Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Two Postings in a Single Week? Am I Drunk?


Yes, I am. Drunk with power.

First, my tale of messenger bag-related hijinks is on The Consumerist,
here. I have, at last, outed myself as the world's crotchetiest customer service email-er. It was just such a salty missive to Randy Cohen when he was editing News Quiz for Slate that forced him to give me Michael's email address, just so I would leave him alone for a few hours. (On the week in question, I was ticked off because he was linking to a trivia quiz about dental hygiene, when I, loyal reader and contributor, worked night and day on the vastly slicker and funnier online version of You Don't Know Jack.)

The take away from this? If you're looking for the love of your life, write testy emails to professional journalists and watch the romance pile up!


Second: It's a new day, and a new construction noise du jour. Today's selection: Robot lullaby. Grinding, yet somehow...sonorous.

Monday, June 26, 2006

Procrasti-what now?

Yes, it's been nearly a year since the last post. And yes, quite a lot has happened in the intervening year. But since the Summer of Soda has a link to Cali-FOOOOOR-NYAAAAAAH, I thought, best put up some news, however trivial. (and by "however trivial", I mean "very, very trivial indeed.")


To wit: We were awakened this morning by a new and awful phase of construction across the alley.

(My god! Five years of condo construction in Chicago, then we move 2000 miles away and within a year, they've started tearing things down within earshot of us in Santa Monica. Are we cursed?)

The noise was really spectacular. Loud, obviously, but also violently grinding and screeching. As we were both dragged into consciousness, I realized I'd never heard a comparable sound before in my life. Michael asked me what I thought it was (other than construction) and I had to really think it over. How on earth could you make such an enormous racket? It wasn't riveting, it wasn't hammering, it wasn't earth moving. Then it hit me.

I think they're trying to shove an entire submarine through a two inch hole in a poured concrete wall.