I've been taking sleeping pills at night in order to get some sleep. Let me just say that Tylenol PM fucking rocks. I'm sleeping hard, I'm sleeping deep, I'm sleeping outta here.

The good thing about is that I'm sleeping like a baby for the first time in a long time. I like sleep.

The bad thing is that considering I've been working like ten hours a day, it not only means less "down" time for myself, but sleeping so well makes it seem that much more like I'm spending all my time at work. Considering how much I'm hating work right now, I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing. I'll say one thing about insomnia, it sure makes the night…go….slow……

I know it's kind of cheesy to post those group e-mail kind of thingies, but I got nothing else tonight. Plus, there's nothing I like more than a good Jewish joke


**You'll see it when you believe it.**
More thoughts on Jewish Buddhism?

*Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as the
wooded glen. And sit up straight. You'll never meet the
Buddha with posture like that.

*There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you
never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?

*Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.

*To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance, do the
following: Get rid of the motorcycle. What were you thinking?

*Learn of the pine from the pine.
Learn of the bamboo from the bamboo.
Learn of the kugel from the kugel.

*Be aware of your body. Be aware of your perceptions.
Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a symptom of a terminal illness.

*If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

*Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your
problems.

*Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip, joy.
With the second, satisfaction. With the third, Danish.

*The Buddha taught that one should practice lovingkindness to all
sentient beings. Still, would it kill you to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?

*In nature, there is no good or bad, better or worse. The wind may blow or not. The flowering branch grows long or short. Do not judge or prefer. Ask only, "Is it good for the Jews?"

*To Find the Buddha, look within. Deep inside you are ten thousand
flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist.

*Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?

*The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single oy.

*Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have? Bupkes

Yes, it's Self-Loathing Week here at Hooray for Anything- something which should be of much comfort for those of you who've been complaining that this site hasn't been as much fun as it was when I was unemployed.

So, without further ado- You Know You Hate Your Job When…

You bike into work, almost get hit by a car and kind of wish you were.

You make it through the night on wine, Alka Seltzer, and Tylenol PM

You haven't listened to nearly as much Nirvana as you have in years.

You start missing unemployment stress and look back on those days fondly.

You have a career-change epiphany that involves working in a book store or becoming a Park Ranger. Something quiet, something stress free, something easy.

You start missing your suck-ass previous job and wondered why you even left in the first place.

Part of you starts wondering what sort of envelope can be pushed that'll get your ass fired and kind of wish the boss will just do it anyways so you can end your misery.

You gauge the mood of your boss by how many times she slams down her phone and decide to avoid her at all costs after the third slam in the first hour. And all this after she got back from a vacation.

Life's funny sometimes. You think you finally get the Dream Job- the job that'll make it all better, the job that'll make the previous three years worthwhile- and instead you wind up with a job in which the boss responds to a question by sputtering and gurgling before she can answer your question. And all because you didn't read all the way to the bottom of one of those FW:FW:FW:FW e-mails that she forwarded to you without mentioning that the most important thing was at the bottom of the e-mail. Not to mention upset because you didn't then go ahead and forward that FW:FW:FW:FW e-mail because it's your personal opinion that FW:FW:FW:FW e-mails are lame.


You can't fire me because I quit
Throw me in the fire and I won't throw a fit.

My So-Called Life…

Have a date Thursday night. I'm a little early so I plop myself down on a fire hydrant to sit for awhile. The thought crossed my mind that maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to sit there, but thought the better of it. It's fine, I said, I'm wearing jeans.

Date goes on and I think I'm doing well. We're having a good time, I'm being cool and confident, and she laughs at all my jokes. Hey, I think to myself, I'm rocking and rolling here. I got game.

Later that night, as I get ready for bed, all giddy at what I thought was a good date (not to mention half drunk as I didn't eat anything all day), I take my jeans off and realize that the entire back of my jeans had been covered in black soot.

I got bupkus.

I saw Seabiscuit the other day. Should have seen the Pirate movie.

I know, I know, it's supposed to be a great movie. A fabulous movie. A movie that's already being talked about as a potential Oscar winner. Yet I didn't like it. Didn't care for it all- thought it overlong, overdone, and over serious.

Basically, the reason why I didn't like it is the same reason why I don't like any movie that seems to be trying to hard to win an Oscar for Best Picture. Every scene, every shot, every line was put into place to have a deeper meaning. There was nothing superfluous in it (which is amazing considering it's over two and a half hours long), every aspect of the movie was meant to "sum it all up." Every line had hidden meanings that weren't so hidden.

In other words, don't have Tobey Maguire say at the end that the horse fixed everyone- we should have already figured that out. Don't have Jeff Bridges constantly get all misty-eyed everytime he sees kids because we should probably figure it out without the tears. And, for God sakes, don't have a historian break into the middle of the movie and over still shots constantly tell you that "THE HORSE MADE EVERYONE IN THE DEPRESSION FEEL BETTER" because we get it. We got it all.

Or, as my writing teacher once said, "show, don't tell."

A good movie should make you see how the horse makes all three main characters a better person. A good movie should show you what the horse meant to people back then. And a good movie won't constantly hit you over the head with the fact that Jeff Bridges is sad because his kid got killed.

All of which is why I usually hate self-important movies that have Oscar-bait written all over them. Because those movies always constantly hit you over the head with just how self-important and Oscar worthy they are.

And yes, I am a ripe, cynical bastard.

I've gotten back into the Bikram thing and as I was doing it this morning, I realized why I've gotten to like it so much. Because no matter what else is going on in your life, no matter how suckadelic things are, and no matter that you spend your nights lying in bed with the shakes, when you do Bikram there are only two things you think about:

1)Oh dear God, how much longer do I have to hold this fucking pose

and

2)Jesus fucking Christ it's hot in here.

Suckadelic….hee. Sometimes I'm so clever.

Janes Addiction chained my life. I'm serious. I was three-quarters of the way into 60's blues-Freedom rock musical calcification when I first heard them. Even worse, I was well on my way to maybe, possibly becoming a- gasp- Dead Head, complete with the requisite bootlegs.

Then a friend turned me onto Jane's and everything changed. He made a tape for me with "Nothing's Shocking" on one side and "Ritual del Habitual" on the other. Day after day, night after night, I'd come home from wherever I was and put the tape on my walkman, doing nothing but lying in my bed in the dark listening to the music over and over again. When I listened to the tape, I could literally feel my brain being blown away and rearranged again. It gave me that feeling that everything I knew musically was wrong and everything was, from here-on in, different. And it wasn't just because of what we so lovingly called in college "the Andrew."

They were the band I'd been waiting for for years, all throughout the 80's. They were the new Zeppelin- trippy and smart, psychadelic and mysterious, and most importantly, fucking rocked. This was a big deal in the '80's. If you remember, most rock music then was either meat-head hair-metal, harmless AOR drivel, wussy R.E.M wanna-be's, and fey English bands. Jane's wasn't. Months after getting the tape, I put the Dead bootlegs aside, stopped listening to Clapton's "Crossroad's" CD's and joined Alternative Nation.

Now they have a new album out and I'm not quite sure how I feel. The one song I've heard off of it, "Because" isn't half-bad and has a wicked riff but I'm still, how should I put it, dubious.

I couldn't quite put my finger on why I was so dubious until this morning. See, as I was lying in bed, flipping through the channels I caught the start of "VH-1's Top 20 Countdown." The first song they played, #20, was a video for a Mariah Carey cover of Def Leppard's "Bringing on the Heartbreak." The video featured Dave Navarro, Jane's Addiction guitar-God and the soon-to-be-husband of ex-Baywatch star Carmen Electra, on guitar.

And that about sums it all up, because I never thought I'd ever have to write Jane's Addiction, Baywatch, and Mariah Carey all in the same sentence.

God, my new softball team sucks. S-U-C-K-S!

We're not just Bad News Bears, but Bad News Bears Go To Japan bad.

Even the guys who looked like ringers dropped every fly ball they went after.

Mindless drifter on the road
Carry such an easy load
It’s how you look, and how you feel
You must have a heart of steel.

Why do I keep fuckin’ up?

I can see you on a hill
Comatose but walking still
Curves beneath your flowing gown
Only I could bring you down.

Why do I keep fuckin’ up?

Dogs that lick and dogs that bite
Hounds that howl through the night
Broken leashes are all over the floor
Keys left hanging in a swinging door.

Why do I keep fuckin’ up?

Free Kobe?

God damnit, and just when I thought this day couldn't get any worse.....

The End of the Line for Penthouse?
The once high-flying skin magazine may soon cease publication. Even the mansion is at risk

How do you know you're about to have a bad day at work? When you walk in to find you're boss on the phone with her inter-office boyfriend and within seconds of getting in, she slams the phone down on him.

How do you know you're about to have a bad date? When the woman says within the first five how minutes how tired is and spends most of the (twenty minute) date telling you how tired she is and how much she's looking forward to going to sleep.

This day didn't just suck, it sucked the suck of a hundred sucks. It was an eleven of the Suck, the Kobe, Shaq, Gary Payton, Karl Malone of Suck, the "Stairway to Heaven" of suck. It was a Game 6 kind of day, a "We Built This City on Rock n Roll" kind of day, a Beverly Hills 90210 after Dylan first left kind of day.

Did I mention that this day sucked?

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us

Helpless, helpless, helpless.

Due to a combination of sales meetings, trade shows, and being in the bosses doghouse, last week I found myself working til between 8 and 9 every night.

And you know something- I didn't like it. Didn't like it at all.

I have spent a lot of time in my life avoiding jobs in which I actually had to put in long hours at work. I do not like putting long hours at work. I like actually having a life, or, at least, being able to watch a good healthy portion of TV before going to bed. I do not like going home, having a quick bite to eat, and then being in bed before I could even get used to being home. That's not what I signed up for. If I wanted to do that, I'd be making lots of money right now.

But that's what I did. And it sucked. Between the previous previous week and the previous week, with a cross-country trip thrown in between for good measure, I am one exhausted hombre. My place is a mess, I haven't bought food in weeks, there's a foul odor coming from my fridge, and I missed the Ramones documentary at the theater around the corner from me. In short, last week sucked.

Dear God, please let this week be better.

I know, I know, this isn't the most PC thing to say, but if we here in San Francisco are not going to do a damn thing about the Homeless, can we at least make a rule that if you're in line at a corner store and if you are say, a normal, employed, tax-paying citizen- you get served first? I know it's kind of a mean thing to say, but there's only so many times one can go to a store and have to stand in line for up to five minutes because some tweaker's buying liquor and packs of cigarettes and is too messed up to count out his spare change before one starts losing his patience.

It's kind of like being in line at a coffee shop just wanting a single cup of coffee and having the guy in front order the double-half caf non-fat late. Except the person who is in line isn't talking to himself.

Wait, come to think of it, considering most of those guys are on some sort of wireless type phone thingy, it actually is the same thing.

Warning in Iraq Report Unread
Bush, Rice Did Not See State's Objection

"President Bush and his national security adviser did not entirely read the most authoritative prewar assessment of U.S. intelligence on Iraq, including a State Department claim that an allegation Bush would later use in his State of the Union address was "highly dubious," White House officials said yesterday."

Oopsie.

It's looking like this whole Yellow Cake of Uranium is getting some actual traction and there's signs that the press (meaning the lemmings on TV) are actually starting to get into foam-mode. One has to wonder, however, why all this blathering over one line in a State of the Union being untrue is such a big deal considering that pretty much everything that Bush says or does is untrue. In fact, everything he and his flunkies have said about the war has been wrong. Focusing on one line as though it's the only sign of some sort of malfeasance is kind of like seeing one drunken picture of Courtney Love and thinking "gosh, maybe she's a sleazy attention ho." So, with the smell of blood in the air, I broke my own personal rule of not watching any news programs that wasn't hosted by John Stewart and found this:

-MSN.com has an exciting story about whether dogs bark differently in other languages
-The Today show led with a story about Kobe Bryant attending the ESPY Awards with his wife (did you guys go to an ESPY party like I did? How'd you do in your pool?).

Well, okay, there were a few stations that covered the story, especially now that Tony Blair went back into his Bush's Bitch Role, allthewhile speaking with such eloquence that one could only wish why can't he be President here. Are we proud of the fact that while the Leader of the U.K. can give wonderful speeches explaining with eloquence and intelligence why he does something and our President merely says stuff like "evil-doers are bad" and "we have darn good intelligence."

And what did we get?

-Chris Mathews on "Hardball" had on Trent Lott. Now there's somebody with not only a completely non-biased viewpoint, but somebody who could never be accused of, as they say, knowing how to spell "cat" if you gave him the "c", the "a", and the "t." Now there's a balanced story.
-Fox News being shocked- shocked- that the Washington Post might have reported a story with a slight bias.
-MSNBC interviewing Anne Coulter, who was of course railing about "liberals" detestable desire to say something occasionally not very nice. Can someone please smack that bitch up?

That very same show on MSNBC, by the way, brought up the issue that the soldiers in Iraq might have low morale. According to the gab-fest, they don't. And the people who were saying this included some guy who spends all of his time in a nice, air-conditioned, non-being shot at Think Tank in Washington D.C. and some lackey Under-Secretary of Something or Other. They, of course, completely know what it's like to be a troop in Iraq.

Oh, by the way, apparently we're not in a recession. Turns out we haven't been in one in years. I'm sure my dad will glad to hear that considering he just got laid off today.

I've said it before and I'll say it again- a bunch of number-crunchers with tenured positions and cushy Think Tank jobs should not be declaring the end of some sort of economic downturn until they've all been laid off and gotten new jobs.

Bad...bad....day......

And that's all I gotta say. In fact, that's pretty much all I can say. I'm so tired and frazzled that I accidently went the wrong way on BART and wound up in Oakland.

Again.

More evidence that some people aren't paying enough in taxes-

Bizarre Game Targets Women: Hunting for Bambi: Parts 1 & 2

It's a new form of adult entertainment, and men are paying thousands of dollars to shoot naked women with paint ball guns. They're coming to Las Vegas to do it...George Evanthes has never been hunting. "Originally I'm from New York. What am I going to hunt? Squirrels? Someone's cats? Someone's dogs? I don't think so," said Evanthes. Now that he's living in Las Vegas, he's finally getting his chance to put on his camouflage, grab a rifle and pull the trigger. But what's in his scope may surprise you. He's not hunting ducks or deer, he's hunting naked woman.

You know, since it's obvious that we're a little short-handed in Iraq, maybe we can send these people over considering how much they like hunting things. Not like they're bringing any value to this country as it is.

I forgot about a major part of Project Management- never, ever leave. Do not call in sick, do not take a day off, do not have a family function, and for heaven's sake, do not take a vacation.

Why? Because bad things always happen.

Trust me on this.

It's because as a Project Manager you have your style and your system and your way of doing things and then when you go away, somebody covers for you and they have to figure out your style and your system and your way of doing things. This is why bad things happen. Because the person covering you is always stressed out in covering you, can't figure anything out, and freaks out when something happens. It's especially worse when that person is also your boss and that person, and while you have all the respect in the world for them, they're a bit wound up lately and a bit of a perfectionist. Not to mention in possession of major control issues.

The result? One day I'm "doing a great job," the next day I'm "doing everything wrong." From everything coming up roses to everything coming up shit sandwhich. And all of this happened because I went away for one- one day.

A long, long time ago, the first time I had the kind of job I have now, I had an impossible magazine to manage, an impossible sales staff to deal with, and impossible learning curve. Things were not going well, but it was more just bad luck than anything else. Then my Grandmother dies. I go out to Jersey, sit shiva for a week, come back to my job and found out that due to the Sales Person's aside that she liked the person who covered me much more than she liked me, I found myself inches away from getting fired. I was saved by some other sales people who vouched for me, but I wound up getting moved off one magazine and onto another. Yes, it all worked out for the best, but when something goes wrong with your job due to you taking a week of to sit shiva for your Grandmother, one tends to get a bit paranoid whenever they take off. After all, one shouldn't be almost fired when one comes back from mourning their fucking Grandmother.

That's why I knew it would happen. It kept me up all night, thinking about it, wrestling with the dread. It's happened before. It always happens. And it did.

And all this while I'm so fucking tired and so fucking frazzled and my back is killing me and I've been working like 10 hour days for the past week and I'm burnt out and I've been so stressed and working so long that I haven't had anything remotely like a social life for the past couple of weeks and my stud relief pitcher is about to be traded to the Yankees and all I want to do is drink a shit-load of wine and pass out until the week is over and all this craziness will be gone.

Ugh.

Security Note of the Trip- was in Newark this morning going through security and some 70 year old (or so) guy comes up all confused to the Security Guard and says that he can't go through the metal detector because he's got a pacemaker. So they tell him to go around and have a seat. As I stand there, getting dressed and putting all my things back into their pockets, I watch as they take the 70 year old guys' jacket and put it through security. They then make him stand up, strike the Jesus Christ Pose and combed over every inch of his body with the metal detector wand.

You know, on a list of possible terrorists, 70 year old men with pacemakers do not exactly fit the profile. What do they think he's going to do, over power all the flight attendants, crew and passengers and try to hijack the plane to Miami? That in his retired state he's become so disillusioned about his meaningless existence as an Accountant at Goldfarb, Goldberg, and Goldstein that he's that he's joined Al Queda?

Man, we so crazy.

Back from Jersey and man, I'm tired. I know travelling is exhausting, especially when you're flight gets cancelled and you have to take a later flight with a three-hour layover in Chicago, but I don't think that's the only reason why I'm so tired. There's something about the surrealness of it: that one day I'm at work, all stressed out and frantic over sales meetings and trade shows and crazy deadlines and then a couple of days later, I'm half-drunk in New Jersey watching a bunch of very Jewish middle-aged woman dancing to some Wedding Band's rendition of Donna Summer's "Bad Girls."

Somewhere, several times this weekend I kept on asking myself this- "where the hell am I and what the hell am I doing here?"

I'm off to Jersey for another wedding- the ole red-eye, in and out quickie trip to the other Coast. Yee-haw. Love the fact that the next time I go to sleep will be on an air mattress at my Aunt's house Saturday Night. This wedding is even more of a big deal because there's this big family brouhaha over wedding presents. And I'm walking right into it.

Last year I flew out for my (other- the sister of this cousin) cousin's wedding but didn't buy a present. Silly me thought that just flying out cross country and spending money on air fare and tux rentals while in the midst of deep unemployment was good enough (okay, granted it was around Passover and I was going home anyways and I just cashed in my 401K and I spent a lot of time with friends, but that's not the point here). After all, isn't it more important to be at a wedding than not be at a wedding? Shouldn't my coming out with everything else going on in my life be seen as something significant in and of itself?

Guess not.

I've been to a lot of weddings in my life and I hate to admit that I haven't really bought my friend's much in the way of wedding presents. When I was younger, I was barely making any money and it was a big deal just to be able to make it to the wedding. Then when I got older, I kept on getting laid off and couldn't really afford a present as I wasn't really working. I kind of feel really bad about not buying a lot of my friend's wedding presents and wish that I could somehow make up for it, but oh well. It's been way over a year and way past the allotted time for buying a present. My friend's, however, have been real cool about it. They knew I was hurting money-wise and just wanted me to be there. Crazy them think that's the point of the whole wedding-thing. Of course, they could all be holding major-ass grudges against me, one I won't find out about until I get married and wind up not getting any presents, but luckily, the way things have gone, I'm not any close to finding out what'll happen when I get married.

Now comes this wedding. Once again, I'm schlepping out to Jersey for a couple of days to attend and while I am gainfully employed, I'm still reeling in debt from being unemployed. I'm also leaving at a time when things are really busy and when I barely have enough vacation time to even take vacation time off. But I still have to buy a present now because my Aunt has been in full snit over the whole present thing. So, despite schlepping out for a quickie two-day trip, besides taking a horrendous red-eye flight that includes a three-hour lay-over in Chicago, besides shelling out just over $400 in plane fare and probably another $100 in travelling expenses, it's still not enough. I have to buy a present. This little trip, this wedding is already costing me half a grand and yet I have to shell out some more.

Then I started thinking about Thank You cards. The crazy thing is that you get a Thank You card for bringing a present, but not one for attending. Over the weekend I was talking about this with a friend (and in his first official Hooray for Anything shout-out, hi KB!). In his family, there's a tradition of having the weddings in September. Since he's a teacher, he can't really go back because school's in session. And because he's a teacher it's not like he can afford to fly back East for a wedding, especially with a wife and child to support. His mother, though, buys presents in their name and sends it to the family member whose wedding it is. He doesn't attend, has his mother buy wedding gifts, and gets Thank You cards. I attend, don't buy presents, but get no Thank You card.

And no, not that I care that much about the Thank You card. Really, I don't. It's just something that's a little off about weddings- don't attend and send some Salt & Pepper Shaker from Williams Sonoma, an act that takes about five minutes to do online and get a Thank You card. Shell out half-a-grand and take some unholy red eye flight but don't buy a present and get no Thank You note.

Does this, then, mean that the actual wedding present is more important than attending the wedding? If I blew off my cousin's wedding and only sent a present, would I be in better shape with my Aunt? Should I have not gone to any wedding that I went too and just bough them something instead?

What the hell am I doing flying out there for this thing?

I don't know about you, but ever since reading Britney's confession that she is no longer a virgin, I've been really upset. There I was, with my rock-solid set of beliefs in the world and the universe, and just like that, it's gone. Vanished. Poof. It's like when you find out that there's no Santa Clause or, in us Jews' case, that Elijiah isn't really going to come and drink the cup of wine we left out for him. All day I've been full of unease and dread, the existential kind where it's like everything has changed for you and you don't know what's what anymore and it fills you with a sense of nothing but nausea. White is now black, up is now down, OJ is now innocent.

I question everything now. Is there a God? Is there a Meaning to Life? Is our country, the God Bless U.S.A, really that shallow and ignorant as people say when MSN.com can give you the actual clip of Britney discussing her sex-life? I mean, what's next- it turns out that the government of the United States lied about Saddam Hussein trying to buy uranium?

I'm just so lost and confused these days.

I need a hug.

I'm biking home from work today when I see a car with a bumper sticker that reads: "Hang Up and Drive!" and I'm thinking, wow, there's somebody who really hates people who talk on the cell-phone while driving. I mean, we've all said something along that lines at one point or another, but to put have it as a bumper sticker is a whole other thing. Bumper stickers are usually used for something serious- a philosophy of life, a statement of some sort. Like "Dukakis in 88" or "Trust Jesus" or "Metallica Rocks!" But this guy is so upset about the cell phone-driving thing that he's putting it on his car.

Yeah, I know it's not really that exciting, but damnit, I've been putting in ten hours a day at work lately and it's all I got this week.

From Ari Fleischer:

"I think the American people continue to express their support for ridding the world of Saddam Hussein based on just cause, knowing that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons that were unaccounted for that we're still confident we'll find. I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."

Huh?

It's up to people like me who didn't believe any WMD existed to tell the world where the WMD that we didn't believe existed are?

Huh?

Limewire, the program I use to download all my .mp3's (free, of course) doesn't seem to be working these days. I haven't been able to log onto it for months and as a result I haven't downloaded in a long, long time. I've been reading all these stories about how the record industry has been fighting downloadable music by going after not only the programs like Limewire, but even the people who download songs. I wonder if that's the reason I haven't been able to download anything in awhile and why Limewire has been sucking lately.

God damn record industry. If I can't figure out a way of downloading music for free, I'll show you. Last time I go out of my way to buy a CD by Christina, Britney or Justin.

Here's some more proof that we Americans just don't pay enough in taxes-

P. Diddy designs an SUV for VIPs: For $85,000, includes 6 TVs, 3 DVD players, Playstation 2

"….THE SPECIAL EDITION SUV will boast such standard features as exclusive Sean John wheels, a platinum coated logo emblem, custom tinted windows, and black chrome detailing. Inside will be a Pioneer Premier Audio system with satellite radio, three DVD players and six TV monitors, a Playstation 2, logo-embossed leather seats, heated/vibrating driver and front passenger seats, suede covered center consoles, and black wood interior."

Six TV Monitors and three DVD players?

Okay, let's face it, if you go out and buy this SUV, you make too much money. I don't care if you get with higher personal taxes or just one of those hair-brained European Value Added Tax type thingies, but if you go out and buy this, you should be taxed up the whazoo.

I mean, who the hell still thinks P. Diddy (Puff Daddy, Puffy Combs, whoever) is cool?

Spears says she, Timberlake were lovers

"After years of saying she'd wait until she was married to lose her virginity, Britney Spears is acknowledging that she had sex with her ex-boyfriend, Justin Timberlake…"

And Jesus Wept

Maybe I'll add this as a regular feature...The Dumb-Ass MSN.com Story of the Week.

See, if you have Hotmail, you get all of these links to "stories" that are supposed to reel you in, slobbering at their excitement. All just another ploy by Bill Gates (who IS evil) to make sure Microsoft runs every aspect of you life.

Anyways, today's exciting story is this- Why are movie titles long?

Just out of curiosity, though, what did happen with those WMD in Iraq? Have we found them yet?

We here at Hooray For Anything would like to congratulate Kobe Bryant for finally taking matters into his own hands and go out and get some street cred. After all, nothing says street cred in this topsy turvy, hip-hop world like a rap sheet. It is a thug's life, you know.

And who couldn't blame Kobe? There he was- model citizen, articulate, winner of three championship rings- and some punk-ass 18 year-old kid whose never played in an NBA game got a shoe deal twice the size of Kobe's. In basketball, it is, after all, all about the shoe deal. Oh yeah, and if I were LeBron, I'd retire 'cause it ain't gonna get any better than it is now.

Yeah, yeah, we know Kobe's innocent 'til proven guilty and we detest the "rush to judgement" that accompanies any big crime, especially those involving celebrities. But, we do have to if you add it all up- way too much accompolished at too early of an age, way hugely massive ego, and way too cheoraphed a persona- that we always had him pegged for some sort of massive freak-out.

Yesterday I was at the barber's around the corner from me getting a hair-cut. Some sketchy looking dude with a skateboard walks in and asks the owner if he can buy a garbage-bag of hair.

I dunno either.

Another Public Service Announcement, courtesy of Hooray for Anything

Dear hipsters, this wearing a mesh-hat sideways thing- got to go. I could argue that it makes you look like an idiot, but that, of course, wouldn't quite work (I am, after all 35 and am no longer considered part of "the scene". I am now the action that causes the reaction). Instead, I'll argue it this way. One, you are neither a redneck nor white trash. You are a hipster in San Francisco- the Ying to the Redneck's yang. It doesn't get any less whitetrash than that.

You are also not black. You are white. As white can white be. Black people don't even really pull off the cock-eyed baseball hat and if they can't, you certainly can't. Trust me on this.

I know you are trying to have the affectations of a redneck/black person in your never-ending quest for authenticity, but you are neither (although, one could argue that authentic hipster gear is to wear the cock-eyed mesh baseball hat, in which case you are being authentic, but as it's a three-day weekend, I don't have the energy to get into such Fun-House of Mirror's philosophical dialectialism). You are white and upper-middle class. Get over it.

Where the hell did everybody go?

This town is a ghost town. There's nobody walking the streets of the Mission, nobody in the bars, nobody anywhere. Even the crowd at the Marina Green wasn't that much of a crowd. Sure, the fireworks were elsewhere, but the Marina Green is a pretty nice place to be to be watching fireworks. Hell, I even went to the movies yesterday- one of those super-huge, overly theatered places that's always way too crowded- and it was empty (and no, I didn't see "Swimming Pool" nor "Suriyathai" but "Charlie's Angels II" and you know you want to see it too). Where the hell is everyone and why didn't anybody tell me where they were going?

PS- As "Charlie's Angels II" was pretty much the only movie I was looking forward to this summer (yeah, even more than the Matrix and as for T3- bleah), the question, of course, is how is it. You know how some band comes out of nowhere and releases a really fun, accidentally great album that everybody loves? And then they go into the studio and try to both recreate the magic of the first album but expand upon it a bit more by just doing more of what it was that was magic on the first album? The movie was like that. It's still kind of fun and many of the Matrix-y type stunts out Matrix Matrix:Reloaded, but it's just not that much fun. The first one, which I do love for all of it's trashy glory, felt kind of like a glorious accident. The second one like it was too busy trying to recreate being a glorious accident, but trying to hard to be a glorious accident to really be one.

Oh well. Still worth the $7.50 for a bargain matinee.

I may be in my mid-30's and I may have seen at least a hundred fireworks displays but, you know, when it comes down to it, they're still cool.

So, you know another movie I'm kind of keen on seeing is this three-hour long epic Thai flick- The Legend of Suriyothai. I'm actually totally serious- besides the fact it's supposed to be really good, I saw a lot of the places that are "shown" in the movie and heard a bit about the legend while in Thailand. But then I read the review in the San Francisco Bay Guardian and I'm thinking maybe it's not worth seeing. Apparently, as good as the movie might be, it's a bit a failure because it has "only the faintest whiff of dialectical thinking about royal history."

Damit. I hate it when some movie doesn't get into dialetcial thinking about royal history.

Just when I thought the recent onslaught of e-mails trying to get me into checking out photos of mothers in various pornographic endeavors was the most disturbing thing I have seen, I just got this from Ticketmaster- Check out Kenny Loggins Live!.

Isn't there people at Ticketmaster who determine what sort of subject lines will get people to read the e-mail? And if so, shouldn't they get fired for this?

Fly into the Danger Zone......

There's this new movie coming out called Swimming Pool. I don't know about where you live, but posters for the movie are up everywhere. They're kind of hard to miss too as they feature some nubile young French actress in a tiny bikini lounging by the pool.. Of course, being a guy I've seen the poster over and over again, yet still find myself always kind of catching a quick (or sometimes not so quick) glance at the poster.

It being a French art flick I don't really have that much interest in seeing it. Nine bucks is a lot of money to see a moody movie in which nothing really happens. I mean, if I'm gonna spend nine bucks on a movie, I'm gonna spend it on Charlie's Angels II. That is, however, until I start reading stories about the young, nubile 24 year-old French actress in which she talks about how hard it was a movie to act in because of all the nudity and sex scenes. So, I'm starting to think that this weekend might just be a good time to see myself some good French-style art flicks.

Sometimes it's good to be cultural.

And yes, it's true- most guys will sit through any movie if there's enough nudity in it.

You knew it was inevitable, but here it is….


Yoga for Dogs..

Now, I know current economic theory has it that you should have low taxes because low taxes means more disposable income, thus more money to be spent on goods and services- the engine that drives our economy. Theoretically, then, the lower taxes the better. Yet, as I read stories like this, I can't but help think this- some people just need to be taxed more. In fact, damnit, this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that taxes in this country are too damn low.

Now, I'm not being cranky. Let's look at this logically, shall we?

1)The more people spend on goods & services, the better for the economy- True, in a sense, but is little Fido or Scrappy being a more relaxed Fido or Scrappy really a positive net gain? Is this something that makes the world a little better?

Wouldn't that money be better spent on more important things- like better schools, universal health care, or forcing Antonin Scalia to an early retirement? Won't somebody please think of the children?

2) Spending money like that helps create jobs- Yes, jobs are created but what's the end result here, the deliverable: a bunch of yoga teachers are able to afford more organic soy produce. And let's face it, this country does not need more yoga teachers. You can't walk down Mission street without bumping into at least four of them.

3) It's your damn money, it's a free country, you can do whatever you damn well please with the money- This is all well and true, but if you're spending money teaching downward facing dog to your dog, you do not know how to spend your disposable income. In fact, you should lose your right to say that you have disposable income.

Oh, I know some of those people are going to complain that they don't really make that much money, and that it's tough to make ends meet and they're not rich, but everyone says that. Have you ever met someone who said "you know, I'm making just the right amount of money that I'd like and I'm doing okay." Okay, so maybe some of the people taking the classes with their pooches aren't the upper-crust of the Upper-East side. Maybe some of them are scraping by in order to take the classes. Maybe they had to make a choice between, say, meditation classes and dog yoga. Well, tough. Let's put it this way- I know there's a lot of poor people in this country and I know that there's a staggering amount of uninsured people in this country, but wanna make a bet that most of those uninsured families also have cable in every room, internet access, and $100 Nike's for the tykes?

Aren't we in the middle of a Recession?

PS-if you read the article, you'll notice that everyone interviewed has a Jewish last name. Silly little JewBu's.