Pugs not drugs

The “johari window” mostly has complimentary or at least non-pejorative adjectives in it. This is good because people are more likely to be honest if they don’t have to avoid bad adjectives (capricious, drunk, totaly retarted) and partly because it’s less likely to cause fist fights.

Unsurprisingly the person with the least complimentary set of adjectives chose a pseudonym.

At the Ralphs tonight someone had brought an entire binder of coupons. It went on and on and on. There was only one checker. Coupons Galore was a large round young woman with a blonde ponytail, accompanied by a short round young woman and a large goofy guy with hair all over the place. They looked like they were on their way to an Insane Clown Posse show or just to get arrested. But she was a coupon nut. The poor checker was starting to lose his cool, and the line was stacking up. The guy behind me cracked “Coupons are illegal after midnight”. It went on and on. A few minutes later the dark-haired woman shot me an angry look and mumbled at me. “Eh?” I said. “It’s just COUPONS. What’s funny?” I said “I have no problem with coupons.” “Well what’s so FUNNY?” The guy behind me said “Coupons are funny.” She made him repeat it twice and then said “WELL WE COME IN HERE AFTER MIDNIGHT BECAUSE WE FIGURE NO ONE’S HERE.” She was looking at me for some reason, and I recalled now that she was glaring at me in the aisles earlier too. And now she was getting all street, yo, and throwing some Angry Mexican Girl vibe. “If you don’t give me any attitude I won’t give you any, how’s that?” I asked cheerfully.

Then another checker arrived and we all went to him. The end.

In the horrible mall down by where Bave and Dethya live, the one that looks like the Sherman Oaks Gallery turned into a half-solved Lament Configuration, there is an “italian” restaurant called, no joke, VER-SA-CHEE.

I love sitting at the bar at D’s chatting with Michelle. She’s so great.

Buying a house? Watch out for paradigms

torgo_x forwarded the most clear and forceful explanation of how really bad mortgage ideas work, and why the current situation can’t end well. Math is hard, and optimism is easy. I’d guess a lot of the people who do this think of themselves as risk-takers who are going to win. I wish them all luck tripling their incomes in the next five years.

I wonder what the impact of a really bad housing crash would have in Orange County. Not only is real estate development a big local industry, but that whole slimy subprime mortgage business is mostly here too. So much so that we refer to big-spending young guys who party hard as “mortgage bro’s”.

If there’s no more money for the next swathe of terra cotta boxes in Temecula, and no more spiffs for selling predatory refi’s to hicks, and no more interest-only ARM crazy home loans to sell, that’s a big chunk of the local wealth just flat fucking gone. It could be as bad as the Great Defense Slump of the 1970s, which was a carnival of suicidal dads, boarded up ranch-style homes, and 40 year old draftsmen lining up for government aid and retraining programs. Oh by the way, those are gone now because we didn’t need them in the New Economy. Whoo boy.

more ether, george

I awoke in a black depression this morning, only to be jollied into a fit of giggling by the Aardvark’s Curious George Culture Wars post.

The other day we had discussed the difference between “cripes” and “yeesh”, both of which she uses as tags for posts on del.icio.us. It was my opinion that “cripes” could be used for any type of fucked-up situation, but that “yeesh” indicated not only that things were really jacked, but that someone was being a total lamer.

This is why the government needs to track us on the Internet, because the difference between a cripes and a yeesh is just the kind of subtle code that our biowarfare sleeper cell the terrorists use to signal their cohorts.

Area City Totally Like Manhattan Now

A reliable source has revealed to me the following facts about the Costa Mesa City Planning Commission:

  1. The area around the Lab and Camp nouveau malls is now known as SOBECA for the “South on Bristol Entertainment, Culture, and Arts” district. I’m sorry if you just spewed your coffee. I’ll wait a sec here while you mop up. Okay, ready? The website for this conceit is http://www.sobeca.net/ and you’re welcome!
  2. West 19th Street, home to numerous carnicerias, a lawnmower repair shop, a Smart & Final, one two rock ‘n’ roll bars, and a few good restaurants is now to be known as the “19 West District”. I think this weekend I’ll stop by Alejandro’s drive through and hand out corsages and/or cummerbunds to the customers that say “19 West” on them in Swarowski Crystal.

limehouse by the sea

The line of fog and sun today was right at Newport and Hospital Road. At 4 pm I drove into it at 40 mph and immediately the temperature dropped ten degrees and I was visiting a socked-in fishing village to get my neuroelectrics adjusted.

Two hours later, I’m in my car in the D’s parking lot and this time the fog is inside my head, too.

The cake said “eat me” and the bottle said “drink me”. Everything’s been different since I did.