grievance: technology making me suck at blogging

I've been looking through my Twitter and Facebook accounts recently because I need to start being a better human being with regard to splaying my life all over the internet, when it dawned upon me that often times, many of my status updates and tweets are mini grievances.  One-line grievances.  With no witty, insane digressions.  Just my being angry.  And I realized that I've become lazy and no longer have the energy to even BLOG.  Ridiculous.  So, I am vowing to get back to blogging, especially because it has been vocalized to me by some people that they miss the blogs.  

Today: What the HELL is George Bush DOING while Obama is speaking? He's like swaying and, I think, trying to get closer to the spotlight. And they just zoomed in ON Obama, I can only surmise, because Bush was being a legit creepo!
1/13/10: 24 Degrees AGAIN?!?!?!  Forget this.  I can't even.  I'm bring my Snuggie to work today.  Hideous
12/23/09: New Rule: You're not allowed to say my BlackBerry sucks & your iPhone rules if during that text ya make 5 typos.  Seriously ppl GET KEYBOARDS
12/23/09: Eek.  I thought that I'd want Zach Braff to be on Scrubs forever, but yeah, no.  It's time ta go.
12/16/09: Walking behind a woman smoking a clove cigarette.  WHO smokes cloves?!?!?!  Ah, smells like being 13.
12/14/09: The elevators in my office building are SO whack.  A. They take forever and B. At any given moment, I could fall to my death.  Bad news.
12/12/09: The show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" is SOOO whacked!!!  How do you NOT know you're friggin' pregnant?!?!
12/9/09: Crap!  How do I look decent for holiday parties tonight with what's going on outside?!?!
12/2/09: Disgusted by the 24-38 vote against Marriage Equality.  Only 24 voted for?  What is this State?
11/29/09: Ugh hate waking up to a missed call at 3am without a voicemail from a number I don't know.  Creepy.  Like, what, I can't call back NOW?
11/28/09: "The City" is legit the worst show on television.  I took a hiatus from it about a year ago and just tried to watch it.  Not even watchable!
11/26/09: Why are cheerleaders dancing to Chris Daughtry?  It looks weird as fuck.
11/16/09: "Ftw" makes me rageful.  Sorry.
11/14/09: Ok why does my MacBook tell me to update iTunes like every 4 days?  Enough, dude.
11/11/09: In case anyone was wondering... Strep Throat can still bite me.
11/10/09: Does anyone else think it's weird that the twins on Girls Next Door wear the same thing every single day and sleep in a bed together?
11/9/09: Why does #gossipgirl think it's okay to portray a 26 year old as having run for and won a Congressional seat? ...in Manhattan?  Yeah.  Ok.
11/9/09: Why does fkn Facebook keep telling me to "Make Facebook better for him/her!"???  It's not my fkn problem he/she can't keep up on his/her shit
11/6/09: I hate unprofessionalism.
11/3/09: I do NOT understand Stuyvesant Town.  Neither does Tim.  Seriously.  It makes zero sense.
10/29/09: I really can't stand it when I'm standing by the elevator waiting and someone comes up and hits the button.  Do you think I didn't already?!
10/11/09: Pee Wee's Big Adventure is insane.  And kindof frightening as an adult.  Bro is WAY too into his bike.
10/4/09: Life keeps sucking.  Just walked into the kitchen to find 2 inches of soap and water covering the entire floor.
9/29/09: Apparently my hair "looks good like this."  I know this because my doorman decided to let me know.  Awkward.
9/28/09: Walking with my blazer over my head 'cause of rain and a small male child on the street who was doing PIROUETTES just said "hey Lady Ga Ga."
9/22/09: Just saw a young girl on 1st ave and 14th street wearing a bathingsuit.  On September 22nd.  EVERYTHING fail.
9/20/09: As much as I separate love both Blondie and the French language... Lordy loo.  Debbie Harry's French in "Sunday Girl" is trash.  Sorry.
8/30/09: Damn you, Time Warner Cable.  True Blood is pixelated and un-watchably recorded.  Suck it.  I hate you.
8/24/09: What happens when you put "irrespective" and "regardless" together?  NOT A WORD.  See also: "irregardless."  Ugh.
8/19/09: I abhor people who whistle.  I have bitter, longstanding enmity for them.  Gross.

I'll post some more later.

-moon

grievance: people's distaste/scaredness of google maps "latitude"

This new technology by Google is absolutely amazing. And the fact that everyone is freaked out by it is both silly and annoying. And is ruining its potential. For those of you who don't know...

Google Maps has created an add-on called Latitude which essentially allows you to connect to friends on Google Maps and see where they are at any given moment.

If ONE more person says "That's so Big Brother" to me, I will punch him or her in the eye.

It's not at ALL Big Brother-esque. You have to individually request each person. It's not as if you enter into this contract with the devil and then every single person you've ever met can track you down at every single moment. As you can see, I only have a handful of friends who are technologically savvy enough to be on it as well. And some of them, like my roommate (who is currently at work, I can see), were completely unlikely candidates to embrace such technology. But she has. And it's been incredibly fun! "Hey... I see you're about a block away. Are you at D'Agostino's? Can you pleeeeease pick up some butter?" And I was. And I did. And she made a scrumptious dinner.

Now to calm some nerves and address some concerns, I will outline some of the magnificent aspects of this amazing program so that hopefully everyone will CHILL THE HELL OUT and embrace it.

1. (As stated above...) You have to individually request each person. If you want one person to be able to see you and are scared of some other person seeing your whereabouts, you don't have to be "friends" with them.
2. You can turn it off and sign out whenever you'd like and will no longer appear on anyone's map.
3. (And best of all...) You can LIE. You can set your location to a fixed place and say you're in Chicago if you so choose. Although I'm not a fan of Chicago and wouldn't do that.

I saw today that my friend was in Atlanta. And after asking him if he was LYING and was really in New York, thought it was so cool that I knew that he was on a business trip to Atlanta. And we discussed the weather and the like (all via BBM: another wonderful technology) and truth be told, as much as I love this person, I probably would never have had that conversation at all. And it's all due to Google Latitude. ...Bringing Us All a Little Closer Together.

So cut the shit. No one is going to stalk you. If you're going to write about your every damned move on (note: these are all links to MY pages 'cause I'm a technology junkie and self-aggrandizing fool) Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Tumblr, your blog, your AOL Instant Messenger away message, your Google Chat status message, your LinkedIn, your BBM status (mypin: 31be47d2) and for fuck's sake, maybe even your now-defunct Friendster account (I don't even have one of those anymore)... chill the hell out with the "That's so Big Brother" bullshit.

-moon

grievance: facebook statuses' grammar

I am shocked to my very core that Facebook actually took down the "is" as part of its status template and now leaves it there for optional use.

By what I am even more shocked is that despite this, people continually use it... and use it WRONG. And what I mean by this is the statuses' predication upon a particular kind of sentence format, namely a person speaking about him or herself in the third person.

Now I'm not knocking people who outwardly go against this sentence structure by either eliminating the "is" after their names or writing something after the "is" which is clearly supposed to go against the structure, like a song lyric or simply a noun, e.g. "Jenn DOUGHNUTS!" or "Jenn is Barack Obama is the shit." I am okay with this kind of erratic grammar solely because it is purposely crafted to be so.

My problem is with people who are too dumb to realize that when they start a sentence about themselves in the third person, they must continue to do so throughout the sentence. The following hypothetical statuses do NOT make sense:

"Jenn is so tired I think I'm going to take a bubble bath and go to bed."
Should be: "Jenn is so tired she thinks she's going to take a bubble bath and go to bed."
"Jenn is studying for a PoliSci exam. OMG I'm soooo gonna fail."
Should be: "Jenn is studying for a PoliSci exam and is sooo gonna fail."

I'm assuming that this makes sense and needs not more examples. All I'm saying is that it's ABOVE infuriating to see this kind of crap on my status update page because it is a blatant offense on the structure of modern English. I understand that my rules for speaking are far more stringent than those for others... but casualisms and slangitudes are really what deteriorate language... and our language already sounds like untrained colloquial drivel.

I'm all about technology, but before Facebook... at least people could maintain the same pronoun and subsequent verb form. At least 'til the next SENTENCE began! Pish posh.

-moon

raging out at... passwords

Well, well, well.. welcome back to my own blog, ladies and gentlemen! My deepest apologies for the prolonged absence. My time away from you all had nothing to do with a lack of things to rage about (I can always find something!), but rather with the launching of a new site. So of course, the self-promoter that I am, I urge you to go check out Ladies' Locker Room when you're done absorbing everything over here.

The reason I bring up my other site and how terribly busy and important I am (besides the face that I am shameless) is that it led me to today's topic: Passwords. I understand the importance and need for passwords, I do. But sometimes they make my life just a little more difficult.

It all started simply enough. About 12 years ago, when my family first got America Online (saying I didn't have internet 'til I was a teenager is going to age me badly one day). I used the same password for everything. As the years passed, I began to accumulate more and more sites and programs that required a password. Eventually this led to everyone on the planet knowing the information to access virtually anything of mine. My mom, my brother, my friends, random people I've met once... even now I am sure 9 out of 10 people who have ever met me could tell you how to log onto my Facebook. This is not in my best interest.

So over the last year or two, I have been using a variety of passwords. It still amounts to about 3 different passwords, which equals out to about 7 out of 10 people who know me can log on to everything I have. Still no problem there. Perhaps I should stop giving people my account information.

The problem now becomes my inability to remember what passwords I used where and if I invented a new one for any specific reason. This problem is made exponentially worse by the wonderful browser feature that allows your computer to remember your passwords. Of course, I use this function, regardless of the fact that I will let anyone in the world use my computer... my brand spanking new pink laptop, that comes to me courtesy of one of my favorite people on earth.

This weekend, as I decided that the Internet Explorer that the computer comes pre-programmed with is a low-class piece of shit, I decided to download Firefox. Fantastic. All my passwords are stored in IE. I decide to log on and write a rageout about Betty White (I will treat you all to that later). Turns out I have virtually no idea what my password is. I hadn't typed it in so long thanks to these password memory programs that it took me SEVENTEEN TRIES to log in. SEVENTEEN.

Brutal.

You would think I learned my lesson but as soon as Firefox asked me if I would like them to remember the password, I of course accepted their assistance. Some things never change.

-stars

grievance: my appliances

Dear Shower,

Stop arbitrarily choosing a time to raise your temperature 10 fold. Unfortunately, you oft do it while I am washing my face and it really, really hurts.

I don't know what I did to you to receive this kind of bipolar treatment. I also have to file a complaint regarding your desire to drop the temperature 10 fold as well.

I think you should be punched in the face immediately.

Love,
Scalded Moon

----------

Dear Refrigerator/Freezer,

I'm at a loss for words. All summer long when I desired chilled drinks and the capability to make frozen cocktails, you refused to make ice and, instead, gave me crunchy water.

Now it is winter time and I have no such desire. And not only do you engender ice for me quite willingly but you also freeze bottles of soda and cartons of juice in my refrigerator.

Furthermore, a couple weeks ago you randomly started to leak and now my white tiled floor looks like crap no matter how often I mop it. What's the effin' deal?

I hope you rot in hell.

Love,
Parched Moon

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Dear Cable Box,

I understand that you are all kinds of high-tech but we've had you replaced once already and you continue to manifest severely pixelated images and act weird when I use your DVR functions.

Why won't you let me watch Intervention, asshole?

Love,
Aggravated Moon

----------

Dear Stove,

When you making clicking noises to let me know to turn you down, the frequency connects in some way with my stereo in my room and makes a reverberating clicking noise all over my room through 8 speakers.

Stop fucking doing that!!!! It makes me feel weird!

Love,
Aurally-Freaked-Out Moon

----------

Dear Shower Drain,

I DO understand that two women produce a lot of hair. But I find it surreptitious that I need to use an entire BOTTLE of Drain-O on you once a month.
Why are you doing this to me? It makes my shower so gross and I think the cashiers at Duane Reade think I'm cooking some kind of weird drugs.

Love,
Dead Moon ('Cause She Slipped On Soap Scum Due To Improper Draining)

----------

Ugh. Why can't life be easier?

-moon

raging out at... internet findings

So I'm in love. Again. Just for this week. Or for all time. I have no idea. The only thing I truly know is that Google is severely impairing my ability to have any semblance of a "normal" relationship with "normal" progression. Not that normalcy has been my strong suit historically. I'm babbling. Allow me to rewind.

So being single and with the nonsense of past relationships behind me for now, I've been fully ready to move on and perhaps find that elusive nice guy for once. So bored one night and admittedly on a MySpace binge, I happen upon the older brother of my adorable buddy Pierre (names have been changed to protect the innocent who don't want their business on blast on the internet.) JD, Pierre's brother, is, not to mince words, smoking hot. In the immortal words of Moon, he is just "holy bananas." So being the crazed, freshly recovered single gal that I am, I shoot him a message to the super smooth and charming effect of “Hey, I’m a buddy of Pierre’s so I thought I would shoot you a message. Sweet pictures.” Yeah, I’m good, I know. What man wouldn’t be falling at his feet with such delicately placed words?

So, many exchanged e-mails, texts, and a few phone calls later, I am fully hooked on JD… despite having never met him. Ahh, the age of the internet, where love matches are made based on a few pictures taken at our best angles and a handful of well-worded emails that frankly could have been penned by the entire writing staff of 30 Rock for all we know. But we want to believe and so we do. And sometimes everything we hope for turns out to be true. But none of that risk-taking with potential for meeting a frog you thought was a Prince Charming bothers me. What I am pissed at is my ability to Google anyone.

Now JD is a special case as he is probably a little more publicly profiled than your average internet love affair. He certainly isn't some giant celebrity, but suffice it to say when you're a professional athlete, even one of the lowest common denominator, there's a lot of information about you on the internet. So now only mere days into the beginnings of my new found love and never having met the boy, what do I know about him? I could tell you his height, his weight, how much money he makes, what the inside of his apartment looks like, his Guitar Hero ranking (I am completely mortified about knowing that one), and most importantly, what he looks like shirtless.

Okay, what?? How in the hell am I supposed to progress normally and slowly when I already have a good 4 months of relationship information in my head? Some of my best friends I have known for YEARS probably couldn't tell you all that information about me. I certainly don't know Moon's Guitar Hero ranking. Or if she even has one. But once I set off on an innocent Google of JD, I couldn't stop myself. And now I know too much. And now it's making things awkward.

Example 1:
JD:
"Man, I had a rough day. You would win the day if you came to give me a massage."
Stars Internal Monologue Dilemma:
"Poor baby, his team lost today. He did have a trying day. Wait, shit, how do I answer that? If I acknowledge I know why he had a bad day, am I a stalker for checking box scores? I can pretend I didn't go to ESPN.com. But then do I look like I don't care enough to even see how his team did? Or like I'm not a sports fan and maybe that's a turn-off. Dear God, help me!!!"
Stars' Final Answer:
"Aww, honey. I wish you weren't so far or I would. Too bad phone massage doesn't have quite the same effect as phone sex."
Crisis averted. Stars' sanity moves just out of her range of vision.

Example 2:
Stars is sitting around, eating leftover pancakes and singing loudly to AFI. Phone rings.
Stars:
"Oh Jesus, JD!"
Minor and brief panic attack ensue. Composure regained. Opens up phone.
Stars:
"Hi love, what's going on?"
JD:
"Hi beautiful girl. Are you listening to AFI?"
Major panic attack sets in.
Stars Internal Monologue Dilemma:
"Crap, fuck, crap, fuck hell! (My internal monologue indeed does have Tourette's.) Shit!!! I know one of his favorite bands is AFI. Did he tell me that or did I read that? I most likely read it. Is he going to think I'm listening to it because he likes it? Is the jig up? He's going to know I Googled him! This is a nightmare. Why, oh why, did I have to be listening to AFI? I do like other bands! This is so not a big deal, who cares, right? Oh no, it's been way too long since I've said anything."
JD:
"Stars? You there?"
Stars:
"Yeah, sorry. Was turning the music down. Having an iPod Shuffle of a night."
Crisis again averted, although why couldn't I just acknowledge I was listening to one of my favorite bands? He doesn't own them. Now I'm mad at JD for my own stupidity. Calm down, crazy girl.

Example 3:
This is not so much an example as my deep burning desire to point something out. JD has pictures of himself on the internet where he is deeply and meaningfully shirtless. Some dudes should never go without a shirt and some guys I don't mind if they do. JD, in his professional athlete glory, does the world a great injustice when he puts a shirt on. To put it in perspective... we all know my love of Sawyer from Lost. If I could only enjoy one shirtless man for the rest of my life, I wouldn't hesitate to choose JD over Sawyer every day of the week. It's that good.
Actually now that I think about it, this is an example. Knowing the hotness that lurks there, I am infinitely more nervous talking to him than I would be without that information. Generally, I'm not ogling a man I am dating in all his shirtless glory until he is allowed to see me shirtless as well. And usually by the time that happens, I am largely past the point of being fully nervous around him. This is simply not fair.

Example 4:
Google search? Check!
YouTube search? Check!
Scouring through MySpace comments? Check!
Drooling over shirtless pictures? Check, check, and dear God, check again!

So, in conclusion (and thanks to all of you for trudging through this post and making it this far with me... Stars in love is a crazy Stars indeed!), I am never ever looking anything up on the internet again. I don't need that much information until it is presented to me. I don't need to make myself more nervous and more psycho than I obviously already am. Hopefully, I can meditate on this and reach an inner peace and calm before I screw this whole thing up. If not, I wonder if I can sue the entire internet for destroying my relationship?

-stars

grievance: the worst airplane ride ever

Okay. I admit that part of the cause for what culminated in "the worst flight" in aviation history had something to do with me. I realized, the day before I was supposed to go to Puerto Rico for a much-needed respite from the world, that the looming paper deadline on the horizon was actually due the day after we were supposed to get back to NYC... at 9:45 A.M. And our flight was getting in at 1 A.M. So, I'd spent a bunch of "beach time" reading JSTOR articles about fallacious, semicompetitive village elections in China. (And had to spend FORTY THREE dollars on printing some of these out at the business center of our hotel. Meh.)

So... When I got on the plane to come back home, I was all kinds of prepared to just bang out this paper. And then the flight-from-hell began. The young man in front of me felt it was acceptable and appropriate to wail his arms about and yell in my face to get my attention (I was on my computer and had earplugs in so as to preempt any kind of vexing behavior by other jetBlue patrons).

"Yo, you gots a credit card?"

Bewildered and bemused, I told him that I did, in fact, have one.

"My buddy ain't got one and they not takin' cash and he wants-a get a drink. You put it on your card and he cu pay you back?"

Okay. This dude had already banged the hell out of his seat (which slammed into my computer on the tray table every time) and had been yelling like he was in a bar. But I thought "hey, this would be a nice thing to do." So I did.

Then the entire thing caused such a commotion that all of the flight attendants were in the aisle, trying to figure out this stupid situation. When I asked her for another tomato juice, she smiled and said "would you like some vodka with that?" I really would have. But the fuckin' China democratization paper. Ugh.

Then these fucking bastards essentially start jumping up and down like monkeys, laughing, banging seats. Acting like real classy characters. So I went to sit by the window.

Still fucking distracted as hell by the three d-bags, now there was also a woman in front of me sitting on her knees somewhat turned to her boyfriend, massaging him, and essentially staring at me. At first it was annoying. Then it was severely disturbing and creepy.

So, after all of these frustrations and only 2 pages of writing done, even with earplugs, I decided to take a mini nap and finish up later.

I woke up when they made the announcement that we'd be making our descent into New York.

The three d-bags were still acting like d-bags, so THAT was awesome.

I looked out the window and tried to calm down. After all, I'd just had an amazing and relaxing vacation: so relaxing a vacation was it that the only complaints I could think of (and I tried hard) were:
1. Grievance: The Terribly Annoying Noise of the Ocean Waves Crashing on the Beach
2. Grievance: Warm, Beautiful 85 Degree Weather in March
3. Grievance: Pina Coladas Melting Too Quickly in the Sun
4. Grievance: Having a Balcony
5. Grievance: Outlet Stores Closing Too Early
6. Grievance: Accidentally Falling Asleep Because You're Too Relaxed
So that's just a few. Not my best work, I concede. It's hard to be prickly in paradise.

In any event, just when I'm starting to calm down from the annoyance, there's some turbulence. I love turbulence. It's like a rollercoaster. I've never had a bad flying experience in my life, so I don't take it too seriously. But this went on for about 3 minutes and then got worse. And then it got really bad. And I looked over at one of the d-bags and he was praying. And I laughed. And then it got REALLY bad. And REALLY scary. And then I looked out at the wing and it looked like it was battling a fucking enemy. And it was pouring. I actually seriously thought the plane was going down and we were going to die.

I was sweating and shaking and about to start crying. When we finally landed, I was unbelievably nauseated. But I was also in some weird shock and was so anxiety-ridden that I couldn't even speak or look at lights. It was horrifying.

I was still in shock when we got home. So I started drinking Bacardi out of the bottle to loosen up to write the rest of the damned paper. I got myself to bed at 5A.M.

I have no recollection of what I put into the second part of that paper, so that should be interesting to say the least.

I regret I do not have pictures or video of the three d-bags, because I was so stunned by the experience I couldn't make it happen. I do however have a picture that will make you all, including myself now that I'm back in dreary New York, quite jealous.

From now on, I think I'm going to have to be one of those CRAZY bitches who pop a Xanax before they fly. Here's to unnecessary pharmaceuticals!



-caribbean moon

grievance: the mta

FUCK the MTA. Yes, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Seriously. I suppose that I have to address the "fare hike" here despite the fact that this isn't why I'm raging out at the MTA. The problem I have with the fare hike isn't that I can't deal with paying 5 more dollars on a monthly unlimited MetroCard. The problem is in that if you do NOT buy a monthly and get a 20- or 40-dollar card, you end up with a random-ass balance on your card which you need to put extra money on to validate its existence. You get less of a discount. So you end up with 10 rides, and a dollar-fifty left or something like that. (Details of inanities be not my forte.) Fuck off. I'm not loading 50 goddamned cents onto my card. Bunch of bullshit.

I'm not going to delve into an intricate explanation and divertissement of the fact that this fare hike is a bunch of bullshit because it's going to maintain the current debt situation of the MTA, not to help ameliorate the transit system. Because that's a whole different can o' worms. Although, come to think of it, if you paid your "staff" better, MTA, my problem never would have happened...

On the way to work Saturday eve', I was on the M15 which, for those of you who do not live in New York City, or are of the breed who "doesn't do buses" despite using subways, runs up First and down Second Avenues. Directly after the bus left the Delancey Street "station," I hit the "button." (I like using quotation marks.) And the stupid asshole voice came on saying "Stop Requested," akin in ennui level to "Stand Clear of the Closing Doors Please." A block before Grand Street, I got up to get off the bus, and saw a co-worker, who I did not know was on the bus as well, getting up too. And then all of a sudden, I see him hit the strip again.

And we go zooming past Grand Street. We're on the CUSP of being late for work, so when we stop at the next light, which is before the next stop, i.e. Canal Street, I go up to the bus driver and explain that I had IN FACT hit the strip, and asked politely if we could get off while we were stopped since we were trying to get to work on time.

We were STOPPED. It's not as if I was asking him to do me a favor. He NEGLECTED to stop after I had requested the stop. And I was just asking him to OPEN the doors where we were. Also, important: NOT ONE OTHER SOUL ON THE BUS besides my coworker and me.

That was just MEAN.

Furthermore, yesterday I waited for the very same bus line up on 67th Street and Second Avenue for TWENTY-TWO MINUTES. The bus panel said "every 6 or 7 minutes" for my time arena. It was freezing. I finally, after waiting in the cold, had to pay 10 bucks for a cab ride in a straight line along the bus route.

And with what was I greeted? STUPID TAXITV.

-moon

grievance: taxitv

There are very few problems I have with the concept of taxi-cabs. At the top of the list of merits of cabs may be the fact that I do not even possess a driver's license (and got my permit at age 19). A direct consequence of this is not having to elect a poor sap to be "designated douchebag" for the night. And I certainly love anything that facilitates inebriation. There are, of course, other aspects of the concept of taxis which I do love. However, concepts do not always pan out as intended.

In reality, a lot of cab drivers are assholes. And the ones who aren't ALWAYS want to chit-chat with you ONLY when you aren't in the mood to talk (e.g. when you're [spoken very quickly and in one breath, in my typical overdramatic fashion] rushing to school via cab because there is a test and you overslept and you need to take a last-minute look at your notes during the ride and the cabbie wants to ask you how to arrange 9 chairs evenly around a rectangular table [true story]). And there is simply NO polite way to say "shut the fuck up." None at all.

An even larger percentage drive like they're in a high-speed car chase or a car-simulation video game. However, I am not on the run from the police nor will I have another "life." I'm not a Super Mario Brother.

So now I present to you the newest thing to grace taxis - and the WORST since 1996 when they decided to install recordings to play when the driver would hit the meter. These were terrible because they were spoken either in a terrible Staten Island accent, telling you to "rememba to tsake you-wa belawngins when exsitin the tsaxi" or the one of which I have a blurry memory with, I believe, Eartha Kitt meowing or something and then, of course, reminding you to take your SHIT. I was in sixth grade so the memory is faded. Did Joe Torre do one... ?

Ladies and gentlemen, it's "TaxiTV." And it can go to hell.



It makes me furious. For those of you who have not been privy to (or forced into seeing) this atrocity, I shall explain. In keeping with (I suppose) the (unnecessary) technology of today, such as DVD screens in the backs of cars' headrests for children to be mollified, the Taxi and Limousine Commission has put fucking touch-screen "television" screens in the backs of taxicab partitions. This installation went hand-in-hand with credit-card-payment-ready cabs, and a GPS system. Why in the world the person in the back needs to see this screen, I've honestly no idea. (I'm going to break this aspect down because many people have claimed this to be the only real thing which can be defended):

A. If you get into a cab, you tell the driver where you're going and he takes you there. You don't tell him "make a right onto 56th street, then a left onto third avenue," etc. He knows. He does this for a living. Leave it to a professional. In fact, not only is this useless and erroneous information to give to a passenger, it's actually in some ways problematic, as it lends itself to "back-seat-driver"-ness.
B. You have to hit approximately ten buttons to get to the map. It's not even convenient.
C. You're in fucking New York City. Look outside your fucking window. Even if you're in an un-fucking-familiar neighborhood, there are big, green signs on EVERY SINGLE corner of the ENTIRE CITY. Not to mention, with the exception of certain areas, the city functions on an ordinal, numerical grid-system. Reaaaaally? You need GPS? Douche.

Okay. So, you may ask, what other useless shit is on there that makes you so vehemently furious, moon? Well, I shall tell you.
- Garbage, filler shit that has been deemed uncontroversial and vanilla enough, such as 5-second reviews of movies. Thanks. I learned a lot in 5 seconds, Jeffrey Lyons.
- Zagat fucking restaurant shit. Dude, Zagat is pretty much everywhere I go these. Leave me alone, Zagat. Who do you think you are? John Mayer? (See "raging out at... john mayer.)
- Weather. Someone told me that they liked the weather portion. My rebuttal: if you're in a taxi, you've already BEEN outside. You don't need to be TOLD what the weather is if you've already EXPERIENCED it.
- "Don't forget to..." as an "Ask the 'Locals'" bit, with "locals," of course, being celebrities like Julianne Moore or something. And the advice is like "bring the stroller, even if the kids say they want to walk." I don't have kids. And also, what the fuck? I feel like taking advice from your child is never a good idea. The other one I can recall is "bring an extra roll of film." Shut the fuck up. I don't like this because I don't like being told what to do. Especially not by celebrities. Espeeeecially when they don't pertain to me (not only do I not have children, but I own a digital camera).
- Random, skewed, couple-days-old news clips. Just as they're about to tell you some actual information, some shit like the "Taxi Rider's Bill of Rights" comes on. Yes, the yellow sticky thing that used to be stuck to the back of the partition. That used to be the ONLY information you needed. And if I weren't so fired up about TaxiTV, I'd write about the absurdity of granting "rights" to passengers.

I think I've made, thus far, a pretty good case for why this advancement in technology is silly and stupid. But if those reasons don't make you angry, ladies and gentlemen, the real reasons I am furious about TaxiTV:

Fucking inane and incomplete "headlines" on the ticker at the bottom of the screen. Is it not enough that you're in TRANSIT and watching television? You need another thing going on? Dude. Adderall has NO chance against these forms of gratuitous stimulation for people with ADD/ADHD. Or AC/DC for that matter. (Yes, people have AC/DC, clearly.)
I thought I'd share some with you:
- "6.4-Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Mexico." (Ummm - that's kind of important... You couldn't put that on the screen itself?)
- "Polls Open For Potomac Primaries." (Okay, this actually tells me nothing. Are you telling me to go vote? I don't live there. Let me know when there are RESULTS.)
- "Clinton Attacks Obama's Contributors." (This isn't really news. It's how campaigns work. She needs cash. Cooooool campaign manager, Hill.)
- "Homes Evacuated After Semi Overturns, Leaks." (WHAT???? Semi-what?)
- "5 Crossover Vehicles Named Best For Family." (Cool. Care to share which...? No..? Just wanna tell us that 5 exist...? Great. Thanks. )
- "100 Years Easier to Reach Than You Think." (I know, now, that there was some study done that essentially says we will be able to live longer than the past generation. However, this "headline" says nothing. Who is "you"? Who the fuck are they to tell me how difficult I think it is to reach 100?)
- "Britons Sound Off Against Anti-Child Device." (Do Brits hate children? Is that what this is saying? I feel like I'm on Jay Leno.)
- "Clemens' Ex-Teammates Dropped as Witnesses." (Why??? Damnit. I want stories here.)
- "Top Sports Photos of the Week." (Seriously now. What??? I even tried tapping it in the hopes that it was a link to said photos. Nope. Which I guess is actually fine seeing as this is non-news.)
- "Canadiens Player Accused of Stealing Purse." (This is actually fucking amaaaaaazing! A professional hockey player is stealing purses? Love it. This is the one thing I obtained from TaxiTV. However, I have no idea about whom they're actually speaking. Typical.)
- "Weird Chronicles: Modern Music Musings." (This isn't anywhere NEAR a complete thought, let alone piece of news. I do appreciate the alliteration of "Modern Music Musings." I, however, have no idea what this is TRYING to say.)

These "headlines" make me furious. I never thought I'd find something worse than the Post. I was wrong.

With all of this said, and I think I've made a lot of great points, the number one reason I want to have a duel to the death with TaxiTV's creator is...

LOOKING AT IT MAKES ME FUCKING NAUSEATED.

And most people with whom I end up in a cab fight me on it and repeatedly put it BACK on. It makes me actually need to hurl, like reading in a car on a hot day.

Fuck off and die, TaxiTV.

-moon

raging out at... my top 10

Today is a special day when so many things have created a swelling rage within me that I can not stick to one topic. I must instead introduce my first annual (or however frequently, or infrequently, I feel like doing it) Top 10 Rage list.

In no particular order...

10) My Roommate's Piece of Trash DVD Player
I will readily admit that I am absolutely the kind of girl that reads the novel before the movie comes out so I can snidely look like a pompous ass walking out of the theater saying, "can you even believe they left out the 3rd word in the 4th paragraph on page 26? The whole movie couldn't have possibly made any sense to anyone who didn't read the book." Now this attitude (and it is a stretch, but bear with me) is why I'm pissed off at the DVD player. Dexter, from what I hear, is this brilliant amazing show that I haven't seen. I've had the DVDs laying around and I, of course, have not yet unwrapped them and bothered to watch the show. Of course all it takes is for me to hear that it's coming to CBS and I immediately raced to watch. How could I bitch and moan about how much better the cable version is if I had not seen it? So clearly to keep my grandiose sense of entitlement, I attempt to watch the DVDs today and the DVD player tells me the disc is incompatible. Living with my roommate for a year, I have yet to put a disc in there that does actually work. So now I'm watching dexter on my laptop while the stupid DVD player screen mocks me in the background. I will be going out in the morning to purchase a cinnamon raisin bagel to see if that might be compatible for it. Or at least cross my fingers that DVD players are capable of being choked.

9) Lying Contact Lens Manufacturers
Yes, I know I shouldn't sleep in my contact lenses. And yes, I do it anyway. Almost every night. But I did have the good sense to order the extra oxygen, let-your-eyes-breathe contacts which are supposed to be "okay" to sleep in. Are they? No, they are not. Can I find my glasses? Nope, I certainly cannot. Am I going blind and might this blog be the last thing I ever see? Well now there's one question that gets a yes. Don't offer me extra fake oxygen. It's rude.

8) Javier Bardem
I legitimately can't sleep most nights or go into a convenience store to buy cigarettes anymore as I spend the entire time in a panic waiting for Javier Bardem to come in and airwhip me to death. I'm scared enough of the eye doctor's airpuff. If I ever see Javier Bardem anywhere near me, I will drop dead of a heart attack long before he can get near me with that deadly canister. Frick, now I'm thinking about him again. My roommate will be mad if she comes home and once again can't get in the door because I've created my traditional Bardem Barricade.

7) Lost
Okay (and I'm sure Orion is going to correct me... which reminds me, stay tuned next week for a special orion/stars west coast edition), but Lost is quite possibly the best show of its genre on network television. I would maybe allow Pushing Daisies in a ring against Lost, but any show where the lead actor is a pie-maker is somewhat genre-less. (I will categorize TV based on bakery treats as often as I want and based on the one time I have ever done this [just now], it has proven to be a remarkably efficient and precise classification method.)
But here is my big problem with Lost. And no, it is not how they always quickly and thoroughly answer all my questions within minutes of them being posed, or how it isn't frustrating at all that they do something absurd and never again approach the topic. Actually I've changed my mind. Those are my big problems with Lost. But even more pressing and tragic than that problem is that the costume designer keeps putting a shirt on Sawyer. I believe it's a Biblical reference - that you do not hide your light under a barrel - so the costume designers are pretty much telling God to shove it by shirting the ever majestic Sawyer. That's just not cool.

6) My Supermarket Discount Card
The supermarket discount cards belong to a conglomerate that is also home to such things as socks in the dryer and every Bic lighter I've ever owned. They are objects which are fleeting in my life. They come and bring me joy for a short time and then are just as quickly lost, though not forgotten. There was a period of perhaps 6 or 7 trips in a row to Ralph's when I signed up for a new card because the old one was in the Great Abyss. And my phone number also magically never works.
So I finally have given up and have picked up the habit of punching in my old gentleman friend's phone number. (At least "Pinehog" is good for something). So thanks for the discount, "Pinehog," and you can send me a small gourmet cheese platter for all the points I've wracked up for you in the Ralph's Wine Club. (Come on, who thought I was shopping for a well balanced meal?)

5) Brittny Gastineau
That girl can suck whichever of my butt cheeks is her preferred. A few nights ago, I was walking into a bathroom stall at some Grammy party (God, living in LA is awful) and Brittny Gastineau literally enters the stall with me and yells "Is Paris in here?" Now I've had about a gigaloot of champagne (and yes I did make up that word but it truly is how much champagne I had) and have no idea who this chick is and even if I did, we certainly aren't cool like that for her to join me in a tiny bathroom stall. So the remainder of the conversation goes something like this:

Stars: I have no idea who Paris is.
Brittny: You've got to be fucking kidding me. Where is Paris?
Stars: I'm not sure if you're aware of how tiny this stall is, but the chance of Paris being in here is pretty marginal.
Brittny: You fucking bitch. Tell her I need her.

Okay, what? I'm making it a life rule that D-list celebrities are never welcome in any bathroom stall I'm in. Ever. I have to debate where A-, B-, and C-listers fall on my stall privilege rule. I will get back to you.

4) T-Mobile Sidekicks
I don't have to justify this to anyone who has ever owned a shitkick. Mine is basically being held together by dental floss and a prayer right now. It never works and yet I remain just immature enough to not want to switch to a BlackBerry.

3) My Landlord
My lease is up in less than a month and par for my course, I'm moving, so they're renting out the apartment. With zero forewarning, my landlord barges in with 2 girls to check out the apartment. I was actually head half down in a beer on one couch with a half naked singer/songwriter on the other couch, his head in some Tostitos. We did not need witnesses to that hungover moment. Nor can I imagine it's great for his career to have a spotting of that nature.

2) Tylenol P.M.
I'm a notorious insomniac and I used to be able to trust in my old friends Simply Sleep or Tylenol P.M. in a pinch. Apparently those things are now as effective as a Flintstones gummy vitamin. It's laughable - the non-existent purpose they serve. I don't even get drowsy. I think it may actually have the adverse effect. The next time I go to run one of my half marathons I'm going to pop a Tylenol P.M. I will be sure to finish in record time.

And the top of the Rageout List, the gold medal of suckage prize goes to...

1) CNN.com
Of course I followed the presidential primaries, obsessively checking each number as they came in. And I was delighted with the turnout and pretty much rooting CNN on as their winner projections were coming in quicker than any of the other news channels. But when you click for the more detailed state-by-state delegate breakdown, it informs you in big purple letters which of the candidates no longer have a snowman's chance in hell of winning. Obviously there's quite a few down-and-out candidates who are basically being mocked in lavender by CNN.com for having no votes. But somehow Mike Gravel, winner of maybe not even his own vote, has a big fat zero next to his name, but has escaped the Lilac Mockery. I will be creating "congrats on the goose egg, Gravel" in an array of purple hues to show I think he showed as terrible of a showing as all the other candidates... sans, of course, my beloved Hillary.

-stars

grievance: "things" disappearing into a technological abyss

I've never been one to hate on technology (Stars' domain). Nor have I ever been one to write blogs that are spurred by a hatred of something without the purpose of addressing it. This is solely me "bitching one out" because I am irrationally angry at two devices.

Okay... let me begin with the one that was completely NOT my fault (because let's face it... I am indirectly responsible for one of these):

1. My BlackBerry is an asshole. I kept getting messages that wouldn't disappear saying that I have a BlackBerry Messenger (hereto referred to as "BBM [I'm so cool]) message.")  So, instead of wiping the entire device, I decided to remove BBM. Lo and behold, when trying to reinstall it, I got messages saying that my device didn't support this conduit for installation. The douchebags at the Verizon store said I had to do a hard restart, and had to back up all my shit, but would lose all of my messages... so I've been putting it off, because I had e-mails, texts, etc. that contained information I needed to record.

Then, when I'd finally found the time to do that, I tried to actually sync it back (contacts, calendar, what have you). My computer decided it didn't recognize the stupid ShitBerry. So I MANUALLY updated everything back to my computer. Yeah... 'cause I have TIME for that. (Rolls eyes.) But still hadn't extracted any kind of information from the texts, e-mails, etc.

Then, the piece of shit decided one night to just delete all my messages. Great. And then consistently did that every night... and then last night... every SINGLE time I'd sent or received a message.

So... I texted one of my very good friends on Tuesday inquiring about her birthday plans on Thursday, to which there was no response. Then I called her Thursday morning. Then an irate MySpace message regarding her non-response. Then at 1:30AM on Thursday night, I received a phone call from a mutual friend who was with her, "where the FUCK are you?" Apparently she'd texted me with ALL of the information the night before and was expecting I'd be there. Awesome. Really. Awesome.

Oh... and all that time I spent (read: fucking WASTED) manually putting shit back on my computer... was entirely futile because...

2. My MacBook is a douchebag. (Well... okay... more like I'm a douchebag.) I spilled WINE on my MacBook... AGAIN... for the SECOND TIME... in TWO MONTHS. The first time "she" in some ways rehabilitated herself and was use-able. But this time... done. So I was depending on my PictureTrail to get my photos back... and my motherfucking asshole iPod for my music. Turns out, the asshole decided that about 2000 of my 10000 songs were corrupt and while their titles showed up, there was no MP3 to extract. And it's not as if there was ANY rhyme or reason for the target of said corruption. It wasn't a whole album here or a whole folder there. No. It was arbitrarily chosen songs from all over my library.

So after throwing down some cash for some recovery program or some crap (which crashed every 10 minutes, which was AWESOME) I got back most of my stuff. But turns out... a lot of the recovered files are PORTIONS of songs. What the hell am I supposed to do with THAT? They're also named "106, 107, 108," etc. So... this has been really fun and totally awesome.

This was also after spending about a month trying to reconstruct my playlists FROM the physical lists on my iPod manually because my other MacBook (that shit the bed) decided one day to delete my iTunes library.

In a last attempt to get back full goddamned files... I went back to an external hard drive that had been created from the hard drive from my PC (which lit into flames before it froze and died) which had been working JUST fine for a year and a half. Suddenly, it's decided that it will only allow me to drag ONE folder (if that) to my computer before it freezes and makes whirly, eddy-like noises.

So... essentially... trying to contact me is completely and utterly unreliable and my iTunes gives me a seizure just looking at it:



Anyone know whom "��w7o�w0o�w____��_00C - ��w7o�w0o�w____��_00C - 17152 - ��w7o�w0o�w____��_00C 1" is by? Oh... I didn't know that was the OTHER name for two minutes and twenty-one seconds of "Found Out About You" by The Gin Blossoms. Terrific.

(Side inquiry: what about this file made iTunes think it should be genre-d as "Blues"?) Hmmmmmm. You puzzle me so, iTunes. You enigma, you.

-moon

shit that sucks - social networking overload

So I was an early adopter of Friendster, and I was obsessed with it. Then I transitioned to MySpace. Loved that, but it was totally crushed by Facebook, where everyone on the site is actually real, and you're not getting spammed by wannabe porn stars and getting comments about $50 Macy's cards. I am also a member of Buzznet, Twitter, VIRB, iLike, and Last.fm, mostly just to see what all the hype is about. And I'm glad all of that all of those millions of social networking sites exist, I guess. I mean they do no harm and if you want to join them and maintain 75 profiles and keep updating your status on each one, and uploading photos to all of them, and keep adding and inviting the same friends to them, more power to you.

My issue is this - every site needn't have a social networking component. Today Google announced the integration of their new social networking platform into their web apps, and Netflix asks me to import friends from my e-mail address to see their recommendations, and a=Amazon wants me to upload a picture. Why? This doesn't make my experience better. It just sucks.

-orion's belt buckle

raging out at... people who take away messages seriously

Obviously with the infiltration of IMs, texts, and e-mails in our daily lives, communication has gotten a little muddled and there are all new sorts of life etiquette rules to be learned. I've gotten into more all-out wars with people I love (read: "the idiot men I date") than I can even recount because of someone taking the cyber-written word the wrong way. But today I learned that cyberspace has figured out a new way to make my already handicapped relationships eligible for the Special Dating Olympics... the away message.

I've been laid up feeling pretty sick the last week or so (and don't worry, there's a rage on my unnecessary need to have an appendix in my body coming) and I've had away messages up more than usual as I've been more unavailable than my norm. So in putting these things up, 9 times out of 10, they're bitching about something or in direct correlation to something a friend and I had recently been laughing about. Now if I were to write "Doing crossword puzzles with Dick Cheney" as my current status, a normal logical person could probably ascertain that I am not, in fact, engaging in word games with our jackoff Vice President. However, if you live in Hollywood and have a slight history of the occasional non nun-like behavior, well then let the rage and accusations fly.

So I'd like to clear up a few things.
1) Almost backing over Shia LeBeouf with my car and having to have him guide me out of a parking spot so he can remove himself from the deathtrap I nearly put him in does NOT mean he was inside me at any point during the day. He did not offer his services. I would have accepted.
2) If you know me well enough to be obsessively checking my away messages, you should know my behavior well enough to know when I'm being tongue-in-cheek.
3) Again knowing me that well, you should know (and by you, I'd like that to again read: "the idiot men I date") that sometimes I write these things to make you angry. It isn't rational or acceptable but this is what I do.

So the point here is this: don't take what I say to be serious. It most likely isn't. And please know if ever I do have Shia inside me, I will take out a full page in the New York Times to announce it. News of that nature is worthy of something more grand than my away message.

-stars

raging out at... people who may or may not be dead

It can't be explained as to why, but nothing (and by nothing, I mean most things) enrages me more than not knowing if someone is dead or not. I hate that I have to sit there, wasted at a bar, and google things such as "Betty White dead." Nearly all of my drunken googles are for either song lyrics or finding out if someone is, in fact, dead.

And to be honest, I am mostly pissed at myself for this one. Someone will pass a remark about someone such as Abe Vigoda and then someone else will ALWAYS chime in with, "Aren't they dead?" I immediately become devastated and start in on the "Dead Inquisition." As my slow Sidekick loads up "Abe Vigoda dead," I attack the party who felt Abe was dead. "When did he die? Are you sure? What happened? How come I think I saw him in that new Macy's commercial? Oh, that was Usher. Whatever. I don't think he's dead. You're wrong. You're dead. Why would you say a thing like that about Abe Vigoda if you weren't sure??"

Now if the allegedly dead celebrity meant that much to me that I would attack a friend, shouldn't I have been up on whether or not they were dead in the first place? And why in the hell does everyone think everyone is dead anyway? 9 times out of 10, the person in question isn't dead.

Don't tell me someone's dead and crush my spirit unless you are sure.

-stars

shit that sucks - vending machines

An incorrect haiku.

I'm really thirsty.

I have no cash in my wallet.

I'm a debit card kind of guy.

I'm really thirsty.

There's a vending machine outside.

Why don't you take debit cards?

Why vending machine?

Why?

-orion's belt buckle

shit that sucks - peacocks

Everyone's favorite network with the xylophone scaled sonic branding ending their deal with iTunes to sell on Amazon.com and their own proprietary website.

First of all - NBC has the best original programming with the exception of F/X and HBO. Chuck, The Office, 30 Rock, and Las Vegas are some of the most brilliant shows on the air today. But, like everyone else in the modern world, I stopped being down with appointment television with the advent of TiVo (okay really just generic Time Warner DVR). Then, the iTunes Music Store added television series and I could put them on my iPod and plug that into my TV and watch whatever I wanted even if I'd forgotten to TiVo (read: DVR) it.

This is how I discover most shows. I'm a pop culture addict - it's what I do.

Long story short, NBC pulled the plug on iTunes because it wanted more money. What they don't understand is that TV shows have no value really. DVDs of TV shows are purchased because they are physical products. Consumers are purchasing the box to place on a shelf because it is representative of their tastes. When people put The Office DVD on their shelf they are doing it so when they have guests they can say "oh, you like The Office?" Or else you watch the episodes once through, and put the box back on aforementioned shelf. In fact, if you notice most people lose at least one of the DVDs that come in TV show boxed sets. Go open your friends Lost Season 2 - tell me if Disc 3 is in there or if it's sitting under the couch scratched up like a cat toy.

So why not be happy at making 1.99 for a TV show that you were otherwise making nothing for. Advertisers aren't going anywhere yet. Use iTunes as a promotion - in fact it is credited with launching The Office into the mainstream. Let clips sit up on YouTube, you can't really monitize 30 second clips (don't get me started on ringtones). Let fans be fans and share their enthusiasm of your product.

So now there's a writers' strike, so I'm preparing for new TV to disappear to make room for America's Best Choir (yes - there is a real series coming with that premise this January). So in celebration of my new iPod Touch I bought Season 1 of Heroes, a show I'd always wanted to start watching. So now I'm hooked on that, and almost through with it (even though new episodes of programming are still airing and I'd meant not to start watching Heroes until the strike was affecting my life - I have no self control). So, I want to get episodes from Season 2 - but they're not on iTunes. They are available only on Amazon.com's Unbox service - which of course isn't compatible with a Mac and can only be viewed on a PC in Window's Media format (can't be played on the iPod) - or it can be viewed on Hulu.com, another PC only website which isn't even open to the public - it's in invite only beta.

Thanks NBC. Way to get viewers to your shows.

Shit sucks.

-orion's belt buckle

grievance: iphones

This is my one and only complaint regarding iPhones:

I really, really, really, really, really, really want one.

Wahhhhhhh.

-moon

grievance: politicians on myspace

What is this all about? The area on the log-in page entitled "Cool New People" has always pissed me off, mainly because these people are not really cool, and I have no desire to be friends with them. First of all, why are you automatically "cool" because you just signed up for MySpace? Whatever.

In any event, it only mildly offended me until I started seeing people like Barack Obama and Dennis Kucinich appearing in this area. I understand that the only worthwhile tacit purport of MySpace may be as a marketing tool, because clearly Myspace is a waste of time for others of us. So when MySpace started offering "band profiles," and then "comedian profiles" that were tailored to these needs, with calendars and music players, I was fine with that. But now, bands are so hell-bent on promotion via MySpace that a lot of bands that I know don't even have their own webpages anymore, and just rely on MySpace for that.

But I have a problem with politicians on MySpace. I'm sorry. I just can't do it.

This is not going to solve the problem of the youth of America not voting. Especially because the youth of America is majorly a Democratic base. And as David Keene so succinctly stated, "if the Democrats can't win in 2008, they'll never win."

With that said, I'm not sure that this MySpace propaganda is solely for Democratic appeal, so I'll at least give them credit for using innovative ways to try to appeal to this heavily Democratically-stained youth for the primaries (which I think is crap, incidentally... but I won't get started on my negativity regarding the merging of Conservativism/Republicanism/Religious Right and Liberalism/Democraticness... somewhere, despite his lack of qualification for the job, Giuliani's got it right - I don't understand why I can't hypothetically adhere to a socially liberal platform [I do love the gays] and support Republican fiscal policy]). So okay, they're trying to appeal to the MySpace generation. This is just total fucking crap. Has anyone realized that we are quite a ways away from election? I know all genres of voting come down to something of a popularity contest, but how many people who claim to be on "Team Hillary" or whatever actually even know her policy? Come on. It's the equivalent of someone liking a band 'cause the lead singer's hot.

All I'm saying is that I don't want my future president running for office the way a band tries to get teenage girls to come to their shows. Like, what... is John Edwards going to comment me saying "Thanks for the add!" if I friend him? Or some flash image with sparkles and stars saying "Have a great day!"? It just makes me feel gross.

Politicians spend most of their days raising money for campaigning. This is what they're raising money for? Staff to sit on MySpace all day? Can't wait for whoever eventually grabs this office to send out weekly blogs updating their agenda on health care and foreign policy. Terrific.

I'm moving to France.

-moon