Remember when I used to blog on this blog?

I've been killing time reading some of my posts from 5+ years ago.

Here are some things that stick out to me.

1. Man, when I was single, I was single. (Not in the "freewheeling ladies' man" sense, either.)

2. I used to drink STARBUCKS?

3. It was easier to blog a lot when I wasn't trying to do any other writing. Now that I am, my creative energy gets used up by more productive endeavors. (Also, Twitter.)

4. I mean, who even blogs anymore when they can tweet?

5. And how long will it be before Twitter is replaced by a 1-character nanoblogging system? ("Did you see which vowel Sarah Silverman just posted? I can't believe she went there!")

6. No, seriously, I used to drink STARBUCKS?

7. I have moved cubicles three times since starting this blog.

8. I have abandoned facial hair since starting this blog.

9. Number of posts in the year before I got a girlfriend: 126. Total number of posts since then: 10.

10. STARBUCKS???

We won!

Hello, adoring millions. I don't know how you've managed to maintain any semblance of meaning in your wretched lives during my extended absence from the blogosphere (do they still say "blogosphere"? Is there a newer term, like "blogopolis" or "webule" or "Heidi Montag"?), but I thought it would be nice if I dropped in to throw you all a few bread crumbs. Because I am just the greatest that way.

Anyway. We convene today to discuss the still-not-going-away phenomenon of people talking about their favorite sports teams in the first person. You know... "We were down 14-13, but then we nailed that field goal with ten seconds on the clock," -- that sort of thing.

It would be foolish of me to assume that I could in any way curb this ridiculous practice; it's been going on too long and people are far too wedded to it. I guess at some point in the history of spectator sports, a bunch of top minds got together and decided that watching a game and caring about its outcome automatically made a person an integral team member, with all attendant bragging rights immediately conferred on him or her. Maybe this meeting took place on the same day as that big League of Nations conference thingy and was thus overshadowed and left out of the history books.

But I digress. The point is, sports fans everywhere are going to continue to do this no matter what. And I'm fine with that. However, since I am not a sports fan, I think it's only fair that I be allowed to use the same fantasy semantics when discussing a spectatorial event that I actually care about, like a movie. Like, "How awesome was our three-minute tracking shot at the beginning of Touch of Evil?" or "Man, we really got a great performance out of Ellen Page."

In fact, I think that granting me that privilege would be a lot more reasonable given that I've actually put $11 of my own money toward the domestic box office total and thus helped retroactively fund the film I just saw, as opposed to watching it for free on a cheap plasma TV in the bar at Applebee's.

OK, now back to ignoring Blogger for another several months.

Complaint

There is so much tedious and annoying stuff you need to do in order to write a good screenplay.

I think when most people think about it, they think about sitting down at a computer and somehow cranking out 100 pages of dialogue and cuts and fades and people opening doors.

But this is L.A., where people are more informed about the ins and outs of movie-related endeavors. So when most of them think about screenwriting, they probably think about writing an outline or a treatment or whatever you want to call it and then turning that into 100 pages of dialogue and cuts and fades and people opening doors.

Yeah, all that stuff is pretty easy. Comparatively, anyway. Which is why practically every screenwriting class or book on earth will only teach you about those two things -- writing an outline, and turning that outline into a script. It makes sense: those are the things you can teach. And really, you can teach both of them in a total of around ten minutes.

Here's a list of things about writing that I really don't think you can't teach.

• Making up an interesting story that also makes sense and will fill a movie; and
• Making up interesting characters who will change over the course of the story and whose words and actions will be believable based on what you know (or will later learn) about them.

It's not a very long list. It's only two things, actually. Except it's kind of, well, everything. If you can't do these things there's pretty much zero point in going any further. And yet, tons of people who really can't do them go ahead and write their screenplays, and then they show them to you and want to know what suggestions you have. I've been reading a lot of scripts recently on TriggerStreet.com (a co-op site for aspiring screenwriters) and I can sum up my notes on practically everything I've read so far thusly: Clearly you don't know what the fuck you're doing, so throw out everything and start over and make up something better.

It's hard to say that politely, so I end up doing one of two things: ignoring the script and moving on; or poking enough holes in every aspect of it for the writer to (hopefully) get the point that he/she just needs to start over and really think about it next time. Most of them probably don't take this advice, because all they wanted to hear was that the scene on page 67 needed some work, and then they could fix it and have a perfect script. I don't blame them; that used to be me. When I finished my first screenplay and handed it in to the teacher of my college writing course, the notes I got back were that the story and characters were basically unworkable and I should really think about changing the whole thing entirely. My reaction was to furiously assert (to myself) that he didn't know what he was talking about and it just needed a little work here and there to be great. Which of us was right? Well, since I've had zero temptation to even touch the script since then, I'm thinking it wasn't me.

But I digress. Those two things I bullet-pointed up there? Yes, they're applicable to pretty much any storytelling medium, from short stories to naughty finger puppet shows. It's just that they really, really, really matter in a screenplay, because there is absolutely nothing else to hide behind. Which is way ironic, because in a movie there are like a zillion things to hide behind. 20th Century Fox logo! Fancy credits! Pretty actress! Explosion! Helicopter shot over New York City! Sex! That new Fall Out Boy song! The End! A movie doesn't need to be good to be good; it just needs to be watchable.

On the other hand, a screenplay can't even be readable unless it's freaking great. This is because standard screenplay format --to which any first-time writer must adhere-- is like a giant Roomba that glides over your story and sucks up every last bit of surface-y cleverness and wit, leaving behind nothing but the most basic elements of plot and character. Take it from me, a person who has read a ton of scripts in his short-ass life: screenplays are not fun to read. There is no subtlety to them, no room for personal touches, absolutely nothing to make you forget that you are reading instructions for shooting a movie. Instead of explaining this more, I'm just going to go ahead and link you to the screenplay for Jaws. Go ahead, read it for a little while. Try not to get bored, even though it's one of the most exciting movies ever made. Or here's Raiders of the Lost Ark.

So. A screenplay is horribly difficult to write and not all that fun to read. But if you love movies, if you think you have an idea for a better than average one, if you're secure enough in your talent to believe that you could put that idea down on paper in a compelling way, if your quixotic nature lets you dare to hope that one day that paper might be bought and eventually filmed... then you really. Have. No. Other. Choice.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean L.A. isn't out to get vegetarians

Up until recently I would have staunchly defended L.A. as one of the most vegetarian-friendly cities on the planet. Sure, it would have finished slightly below your Berkeleys or your New Delhis, but it would have been right up there. I might even have gone so far to say that vegetarians are finally starting to hold some of the high cards in the giant Texas Hold'Em game of the foodie culture.

Well, not so much anymore. If we had, say, pocket jacks a few years ago, right now we're down to maybe a queen-three. Meanwhile, our carnivorous brethren are getting Ace-King after Ace-King.

What's the deal? And why did I feel the need to keep that poker metaphor going for so long? I really don't know the answer to either of these questions. I just know that it feels to me like vegetarians are slowly being shown the door by the gourmet community. Maybe they've figured out that they can still pack the house without catering to us, or maybe meatless is no longer chic in their circle. Whatever the reason, it sucks.

Let's get specific. Providence and Craft. Two of the hippest, hottest, hardest-to-get-into restaurants in L.A. right now; both opened within the past year or so. Both of them also feature exactly zero vegetarian dishes. Not a single one. Not even a token angel hair pasta with diced tomato and basil (the fancy restaurateur's equivalent to the undercooked Gardenburger). Neither of these places is a steakhouse or sushi bar; they're both in the category of New American cuisine, and from my perspective the New America has a reasonable number of deep-pocketed vegetarians, but I guess the chefs disagree. Fraiche, not quite as scene-y but nonetheless a cornerstone of the Culver City Gentrification Project, squeaks by with one pasta dish (ravioli with English pea and mint). Ketchup, the fun new place for us kids to drop a ton of dough, has every kind of fancy-ass burger except the veggie kind. But perhaps the greatest insult comes from Abode, the hot new "green" restaurant that trumpets its devotion to "sustainable artisanal cuisine" but offers only a single vegetarian appetizer (eggplant chorizo) and no entrees. Am I missing something, Abode? You could grow all the ingredients to make a kick-ass veggie dish on my balcony; isn't that slightly more sustainable than your cured meats and foie gras and oysters?

I like to think that I don't have unreasonable expectations. Sure, it would be nice to see a meatless establishment attract the same kind of scene and press as Cut or Katsuya, but I'm enough of a pragmatist to understand that you need a certain amount of meat and fish to bring in the masses. What I don't understand is why it's too much trouble for someone who calls him or herself a world-class chef to come up with just one or two veggie dishes that are as mindblowingly original and delicious as the rest of the omnivorous stuff on the menu.

Last fall Alexis and I had an awesome dinner at Saddle Peak Lodge. Not a ton of choices for us, obviously, but we still had excellent salads and great pasta dishes. Now, when a place with deer heads and antique rifles on the walls caters to vegetarians better than the latest and greatest place on Melrose, I think it's fair to say that something's a little amiss.

Carbon footprint, nitrogen finger smear, boron chalk body outline

Here are ten things I'm doing to save the environment this summer.

And by "save," I mean "destroy less quickly."

1. Bringing own bags to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. Okay, I've only done this once so far. But it felt good! If I'm not doing this on a regular basis by the end of the summer you all have license to tease me relentlessly. Also: not using individual plastic bags for produce at Whole Foods. Who cares if the tomatoes touch the fennel bulbs or peppers or whatever?
   
2. Buying wind power credits from Native Energy. The wind power doesn't come to you, of course; it goes to someone in a wind power-capable area who otherwise would have used conventional energy sources. So it's kind of like in the Civil War when you could avoid being in the Union army by finding someone else willing to take your place. Anyway, it only costs about $6 a month to theoretically negate all your fossil fuel consumption. Why not? Windmills are cool. Without them they couldn't have had that awesome helicopter chase through the wind farm in the beginning of Mission: Impossible 3.
3. Balcony herb garden, courtesy of Rossanna. One step toward agricultural self-sufficiency! Mainly we're hoping to grow enough mint to power a summer's worth of mojitos.
   
4. Trying really hard not to use the A/C in the car on normal trips (i.e., to/from work). I've managed to get 30-50 extra miles out of a tank this way, and I get more fresh air.
5. Shutting everything off in the apartment that I'm not using. Kitchen light, DVD player, monitor, computer speakers, and so on and so on and so on. Using fewer lights also helps the apartment stay cooler.
6. Turning off work computer at the end of the day. No, seriously. I used to just log off so I wouldn't have to wait as long to boot up in the morning. I suspect I'm not the only one.
   
7. (Alexis came up with this one) Not using the apartment elevator to go up/down one floor.
8. Driving less, walking more. I'm hoping to expand this to taking the bus to work at least 2 days a week, starting in August. Again, if I don't, please make fun of me.
   
9. Buying less stuff. Clothes, consumer goods, random non-recyclable crap. Since Alexis moved in we've gotten rid of enough stuff to fill another apartment. None of it was stuff we remotely needed or wanted, yet most of it was stuff we (mostly I) bought within the last 5 years. Some things are worth having; some things aren't. I'm making a real effort to restrict my purchases to the first category.
10. (Also learned from Alexis) Reusing paper instead of recycling it. You don't need a fresh sheet of paper to print a crossword when the back of an old one will do. I've expanded this practice to taking home non-sensitive papers from work and popping them in the printer, thus also saving me money and trips to OfficeMax.

So I'm hardly a model citizen when it comes to ecological awareness, but I'm trying to pull my weight here. Happy summer!

McKee!!!

(I'm going to just go ahead and write something without any meta-commentary about how long it's been since I last blogged, so bear with me, okay?)

While Alexis and I were staying in my parents' house last week in what used to be my bedroom, I scanned the bookcase and noticed the impressive-bordering-on-embarrassing collection of screenwriting books that occupied most of a shelf. Well, actually, more like embarrassing-bordering-on-incredibly-embarrassing. It wouldn't be so bad if the books had been acquired over a decade or so, during which time I had diligently churned out a succession of scripts and, on occasion, felt the need to turn to an outside source for guidance. But that's neither the timetable nor the circumstance in which they were purchased. In reality -- hilariously enough -- they were all purchased before I turned twenty-one, and (with one exception) before I'd actually written a single screenplay.

Let's go through some of them, shall we? The Screenwriter's Problem Solver? What screenwriting problems did I need to solve, exactly? I suppose "not having written anything yet" could be considered a problem, but offhand it strikes me as a relatively solvable one.

How to Write a Selling Screenplay. I think that's the first one I bought. The author has no screenplay credits on IMDb. He probably just hasn't read his own book yet.

Screenplay. Like many books of its ilk, about 200 pages on why Chinatown is the best screenplay ever written and all you need to do to write a good script is duplicate it word for word. (Also written by the Screenwriter's Problem Solver guy.)

The Screenwriter's Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script. This one's a fucking page-turner, let me tell you. As I recall, there's at least one chapter on margins and probably two or three on font choices. Might have been slightly useful if I wasn't already, at the time, enrolled in a two-semester screenwriting class that devoted about 70% of class time to margin and font sizes.

The Screenwriter's Workbook. Subtitle: "Exercises and Step-by-Step Instructions for Creating a Successful Screenplay." The Chinatown worshiper, again. I hear his next book is a concise guide to being elected president. Sadly, Bill Richardson has already ordered an advance copy.

Making a Good Script Great. The author knows whereof she speaks: she was a script consultant on Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter. I'm dubious, though... I have a feeling that script was already pretty great before she got her hands on it. I purchased this book immediately upon completion of the first draft of my first screenplay. Taking the first mature step in my writing career, I thought about it for a year or so and then chose never to work on it or think about it ever again. Yes, it was that bad. No, you may not read it.

And now we come to the granddaddy of them all. Story, by Robert McKee. General consensus posits this as the definitive book on screenwriting, if by "definitive" you mean "most pretentious" and by "pretentious" you mean "you can't read it without involuntarily putting on a fake British accent." This book and its accompanying seminars achieved true immortality when they were brilliantly spoofed in Adaptation, the one good Nicolas Cage movie in the past five years ten years all time; and since I was already a little embarrassed to own the book before that film came out, I certainly wasn't going to go anywhere near it afterwards. I was a young adolescent in terms of my screenwriting development, and young adolescents do not want to get caught hanging out with the nerdy kid. Going back and seriously reading the book after its public lampooning would have been like hanging out with the nerdy kid after he'd pooped his pants in gym. And so that book (along with all its brethren) sat unloved on the shelf in my parents' house for another several years. Until last week, when (on a vacation-imposed break from working on /struggling with my current screenplay) I decided, what the hell, let's pick it up and skim a few pages.

Quite a different experience, I must say, to be reading them from the perspective of "let's see if this guy can tell me anything I don't already know" as opposed to, like, "Hey, this book will show me how to write screenplays!" I have to admit, it's at least somewhat useful. Instead of spouting out crazy quasi-mystical stuff about the inciting event that needs to plot-pointize the culminating protagonist on the bottom third of page 29, he just talks about things you need to keep in mind while you're writing... like if you set up X, then people are going to expect Y, and so forth. And it all pretty much makes sense, pretentious or not.

I have no real conclusion to this series of thoughts, so there you go.

Ferreting out the details

I've been out of college for six years now, but it's really good to know that the whole kids vs. institution battle of "you, like, totally have to let us do whatever we want because otherwise you're compromising our well-being and that is SO not cool" is still alive and well.

This article is all about students getting colleges to allow more pets in dorm rooms as "service animals." The cover photo, which unfortunately I can't find online, depicts a girl holding her pet ferret which she claims helps her through panic attacks. I've never had a pet ferret, but someone in my hall sophomore year had two of them, so I feel that I have enough ferret experience to ask the girl from the article the following question: Does your ferret help you through your panic attacks by running into other people's rooms and shitting on the floor? Because it seems to me that that is the modus operandi of your average ferret, and if I'd only known that behaving in such a manner was helping its owner through panic attacks, I would have had way more patience with all that.

By the way, ferret girl goes to Our Lady of the Lake University in Texas. I don't have as much to say about that as I would have thought, since a cursory glance at its website revealed it to be not really all that scary. However...


There is the matter of this. Yes, that's armadillo racing. Clearly there's some speciesism going on at this school -- or actually, orderism since Wikipedia tells me armadillos are of the order Cingulata (superorder Xenarthra) while ferrets belong to Carnivora.

I wonder if ferret girl mentioned this issue in the complaint she filed with the Department of Justice (yeah, she actually did that). It would have been very entertaining to see the armadillo take the stand and then be cross-examined by the ferret.

Peet's: The Reckoning

Previously on Yes, I Pretty Much Know I'm Crazy And This Is But One Aspect Thereof:

I visited Peet's for the hell of it and discovered they're a bunch of wacked-out Mormons and I more or less vowed never to return.

I was forced to break said vow due to renovations on Starbucks.

And now we reach present day, or at least almost. Because Starbucks STILL isn't open, the sign now says "through September 9th" but there's no way in heaven (good TV), hell (bad TV) or purgatory (CBS) that they'll actually meet that deadline. If it were going to be finished by then, the progress report by September 7th would probably be something like "espresso machines installed, going through final quality checking" -- whereas I believe it's currently more along the lines of "you can sort of tell they're building a counter." So, in spite of my boastfulness about just how far I'd be willing to walk/drive/swim/astral project to reach my beloved Starbucks, the sad reality is that I've ended up going to Peet's fairly often over the past few weeks.

But that doesn't mean I've liked it. On the contrary. I've gradually learned that the magnitude of the effusive Mormonosity is bested only by the gargantuan suckitude of the service. It's even worse when you consider the ratio: at Starbucks, there's usually 1 cashier and maybe 2 people making drinks, or 2 cashiers and 1 person making drinks. And generally, the drinks get made and pushed out with an appealing level of quickness -- whereas at Peet's, they often have 3 cashiers and 2 or 3 people at the bar, but it takes them decades to take some espresso and add it to milk (or worse, take espresso and add it to an EMPTY FUCKING CUP).

Speaking of which, even the cup they've been serving the espresso in has been cause for bitterness (even more bitter than the espresso, which, by the way, kind of tastes like ass). See, apparently it's too wasteful to put 2 shots of espresso into a 4-ounce cup, so now they've taken to putting it in, basically, a Dixie cup. Good luck adding a splash of skim milk to that, unless you have years of clinical experience and a medicine dropper under your belt. But no, even that wasn't enough to turn me away forever (though it should have been) -- I came back again the next day, only to be given the same Dixie cup with about half as much liquid in it.

"Is this a double?" I ask, expecting the barista chick to apologize profusely and add more espresso to the cup (or better yet, put it into a REAL CUP).

"Yes," she says with a straight face.

What can I say to that? Do I put on the asshat and tell her no, this AIN'T no freaking double espresso and I'm not leaving until it is? Or do I down my half-teaspoon of fluid and walk out dejectedly?

Duh; I do the latter.

But back at my desk, with that mere smidgen of acidic coffeeish stuff still on my tongue (the "angrycaffeine," as my surrogate sis Ashley puts it), I feel just pissed off enough to head over to the Peet's website and fire off an official complaint. "Contact us," I click on. Website issues? Coffee/Tea questions? Nope, I'm selecting "Peet's Stores" as the target of my righteous venom. Here's what I write.

I have been going to Peet's in Westwood Village regularly for the past couple of weeks, mainly due to the Starbucks across the street being closed for renovations (might as well be honest). Compared with Starbucks, I have certainly found the cashiers/baristas to be more cheerful and amiable; however, the actual quality of the service itself leaves something to be desired. I only ever order a double espresso, one of the easiest things there is to make, and yet it seems to take an eternity even when there are not many others waiting for drinks. Also, lately the baristas have taken to putting it in a small dixie-sized cup, which makes it impossible for me to add even a tablespoon of milk to it. Finally, the "double" I received today appeared to be less than a single shot, though I was assured by the barista that it was, in fact, a double. Even though Peet's is not my preferred shop to patronize, I had hoped that the couple of weeks I spent going there during the Starbucks renovations would be enjoyable. It hasn't been; the result has only been that I hesitate to recommend Peet's even as an alternative.

But you know, it's like leaving a comment in the box at the grocery store, or filling out the feedback card at IHOP. Just something to vent frustration, right? I mean, shit, nobody reads those things. (Fun fact: In I temped for about a month at the corporate headquarters of Pizzeria Uno in Dedham, Massachusetts, where I assisted the lady who responded to all the complaint letters. And yes, I read some of them, because they were way entertaining. But mostly, they were just given a brief glance and a $5 voucher or two and tossed away.) Well, on the contrary. Because today, fewer than 24 hours later, I actually get an email from Peet's in my goddamn GMail inbox! And here 'tis:

Dear Nick,

Thank you very much for taking the time to write to us about the speed
of service and other issues you encountered at our Westwood Village
location. We do strive to provide outstanding service to every
customer, every day, regardless of whether they're daily regulars or
one-time visitors to our stores. I'm going to immediately pass your
comments about your experiences at the store along to the district
manager so that he can look into your concerns. He or someone from the
store will be following up with you personally about your feedback.

Thanks again. Please let me know if I can be of any more assistance.

Warm regards,

[Dude with a job worse than mine]

See that? Someone's going to contact me personally! How freaking scary is that? Good thing I didn't give them my phone number! Or address! The last thing I want is a pair of highly caffeinated Mormons on my doorstep wanting to "have a talk" with me about things like espresso bean grinding and polygamy and all that. Thus far, I have heard nothing, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before this district manager finds me and... aw, hell, it won't be the district manager. They said "the district manager or someone from the store." You know what that means? It's probably going to be the same goddamn barista who gave me trouble before! She probably just wants to come down here and throw a drink in my face. Which might cause me to worry, but then I remember that she's incapable of adding more than like 0.1 ounces of liquid to a cup. So I think I'll be okay.

Plan P

Well, shit, if there's anything that could get me blogging again after lo these many months, it would have to be the 2-week closing of my precious, precious Starbucks for "renovations." I first was alerted to this news about 10 days ago via a helpful little placard in the store displaying a Starbucks cup with saws and hardhats and stuff protruding from it (so, either that's a giant cup or those are tiny tools -- I'm hoping for the giant cup, though, because it would make a great hot tub). Since then I think I've progressed through the usual stages of grief quite well. To wit:

1. Denial. "Eh, that's weeks away, I might not even be DRINKING Starbucks anymore by then."
2. Anger. "Who the fuck am I kidding? Of course I will. How can they do this to me? Don't they realize that I once swam all the way from the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea to Jakarta for a venti iced nonfat latte? (Yes, I normally just get a grande, but I figured the 250 mile walk would at least partially negate the calorie gain from the additional 4 ounces of beverage.)"
3. Bargaining. (This part is not really all that made-up.) "Okay, if they're going to be renovating the store, clearly they won't be using any of those kick-ass industrial strength espresso machines. And moreover, they probably need a place to store them. I'll just keep them in the office kitchen and brew myself a nice murky cup of espresso every day. Can't be that hard if people who can't even spell my name with a Sharpie can do it."
4. Depression. (Experienced while walking past the currently-in-renovation Starbucks.) "Wait a second, they're like gutting the entire place. There's no way they can finish that in two weeks. They even took out the floors! What if it's not even a Starbucks when they're done with it? What if it's, like, a Build-a-Bear Workshop? What if I never have ready access to a compact, sort-of-reasonably-priced caffeinated beverage ever again? It's over. It's all over."
5. Acceptance. (Shortly thereafter.) "Fine, I'll just go to Peet's, strange smell and Mormon tendencies notwithstanding."

And so it was. Assuming they get done on schedule, it's only 10 actual work days that I'll have to deal with this misery, so I'm now 20% done; that's about as near to completeness as I ever get to with anything else in my life, so by 9:46 A.M. tomorrow I'll already have made a level of progress that's mind-boggling by my own standards.

Westwood: The definitive treatise (or something)

Part One: Intro

[bass thump] Wassup wassup! I just wanna say [double-orchestra blast] dis one goes out to all the hataz up in here dat said I'd neva cut a record again, y'all feel me? [vintage guitar riff] So ladies and gentlemen... fresh from da lab in Palms... Death Row now pruh-zents... [scratchy vintage drum roll]

Oh. Uh, whoops. That's not the intro to the essay; that's the intro to my next album, Tryz II Killz Me N I Jus' Livz Longa , due out sometime this fall. Just a little cut-and-paste snafu. You know how it is.

Anyway. The real intro.

I don't know L.A. all that well, at least not as well as people who grew up here (though perhaps at least as well as people who say they grew up in L.A. but actually grew up in, like, Bakersfield). Then again, what does it mean to know L.A. well? Who can say they really do? How many rhetorical questions with extraneously italicized words can one get away with before one needs to make some kind of point? Don't you hate when people use "one" instead of "you" or "I" even though it's gramatically correct in the most technical sense? Don't people realize it sounds about as dorky as actually saying "that man is taller than I" even though that's also, technically, the correct way?

Okay, I think that's it for the intro. This is why I self-publish.

Eventually I might have some stuff to say about Westwood, and why some aspects of it are cool while others pretty much suck. Like the fact that one 50-foot stretch has Bebe, Ann Taylor Loft, and Victoria's Secret, but if you're a guy and want, well, anything garmentlike, you're basically shit out of luck. Yeah, I'll talk about some of those things later.

Nothing to say

The more you blog, the more you can find to say. And vice versa. I haven't blogged in a month and a half; therefore: nothing to say. But if I want to get BWD back on its feet I'm going to need to create something from nothing -- not unlike, say, the creators of any given CBS sitcom. But I digress (even though I have nothing from which to digress yet).

I can talk about shirts. And how I hate tucking them in, because they inevitably come untucked, but not completely untucked; just partially untucked, so that they balloon around your waist and make it look like you just need a few more pumps before you're ready for the Macy's parade. And how the worst part of all that is that I'm usually blissfully unaware of that chain of events until I either look in a mirror or feel cool air-conditioned air against my no-longer-completely-insulated stomach, meaning that the ballooning phenomenon has already been occurring for quite some time.

But that's boring. So I could talk about water (always one of my favorite subjects). And how the Brita filter is clearly a more fiscally sensible solution than bottled water, not to mention far better for the environment, but on the other hand doesn't provide an easy way to drink just enough water but not too much. With the Brita filter the water's dispensed into a glass of indeterminate volume (probably around 12 ounces, I guess), and then consumed, usually while still standing in front of the sink. Then that might not be enough, so I'll immediately refill the glass and drink another. Now I'm up to, I guess, 24 ounces. Is that enough? Did I drink enough the rest of the day? How soon do I plan on going to bed? How do I weigh the risk of dehydration versus the annoyance of waking up at like 3 AM and really having to pee but even more really not wanting to, and trying to force my brain to ignore any signals from the bladder area and only listen to my otherwise-ready-to-go-back-to-sleep self.

But that's boring too. And it made me thirsty. Be right back. Okay. So, I could talk about how cool it is to have a wireless keyboard and mouse at home, thus rendering the "but then I'd have to get out of bed" argument moot in a variety of instances. And how it's almost creepy to look down at the desk and not see any cables coming out of either device.

But that, if possible, is even more boring than anything else yet discussed. So what now? The new TV series Celebrity Cooking Showdown? No, because this is the wrong blog. U.S. immigration reform? Not likely. Tic Tacs with "Bold Fruit Flavor," yet another instance of a breath-freshening product branching out into fruity versions of itself, which I've never understood because I've never heard anyone complimented on their "cherry-fresh" breath?

Nope. See, I really don't have anything to say. But that's only because I haven't been saying anything. (And no, I'm not going to write a treatise on circular reasoning either.) So, hopefully forcing myself to say something will enable me to actually have stuff to say in the future.

We'll see. But for now: nothing to say.

Documenting the world with my camera phone, episode 1

Rally's: Doing Our Part To Fill America's Emergency Rooms

Correction

It has come to my attention that I didn't credit my breakfast amigos in my breakfast post, which is really wrong of me since they were the ones who dragged me out to Doughboy's in the first place. Or rather, they caved in to my constant begging for them to drag me out to Doughboy's. In any case, the team of Myasorubka (one half of Girl on Girl Cooking) and her dude deserve their props, which I am now giving them. Thanks, and we now resume your regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

I'm usually the car

Pretty much everyone at work is sick. When this happens, I feel like I'm playing Monopoly, the whole board is filled up with hotels, and I'm clenching my teeth every time I roll the dice, desperately hoping I keep landing on Chance and Community Chest (or at least one of the railroads).

Save me, Zicam.

If this were my last meal, I'd tell the warden to bring on the lethal injection

Overland Cafe finally has competition for my breakfast dollar, and my heart. The rival's name is Doughboy's, and while the 20-ish minute drive to 3rd and Crescent Heights means they're unlikely to snag me on a weekly basis, I can't guarantee I'm not going to be having impure thoughts about semolina waffles with mascarpone while I'm chowing down on my usual eggs benedict with veggie sausage. I'm not feeling particularly essay-ish today so let's just do a quick snapshot comparison:

Doughboy's:

• Really freaking awesome coffee... and a whole big french press full of it for $3.50.
• Best waffle I ever had in my life.
• Lots of other stuff to choose from on the menu.
• And the total money shot: a whole sub-menu of home fries. Yes. Home fries with cheddar and grilled onions, home fries with roma tomatoes and mozzarella and basil, etc., etc. That's about enough to make me wonder if Zale's has a ring big enough for a restaurant.
  

Overland Cafe:

• 3 minutes from home, on foot.
• KCRW discount.
• Weak-ass coffee, even though they refill it every 26.3 seconds.
• Vegetarian options on every breakfast food imaginable.
• Great home fries, even though they're not customizable.
  
• They know me.

Advantage: Overland Cafe, for now, since they have the home field advantage and I don't switch loyalties easily. But if anyone has a truck capable of towing an entire restaurant (including outdoor seating), please let me know. Actually, forget the outdoor seating part. Doughboy's chairs are too low. I'll provide replacements, probably from Ikea.

Bad With Grammatical Directions

I know I never, ever post about Starbucks. So I figured this would be a nice change of pace.

Here's my question. Who labels the pastry trays there? Has he/she passed 9th grade English?

INCORRECT: "Old Fashion Doughnut"

CORRECT: "Old Fashioned Doughnut."

Thanks for listening.

Dear PETA,

I don't normally get all political on this blog, but I kind of have to ask...

What the hell are you doing?

Seriously. Please, please stop all the nonsense. I'm a vegetarian. I avoid wearing leather whenever possible. I try to buy non-factory-farmed stuff, free range eggs, and so forth. I do this because I think the world would be a better place if everyone else did too.

But I think the world would be a better place without you. Or at the very least, it would be a better place if you channeled your energies into supporting local agriculture, lobbying for companies with good records of non-cruelty (Trader Joe's, Tom's of Maine, etc.), and generally trying to effect change in more subtle ways.

I don't see that happening, though. Apparently you people think that your goals are best achieved by throwing flour at Paris Hilton (see above), signing up Pamela Anderson as your spokesperson, and breaking into laboratories in the dead of winter to set a bunch of raised-in-captivity animals "free" so they can enjoy a long few hours of life in the wilderness before they freeze to death. It makes me wonder if you even want anyone to take you seriously, or if you're a puppet organization secretly funded by McDonald's to make every other vegetarian/animal rights supporter look like an idiot. I'd kind of rather believe the latter, to be perfectly honest.

OK then. Good luck with your craziness. My check for $0.00 is in the mail.

Nick

The Decline of the 315

In the second half of 2005, when I'd finally developed my sought-after [minor] caffeine addiction, the Starbucks in lower Westwood Village could rely on my steady revenue stream of three dollars and fifteen cents per day for an iced grande nonfat latte. This drink, eventually nicknamed the "315", has many advantages. First off, since it's basically just a caffeinated glass of skim milk, it provides a daily supply of nutrients that those food pyramid guys would be proud of. Second, it's quicker to prepare than any of the hot beverages. But most importantly, it's completely possible to drink the entire thing in the time it takes to get from the front door of Starbucks to the crosswalk at Westwood and Wilshire. Thus, as I'm crossing the street, the milkified espresso is crossing the blood-brain barrier, and I arrive back at my cubicle fully hopped up. It was a rock-solid system that worked for many a month.

However.

It may be less than a pack of cigarettes (I think?), but $3.15 a day adds up if you do the math. (Normally I don't do math, but I made an exception in this case.) Eventually I decided to implement the caffeination backup plan I'd considered months ago but could never pull the trigger on. The crux of said plan: switching from iced grande nonfat latte to straight up double espresso. Same caffeine content, but $1.40 less per day. (That's almost a muffin!) And Starbucks probably wouldn't want me to divulge this secret, but you know those stainless steel containers of nonfat milk by the napkins and Splenda? You can use them for free! All I have to do is dump in a quarter-cup or so and I'm good to go. With much less volume and no ice to slow me down, I'm done with that sucker within ten paces of Starbucks. Time and money saved.

I should be running the national freaking budget.

Football game?

Yeah, not even really interested in the commercials this year. But I still wanted a killer bowl of nachos washed down with a pint of Guinness. So, I chose something else to watch.

Thoughts for the day

Guy who stood at crosswalk on Westwood and Wilshire listening to his iPod but never pressed the "walk" button:

If I come to a crosswalk and someone's already standing next to the walk button, I usually don't reach over and press it. Because I don't like to insult people's intelligence. But now, because of this guy, I will be forced to do exactly that for the rest of my life. Way to go, iPod guy.

Soup I improvised last night:

One onion, chopped. Four cloves of garlic, smashed. Most of one potato, cubed. One can of great northern beans, drained. One can of diced tomatoes, also drained. Most of one container of vegetable broth. Thyme and oregano for seasoning. Grated peccorino romano on top.

Taste of above soup:

Not bad. Probably missing an ingredient or two, but I don't know which.

Cheese placed on toasted baguette slices as side dish:

Drunken Goat.

Amount of Drunken Goat left over:

None.

Thought I had after exiting Jamba Juice today:

If I found a time traveller from the 1950's, I would totally bring him in there and tell him that this is what all food is like in the future.