Say what?

I heart Southwest very much. If one could marry an airline, I may have considered it. They are speedy, helpful, reasonably priced, efficient, pleasant, and so on and so on. During my year of Long Distance Dating, Southwest and I got to know each other very well. We are good friends.

But even good friends can sometimes say to each other, Um, say what?

A dear friend is coming to visit soon and happily, she is flying Southwest. Yay! But when I looked through her itinerary, I saw the following:

Base fare: $x.xx
Excise taxes: $10.32
Segment fee: $7.40
Passenger facility charge: $9.00
Security fee: $5.00

What in the world is a passenger facility charge? No one picks you up and carries you over a threshold or gives you a piggy back ride. This is quite silly. If as passengers we have no option but to pay these strange fees, I say, put it all under the "Ticket cost." I won't be any wiser, but I won't feel like I'm getting taken for a $32 ride! Bleh.

iMac FAIL

Today is a pissy day. I come in to work this morning bright-eyed and bushy tailed, to find my giant, shiny iMac dead. Dead? DEAD! This piece of #### is only a year old, I don't go to shady websites or play videgames on it or download anything more risque than images of wedding centerpieces, so what the heck, yo? After much investigative reporting, it was decided that the hard drive has bit the dust. Thank goodness we do a nightly back up (umm which doesn't explain why there is no back up for FRIDAY but fine, in the scheme of things, one day's loss is not the end of the world). I can't even imagine this being my personal computer and losing the hard drive. I think I would literally cry for days. Which really makes me want to run to Costco right now and buy their ridiculously cheap terabyte external hard drives.

What makes me really mad is not just that my computer died, or that it's a nearly brand new machine, or that it costs almost $2000. What makes me mad is that a company like Apple, which prides itself so much on this image of the goody two-shoes, "I'm so much shinier/smarter/better/cooler/hipper/awesomer than thou," is starting to put out piece of $#@& products. My iPhone is basically hanging on for dear life even though it's not even 2 years old, and I barely even use it for anything fancier than texting and a couple of apps. When the iPhone 4 came out, and people couldn't get service when they, excuse me, say what, held the phone in their hand, I thought that was pretty ridiculous. I remember reading something somewhere last week, in which Apple said they are "going back to the Mac." Well, they better! I mean, they've put out some amazing, incredible products the last few years, but can we now get back to making some decent desktops for people who actually use computers for working?

Also, what is UP with iMacs not having any usb ports? I have to plug in my flash drive into my keyboard -- which sounds snazzy, but Mac keyboards are barely thicker than a postcard, so any average flashdrive inserted into it makes the keyboard push up, which makes it wobbly any time you type on it. The MacBook I'm currently typing on has two USB ports, both on the left side, so I can't hook up my old school mouse because I am right handed, and the Mac mouse is shockingly attached to a cord that is all but 18 inches long, meaning I can't plug it in to the USB port on the left AND have the cord reach all the way around to the right. This is all probably meant to make me get a Magic Mouse, but I know better -- because my boss has one, and its battery dies ALL THE TIME. Okay, yes, I am being way harsh on a company that is usually near the top of my "Love" list, but seriously, when you spend SO much time on design, can we please spend a tiny bit of effort on actual, every day usage capabilities?

Okay, end rant.

Word of the day: Ridiculous

ridiculous [ri-dik-yuh-luhs]
adjective
causing or worthy of ridicule or derision; absurd; preposterous; laughable.
ORIGIN 16th century

Photo credit: Jim Wilson/NYT, appeared on front page of NYT July 12, 2009.

This poor baby looks like it's being exorcised... Why would anyone want this woman touching her infant, let alone writing on her with a probably toxic Sharpie?!?!

RIDICULOUS!

Sherlock in Love

Sherlock in Love: A Novel by Sena Jeter Naslund

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
I had heard great things about Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife, and when I went to check it out from the library, I noticed a much shorter book by her, Sherlock in Love. Now, I usually delight in pastiches, even in parodies, of famous books (Shamela, anyone?) so I thought, if AW is supposed to be good, SIL should be good too! Wrong!



This books is truly terrible! Sandwiched between a somewhat intriguing beginning and a flaccid, unfulfilling end, is a ridiculous plot peppered with even more ridiculous characters.



The novel's premise is as follows: two years after Sherlock Holmes' death, the loyal (and in this book, kind of creepy and pathetic) Dr. Watson decides to write a biography of the great Holmes. Immediately, Watson begins receiving threats and his house is broken into. Somebody clearly wants Sherlock Holmes' biography to be scrapped. But why?



This is the question that drives Dr. Watson's tale. He becomes a detective in his own right - kind of. He delves into his own notebooks from decades before to find out just who - and why - might want to stop this book from being written. In his journals, he re-discovers a cast of characters so absurd doing things so stupid that I seriously contemplated setting the book down and returning to my Octavia Butler books about aliens.



Sherlock in Love could have been a success. There are the makings of a far more interesting and successful novel here - cross-dressing musical geniuses, schizophrenic European royals, cocaine habits... but nothing is cohesive, no character is endearing, and by the end of the book I didn't care who lived, who died, who was who, and why they did the senseless things they did.



To bring this to a close, I was sorely disappointed. I will still read Ahab's Wife, if only out of my love for the original Melville novel, but I strongly recommend staying far away from Sherlock in Love.


View all my reviews.

note: I have no idea why there is so much space between parags, and I can't seem to change it. I am a code loser...

Word of the day: Obnoxious

obnoxious |əbˈnäk sh əs|
adjective
extremely unpleasant.
ORIGIN late 16th cent. (in the sense [vulnerable [to harm]] ): from Latin obnoxiosus, from obnoxius ‘exposed to harm,’ from ob- ‘toward’ + noxa ‘harm.’ The current sense, influenced by noxious , dates from the late 17th cent.

Things I believe could accurately be described as obnoxious:

People who back into parking spots. Why do they do this? This is extremely obnoxious! An ex-boyfriend used to do this and it drove me nuts. I asked him for a reason once, and his response was, "it makes it easier to drive away." Easier than what? I do not understand. You can drive into your parking spot and back out of it when you leave (total time this takes, an approximate 2.10223 seconds), or you can look like a jackass backing into a parking spot, which I know takes more than 2.10223 seconds, and then look like a smug jackass when you drive away. If as you read this you realize you are guilty of this obnoxious behavior, please stop. You are obnoxious.

The luxury SUV L.A. population. These people are ridiculous. On the way out of L.A. last week, we played a fun game called, "count the big cars." It's a simple game, really -- you count how many big cars (SUVs, vans, pickup trucks) you see in a row before a small car (like a sedan, though we allowed Scions to be in this category) interrupts the flow. I think one time I got to 11. Then, a little car would come, followed by 7 or 8 big cars. But these aren't just big cars. They aren't just pick-up trucks; they are obnoxious big cars and pick-up trucks. They are Escalades, Explorers, Yukons, dual-cabin-extra-long-bed-wide-as-a-motherfucker cars. With 85-lb blonde, fake-tanned women driving them to pick up their chihuahuas from the beauty salon. This is obnoxious. Within 20 minutes (TWENTY!) I counted eight (EIGHT!!!!) Hummers.
*This is the appropriate time to include a subcategory of obnoxious people:
People who drive Hummers.
You are obnoxious. Please stop. You live in California, not a military base. You are going to the Lakers game, not a secret operation in the desert. You drink soy lattes with light foam, wear 200 dollar torn jeans, and the closest you've come to combat is playing video games. You probably spend half your paycheck on gas. You are obnoxious. Please stop being a jackass.
I regress. Back to the big cars. When we got back up to Palo Alto, I realized there are many big cars here too - but in the week that we've been back, I have not seen one (ONE!) Yukon, Escalade, Navigator, or Hummer (this is not to say they never appear). The point is, I have seen more Priuses driving on the way to work today (2.5 miles) than I have obnoxious luxury SUVs in a month. L.A. drivers who ride in luxury SUVs but never go offroading, or even out of L.A. -- you are obnoxious. (Here is a fun wrap-up of other obnoxious L.A. driving behavior.)

The medical industry. The medical industry as a whole is obnoxious. Kaiser Permanente is my insurance provider, so I can really just focus on them. The referral system is obnoxious; the fact that their website says "refill your prescription online," lets me enter all my information, confirms that my prescription is arriving in the mail, then FOUR DAYS LATER emails me saying, "your prescription cannot be refilled, and please don't reply to this email as the pharmacy will not read your message," and then directs me to the same page where I originally filled in my information -- this is all obnoxious. Also obnoxious -> trying to call KP and waiting on hold for 25 minutes until I get fed up and hang up, only to have to do this later. Kaiser is obnoxious.

Twenty year old college students who wear Ralph Lauren collared sweaters with dress shirts underneath. You are obnoxious. You are twenty, you binge drink, and you room with four other guys. You are not yet a businessman, a lawyer, or a senator. Act your age. Extra obnoxious points - when said collared RL sweaters are worn with sandals. Completely mind boggling. You are obnoxious, please stop.
(A note on the image: this is not exactly what I'm talking about, but the fact that this is how RL markets their clothes makes wearing them that much extra obnoxious.)

Old people who think that because they are old, they can be obnoxious. I will cite an example: On Tuesday last I was preparing for an event at work that was starting in, oh, about 20 minutes. I check on the room and find out 137 chairs have been set out, and I was only expecting a few over 50 people to show up. So, I scurry and try to take out as many of the extra chairs as possible - nothing worse than too many empty chairs!! -- and just then, an old man comes and sits down in a chair that was CLEARLY meant to be taken away (seeing as how every other chair in that column had already been cleared). I let him know, as nicely as I can, that I mean to clear all the chairs in that row. To which he responds, "Hmf! I think they call those columns." So obnoxious! If you are old, please do not be obnoxious just because you think being old gives you the right to do so. Being old gives you the right to fall asleep during boring talks, walk slowly when you cross the street, and tell the same story over and over again. It does not give you the right to be obnoxious.

This concludes my examples of how to use the word of the day: obnoxious.

I am not nice enough to work at Trader Joe's

It might be because I am getting older; or because I am getting bored of eating the same thing all the time; maybe it's because dining out is just too damn expensive, and again, becomes boring after a while. Whatever the case, I've recently decided that I want to be an amateur foodie, that fustian (GRE word!) label adopted by high-falutin' yuppies who occasionally cook and tell everyone they do so.

For this purpose, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are definitely my friends - a couple of weeks ago, I managed to make a surprisingly successful Indian-inspired lamb dish, complete with naan and curry rice (don't get too excited, it was just rice-maker rice with curry powder in it; but it was good!). Whole Foods has really good, cheap, Indian sauces, and you just cook up the lamb with the sauce for a super easy but delicious dish. I'd bought some fresh pesto from Whole Foods, and spread that on olive oil-sprinkled naan, topped with a bit of grated cheese, and stuck in the oven for ten minutes - easy, quick, and so so good!

Then, there was the ham tacos adventure, again surprisingly successful! Basically, just sautee the ham a bit with some fresh salsa, chopped onions, and spices, and fill tacos with said ham, top with fresh guacamole (I cheated and bought Whole Foods guac, instead of making my own, and it was delicious), and you have a quick, easy, and nutritious meal.

It helps that I have a good partner in eating. A few weeks ago, M made the best chicken-tortilla soup I've ever had! It sounds like it took a while to make, but the results were definitely delicious.

Last week, I took on the baking challenge. I don't think I've ever actually baked anything from scratch before, so when we decided to make cookies for Valentine's Day, I was a bit skeptical. But, our chocolate chip, dark chocolate M&Ms, and sprinkles cookies came out mmmm mmmm good! Perfect for the rainy long weekend.

Today, I'm attempting to make a polenta pizza dish I found in the New York Times. Seriously, it doesn't get yuppier than getting recipes from the NYT, but I have a feeling it will be delicious. I made the polenta this morning, and it's chilling in the fridge while I avoid doing homework at the library (more on that later). When I get home, I'll cook up some spinach with pancetta, cover the polenta with feta cheese (substituted for Gorgonzola, which the recipe called for), tomato sauce, and some fresh basil, and bake it all up.

Okay, now to the point of this whole post - with my renewed interest in cooking has come a renewed relationship with Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. I was at TJ's last night, buying up the spinach, pancetta, feta, etc. for tonight's dinner, and realized how friendly the Trader Joe's staff is. And not fake friendly, but genuinely nice, enthusiastic, and really chatty. I remember thinking this when I first moved to Palo Alto and started going to the local TJs a lot during the summer. But it's been a few months, and I was completely zoned out last night, so when the cashier started up a conversation while bagging my groceries, I was slightly surprised. "Why is this person talking to me?" I asked myself. That's when I realized, I am really not nice enough to work at Trader Joe's. I don't care what people have planned for their weekend. I couldn't care less about what people are planning to make with the things they buy from the grocery store. I truly don't want to make small talk with people I will probably never see again. I want to stay in my bubble, and have that bubble bump up against other people's bubbles without those bubbles actually merging into a conversation arena. For the majority of the time, I want to be left alone until I choose to make small talk with a very select number of people (apparently, aside from being anti-social, I'm also rather arrogant. Note to self - Food for thought?)

Here is evidence to back up my discovery about my lack of niceness. I got to the Mountain View Public Library, set up my computer, was syncing my iPhone with I-Tunes, and realized that there were - gasp - children running rampant among the shelves. (This seems to be a recurring problem). I could not see them - there were two! - but I could hear them. I could hear them giggle and whimper and make strange, alien, sounds that only small children can make. Did I think, how cute? No, I thought "Shut up, you little rug-rats!" Now, if I were as nice as the young man in Trader Joe's last night, I would have probably thought nicer thoughts, and even if I was annoyed to the point of doing something about it, I'd have done it in a nice, pleasant manner. Not I. Two more minutes and I would have walked over, looked at the mother with squinted eyes, and said something like, "Ma'am, this is a library. Please keep your snotty children quiet! I can't concentrate with all this noise!!" (Okay I wouldn't have said "snotty" but I like to dream).

The snot-nosed ones have since gone downstairs, I think. Little matter, because now I have my headphones on and Joni Mitchell is singing to me, so I couldn't hear them anyway. But the point is - I am not a nice person. I daydream about yelling at strangers' children, and wish cashiers would just leave me alone. I could never cut it in the country song mythical small town where everyone knows each other. That's a nightmare scenario for me, living somewhere where one can't ever be anonymous.

Now that I have that out of the way, I should really get down to studying. I had signed up for this writing class through Stanford's Continuing Studies program, and I haven't done my homework in five weeks! This is why, on a Saturday, I am holed up in the library. So, back to work!

Dumb comment of the week

On Sunday, M and I went exploring (aka got away from the downstairs' neighbor's loud-ass TV) and discovered a new mall close to our apartment. This mall has a Macy's, and this Macy's employs the winner of this week's "Dumb comment" award. Envision:
(me): "Ooh, look at this cute, long, flowy jersey skirt! This looks sooo comfortable! But, it's so flowy, and long -- what kind of shirt would this go with so it doesn't look sloppy?! Hey, there's a dependable-looking sales associate! I will ask her what she recommends."
[I approach said sales associate]
(me): "Excuse me, but what kind of shirt do you think would go well with this skirt?"
[The lady looks at me bewildered. Pauses, speaks]
(she): "We also have this in pants."

WE HAVE A WINNER for DUMBEST COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

Tuesday is Rant Day

A strange and frightening species has invaded my hallowed place of serenity (i.e., the Mountain View Library). Squeals, screams, and whimpers are being heard throughout this place of quietude and reflection. BABIES have somehow appeared in the midst! They are everywhere! I walked across the second floor to use the restroom and I encountered THREE (3!!!!!) babies just on the way there and back. These aren't even toddlers. These are those lumpy, squishy, drooly, kitten-eyed blobs who can't keep their own heads up. Tiny, barely out of the womb babies! What in the name of Melville are people doing with BABIES at a public library? They can't read. They can't even speak. They make random and rude noises, and most importantly, they violate the silence that I and the rest of the studious or otherwise Solitaire-playing people who have come to the MVL for some peace and quiet, seek! I know it's difficult to raise babies and have time for one's own interests, but for James' sake, hire a babysitter or give the kid some Benadryl and leave it alone for 15 minutes while you sneak off to the library for whatever you need. Or better yet, sign on to your laptop at home and trust me you will find whatever it is you need on that incredible invetion, the internet! That way, your screaming BABY will bother no one but yourself and your unfortunate neighbors. Why must people bring their babies EVERYWHERE? The library, the mall, restaurants, even PFF meetings at CGU! Ugh. If I have a baby I hope I don't turn into one of these drones who think because they have to love their spawn, so must everyone around them. It's bad enough when people drag their forsaken tiny dogs in purses and sweaters everywhere, but at least the dogs don't scream bloody murder in the middle of a LIBRARY. Ok, now that the rant is over, I must try to re-focus on the task at hand, which currently is reading up on current public policy issues that the FSI Institute is participating in. Oodles of joy!! (And yes, I am using a picture of Dubya with a baby because he makes me want to scream like the baby he's trying not to drop).

Display of Public Dumbness

I know that certain jobs require employees to spit out little scripts when serving customers. This is acceptable when it's along the lines of, "welcome to ___, may I ____?", or "Thank you for calling ___, this is ___, how can I help you?" I even understand that the bane of modern phone conversations, telemarketers, have little shpiels that they have to go through when you pick up the phone.
What I don't understand, however, is how people can go through their scripts when clearly, CLEARLY, the script does not apply. Example:

I stand in line at the Post Office. I am called to the next available clerk. She asks, "How can I help you?" I say, "I want to send this [presenting a package] regular, media mail. It's a book." She takes the package, places it on the scale. Looks at me and asks, "Anything fragile in here?" I think, perhaps she did not hear me, so I respond casually, "No, nothing fragile. It is a book." She retorts with, "Anything perishable?" At this point I start to be confused, and think I am speaking in Pekinese or something. I repeat, a bit stronger, "No. It is a book," emphasis and all. "Anything liquid?" Good God Almighty!! However, I try to keep in mind that she needs to ask these questions when a person presents a package, but I have stated, clearly, and repeatedly, that I am sending A BOOK!!! So - no need, really, for redundant and idiotic questions.

Moving on to the next challenging step of Postal Interaction -- the kind of service!! "Do you want to send it First Class? It can be there tomorrow," says the clerk. "No, I want to send it regular media mail." "Priority is $6.75," she says. I return, "No, thank you [teeth are clenched by now], that's okay." Her selective hearing took this to mean "okay," so she says, "Total is $6.75." I stare at her. If I was at Hogwarts, she may possibly have turned into a ferret. "No, not Priority, regular media mail." "Oh, $2.58," she says. I pull out my money -- exact change, and hand it to her. "Would you like insurance?" "No, no insurance." "Proof of receipt?" "No, nothing else. Thank you, that will be all." "Any stamps today?" [UGGH!! SHUT UP WOMAN!] "No, nothing else for today, thank you" [my imaginary inner child kicks her in the shins]. You would think that would be all, BUT NO! "Do you need any packing supplies?" Okay, now she's just f*-ing with me, I'm sure, because it's getting ridiculous. I can't help it, but I laugh. "No, nothing else, this will be all, thank you." I take the receipt and leave, confused and annoyed at the experience.

Why? Because the postal clerks don't give customers enough credit. It's as if they think, "these morons walked in here like zombies off a street. Of course they don't know what they need, so we will run through our entire list of options for them." COME ON! When I walk into a Post Office, I know what I need. I know if I need stamps. I know how I want to send my mail. I even know if I want a confirmation. I do appreciate their effort, but sometimes, when the customer clearly knows what she or he needs, there is no need - NONE! - to go through the various prices, the various options, etc. Now, if I were to come in and ask, "What are my options for sending this BOOK [thus, no liquids, perishables, or fragile materials] to NJ?" the clerk could then go to town with the different options.

Okay, that's my rant of the day :) Now on to being productive!!

People Give Me a Headache

My job sometimes gives me a headache. Not because I don't love it; I do. I like helping people realize they are better writers than they think they are, and I LOVE hearing that I helped them get a better grade than they thought they would. However, there are some days... Some of "those" days... when the people who come in make me want to bang my head against the wall.
Today I read papers that:
*advocated global warming;
*used as part of its argument the "fact" that viruses are not infectious in warmer temperatures (the woman did not know what "malaria" was);
*** this is from the CDC website entry on malaria: "Warmer ambient temperatures shorten the duration of the extrinsic cycle, thus increasing the chances of transmission. Conversely, below a minimum ambient temperature (15°C or 59°F for Plasmodium vivax, 20°C or 68°F for P. falciparum), the extrinsic cycle cannot be completed and malaria cannot be transmitted. This explains in part why malaria transmission is greater in warmer areas of the globe (tropical and semitropical areas and lower altitudes)"
*argued that gays and lesbians who have sex before marriage are part of the reason why marriage values have gone down in recent years (ignoring the fact that gays and lesbians, as of now, can't get married- so sex before marriage is a kind of obscure idea);
*called pre-marital sexual relations "living in sin;"
*described the process of dress-making without once using the word "thread" because the woman writing the paper does now own a dictionary;
*described the different kinds of pores on a sea sponge;
*and my favorite of all, claimed women will benefit from marriage counseling because they are households and have no jobs or education -- no, that is not a typo; women are "households" and apparently all women in 2008 in California are without education and job skills.
*Oh, I forgot another great one -- the fact that a man who pays child support has more responsibility than a live-in father who actually raises the child.

The willful ignorance some people hold on to is just incredible. I mean, statements like "viruses aren't infectious in higher temperatures" without even bothering to wonder if this is true at all is disgusting. The only evidence she had for this was that she gets sicker in winter than in the summer. So really, the only "viruses" she was talking about were the flu or colds, ignoring viruses that affect millions of people who suffer from stale water that is worse and worse as temperatures rise. The virus comment was then followed by "higher temperatures will help people save money because they won't spend money on heat in the summer" - what about A/C you say? Covered -- she doesn't have air conditioning, so it won't affect HER. Marcello made a good point -- as long as things don't affect people DIRECTLY, they don't give a fuck.

Again, the willfulness to ignore other people's needs or concerns is so frustrating. I have to say, that this job has definitely opened my eyes to how many people lead their lives - either with their head in the sand, or with their eyes looking only in the mirror of their own immediate lives instead of sneaking a peak at the world around them.

This is one reason I really look forward to the move up north. I want to be around people who care at least a little bit about what happens in the world, and who think about the words they use, and their significance and impact. I understand that for many people, life is hard, much harder than it is for me, with the many advantages I have. I know that people work hard and long hours, have children to raise, homework to complete since they are also in college, and who knows what craziness is going on in their private life. But in this day and age, and especially living in California, there is no excuse for closed mindedness! (Is that closed minded of me to say that?!?!)

Oh this is giving me another headache. I think I prefer Henry James to essays lauding global warming!


OH OH I FORGOT THE BEST ONE!!!!
(Paper): "Children of divorce experience fatal and non-fatal injuries."
(Me): "I don't understand. What do you mean by this? This doesn't make sense."
(She): blank stare
(Me): "What injuries do children receive as a result of their parents' divorce?"
(She): "They have emotional pain."
(Me): "But 'fatal' means they die!"
(She): "Oh. I didn't know that. I mean that they have a hard time emotionally."
(Me): (and to myself): "Where's a wall? Must bang head against it. NOW!"