Trashin' Sherlock

It's been raining for a few days now so I'm pretty pissy. Usually I love the rain but it makes the house so dark. Not good for bipolar sufferers. So I'm going to complain and whine and complain and whine some more.

Firstly, there's our neighbor across the street. Every Wednesday night or Thursday morning I see this woman, a teacher by professor, slink down over to our side of the street to dump her recyclables. Mind you, she has her own bin because we see it in her garage when the door is open. One time she actually had a pile of flattened boxes on the floor next to her as we were driving into our garage. She just picked them up and pretended that she was just taking a walk instead of dumping her shit into OUR bin.

Don't get me wrong. I love recycling, but this woman - I don't know her name - has her own damn bin. To top it off, she sometimes sends her thirty-something son to do the dirty work for her. The worst part in all of this is Christmas time when gift wrappers fill up our bins. Sure as dice, the teacher and her robot son would shove in their own Christmas crap - probably bringing a stool so they could step on our pile to make room for theirs. Fucking weirdos!

Second and last complaint. I saw pictures of the Sherlock Holmes movie in the works. Sherlock was shorter than Watson and he looks like Charlie Chaplin! What is going on? Fuck Guy Richie, too! Leave my cocaine sniffing, heroin shooting literary hero alone!

Go home

I heard a radio report today about Mayor Blanca Figueroa of South El Monte. For whatever idiotic reason, the City Council didn't think kindly about the looong working hours she clocked, so last Tuesday night the Council approved an ordinance forcing all employees to go home by 11 p.m.

This reminds me of my days with a union job as a State of California employee. Quitting time was 5 p.m., but from time to time I'd stay a little longer to wrap things up. Before long the union rep took notice and gave me The Talk. "You have to stop working right at 5, pal. You're making the rest of us look bad." She wasn't pulling my leg.

What a nightmare. I had management on my case for getting to work late, and the union after me for not leaving on time! I'm so glad I don't work there anymore...no wonder all the lifers were nuts.

Hi Ho Silverado...

This is from last weekend...hiking Silverado Canyon in Orange County.

I know, I know...I could post hiking photos from all over Southern California and you'd yawn and say they all look like the locations where MASH was filmed...

Leche

So Sean Penn landed a Golden Globe nomination for his Harvey Milk portrayal...well deserved, Spicoli. (Interesting how James Franco was channeling Spicoli in Pineapple Express, and here he's, uh, channeling Harvey Milk.)

I saw the film last weekend at the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, which actually markets itself as a Costa Mesa location. Sure, you can see Costa Mesa's South Coast Plaza from the theater parking lot, but I still get a kick outta how Santa Ana is considered the kiss of death.

The audience had a mass chuckle at the ribbing Orange County (ground zero for the Proposition 6 shock troops of 1978) takes in the movie. I doubt many hard-line conservatives would spend their weekend watching a movie sympathetic to gay characters, so I'm wondering if the laughter was "ha ha, we've come a long way since then" or nervous "ha ha, things haven't changed that much in 30 years!" Personally, I was laughing, "ha ha, I had nerd glasses just like those!"

Catching Up Is A Short Trip

Lots happened since the last time I posted. I suppose this is a short version of the good things that've made my life a little easier to swallow. There's BARACK OBAMA winning the presidency, of course. What an exciting time to live in. Can't wait to see what changes he will bring to our country.

There's Pinkberry and Cherry on Top. Yogurt never tasted so good. After 10 years, I've finally kicked that automatic salivation that comes from smelling roasted chicken. For a vegetarian (and Filipino) this is quite a feat.

Listening to old Modest Mouse, Pavement, Jawbreaker, Cadallaca, Heavens to Betsy and all that jazz. Nice time there.

Watching films like Let the Right One In and Milk. Revisiting old shows like Firefly, Deadwood, Freaks and Geeks, and the original Office. And discovering new ones like Dexter.

Taking Penny, our dog, on hikes. It's been a long time since we've given her such an excursion. She's pushing nine now.

My discovery of a stash of anime toys I bought in Japan that I've happily arranged on one of our kitchen shelves.

Family. My aunt is willing to carry my Baddipounded for me if I do decide to have one. How nice is that? And of course, there's BaddicusFinch. We've been biking, cycling, and hiking like crazy. What a great partner in crime.

All in all, it's been a good year. I've never been so fit in my life...and I got to visit Civil War battle sites and see the homes of our founding fathers as well as visit my favorite authors' homes.

Happiness...

Rise river rise

After almost five years of living a stone's throw from the Santa Ana River, EzraPounded and I have only recently started taking advantage of the paved bike route that runs along it. Just about every weekend we'll either cycle south to Huntington Beach or north to Yorba Linda.

Nice times...reminds me of my days in San Jose, where I grew up riding the bike trails along Coyote Creek (home of a secret colony of albinos...but that's a story for another day). In those years the path rolled through open expanses of orchards and farmland, but by the early '90s the area was dotted with tech campuses. I'm glad to see that the Coyote Valley (the most southern portion of San Jose) is still mostly open space...