I am pretty sure I don't like you.

I am writing an analytical memorandum (oy!) on Road System Performance in West LA (of Pico and Olympic Boulevards). I needed some information about a bus that I saw on Pico when I was doing some, shall we say, field research, so I called up 1-800-commute.

Me: Can you tell me what MTA bus lines run on Pico between the 405 onramp and Avenue of the Stars?
Her: The Santa Monica Seven.
Me: But I saw a MTA Local bus.
Her: NO YOU DIDN'T.
Me: Thank you. hang up

Um, okay, maybe my eyes deceived me, but yelling was really unnecessary, MTA woman.

On a Law & Order: Criminal Intent side note (per Alan's request. hope you're still reading!), I was watching an episode today without Goren or Eames (boo!) that was redeemed by the following interchange:

Captain Danny Ross (Eric Bogosian, who seems to always play Jewish characters but I don't think he is): Guess we know who didn't find the Afikomen! (about a boy who hated his father)
Logan & red-haired partner of the week: blank faces
CDR: It's like an Easter egg hunt for matzah.
Logan & red-haired partner of the week: blank faces, pause uh huh

Table sports.

JFranco actually showed up today--shocking. I really expected to hate him, especially after so many cancellations, but he was quite charming. I don't think he's such a liar anymore. Plus, he had pretty swell musical selections: Brian Jonestown Massacre, Jesus and Mary Chain, Jens Lekman, Magnetic Fields, John Lennon. I had to teach him how to use his iPod--pretty awesome. He admitted that he's made some pretty horrible movies. We're apparently going to play some ping pong. I like ping pong.

By the way, I am writing this blog entry, chatting on AIM, and watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent, instead of writing six pages. Oy! I am a bad student.

Woah, Dr. George O'Malley (whatever his real name may be) plays a computer game designer. Carazy. He has a weird reddish hair color. Which kind of goes with the horrible red hair of Goren's partner in this episode. Goren agrees with me, "Eames would have known!"

A few things that bother me.

This is not at the Auto Show; this is at the Seattle Art Museum.

1. My parents won't get me a car (nor can I afford to get one myself) but decided to make the Auto Show the post-Thanksgiving family activity. A little cruel, I would say.

2. If you are going to have something be entirely about Christmas, don't call it "holiday." It's not more politically correct or some nonsense because you call it 'holiday' when you don't include any other holidays in it. To be clear, I don't care if you only care about Christmas--just don't call it 'holiday' and get me excited about the prospects of just maybe there might be something about Chanukah!

3. My landlord is never in her office.

4. My blues professor looks like a mixture of David Dassa and my dentist. WEIRD.

Mazel Tov

Pretty fab/hilarious.

On a side note, this post at LAist is spectacular.

In this new dark age.

Don't you know we're all light? Yeah, I read that someplace.

Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2)

Take Me Out of the Ballgame. Not You, Mike Logan.

If you were planning on seeing Reprise's production of Damn Yankees at UCLA's Freud Theater, don't. Boo, Jason Alexander; you are a bad director.

1. Fine, you want to update the play. Then why update it to the 1980s? Doesn't make much sense. The '80s is not a decade that makes people particularly nostalgic.

2. If you are going to change things, you gotta get the details right. It's the little inaccuracies that detach the audience from the play. Frank McCourt wasn't the owner in the 80's; even I know that.

3. You shouldn't describe a player as "6'2", 195 lbs" when he is only around 5'9" and 150 lbs.

4. Fire your costume designer. All the women looked like they gained ten pounds since their measurements were taken. Every item of clothing they wore was just a little too tight, making for awkward tugging and gaping of fabric. All I could focus on during the first half was how ugly they all were made to look.

However, Jackee (Jackay!) Harry is awesome. In case you don't know who she is (I didn't just by her name, either), she played Lisa Landry on the fab television programme "Sister Sister." And, coincidentally, plays a character named "Sister" in Damn Yankees.

On a side note, in reference to the very helpful comment on the previous point, I hate Det. Mike Logan's partners. Every single one of them. Also, Mike Logan a.k.a Chris Noth creeps me out because I cannot think of him as anything other than either Mr. Big or supercreepster of the pretty eh movie, Searching for Paradise.

A few small items of note.

1. Can someone please explain to me the cast of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I have seen probably a hundred episodes of this fine show, and yet I always get confused when there are any other detectives than Goren and Eames. Please illuminate!

2. Only Erica might care about this, and she probably no longer reads this blog, but... Yesterday, whilst driving home from Santa Cruz on the 101, we chanced upon some weird public radio station just west of the Central Valley that was playing 'sounds of the Middle East.' My co-passengers really weren't digging it, but the song really caught my attention. After a couple minutes, I am positive it was some version of Tarbuka (or whatever is the real name of the song which accompanies that dance). Too bad the DJ was talking in thick accented Arabic and I really couldn't confirm.

3. James Franco might be guest DJing Automatic Stapler this Wednesday at 4. But since he was lame and canceled (I always want to put two Ls in that word) last time so last minute, I am not going to really advertise. You should tune in, though, because we are awesome whether or not Mr. Franco participates, and there are only a few more shows this quarter.

California Stars

So, in the span of less than 48 hours, I was in Davis, Oakland, Santa Cruz, and Santa Barbara, plus probably around 18 hours in a car. I am now sitting at my desk, but my legs still feel like they are moving and my torso is not capable of staying upright.

Now, I get to write an essay! I would rather be asleep.

The Letterwriting Continues

Dear Mike Post,

How dare you change the theme song for Law & Order: Criminal Intent!

You broke my heart,
Laura

I am always a bit sad when I remove perfect eyeliner.

P.S. Norwegian God of Song

I took this really swell picture in March at the El Rey.

Post Script: The beautiful and talented Sondre Lerche is coming back to Automatic Stapler tomorrow a.k.a today Wednesday November 14th at 3pm pacific daylight time. Note the early starting time. Listen! UCLAradio.com!

Be excited.

ummm, Paul Rudd said he'd love to be on my show. We shook hands (while Sondre was playing beautiful music). Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fake Snow

My blog has turned into a Royce celebrity sighting list, but whatever. Yesterday, Finola Hughes, also known as the host of Style Network's How Do I Look? (possibly the worst show I allow myself to watch, or allowed myself, as I don't get that channel at my apartment), showed up to see a performance by Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal of "Ten Chi"--a very odd dance. She was wearing all black, including boots that had a heel over five or six inches! It was pretty intense. There was also some other man who is a common small role guy in teenager television soap-sitcoms. He's fairly nasty looking. I thought he might have been on Seventh Heaven, but upon IMDBing, I see that is not the case.

The fun thing about "Ten Chi" is how much it makes me nostalgic for Slava's Snow Show, the coolest thing to happen at Royce in recent history. Ten Chi includes a woman wearing a long flow-y yellow dress frolicking in tons of white tissue paper confetti fake snow, just like Slava wore a yellow costume and danced around in white tissue paper confetti fake snow. Ten Chi also includes some weird sounding yet romantic music, like Slava did! But Slava is far superior to this one. Man, this one was almost three hours and totally not worthwhile.

oh! I figured out who that man is. He is also on 24! Eric Balfour: nasty looking, indeed.

Other things UCLA has taught me (midterms edition)

This is not my writing.

1. I do not like B.B. King's music.
2. Nabisco means National Biscuit Company.
3. Space and Place are entirely different things.
4. Using stopwatches for too long will make you scheme to build a peanut oil pipeline across the Sahara.
5. Quaker Oats has absolutely nothing to do with actual Quakers.
6. We are now living in an era of fluid modernity.
7. I don't care about any of the aforementioned things.