There Is No Love For You.

I had an altogether appalling lunch yesterday. Wretched. Disgusting. The highlight of my day ruined by someone's malfeasance. Although not technically poisonous that might be the only thing one could say about the bean and cheese burrito I was sold. Odd, since the salsa was so good.

I went down at 4:00 yesterday fully prepared to slap the living daylights out the insolent spec that sold me the fiasco wrap but she had the good sense to scoot off early for her long weekend. She's at home right now. Probably in Monterey Park or La Puenta by the looks and sounds of her. Blissfully unaware of the tee-total shit storm that's gonna be all up in her face come Monday. I mean really!
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I actually have a date tonight with some hot young rugby playing looking thing up in Studio City. Perhaps the only thing that would get me up to Studio City really. Yup, as this year comes to an end the next year promises to be one where some people are actually going to be given a bite at the apple. A somewhat hard to digest and perplexing bite perhaps but still better than the burrito I had yesterday.

Happy New Year!

Thanks For Playing Now Leave.

So check out this noise. I was quietly listing to BBC World Have Your Say yesterday and the topic was Elton Troll's adoption of wee sprite when I was subjected to the inane mutterings of this right wing fool with a blog. Check out his homespun erudition. Has an MA in Religious Studies whatever the fuck that means, but apparently the only thing it qualifies you for is writing some desperately grasping leftist hating bile. Using big words you don't understand the meaning of, but you find sufficiently insulting to (insert whatever liberal politician you are addressing here) is another speciality.

Like most bloggers he has other outlets as well. Try, Been blogging far right drivel since the day after Obama won the nomination, but that doesn't make me a racist honest.blogpost.com. Or Whoever disagrees with me an elitist leftist intellectual who is only trying to put the average American down.wordpress.com and my personal favorite, America is a country founded on religious fanaticism and intolerance just like Iran and if you don't believe me you can kiss it because it's written in a book I have never read but Glen Beck told me about.I'm a loser.com

Right There In Front Of Me.

What to do with all the festive holiday dishes, tea towels and gew gaws? Seems to be the question of the moment in this house. I have my obvious knee jerk thoughts which point to dumpster, but would rather not be so wasteful. When will Ernesto be able to fit me in for a clip job? Close second, but obviously moving up in priorities. Which of course leads to, When will Ernesto shut up about his crazy capital "C" ex-wife and just take me in his arms and satisfy his Cuban appetites? No drama or restraining order here you know. Just hot man sex. Sigh. Been a few weeks since he laid his meat hooks on these ends so I fear I'm looking a bit too prep and not enough thug so the remedy is on the go.

Anyway, The Sale Sharks gave it their all yesterday, but still lost by 27 points or something. I hardly had time to notice. They moved me to a new office. On a much more crowded floor, but with a delightful eating area. Much better view, but no MS Office suite, and I'm here to tell you that a life without MS Office is still life. That's my Twitter of the day. Clever if you ask me.

Life Turns This Way And That.

Back in Los Angeles and nothing could seem more natural. The need for moisturizer almost washes away as you leave the plane. Leaving the chilly arid high altitudes of the inland Northwest behind I am struck at how one can find something in Boise, Idaho one has been looking everywhere in Los Angeles for. Lapsang Souchong tea if you must know and I'll be damned if I can find it LA and I've been looking for months, but there they had it at the Boise co-op along with an assortment of other loose teas I just had to have.

Made it through security and they bypassed my loose tea gunpowdery looking bags and my suspension ear drops and immediately honed into my new flask. The lady said she was sorry she couldn't confiscate it and I had to bite my tongue. It really is a beauty. All in all a very Asprey, Purdy & Barbour Christmas.

Early rugby game I had to miss, but come the new year Gay rugby league and me be getting to know one another.

Cover Of Never.

If by Neverland you mean the land (Downtown Los Angeles) where I never have reception, then yes AT&T, you most certainly have my back. Unfortunate campaign to say the least.

As many people know I am rarely happier than when I'm shopping the sales. Coupons in hand, furtive eyed, I can rarely capture such a thrill. One of the best places is Walgreens. However, the local Walgreens up here really let me down yesterday. Walking out of the store I thought my total seemed a bit steep so when I got back to the car, I mean truck, I checked my receipt and if they didn't overcharge me for two items.

I wheeled around and walked right back into the store and confirmed the prices then walked back up to the cashier and informed her of her errors. She told me I'd have to get the items from the truck or get them off the floor since she would have to scan them. I obliged. It was all shades of unpleasant. She made a few snippy attempts to patronize, sneer & condescend but I wasn't having any of it. I was going to get my $2.50 in my pocket where it belonged and there was little they could do to stop me. Played with the iPhone. Grindr is lame in Idaho. So are the guys.

Failing in her attempts to shame me out of the store she helped another customer roughly the size of a Honda Fit and left me in the incapable hands of someone else who gave me a form to fill out. Name, address, phone number, etc. I signed the form and handed it back to him. He told me I "hadn't got very far". I told him I was not providing any personal information, but he would be charging me the proper prices for the items in question. Unflappable, serene and determined I walked out of that place with my $2.59 and a smile on my face that could have stopped traffic. Small victories against disagreeable poorly made up pencil pushing retail fiends.

We Done Backed Up And We Gone.

Epic. Timeless. Ever so stoked for the Tron movie. I have plans to see it tomorrow evening in the ice covered lands of Idaho. With some family members I seem to be dragging unwillingly along. Will be rocking the Daft Punk soundtrack on my iPod on the dirigible ride up there. The one pitchfork media called "holy disappointing". No lie.

Yes. Now that the ear infection which I initially mistook as sinus pressure is well in hand with three separate yet awesome medications my bravery has come back to me. Rocking one of my Tron Cholo tee shirts today with maybe a Free City shawl (been parful chilly down here) and the most difficult question I'll be facing today is what to do for lunch. Sometimes I wonder where I'd be without international food courts.

And in case I failed to mention it, we done want a Black Hole remake like yesterday.

Your Mass Is All That Makes You Formidable.

Total meltdown on the metro last night. Made me realize what a crush of humanity is really like. The over-fed diabetic walking down the stairs, amazed at what her puffy eyes befell her at the bottom of the stairs, just sat there gaping. Until I rather politely reminded her that she wasn't watching this spectacle on her 42 inch plasma and that she should remove herself from the path of those who actually know their way to a stair master and a salad bar. It could have all gone wrong but cleverness more than anything, and an extra $1.50 fare (which if I were a lesser man I would never have paid) saw me through it.

One wonders why one bothers sometime, but we've started to see the world without time. No, not profound, a line from The Matrix trilogy which I should sit down and watch again when I get the chance.

Sweet Nothings Of Machines.

Determined to take the week in small bites, I rolled onto the 8:55 Redline yesterday morning almost expecting wall to wall vulgarity. I was surprised when I was able to plop myself down into a seat and be confronted with (just barely perceptible over the top edge of my biography on the Princess Royal) some serious talent. Talent one rarely finds on the Red Line. Any time of day or night. Just standing there, leaning against the poll in faded black denim and gray tee shirt steadying his rolling luggage in one hand and fingering his crackberry with the other.

I had Mark Ronson on the iPod which I know is just the guiltiest of pleasures, but that and this spectacle of jammin' muscle sex almost made me forget the sinus pressure. We both got off at 7th and Metro. He stopped at the ticket kiosk so I assumed he was new and was catching the blue/gold connection to LAX. Having yet to discover the convenience of the FlyAway.

I thought little else of it after that. Bounded up the stairs and nearly biffed it. Cause I'm smooth like that, but I blamed the new skeets on my feet and tried to ignore the haunting images of naked mansex going through my head. Grabbed some decongestant at Famima and you could have just knocked me over with a feather if not 3 blocks later this muscled hunk wasn't walking right in front of me on Figueroa just a wheeling along his rolling luggage. Walking like he just got fucked and all I thought was what could be the odds?

I bee lined into my office and looked back once through the floor to ceiling glass into the rising sun. Still hot. I wasn't entirely sure where he was going with that rolling luggage, but I had ideas in my head. As well as a new found appreciation of faded black denim.

Level Of Detail Suggests Surveillance

Thrift store shopping was an absolute boon. First time in months & I managed to score a Guliano Fujiwara, and old school Burro number and a fresh Age shirt. To take the place of the one my laundress murdered and handed back to me innocently like it still had intact sleeves. I still get a little breathless thinking about it. Nicer items at the Goodwill are shockingly marked up from the regular $5.49. So it seems the Goodwill is no longer an honest to goodness charity shop but a tarted up high end second hand retailer. I don't mind. Three dope shirts for $25 is still a boon in my book. Although since I consider spending more than $30 on a single trip to the thrift store little more than vulgar profligacy I had to pass up some numbers. Living on a budget, but honestly it all works out because I have officially outgrown the one closet in my place. Terror.

More shopping here there and all around. Explored a launderette for the first time in my life since some crunchy funky bike riding MAMIL decided to ruin our only washer in an attempt to save $1.25. Thoughtless vandal. I sent a rather curt letter to my slum lord, but I expect little in the way of action. So I spent a good deal of the weekend looking at new flats. One with three closets should do the trick.

Data Stream Once Considered.

Lame fug-asses at Hackbird finally got around to refunding my money. This a couple weeks after they were so greedily willing to sop it up to sell me something they didn't actually have. They aslo have these really stupid gloves. Julian of course, and although I agree with Patsy that you can never have enough hats gloves or shoes, you certainly can have one too many dumb hand coverlett Danzig groupie thingies.

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An altogether unrelated disappointment has to do with Bones. Text from Compadre last night said "Worst Bones Ever" and where I find that to be a rather extraordinary statement I have to admit I skipped over to Big Bang Theory for the first half after the lame Bing product placement line. Bing?

Here's a story about Bing. Someone asked me the nationality of our receptionist in our old building and of course I knew it cause I have a thing with accents and things so I massacred the pronunciation & spelling and she thought she called me out after she "checked on Bing". I thought how odd. So I checked on Bing and for a second I thought I might be wrong. Or worse, imagined an entire country. Then I got fed up and typed something on google that loosely resembled the place and of course I got one of those oh so helpful "Did you means". It was Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan Bing. Not Plolucklucknanotot or something I just made up but Azerbaijan. That is how ignorant, useless and corn-fed the folks at Bing are. And it isn't the type of low rent ignorance that can be fixed with a few field trips outside of Redmond no.

And to plug the sorry search engine on a show wherein the protaganist is suppose to be an ultra-worldly polao eating super genius just makes my head tilt in that "you really can't be serious" way. I dare you to type "azerekjiani" into Bing and see what you get. Dare you. It would be hilarious if they weren't positioning themselves as a serious product. How is your zune treating you since we're on the subject? I was totally right about the origins of the receptionist BTW.

Not that google is some corporation to tout, but they are remarkably helpful if you need help with how to spell Azerbaijan and not where Lady Gaga comes from. Such a good thing Big Bang Theory is on at the same time as Bones. Only have to sit through the second half and can catch the rest later on "some product". Then The Fringe. The Fringe is the best now!

So not much love for the Pacific Northwest today I'm afraid. And yes, I fully understand that some snitty Microsoftie could just as easily say "What kind of mindless rube doesn't know how to spell Azerbaijan?"

These Are The Moments Shifting Before Us.

More cuteness from the land of What that foo say?

I may just have to let the fiasco and Hackbird wither on the vine. I walked squarely into their nonsense of a retail experience and I have all sorts of free will to walk the jack out. I do mercilessly judge anyone that shops there. I will for ever and always. But silently.

The new office I've moved to seems to suit me well. A little on the other side of downtown but it shakes things up. Ultra casual environment, no dress code & oodles of new lunch options. Yesterday was hunormous burrito and today I've got veggie BimBap lined up. Small pleasures must be indulged when most non-working moments are spent helping others with their shopping lists. Tip 1., anywhere by Hackbird. Can't go wrong.

Feelings We Never Let Show.

What did I say? Did I say the Benjie love was coming? I think I did. My Ben Cohen calendar hasn't arrived yet and that is my fault I'm sad to say. Another thing that is my fault is that I went to a leather bar down the road on Saturday and I up and gots myself in such a state I had to walk myself home. Surprised I didn't get all stabbed n' shit, but I had good thoughts in my head. And super bad-ass trainers. Yoinks!

Friends Network Sublime.

Oh thank the Gods we have people like Hackbird who are more than willing to educate us on things such as the Fair Isle sweater. You know that little number you took for one too many a twirl last year? Maybe the year before. Maybe 1932? Thank effing heavens for their sartorial erudition! Letting it loose on us they is. And no. They have not refunded the money they took from me after I ordered the imaginary jumper they didn't actually have and I am still bitter about it to say the least.

This jumper is not unfortunate nor tragic which is odd for Hackbird. What isn't odd is that we have this and we have it so many better ways, but the good thing about Hackbird is that they are there for those people who have been living under a rock for the last 15 years. A rock in Ballard. That everyone ignores. Or pretends isn't really there. Or maybe is a trunk. A trunk without a tag. You get the point.

Wrinkled Leather Tomato Fug Is Alive.

It isn't always easy being precious, fussy and fuggly in the same breath, but Japanese ass-wear designer Julius manages it with effortless aplomb. Along with taking a single Demeulemeester collection and rolling it into an entire clothing line, they aspire to keep the fake and detached failed artist truly and rightly contrarily clad. Applause. No?

Best of all, ass-wear emporium Hackbird crawls on its filthy belly and laps up this crap season after season and offers it to their well helled customers who, lets just say it, frankly don't know any better... Only for the type of person who would wear brown shoes with a blue suit, and yes, a good deal of this blog will now be dedicated to illustrating how much that shop that pissed me off actually and in fact blows.

But not to worry, hot pics of Benjie on the way. Some things really do have to be about aesthetic merit.

Tragedies You Only Read About.

So I don't really need another reason to despise lame-metro-schmuck festival Hackbird. And since I'm rarely if ever asked to travel back in time to star in a Sisters of Mercy video I've been content to let this unoriginal speck of retail gloom fester in its own wetland filth, however, this last weekend they thought they would try their unskilled hands at a promotion and it all just went terribly wrong. Going terribly wrong being an experience which I gather they are quite accustomed to, but one in which I am not. I was really drunk and got my senseless mind blinded by this promotion. I thought I'd order a jumper and have it shipped up North so it would be there waiting for me someday.

Well some 2 days after I placed my order I got this pathetic letter from them:

Hi,

As you may have heard (incidentally how in the fuck would I have heard? I don't subscribe to lame businesses tireless hyping themselves @ blogspot.suck), we're experiencing an unfortunate technical glitch with our website which has allowed people to purchase items that are no longer available. Unfortunately the lame piece of shit you ordered when you were blitzed is one of those items. We'll be refunding you for this item shortly, and creating a 20% coupon for you as a token of our apology. Thanks very much for your patience, we're very sorry for the inconvenience!

Best regards,

Leo

PS, to use your coupon, just enter wearelame20 into the couponcode field next time you check out from blackbirdballard.com

Which I read as:

Blah blah blah we suck at what we do blah blah, but we insist on trying anyway blah blah. There is no reason blah blah to be as pompous as we are, but it's a fucking blah blah backwater so we get away with it blah blah. You scored one of the few items we carry that doesn't redefine trendy fug and you were smart enough to do it at a discount blah blah.

Blah blah, but upon further reflection (which is actually quite hard for us) blah blah we decided we didn't want to sell it to you at a discount blah blah. Sooo, and this is where it gets really exciting for you, we made up this weak ass story to get out of it. Some metrosexual poseur stuck in a 2007 heritage mind-fuck was more than willing to pay full price for the item you would only think of buying with a discount and when you were really drunk. Like the time you bought DeVotchKa and Sigue Sigue Sputnik on iTunes. Remember that? So providence we were able to cancel your order and get a few more dollars from one of our tragic mess regular fugsters.

Here's a discount coupon so if you ever get blitzed out of your mind enough again to consider buying some of our tired ass streetwear no one is going to give a shit about in 3 years you'll be set.

Sincerely,

Ronald McDonald Looking Douchebag



Thanks Hackbird. In a funny way I think you may actually have my back. Now I can go spend that money at Fred Segal like a normal person. Oh, and Hackbird, die.