Grand exits

You know how sometimes you want to make one of those making-a-point exits, where you get the last words and walk emphatically out the door and leave? Apparently, I suck at those.

I got the first part right, saying my last words, walking out, shutting the door and getting into my car. Then I turned the car on on, backed up... and promptly hit a mailbox.

So I pulled forward and backed up again, then pulled into the one open space (I was in this little alleyway where you can only exit one side, so I had to turn around and go in the opposite direction). I didn't pull anywhere near straight into the space, and came about an inch away from hitting a pickup truck. So I backed up again, and had to pull forward again to complete my 10-point turn.

I hit the fence.

By the time I was about to pull out, the person I was trying to make the grand exit on was standing in the doorway looking at me, trying (I assume) to figure out what was taking me so long to pull out. Took a grand total of about 10 minutes.

God I'm awesome.

I won't butcher your name if you don't butcher mine

I understand corporate desires to try to personalize their customer service, and use people's names instead of just 'Sir' or 'Ma'am,' even if I disagree with it and would rather they give me my shit and move on.

But I can't understand, no matter how hard I try, why they bother when they're very clearly going to butcher your name. Sure, my last name's a little long, so it's not completely ludicrous that they get intimidated by it when they see it on my credit card. And as sick as I am of being called, "Ms. HAR-bit-kin", "Ms. Har-BOT-kin", etc., I can see -- to an extent -- where these semi-literate people are coming from.

But the woman at Safeway today called me "Ms. Har-bar", and I just don't get it. I looked at her funny and told her she didn't even try. I mean, she didn't even get three syllables in there.

I'd rather be called "Ma'am" or "Miss" or, fuck, even "Dude" than Ms. Harbar.

And I really think these corporate schmucks who make their minimum-wage employees try to read names to should strongly reconsider their policies. That's all. I just think they should reconsider.

For the CHILDREN

The parent of a kid who plays youth football called today and told me we don't have enough photos of kids playing football. That's right. We devote like two pages of every Monday paper to youth football, but it's not enough. He was particularly annoyed that we used a file photo of the game his kid played instead of going out and taking new pictures. It's true. Instead of dropping everything else to take pictures of every youth football game going on, we used an old photo. We're jerks. Horrible people. Deserving of death, if you ask me.

But here's the best part:
This isn't about me, the guy said. This isn't about my own kids. It's about the CHILDREN. For the CHILDREN. Did you know all the CHILDREN wake up Monday morning and the first thing they do is run to the doorstep to get the paper? They run as fast as they can out there and pick up the paper and look at what was written about them that week. Don't you see? It's for the children.

In other words, my kid plays again on Sunday at 2. Put a picture of him in the paper or I'll call and pester you even more.

We write the names of every kid who gets a tackle or an assist, and every last one of them deserves it, right? I LOVE small-town mentality.

Democracy: the freedom to set things on fire

So as I'm sure you know, protests in Argentina turned violent today outside a free trade summit attended by Shrub. Shrub, who was trying to encourage negotiations that had fallen flat, was met by people holding signs saying Fire Bush and launching gasoline bombs into the air.

When asked about this response, U.S. commerce secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez responded that these riots — or acts of free speech, as he likes to call them — are simply proof that Bush's efforts to promote freedom and democracy across the world have been successful.

I just found a quote:
Gutierrez called the riots — er... demonstrations "a great testament to the president's vision of spreading democracies to all countries around the world."

After all, the people of Venezuela had the FREEDOM to set fires, throw rocks and firebombs and run around with steel clubs. It's pretty great.

Can someone explain?

OK getting off the subject of kittens for a minute. The latest Washington Post-ABC polls came out yesterday, and here are some numbers that perhaps indicate the pure ridiculousness of some of the people in this country.
• 32 percent of Americans would rate Bush's handling of ethics in government as 'excellent' or 'good.' This for the man who praised Scooter Libby after he submitted his resignation after BEING INDICTED FOR LYING TO A GRAND JURY AND OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.
• 1 percent of Americans believe "people like you" (meaning people like them) have too much influence in the Bush administration. This number was as high as 5 percent in Sept. 2003. I understand this isn't a huge percentage, but... seriously?
• 40 percent of Americans believe Bush is "honest and trustworthy." Again, not a majority, but FORTY PERCENT. So Bush didn't mislead anyone about WMD, he didn't praise Libby on the heels of an indictment, and he didn't continue to support Rove (who at least 437 "anonymous sources" have told the Washington Post played a role in the CIA leak). Honest and Trustworthy. Of course.
---> I wonder if these are all part of the 44 percent who believe "the Bush administration told the American public what it believed to be true."
• 30 percent of Americans believe "things in this country are generally going in the right direction." Forget 2,000 soldiers dying, forget the CIA leak, forget the DeLay indictment, the Frist case, the closed-door session of Congress. Things are going GREAT.
• 26 percent of Americans approve of "the situation with gasoline prices." I don't know what else to say about this.
• 31 percent of Americans believe Fitzgerald's entire case is based on political motivations.

Again, I understand these numbers don't reflect the majority, but... I just don't understand.

Fiver's new home

Well Fiver's finally moved on — he spent the night in his new home for the first time yesterday. The lady sent me a picture, so I'm posting it here.

He seems happy, I think. The lady says he's purring a lot, so that's a good sign. OK pump me up people - tell me how cute he is.

We know news

I forgot to write this on Wednesday. So you know how every other paper in the country had the 2,000-soldiers-having-died-in-Iraq story on their front page on Wednesday?

Yeah. We had a picture of 'Butchie,' a dog dressed up in a jester costume.

Fiver

A woman e-mailed and wants to adopt Fiver. She seems like a cat lady and all, but I object to the fact that she seems to think she's changing his name to Jimmy. His name is Fiver. Jimmy is a dumb name. I guess it's good he finally found someone to adopt him... I just wanted it to be someone I know so I could go visit.

Poo-pourri

So Fiver's taken a liking to taking pieces of potpourri from the bathroom and chasing them around the apartment. I was just cleaning out the litter box, and it turns out he does more than just chase the potpourri around the house.

Unfortunately, potpourri doesn't smell so rosy once it's come out the back end of a cat.

Parade of the stupids

The homecoming parade for one of the local high school just went by our office window, at which point everyone in the entire office seemed to think it was necessary to stand up and watch from the window. To be one of the cheerleaders riding around in the bed of a pickup truck yelling, "T-T-T-R-A! A-A-A-C-Y! T-R-A! A-C-Y! TRACY TRACY TRACY HIGH!" you have to have an IQ below 50. How low is the IQ of the people watching from a second story window?

Kitty update

So to all those who don't know about my foster kitties, I fostered seven kittens plus a momma-cat a few months ago and almost all of them have been adopted. One gray kitten (Sidelines) plus momma-cat (Gibbs) just moved from the shelter to Animal Rescue which means they're pretty much adopted. So the only one left is Fiver, a little black kitten who was emaciated and almost-dead and keeping me up nights for the first month or so. Now he looks like a real kitten instead of a sickly bat, but for some reason no one's adopted him yet.

In any case... I got to take Fiver back for the month of October since the shelter doesn't adopt out black cats in October ('cause people are bad). A.M. was very unhappy about this temporary houseguest and was hissing at him and making weird dying-pig noises constantly. But the good news is as follows: Today as I was leaving the apartment A.M. and Fiver were sitting next to each other (albeit facing opposite directions) with their butts touching and A.M. wasn't hissing or anything. I don't think they're friends yet but I think at least A.M.'s gotten past the point where she's bitchslapping Fiver.

Yay!

Scavenger hunt

Today I spent more than half an hour looking for my car in the wrong parking lot. The whole time, I had a creepy old guy following me because he wanted my parking space. He said I should just get in his car and we could look for my car together.

To all who say I look 12:

I tried to get a "youth" ticket at the San Francisco Zoo, which is for kids ages 11 to 17. Given that I'm often told I look 12, I figured 17 would be no problem. But the girl looked at me and asked, "How old are you?"
"17," I said.
"What's your birthday?" she asked.
"September 15, 19-eighty... fuck."
She made me pay the extra two dollars. Jerk.

Death

Today I went to pick up a letter at the post office, the woman asked for my ID, and then proceeded to scrutinize it the way very bored bouncers at bars do. She looked at the ID, looked at me, then back at the ID, back at me.

"How old are you?" she asked suspiciously.

"23," I said.

She then continued to scrutinize the ID and my face for another minute.

"You don't LOOK 23."

"OK," I said.

Then she laughed at me, because it was apparently very funny that I don't look 23, and she walked to the back room to get my letter.

15 minutes later, I asked the woman at the next counter if she could please check where the the woman who had been helping me 15 minutes ago had gone. She didn't see her in the back room, so she paged her on the intercom system.

A minute after that, the original woman came out and said the person who had the key to the registered mail had gone on break, and did I want to wait until she came back? Apparently, you-don't-look-23-lady was chillin' in the back room with her thumb up her ass for 15 minutes, while I was standing at the counter and the line had built to the door.

Seriously. Death.

Vagina

Yesterday I was running and a group of 14-year-old boys yelled "VAGINA!" at me repeatedly. I just turned 23 today. When will this stop?

Who says I have no life?

OK I was bored and got this idea from ex-roommate Ben.

Directions: Type "(your name) is" into google. Post your ten favorite responses.
(This is not an order of preference.., but progression)

Here's mine:
ericaiscool.com
This erica is confined to certain limited areas of the Riversdale and Albertinia
After Erica is found devouring a cat, Hayes gives her a transfusion and it's now
his belief that Yorga is an Old World vampire residing in California
Erica is an adorable twenty inch, Collector Doll
Erica is being romanced by Harry's doctor.
Erica is now known in Zimbabwe as a gwenyambira
Erica is an adorable eight year old girl with a spunky personality.
erica is the new Fish Kill champion!
Erica is not at all ashamed to be from Kentucky

Here's his:
ben is an insert within the notiziario dell'istituto superiore di sanità
Ben is what my grandmother used to call an old soul.
I am not the holy man; Ben is.
THE BEN IS MIGHTIER
Ben is in the world, but not of it.
Ben is determined to uncover the reason for the distance between himself...
Ben is someone whom I feel has been sent here to inspire
Ben is the best I've had -- hands down.
Ben is your ideal man.
Ben is also seven years old, and severely autistic.

Now wasn't that a fun time?

Language fun

I found a fun game. Go to the following Web site: http://www.freetranslation.com/
And play.

Here's my fun (it's in Norwegian):
Folk som finner ikke deres bukser ofte eter småkaker. Dette er fordi om de eter mange småkaker og blir fet, de enda ikke fallerer åpent setet av deres bukser (fordi de ikke har noen bukser). Selv om sjokoladebrun flissmåkaker er alle yndlings#, er snickerdoodles uforanderlig den beste småkaken i universet. Jeg er en trofast tilhenger av snickerdoodle, virkelig.

What will you do?

What am I??

I found this in a drawer at work and no one knows what it is. I've received the following guesses from various coworkers and ruled them all out: 1. seam ripper; 2. tweezers; 3. staple remover; 4. poker; 5. dentist's tool. Someone give me a guess that makes sense. I hate when I can't google something and figure it out. Note: The pen is next to it for size perspective.

Riddle of the day

Here is your riddle:
How do you get a girl to go out with you after she's already said no and claimed to be a lesbian?
What a guy last night thought was the answer:
Steal her cell phone.

I LOVE people.

Chitty chitty bang bang WHISTLE

I was in New York this weekend, and Obesity Girl and I met up Saturday night in our spot, which is in front of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang theater in Times Square. Well, we were screeching and flailing our arms about in traditional Obesity Girl fashion, when all of a sudden we heard a whistle.

Both scared it was a cop and we were about to be arrested for public drunkeness or the like — which, incidentally would have been very impressive given that we were both 100 percent sober — we halted our antics and turned toward the sound of the whistle. Finally, looking down, I saw an old, old man, leaning crooked over a cane and wearing an oversized bright orange T-shirt. He was blowing a little plastic whistle at us.

When he got our attention, I was silent, dumbfounded, and Obesity Girl was laughing hysterically (I soon followed). Then, in a voice that sounded like drunken rambling (although I don't think he was drunk), he screamed "WHAT'S WRONNNNGGGG?" Shaking his finger at us, he continued, "WHAT ARE YOU DOOOOOOING?"

At this point I was keeled over in hysterical laughter and he was not pleased. He trudged away with his plastic whistle still hanging from his neck, muttering incoherently as he limped along.