getting $1100 back. Do it another and I'm paying $46. What the f..? Could it be any more irritating? This is the big reason not to buy a house. I mean, aside from not being able to afford it and stuff. I can't even work this out with a student loan.

The replacement pet, Veda, is settling in pretty well. She knows how to use the cat box and thinks I'm great, so what more is necessary? She's different from Cat in many, many ways, which is good, because I don't want to cry every time I pick her up (ohhhhhhhh Cat used to do that wahhhhhh wahhhhh wahhhhhhhh) because that's girly and weak.

Got 3 midterms this week (having already taken the Astronomy one) and I'm training 2 new people at work. How do I do it? Pringles and Guayaki Yerba Mate, friends, and lots of crying (ohhhhhhhh why are there only 24 hours in a day wahhhhhh wahhhhhh wahhhhhhhh). Already scored an A on my first film paper 'though. phhft Neorealism, what's to know? And go ahead, ax me about Doug Sirk. Go on. Actually at the risk of having this come out wrong, I'd like to thank Hitler, because if it wasn't for the Nazis we wouldn't have Eastman Color or magnetic tape, both of which made Mr. Sirk (also in the US, thanks to the Nazis) king of the 1950's. We also wouldn't have Billy Wilder. Can you imagine a world without Wilder? What if all he made was crazy German-language stuff? Thank you, demonic, evil German empire.