PlatKat.com

Your alarm clock flips to 8:00 and begins buzzing. As you roll out of bed, ready to face the hazy California morning, you feel groggy, incomplete. The shave and shower were nice, but your demanding physical system requires more to jumpstart your day. Crawling into your 1992 Honda Civic, you light up a Marlboro Red 100 and suck it down like a cup of coffee. Ahhh, you are truly in flavor country. After successively inhaling a few more of those bad boys, you find yourself pulling into work, smelling like a shady nightclub. What to do? Why, this giant spray bottle of Bod cologne should do the trick…

STOP.

The only thing worse than coming to work smelling like a shady nightclub is coming to work smelling like the runt doorman at a shady nightclub. You can buy ionizers that sit on your dashboard for around $40 at Sharper Image. Now is the time to invest in one.

Many people can come to work after a cigarette and somehow avoid the lingering stench of burnt leaves clinging to every fiber of their clothes and every cell in their skin. You are not one of those people, my friend. Covering yourself in cheap cologne does little to hide this fact. So try to preserve some of your dignity and overall appearance by either a) quitting smoking or b) walking in here smelling like death itself and not giving a flying fuck what anyone thinks about it. Both options will earn you more respect and keep my gag reflex at bay.

I am patiently awaiting the release of the movie, Strangers with Candy, to US theatres. Tick-tock, tick-tock. So far, it has only been screened at the Sundance Film Festival, which is a bit of a trek for me. And I’d have to scam my way in.

The movie is a prequel to the show, so I’m not sure if I’m going to like it. I’m generally wary of movies spawned from TV shows (“Hey, Mr. Bean was a funny PBS show, so maybe it will be funny for 2 hours!!”), but I guess Rugrats was good. I’ve actually sat and watched over 2 hours’ worth of “Strangers with Candy” episodes with Gus. Rarely do we tire of the absurd (but possible?) plotlines and the characters’ awkward, ridiculous antics. Didn’t your principal take a shower in his office?

I guess what the tv-watching counter-culture of today has to worry about more is a Napolean Dynamite TV show with a cast of inadequate mimics of the original characters and a staff of writers who just graduated from some prestigious school and think they know the formula for “funny”. With my luck, some Harvard grad just read this and is asking his mumsy for her investment right now. How about a cut of the royalties, Sharky Von Vanderscrapple?

Why does every romantic comedy ever written have some scene near the middle where the couple is just starting to fall in love and they do something really mundane and stupid, but have “such a fabulous time” anyway because they’re so in love with each other? What a bunch of horseradish!

My recently viewed, extremely pathetic examples include 40 Days and 40 Nights, where our adventurous young couple rides a bus across town, and Nadine in Date Land, where the zany 30-somethings troll around a grocery store. Both scenes, while designed to portray the characters as innocent and freewheeling, end up looking contrived and stupid. The actors work really hard to make throwing paper products at their desired mate seem darling and fun, but if you look deep into their eyes, they’re really thinking, “Why the hell did I even pick up this script?” And you find yourself in the middle of the montage thinking, “Why the hell am I watching this anyway?”

If someone’s gonna sweep me off my feet, it’s not happening in a place where whores ride to keep warm or where mothers bring their three kids to buy economy-sized boxes of cereal. We’re creative young adults with extra cash and some free time. Let’s at least eat at a nice restaurant and go dancing afterward. In San Francisco, where 40 Days takes place, there is so much to do your head could explode. They could have gone for a scenic bike ride or a hike in the mountains or a swim at the beach… something for the folks at home to vicariously enjoy. Plus, as a couple of young hipsters, they have the run of the entire city. Go to a goth club or a hippie festival or a wine bar… again, something most people can’t do because they’ve resigned themselves to a life of monotony in the suburbs. Nadine also takes place somewhere urban. Plus, the object of her affection was loaded. The sky’s the limit! Forget the grocery store, go to the best restaurant in town and dance on the roof in smurf costumes!

That said, I must admit that the onset of my current relationship was not without one of these obnoxiously simple moments. It involved driving my younger sister Seguin (aka, where fun goes to die) to see a guy she was semi-involved with and way too good for. As Gus and I were having a decent time doing nothing together, this guy’s actual plan was nothing. I spent all that time doing nothing with the guy I love just so she could do nothing with some dork. I gave the dork in question a verbal bitch slap, and Gus and I headed back to Austin for a night on the town, hoping to never do nothing again.

After hastily making some plans on Friday, I headed to Los Gatos with some work-friends to sample some wine at the David Bruce and Byingtons Wineries. I was expecting to join four people in one car instead of five people in two cars, which appeared at my place mini-caravan-style a little before noon. The latter wouldn’t have been a problem, except car number two broke down before we arrived at the David Bruce Winery. Besides trying a blush wine there that was surprisingly good (never could get into blushes; they almost taste like a wine that can’t make up its mind), I also got to take in a healthy dose of the mountainous surroundings while Kevin was hosing down his car.

After our host, Craig (his buddies call him “Smith”), saw us off, we traveled a hundred yards down the road to the Byingtons Winery. The sprawling mansion had picnic tables and a bocce ball court in front. I enjoyed the wine for its high alcoholic content, but was only moderately impressed with the flavor. Our hostess was a funny, outgoing young woman who encouraged us to play bocce ball out front when we were finished. Just when I thought I’d run out of sports to play poorly.

When we were through, we ate at Scopazzi’s, an Italian restaurant in teeny downtown Felton. I ordered the special, a tasty concoction of chicken and pesto, but some of the other folks in my party weren’t so lucky, so I guess I’d say the place was hit-or-miss. But we all enjoyed the quiet, shady patio seating and attentive service. I also tried the Staiger Chardonnay from Boulder Creek there, which was pretty dry on its own, but complemented my meal nicely.

We had planned on sampling at one more winery in Felton, but instead, Mike wanted to drive to Santa Cruz to check out a disc golf course. I didn’t know this meant we were actually going to play a few holes, but it turns out Mike has two dozen discs in his trunk for occassions such as this. Being a good sport, I threw my frisbee in the vicinity of the hole, pretending to have the slightest clue how to aim for such things.

I was happy to have a pre-existing reason to leave (poker game at 7), so we headed back to Mountain View, I with my legs crunched under me in the back of Mike’s Nissan Sentra. I have nothing against Sentras, but I do have something against sitting in the back of one behind a driver who is 6′2″ tall. I wish I had known we were taking two cars so I could have taken one or two other people in mine. For obvious reasons, I prefer that other people drive to events involving alcohol, but this was a pretty tame afternoon wine-tasting activity, so I would have been okay. Never had I been so excited about the chance to drive my own car to Redwood City in my life. Leg room and a friendly poker game—it’s really the little things in life that you have to appreciate!

Every time I see a pizza sitting out, like by a conference room or at a party, I gotta eyeball it just a little longer than normal. And then in a deep sexy voice, I say, “Hey, Pizza. You lookin’ goooood.”

Hey, I did mean that! Thanks, Google!

I bought a terrible TV Tuner for my computer from PCTek Online (no link, don’t even waste your time) and I’m trying to return it/exchange it/get some sort of compensation for the absolute crap that is this board. Why is it so terrible? Besides having a crappy user interface for the installation software, and probably a faulty driver, since I installed all 50 million that came on the cd, the board just flat out doesn’t work, no matter what driver you install with it (we tried some on the internet). The installation instructions were abysmal, poorly translated drivel that didn’t even match the crappy user interface.

Last line of defense? Gus, of course. If a driver developer can’t even install the driver for your product, then your product is garbage.

I tried e-mailing the PCTek to tell them this and received no response. I saw that they were in New Jersey, so I called this morning. I’m assuming the number for their customer service line is not current because the guy who answered the phone had all the manners of a below-average code monkey. Our conversation:

Him: (rushed, muttered greeting)

Me: Yes, I bought a board from you and I’d like to exchange it or get a refund.

Him: Did you e-mail? You need to e-mail.

Me: Yes, I attempted to e-mail you, but received no response.

Him: When did you do it? Yesterday? Last night?

Me: Yesterday morning, yes.

Him: (seeming exasperated that I would expect a response in 24 hours) Richard does the RMAs. He’ll be here at 12. You should call back then.

How nice of this so-called customer service operator to be concerned enough to tell me to take further action because he is unable to do his job. Sometimes, when idiots annoy me, I like to ask them questions I know the answer to, just to reaffirm their idiocity.

Me: Okay, what time is it there?

Him: One hour later.

Me: I see. Well it’s 8:00 here. Let me ask you again, what time is it there?

Him: One hour later, 11:00.

Me: Thanks, I’ll call back.

I’m trying to remember the last time I was this unhappy with a purchase. I can’t. I’m also trying to remember the last time I was unhappy with any purchase and it was handled this poorly. It’s been a long time. I hope ol’ Richard can help me out when I call him today.

Someone I don’t know just came to my desk and said, “There’s LOTS of dim sum upstairs.” The timing was a little off and I had just eaten lunch, but since when does that stop me? I went upstairs and found dim sum, along with many different kinds of ethnic food. Ones I can’t even name or list the ingredients of. I grabbed some noodley stuff and rice ball thingies and squishy bread slices and headed back to my desk. Tonight’s dinner is all set.

I haven’t posted in awhile because Blogger made me angry. I’m not supposed to complain too loud because it’s still in beta (as are all Google products, forevermore), but now I’m wishing I had just read LiveJournal’s open source manual and tried that. I haven’t had a chance to thoroughly examine the template or adjust my .css, and I won’t do it in the next few days because Gus is here.

So far, we’ve visited ValleyFair Mall so I could hit up the Clinique counter for a darker shade of powder now that I’m sporting a hot (natural!) California tan. I managed to land a free gift, even though Clinique Bonus Week is officially over. Nothing like a make-up bag full of crap I’ll use half of and forget about to make me feel like a VIP customer.

Then, Gus and I listened to reggae at Music in the Other Park. The tunes were great and the crowd was diverse and lively. Like almost every other Bay Area event I’ve attended, this free show reminded me what a minority I am. An overly-clean, yuppie minority, at that.

Further narrowing it down, I’m in a tiny group of Bay Area dwellers who isn’t trying to pull off a look. I don’t dress up, I don’t wear copious amounts of accessories, and, with the new job, I don’t dye my hair rad colors and wear my nosering. It’s much more attention-whorish in San Francisco; in San Jose, people mostly dress up in trendy outfits I don’t like.

Gus says the look people are trying to pull off here is “rich”. I would have to nix that theory for at least 90% of the girls (who wear whatever Charlotte Russe and Forever 21 sell for the standard $14.99) and even if it’s more true for the guys we see out, there’s nothing attractive about some choad who’s all about his watch and his shirt. Yeah, there are more hot cars here than in Austin, but there are more people here too. Plus, people in cities generally don’t have children, so they spend their extra money on sports cars and crap they don’t need. I’m sure one of us will turn 30 and buy a ridiculously expensive car. I’d rather have that than a ridiculously expensive kid. So put that in yer pipe and smoke it.

On tap for the rest of the weekend is a drive past Sonoma to pick up a bottle of Pinot Noir and then we’ll double-back for a wine-tasting in Sonoma and some jazz music. Then, onto San Francisco, where we’ll spend a couple of nights in the old US travel standard, Holiday Inn. I used to have a flyswatter from there, which I found to be an odd and humorous promotional item. (“Holiday Inn. There may be flies here, but we got your back.”)

Fireworks? Yeah, we’ll see some fireworks. Nothing can top the fireworks I saw at Ka-Boom on Memorial Day, so we’re probably just going to stay here. Out of the 8 zillion places to see them, the ones at the amphitheatre down the street should do just fine.