I think I have finally figured out the crux of the immigration debate. Apparently, the problem is that there are a thousands of people who come to this country who don't look like us and don't speak English. Living in the state of California, the city of San Francisco, and in a Spanish neighborhood named after a Mission established by Spanish priests, I was not aware that this is a problem.

I am wrong.

What this all means, though, is that what really is driving this debate isn't necessarily the immigration per se, but the fact that one day, all those people living in their white-bred suburbs and ex-urbs woke up and realized that some of the people who work in the restaurants on their lawns and in their factories have names like Jose and/or Luis and don't speak English. Because it's all different and new, it means that this is a problem and SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.

Actually, what I find fascinating about the whole debate is how much the protests have become an issue. Especially the one on May 1st in which a lot of immigrants were planning on-gasp- not going into work. You know, it's okay to protest, just don't do it when you might inconvienance the rest of us. Our food won't get served by itself, you know.

Well, that's not entirely true as the whole idea of protesting has becoming an issue. We like our minorities docile, not uppity, it turns out. But you know, mock the French all you want for all their protests and what their protesting, but at least if something happens that pisses them off, they'll go out in the streets and try and do something about it. Unlike us who, when we get pissed off, tell a bunch of pollsters that we're really pissed off and then vote in the same clowns we voted for in the first place. Unless, like in '92 or '94 we decide to vote in a whole new bunch of clowns, totally ignoring the big floopy shoes and make up they wear.

Not to sound like one of those crazy commies or anarchist types, but this whole thing shows just how much the Man has us down. We've made it so that people who protest for their rights and try to fight from getting screwed over, come off as the bad guys. Among other things, it's easy for us white folks to get all angry that Latinos are protesting, but we're not the ones being threatened with deportation. But it just shows up how much crap we're able to put up with and not do a damn thing about it. Just look over the past twenty years or so-- we've had downsizing and outsourcing and a health car system thats falling apart and pensions being robbed. And that's just the economic stuff, we're not even getting into elections being stolen or fucked up wars. Yet we, as a people, pretty much do nothing about it. Or when we do get pissy, it's over stuff like abortion or gay rights or stuff that matters, yet not really.

I guess what I'm saying is that if all the protestors really wanted to be American, they should do what we do when get pissed off at something- watch Bill O'Reilly.

I came home late on Thursday night only to discover TiVo wasn't working. As you could quite imagine, this was quite upsetting. Very upsetting, in fact, especially in light of the fact the usual tricks I do to fix it didn't work. And when I mean it wasn't working, I mean it wasn't even recording anything.

So I did what I usually do when something like this happens and figure if I just wait a bit, it'll fix itself. I got home on Friday after work and the first thing I did was check to see if Tivo was working. It wasn't.

Panic time.

I got on the phone instantly and called Tivo help support. After a minute or two (much sooner than I thought, in fact) I got somebody on the other end of the phone who after explaining my problem first asked me if the plug was still plugged in. It wasn't.

Problem solved.

Why do I bring this story up? Because I'm picking up my new car (well, new used car) in an hour or so.

PS- what's the beauty of today's world? I missed a bunch of my shows due to the Tivo problem. Then I realized that I could download "the Office" off of iTunes. Which I did. And PTI is now also downloadable on iTunes, as is the Colbert Report which everyone is talking about because Stephen bitch-slapped BIll Kriston around.

Apparently, one of my dreams has come true and my visage was projected high and wide on a billboard in Times Square recently. Which I thought was pretty damn cool even if nobody else seems all that impressed. Guess being put on a billboard in Times Square is something that happens to pretty much everyone.

Anyways, I can know cross that off my list of things to do in my life. Next up: being fed grapes by Lucy Pinder while sailing in my own private catamaran in the Aegean.

I am not holding my breath.

I have realized that the fun in shopping for a car is the actual contemplation of the car. It's walking around or being in a bus seeing all these cars on the road or parked and thinking "that looks like a great car" or "that's exactly what I want." I love that part.

The not so fun part is when you actually get around to looking into buying the car. Because that's when you notice that this car looks good, but has way too much miles on it. Or is fine but has a lot of dents. Or actually isn't a very good car. And, in some cases, a great car but kind of a coral, pastel green and there's no way in hell I'd drive a coral, green car.

I also have done a lot of research into cars and thought I figured out the magic formula, or at least the best deal possible in used cars. That being a Honda Civic. So as I searched for cars, I felt pretty confident that it would be easy to do as only I figured out that they make great, budget used cars.

Unfortunately, my little secret knowledge is not so secret knowledge as it appears everyone has concluded the same thing. I've heard from various people that within posting a Honda, they get ten or twenty calls within an hour or so.

I guess I'm not as clever as sometimes I think I am.

Two stories from work before I never talk about work again....

1)We're doing this ad where some of us at work are having our photos taken and turned into cartoon characters. Based off of the photo, they gave me grey hair. I do not recognize myself as a cartoon character. And for some reason, they don't think it's a big enough deal to have it changed to brown

2)If you remember, I led this revolution as it were to get people to jaywalk across the street after being let off the SamTrans bus. This made me proud. What makes me not proud is the fact that the other's, my prodigies, are doing it wrong. See, when I'd jaywalk, I'd do it in such a way that I didn't actually stop traffic. In other words, I might have broken the law as it were, but I didn't do any harm. Others on the bus are jaywalking, but doing it so that traffic is stopped. The crazy thing is that they'll cross the street when it plainly says "Don't Walk" and cars will actually stop to let them pass. You know, as opposed to actually doing what they're supposed to do and go, maybe even giving us a scare by almost running us over. Because if they did, it would totally be our fault. In other words, while I believe in doing no harm as a jaywalker, they are doing harm. They are giving jaywalking a bad name.

And finally, I am so loving the Mary J. Blige version of U2's "One" right now....

More notes on the trip before we return to the usual boredom and light posting:

-The train I took from Philly to Baltimore was full enough that every seat was taken by at least one person but not many seats were taken up by two. Which meant that the whole horde of people getting on at Philly had to walk up and down the train determining which poor person would no longer have the seats to themselves. On our side, the recently added passengers, it becomes a big game of who's seat they would take? The child? The cell-phone acceserizing businesman? The old lady? And how bummed would they be to know that in an entire cabin of people having seat to themselves, they were picked. And for the people who had the seat to themselves, you could see them looking nervous as people walked up and down the aisle looking for the perfect seat, hoping that they wouldn't have to give something up.

-And how bummed was the lady who had lost having the seat to themself by the huge, fat, Jabba the Hutt lady. A lady so fat she had to sit by the window because she'd have more room. And all the while, Jabba Lady had a self-righteous look on her face, you know, the kind of face that said, don't you even think about looking disappointed just because I'm 400 pounds.

-I know have spent about 3,000 bucks on consumer electronic equipment that will make my travelling that much more enjoyable. The equipment mainly being a laptop, video iPod, and various electronic devices bought to help both. This being my first flight with all the equpment, I was actually looking forward to it. Now, first of all, being able to watch "Battlestar Gallactica" on a laptop on a five hour flight? Kicks all sorts of ass. But the other thing is I found myself with too many entertainment options. The flight takes off and I'm sitting there thinking- should I read first and listen to music or listen to music and play tetris? Or should I watch "Lost" or a "South Park" episode or "Battlestar?" Maybe even try playing the video game I bought just for this flight.

-For whatever reason, I had to fly into Durham North Carolina to switch flights. Which means, yes, there's another state I went to on my trip, although I'm not exactly sure a stay in a airport really counts. I mean, during my trip to Germany and Austria, I spent a couple of hours at Heathrow, but I never claimed to have been in London. You know, in a way, being in North Carolina was a bit like being in Heathrow-- the reading materials are totally different and everyone talks with a funny accent. The only difference being that the reading material in London are mainly laddie magazines with actual nudity and in North Carolina it's NASCAR magazines and books about Jesus.

Anyways, while I was waiting for my flight to board, I started playing a pretty fun game with my fellow passengers. That game being "Who's from the Bay Area and Who's Just Going to Visit." See, the game goes like this. Guy with a flat top hair cut? Visiting SF. Guy with a natural tan, wearing shorts and sandals? Resident of SF. Old lady with a bad perm, bad die cut, and a look on her face like she sucked twenty lemons at once? Visiting. Woman with long, unruly hair and wearing a black mumu? Lives somewhere in the Bay Area, probably near Santa Cruz. BIg, clean cut guy with wholesome looks wearing a button down shirt tucked into his jeans? Visiting. Guy wearing all black with a beard and an earing? Probably lives a couple of blocks away from me.

See how this works?

So let's just say something crazy is going on at work and there might be some promoting going on. And let's just say that there's an outside chance I could get promoted. Or somebody else.

And for fear that this is all going to get me in trouble (hi, Samela), I am quite torn. On the one hand, a promotion would be pretty nice in that it definately is a sign of a job well done and of appreciation. And that's always nice to get. It might also mean more money (which is always nice) and the knowledge that I actually did get a promotion at something I did, which has never happened to yours truly. On the other hand, it would mean much more responsibility and having to deal with things I don't want to deal with. Like hiring/firing people. Or laying them off. Or having to write employer evaulations or having to constantly be in the middle of conflicts. I am quite happy doing what I'm doing and quite content. I do not even know if I have the "bandwidth" to take on more responsiblity as my job is quite busy and I have other things to contend with during the day. A friend of mine once told me he had a general rule of quitting every job he had the moment it looked like he was going to take on managerial responsibilities. I thought it was one of the wiser things I had ever heard.

Then again, if there is promoting going on and it's not me, that'll make for one cranky, bitter Jon. Because it's kind of a diss in a way. It's kind of a "you do great work, but X does better work." Which would hurt that much more because I do have seniority in our little group. If I don't get it, it'll be doing the "if I did this, I would have gotten it" or "I shouldn't have done this and should have done that instead" thing. I hate doing that thing.

In other words, either way, it won't be good.

Unless, of course, they don't promote anybody.

Fingers? Crossed.

So I was walking the dad family dog this afternoon and come upon a house. The house's lawn is totally overgrown and looked like it hadn't been mowed for weeks. And there's piles of dog crap lying everywhere. So the dog goes into manuevers that make it look like she's about to throw done some serious dumpage and as she is, I'm standing there this: should I pick up after the dog or should I not? After all, it's not like anybody else has been picking up after their dogs. But on the other hand, just because other people do it, doesn't mean it's okay to.

Also, there's not a lot of public trash cans in the 'hood where I'm at so I've found myself several times wandering around with a bag of dog poop. Finally, I come upon somebody else's trash can right on the street and go to throw the bag in there and then suddenly flash to the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode where Larry does something similiar and winds up setting the usual mayhem and trouble into motion. And so, I held off in throwing the bag away.

Damn, you, "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Damn you.

Right now I'm in Bal'more with dad. So far I've been in suburban Philly, New York, Philly, and D.C. That's four cities right there. If you add up states, I've been in about five (Pa, New Jersey, New Yawk, Maryland, and Delaware) plus the District of Columbia. As we got lost leaving DC last night, there's also a chance I've been in Virginia too. Yet in being all of those places, it doesn't really seem all that exciting. Maybe it's just because I've done it so many times or that on the East Coast, hopping from state to state isn't that big of a deal, but I think that just on this trip, I've seen more cities and been in more states than most Americans have. And I just don't mean dumb, poor white trash, either-- while Baltimore and Philly isn't that high on anybody's list of places to go (although Philly should be because there's a lot of history, it's kind of pretty, and mmmm....cheese steaks), DC and New York are pretty much Must Sees. And yet, none of this seems all that impressive.

The thing is, however, that if say I did all this travelling, yet in Europe, everyone would be "wow." So you know what I'm thinking? This trip would be a whole lot more impressive if you had to get something stamped everytime you crossed over into another state. Just think how cool it would be if when I go home, I could open up my passport and show everyone my Delaware stamp.

So that whole moth quote earlier might have been a little over the top as it's not like people in the East Coast don't dress well. I think it's just my view that the whole East Coast is kind of old and moldy and stuffy, the kind of environment moths thrive in. In fact, if I was writing a novel about life in the East Coast, I'd have moths be the central metaphor in it. You know, the kind of metaphor you study in english classes and write papers about. Something like "people in the East Coast are afraid to merge with their moths." Or something about moths beating ceaselessly to the shore.

Anyhoo, today I went to the scene of the crime as it were, the King of Prussia Shopping Mall. Luckily, none of it was how I remember it, so the deja vu wasn't quite so deja. But there's still something about walking around there. Like I want to tell everyone I meet "I used to live here but I'm back on vacation because I live in San Francisco and got the hell out of here and got to experience things more real than Ivy League educations and Abercrombie and Fitch." You know, like I should have worn a t-shirt that said "I Got The Hell Out of Here." Which is kind of silly if you think about it. But then again, in a way, we all live our lives in reaction to our lives when we were young. Just some people haven't quite realized it yet. And let's just say that with the iPod on, I got way more vicarious thrill out of hearing say a Dinosaur Jr. song and Iggy Pop's "I wanna Be Your Dog" than a Tom Petty or Floyd song. Because Petty or Floyd is pretty much what I heard back then anyways. But we'll get to that in a second.

One more thing about walking through the mall. Whenver I'm there I get this weird, paranoid feeling that I'll run into somebody I know. Which would never happen, especially at 2 in the afternoon on a Tuesday, but it's still there. It's just weird to realize that the one's who it'll probably be are not the High School and college chicks, but probably their mother's. T'is true about anything in life these days, but, once again, it goes against what we were trained to think oh so long ago.

About the radio. I love turning on the radio to hear if anything's changed from when I was younger and discovered that in some cases, it hasn't. I still heard those dread words that haunted me so much when I was younger..."after the break, a double shot of Yes!" It seems like WMMR could just put on tapes from 20 years ago and nobody would notice a difference in the station.

We're coming live from Philadelphia Pa, or more accurately Valley Forge, as we ponder this question: are we actually going to be on a billboard in Times Square?

Anyways, here's a few odds and sods from this trip

-Saw "Thank You For Not Smoking" Saturday night. Not bad, but the main thing is I got to see the infamous trailer for "Flight 93" or whatever it is, the 9/11 movie. Let's just say it's a little weird to see it. Or more like total buzz kill. There you are watching a trailer for frothy English comedy, then quirky indie movie, and then, blammo, you watch footage of a plane slam into the WTC. Not exactly happy fun time. And judging by all the people shaking their heads at the end of the trailer, I'm guessing this movie is gonna be one big huge, errr, bomb.

And I'm also probably not the only person to think this, but while I do think something happened on that flight, why do I have a sneaking suspicious it didn't go down as it was made out to go down? Not that I don't blame anyone for "the myth" becoming the reality-- God only knows we needed one uplifting story out the whole thing, but I just have a feeling something else happened.

-I hate to say it, but whenever I get off a flight from San Francisco, I always find myself going "oh, look, they have wi fi access here." Or "oh, look, they have coffee shops." Or "oh, wow, there's somebody speaking spanish." Which is silly because there's no reason why all of those things wouldn't be here. But living in San Fran makes you think that civilization does indeed end once you live the Bay Area. I even found myself thinking those things in New York, which is totally dumb because New York pretty much kicks everyone's ass in that regards

-Speaking of New York, as I was walking around I was trying to think just why it is that the people look so different than they do back home. First thing I noticed is that everyone is pale. Like not seen a tan in years pale. I think people in Cali have tans just because after awhile, it becomes part of your complexion, like a stain or something. Second thing is while I certainly can't say people in NY are less stylish (SF is particularly not a very stylish city), there is a certain feeling of moldiness in a lot of the clothes. Like moths are a couple of days away from setting home in them.

-I was driving back from New York and somewhere on the Pa Turnpike (yep, I was driving). Anyways, I was going somewhere between 75-80, pretty much what everyone else was. All the while being tailgated. Now there's one thing about being tailgated when you're already going fairly above the speed limit. But the thing that really bugged was the fact that there was nobody really going on either side of me (I was in the middle lane of a three lane highway) so that the car who was behind me could easily go either to my right or to my left and pass me, but they refused to. The fact that they didn't made me actually want to slow down more just to force the issue. And to piss him off. Finally, after about fifteen miles of this, the guy in the car made a move-- to my right, the slow lane. Where they promptly got stuck behind a slow moving pick up truck. And to where the driver once again refused to pass. So for all that tailgating, the dude or dudette got stuck behind some pick up truck and wound up getting passed by everyone. And all this because they couldn't figure out to pass anybody.

-We tried to take the Staten Island ferry coming back from New York today, but it turns out you can no longer put a car on the ferry. 9/11, terrorism and all that. Which strikes me as pretty frickin' stupid. Like by somehow getting rid of one way into the city, they have now made New York safer. Despite the fact anybody could take a car and pull up somewhere and blow the car up with a car bomb. And I hear they're thinking about building a new tunnel but one of the reasons why they won't is because the fear of terrorism. Now if there's any place that has legitimate concerns about terrorism, it would be New York. And not just because of 9/11. But do we still have to be complete chicken-shits about it still?

-And speaking of security, I travelled this time with full accomponient (yeah, I know I fucked up the spelling) of electronic equipment-- iPod, lap top, carry on suitcase. Could security not be a bigger pain in the ass? I have to take off my jacket, my shoes, unhinge the iPod from my ears, put my backpack in one tray, my suitcase in another, and my laptop in another. That's about five little trays right there. And because there were so many people going through security and they were trying to rush them through (actually, they did a really good job of rushing everyone through), it's that much more of a pain in the ass when you're trying to put everything together and you got security types telling you to move along and get out of the way.

It appears that the big public transportation trend in the Bay Area these days seems to be death. Mainly the death of people being hit by either bus or by train. This is all rather sad and tragic and of course it becomes painfully obvious that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT THIS!

But really, should we? Isn't there a level of Darwin involved in all of this? I mean, shouldn't it be kind of obvious that trains move really, really fast and that one shouldn't lollygag crossing the tracks. Or crossing the tracks at all. Or doing anything that could possibly involve being hit by a speeding train? Same thing with being hit by a bus. MUNI busses are rather big and rather loud and kind of hard to not see. Unless you're not paying attention or have the iPod cranked so you can't even hear the bus. And yes, MUNI busses do have a tendency to lurch into intersections or around corners when you don't think they should, but shouldn't you always look both ways before crossing?

And another point is about the MUNI bus going after the light turns. You know why they do that? Because they sit and wait to pick up lots of passengers, or late passengers, and have to scramble through the intersection so they won't fall too far behind. Because if they do fall too far behind by waiting through another light, everyone yells at them for being late.

And so once again I find myself getting into my seat on the bus, positioned near nobody, only to have somebody sit in the seat in front of me and lean back in their chair and into my space. And not only anybody, but the Ignatius O'Reilly guy who then promptly plopped his jacket up against the window and proceeded to snore away until our stop.

Ignatius also always falls asleep on the ride over. Everytime I get up to leave, I always contemplate whether or not I should wake him. On the one hand, waking him would be the polite thing to do. On the other hand, if he can't wake his fat-ass up, it's not my damn problem.

It's almost worth getting a car just to not have to deal with that.

Oh, I'm also discovering I have a new pet peeve. See, Super Mondo has cafeteria's in all of their buildings and all the cafeteria's take credit/ATM cards. Which is great. Except for the fact they'll let anyone use it. So many is the time I get in line in the morning, coffee and oatmeal in hand, only to have to wait in a long line because everybody is buying their coffee and egg breakfast with an ATM card. It's under $5. Do you really not have the cash? And if you have the cash, why not use it? Are you waiting to use it for something else? How hard is it to reach into your pocket and pull out a five?

Same thing happens at lunch too.

Man, how good was tonight's South Park? It was simultaneously a commentary on the recent cartoon fracas in which both the moslem's who rioted and the overly sensitive Western folks who were afraid to show the cartoons and support the cartoonists were busted on. All the while also being a huge diss on "Family Guy" (oh, it's on). Not to mention being a meta-commentary on the recent pulling of South Park episodes that angered Tom Cruise and Catholics while also being a meta commentary on the show itself.

In other words, it was the triple salchow of satire.

And now...for more trenchant tales of the city....

Doing some errands/shopping today after work. First stop: The Apple Store to buy stuff for my computer and iPod. You know, walking into a Mac store while wearing an iPod is kind of fun. You feel at home, like everyone there gives you that little look like you're part of the club. In a way, wearing the iPod as well as being a certified Mac-head, walking into the Apple Store is kind of like being Jewish and going to Israel.

Next stop was the San Francisco shopping center. Got the iPod in, of course, listening to a little U2 "War" and I notice as I'm walking around the mall-like place, surounded by teens, teens and more teens, that no matter how long it's been and how old I am, I still deep down, get the icky feeling of dread in my stomach. I mean, if I squinted it could be 1985 again and I'm back in the King of Prussia shopping mall, especially with "Sunday Bloody Sunday" blasting through my head. I even had that knee-jerk reflex voice come in and tell me not to look to dorky. Which, luckily, was quickly dispatched by another voice telling me that I'm 37 and shouldn't listen to that voice anymore. But just don't act too dorky.

Finally, I went off to check out a car, another Honda. Once again, it was a bit of a tricked out car, which seems to be the only Hondas I'm stumbling into. This time, however, I didn't take it for a test drive (man, that other time was fun). But I did notice that when buying a car, there's a certain code that dealers say to let you know it's tricked out. They'll say something like "it's lowered" or "it's got some extra power" and then they'll say "it was owned by Asians."

And finally, at the Mac store I bought one of those fancy, plastic cases for the iPod so I don't ding it more than it already is dinged up. The packaging for it was one of those clear, plastic contraptions that seal the thing good and shut, you know, the one's that are virtually impossible to open.

It took about fifteen minutes to open it. I had to basically take the cork screw I use for opening wine to scratch open the lid enough so that I could pry my fingers into it to open up the rest of it.

If there was such a thing as karma, I think the guy who developed that sealing packaging definately deserves some of it headed his way. Like I'm imagining he has to take a certain kind of heart medicine and just as his ticker goes clomp clomp and is about to burst, he reaches for his new heart medicine only to discover that it's that type of packaging....

I had dinner last week in Fisherman's Wharf. As I was kind of early, I walked around, up and down the pier. On my way back to the restaurant, I was mulling over about twenty or thirty things going on in my head when I heard a loud roar. I jumped back about ten feet, totally bugged eye. It was probably around eight feet or so when I realized that the roar was that of the Bush Man, the guy in Fisherman's Wharf who hangs out and jumps out in an attempt to scare tourists and get some money for his effort. It was also about eight feet back when I realized that all of this was being seen by about twenty tourists who were all scattered around the Wharf and having watched the whole ruckus, were now laughing and clapping at the show. That show, of course, being me scared half to death.

I'm not sure which is more embarassing-- that after living in the city for over fifteen years I still got punked by somebody I should have known was there or that I got punked by something most tourists had seen coming for miles.

Sorry for the no posting-- last week was a whirr of work craziness, social outness, and trying to both look for an apartment and a car. The fact that we did pretty much nothing this weekend but sleep makes us feel kind of lame but kind of rested and satisified.

So I'm kind of liking "Big Love" but mainly because it's an interesting and halfway entertaining show to come on right after "the Sopranos." The main thing about it, though, is I'm having real trouble buying the polygamy thing. Everyone on the show is way too attractive, way too modern, and way too smart to be doing something like that. I mean, it seems to be typical Hollywood doing, take something done mainly by redneck inbreds and pretty it up with attractive people. Especially since Barb comes off way too much like modern soccer mom and Nikki comes off as way too much of a bitch. And while Margene's character makes kind of sense, she's way too attractive to be caught in something like that.

Kind of like the show, though, even if I'm one of those people a little miffed that the only nudity so far is Bill Paxton's bum and not Margene's.