Danger Will Robinson

Turns out there is one drawback to taking the train... people.

Wednesday evening I developed a scratchy throat and by Thursday morning I had a full blown head cold.  It's too soon to call it the flu, but time will tell.  I really have no one to blame but myself.  I lead such a "Bubble Boy" existence - I work from home and only leave the house to walk the dogs.  My immune system wasn't prepared for the onslaught of humanity. At any rate, by the time today rolled around, I found myself with no pressing deadlines and an overwhelming desire to be horizontal, so I crashed on the couch with daytime TV.

Daytime TV is a demoralizing place.  Judging by the programming and the commercials, it's Loserville.  At one point, a commercial came on for one of those ambulance chasing law firms, the ones that promise you a financial windfall is someone you know suffered side effects/injury/ death from [insert drug name here].  And this one was no different...

"If someone you know has suffered serious side effects, injury or death from Robot Surgery..."

WTF?

ROBOT SURGERY!?!?!?!?!?

When did this happen?  Is this a thing?  Yikes.

So how does it work?

Is it like HAL from "2001" removing your appendix?  He wasn't exactly known for his bedside manner and if I recall, things didn't really end well.

My guess it's just yet another insurance company indignity; they've outsourced major surgery.  The robots are probably operated by doctors in India.  I'm picturing a med student in Bangalore with a scratchy video feed on a laptop making $12 an hour.  What could possibly go wrong with that?  They've done so well with customer service.

Well, it's none of my concern.  My insurance is so shitty there's little chance I'll ever have surgery, robot or not.  Not unless I do it myself.

Leave The Driving To Us

I have discovered a marvelous machine, a remarkable invention which I think may revolutionize life as we know it.  It's called... the train.

What do you expect?  I grew up in Orange County; the only trains we rode were at Disneyland.

But seriously, it's been a revelation.

I had a business meeting scheduled today in Downtown LA and while I was looking forward to the meeting, I was dreading the drive.  My recent experiences trying to commute to the city, inching along at 4 mph for hour after hour, sucking in exhaust on the 5, left a pit in my stomach just thinking about it.

And then it occurred to me... I could take the train!

The train?  Who does that?  Well, I did, and I'm giving it rave reviews.

I happened to mention my plan to a friend and you would've thought I said I was going by flying saucer.  But really, it couldn't have been easier.

There's a station not far from here, near my folks.  I drove over and parked (for free), bought my ticket and soon after, the train pulled up.  I boarded the train at 9:29 and 20 minutes later I was staring up at the Downtown skyline.  It took me longer to drive to the station.  Down one flight to the subway, and 15 minutes later I was at my destination, early enough to have a cup of coffee and prep for the meeting. I was in shock.

Now, there are some drawbacks.  The drive from OC to LA is not exactly what you would call "scenic", but the view from the train is simply ghastly.  Mile after mile of industrial wasteland, crumbling factories and rusting and decaying warehouses with the occasional truck depot or scrap yard or cement plant to break up the bleakness.  And the homeless encampments.  It's like something out of a "Terminator" film.  But that's a small price to pay for the convenience, and besides you can just turn your attention to returning e-mail, which is what I did.  Which is something you can't do in the car! Actually, you can, but you shouldn't.

The return trip was just as easy.  At one point, each way, we passed over a parking lot.  And then I realized it was Interstate 5.  I can't even imagine what my blood pressure would be right now if I'd driven.

And then there's just the shear romance of it.  Union Station in LA is astoundingly beautiful, the very last grand train station built in this country.  Even the little train station in my old home town has such a Mayberry, small town charm.  I have to admit, I was completely sucked in by it all.

It all felt so "Mad Men"-ish.

Dames des Chats

This place definitely gives off the vibe of "The Land of Misfit Toys".

Nearly everyone here rents and most seem displaced.  The condo complex seems less like a little community and more like a refugee camp.  Everyone just seems so... downsized.  Downsized by age or circumstance or the recession.  Or relationships gone bad; there is an inordinate number of single women of a certain age here. And quite a few of those appear to have taken the next logical step... Cat Lady.

I see them, peaking warily out the windows as I walk the dogs.  The cats, not the women.  And the phenomena isn't evidently limited to this complex.

I had to run to CVS to pick up a prescription and decided to pick up a few sundries while I was there.  As I approached the register I was bummed to see a line.  It was only three people, but this was CVS, a company that apparently only hires people who find the Walmart application process too rigorous.  Worse still, I hadn't bothered to wear my glasses, so I couldn't even peruse the tabloids while I waited.  So to pass the time, I turned the attention to the woman in front of me.

She was probably late 40's and careworn.  My guess was she was quite the looker back in the day, but she'd let herself go and now shuffled along in a velour track suit that had seen better days.  And then I saw her cart.:

Two boxes of wine and ten pounds of cat litter and too many tins of Fancy Feast to count.

And that was it.

My heart went out to her, and then I glanced at the woman in front of her.

Same thing.

And the woman in front of her, too.

All three... Cat Women.

The quantities and brands differed, but all three had carts chock full of cheap booze, litter and cat food. And nothing else.

My first thought was absolute sadness.  Actually, my first thought was... "are they having some sort of sale?  On dog food too??"  But my SECOND thought was absolute sadness.

We worked through the line and the woman in front of me finally reached the counter.  "And gimme a carton of Virginia Slims" she growled, sounding like Brenda Vaccaro on a bad day.  Well, there's that.

As she trundled out the door I thought to myself "there but for the Grace of God go I..."

But with dogs.

Hoard For The Holidays

Saturday we witnessed the rarest of things, a success story on "Hoarders".

Or maybe it was "Hoarding: Buried Alive".  Either or.

Now, I love me some "Hoarders" (who doesn't) but I have to admit it had gotten increasingly difficult to watch because there were never any winners.  Each episode seemed to end exactly where it started and over time the whole enterprise was becoming depressing and dispiriting.  Oh sure, occasionally they'd make a house kinda sorta livable, but when they'd return for a visit weeks later, more often than not it was even worse than before.  Usually, after days of shoveling, the best you could hope for was maybe a glimpse of a long unseen floor or forgotten bathroom.  Just once I wanted to see someone overcome the compulsion, to kick the habit, to break free of that monkey on their back.  The crocheted monkey cozy they'd found at a garage sale.

And Saturday was the day!  I can't remember his name...  George?  They always seem to be named George.  Or Debbie.  At the start, George seemed to be a particularly hopeless case.  His home was so full of crap that the back rooms had been sealed off for years and the the only way you could traverse the rest of it was by crawling on your belly atop six feet of God-knows-what with your ass scraping the ceiling.  I almost turned it off.  Almost.

But damned if George didn't do it!  It took three massive trucks to haul away his shit, but by the end of the episode his house looked great.  OK, maybe not "great", but still.  There were still a lot of boxes but  now you could at least make out discernible rooms.

We went to commercial break and when we returned the words "TWO MONTHS LATER" flashed on the screen and I thought to myself "This too shall end in tears..." but miracle of miracles, the house looked even better than before.  All the boxes were now gone and it seems our George has quite the knack for interior decorating.  One man's garbage is another man's ironically hip collectable.

Originally I watched "Hoarders" strictly for the entertainment value, but since we moved here I also watch to try and get some insight into my neighbors.  This condo complex is a huge nest of Hoarders.  They should rename it "Rancho de Firetrap".  Almost everyone parks on the street because all of their garages are filled to the rafters with junk.

Our original next door neighbor was a kindly older lady who grew considerably less kindly when the owner of the unit she rented sold it out from under her. She had so much crap it took her weeks to move it all out, and even then she appears to have just thrown in the towel and left a ton of junk in her open garage and on her patio.  The other residents swooped in like a swarm of locusts and picked it clean in minutes, ferreting it all back to their own little hidey holes.

Our lease is up in a few months.  Here's to hoping we can make it out before this place burns to the ground.  It's just a matter of time.

We Gather Together

Well, we made it through the family Thanksgiving relatively unscathed.  A minor miracle, seeing as how the holiday fell so soon after the election.

You see, my sister and brother-in-law are Wingnuts.

That wasn't always the case.  They've always been Republican, but they used to be the thoughtful, intelligent sort, the ones formally referred to as Rockefeller Republicans, the liberal on social issues, fiscally conservative kind.  Somewhere during the Bush years, probably shortly after 9/11, they took a hard right turn into Crazytown.  That's when I remember the Glenn Beck stickers start showing up on their car.

My parents, by contrast, started out as good solid Midwestern Republicans but over time have shifted to being even more liberal than me and the boyfriend.  I think it was because of Nixon.  I remember a family trip back to the East Coast during the summer of 1973 where my mother insisted we stay at the Watergate hotel and tour all the highlights of the then ongoing Watergate investigation.  My folks even bought me a wanted poster featuring photos of all the Nixon staff.  Good times.  They've been solid Democrats ever since.

But back to Thanksgiving.  Family get-togethers had already grown tense, but the election of Obama sent my sister and brother-in-law clear 'round the bend.  Innocuous small talk would veer violently into talk of Death Panels and Re-education camps and secret U.N. agendas.  My brother-in-law would rail on and on about gun rights and grow enraged when I pointed out the fact he didn't actually own any, you know, guns.  An innocent comment about the weather would launch a full scale attack on "so-called" climate change.  Each holiday seemed to grow increasing worse and we finally reached our nadir a couple of years ago at an Easter Brunch with my sister chasing after me in the parking lot screaming "Socialist!  Socialist!  Socialist!"

So, we, banned any mention of politics from that point on.

The question remained whether the truce would hold, what with the re-election of the Kenyan Anti-colonialist Usurper.

And, for the most part, it did.

My sister briefly went off on an anti union tirade, but her heart didn't really seem to be in it and it fizzled pretty quickly.  I've never quite understood her beef with the unions, especially considering... she's in one.  And not just any union, mind you.  She's a member of the much hated Teacher's Union, scourge of Republicans everywhere.  Thanks to the union, she makes close to six figures and, with tenure, can never be fired.  Without it, she'd be lucky to be making $30K, if she hadn't already been downsized.  I guess cognitive dissonance is just one of those things you learn to live with on the Right.

She gained a little more traction with her main bugaboo.... the "War on Christmas".

As a music teacher, she's on the front lines of the heathen assault to strip the CHRIST out of CHRISTmas.

"They insist on calling it a 'Holiday Concert' or a 'Winter Concert', but I just throw it back in their faces.... it's a 'CHRISTMAS Concert'".

She says parents have complained.

"Mostly it's the Asian or Muslim ones."

Gee, couldn't see that coming.

She's most upset with the kids.

"None of them even know the words to most of the Christmas Carols."  

And really, why would they, being all Buddhist and Muslim and shit?

Evidently the whole thing recently lead to a confrontation with the principal.

"What is he going to do, fire me?  I have tenure."  She said, cluelessly.

At that point, I just walked away.  I find that works best.

Christmas is at their house this year.  Should prove to be a hoot.

Long Time, No See

Yes, I know.  It's been awhile.

One of my friends asked "So, have you abandoned the blog?"

No exactly.

I mistakenly assumed once I had been relieved of my duties with my former employer that there would be scads of time to blog.  It has proved to be just the opposite.  Forced to scramble for work like a cheap Vegas hooker, I haven't had a break in the action in over a month.  Which is a good thing.  If I know one thing about my business, it's that everything will grind to a screeching halt this week for the rest of the year.  Had to bank as much as possible to make it through the lean holiday period and into 2013.

And screech to a halt, it has.  I have one remaining job, a vanity project for a high powered agency executive in LA.  She's been less than diligent about providing feedback and notes.  I had hoped to have it wrapped up by today, but she just informed me I should have everything I need "first thing in the morning".  On Thanksgiving.  Before she jets out of town to Aspen.

"Ill be checking e-mail between runs, so hopefully I can see something first thing Friday."

Riiiiiight.  I'll just blow off my family Thanksgiving for your little puff piece.  What do you think this is, Walmart?

"I'll be back from Aspen sometime Monday."

OK Honey, break a leg.  No really... break a leg.

The upside of all of this is that it would appear, knock wood, that there will be nothing but time to blog in the coming weeks.

So my apologies for the absence.  I'll make it up to you.  I promise.

The Curse of the iPhone

I love my iPhone, but there is a problem and it is growing exponentially.

Not with the technology, but with the morons who use it.

This is increasingly what I deal with:  I do a job.  I email in the final file.  Within hours I receive a hearty "Looks Great! Thanks!" from the client.  Days or weeks later comes the angry email... "What is this?  This isn't what I approved!  It's totally different!"

I don't know what they think happened.  Do they think I snuck into their office and swapped out the file like it was Folger's Crystals?

By now I know the drill, so the first thing I ask is...

...Did you approve this on your iPhone?

And the answer is always yes.  It was approved after looking at it on a 3 inch iPhone screen.  While driving.

What the iPhone has done is it has unshackled stupidity.  No longer do you have to be content being incompetent from a corner office, you now have the freedom to be incompetent on the go.

This was a particular problem with the last job.  Typically, once I had finished a job it went to our proofreader.  We actually had a full-time, dedicated employee who's sole job was to proof all the copy on every job.  Her name was Dorothy.  Within hours, Dorothy would email in her A-OK and the job would go off to the client, and within hours of that, the client would shoot off an angry email pointing out all the typos.  But that wasn't Dorothy's fault.  Dorothy was a busy girl.  Dorothy was rarely in the office.  Dorothy was doing her job on an iPhone.  As you can probably imagine, when you proof page after page of 9 point type on an iPhone, things get missed.  Dorothy couldn't be expected to catch things on an iPhone could she?  That would be silly.  So it was my fault.

Which brings me to this morning.  I had designed a logo for a sporting wear company.  The owner emailed me on Wednesday asking for a minor change and asked me to re-send the files.  I did so immediately.  This morning I received a text...

"You never sent me the files I requested on Wednesday."

But, in fact, I had.  I found them in my "sent" file.  I texted him back and said that I did in fact send them but that I would send them again.  And I did.  Fifteen minutes later I texted him again, asking if he had received the files this time.

"No."

We tried again.  Again he said he didn't receive them.

Finally, I did the unthinkably retrograde thing.  I called him.

"So you didn't receive any of the files?  I've sent them three times.  Are you getting any email from me?" I asked.

"Well" he said, "I do receive email from you, but they take too long to download on my phone so I just delete them."

I took a minute and counted to ten.  I explained that the emails he was deleting were in fact the files he requested.  The reason they were taking a long time to download was because they were, you know, his JOB.  They were image files.  They were big.

"Oh" he said.  "I don't have Wifi.  Can you send them faster?"

Oy vey.

I told him I would reduce the file size but that it would lower the resolution and might be hard to make out on a iPhone screen.  He said OK and so I did it.

He emailed back.

"These look fuzzy.  Make them bigger."

I get the impression I will be on this Merry-Go-Round all day.