Anyway, he kept making these sounds as he was texting away and so naturally I eavesdropped a bit. Hey, it wasn't my fault. His phone was totally open and just aiming at me.

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw what the message said:
"When are you coming home. I'm ovulating. Hurry up!"

Bow-chica-bow-wow.

It's true. It takes me 10 minutes to drive from my house to downtown. At my previous place of employment, they paid for my parking at Horton Plaza. Which was very nice and good and all. I'd then walk all of 2 minutes (past a Starbucks) to get to my office. Easy peasy.

My new place, though still downtown, also covers parking. But it's a 10 minute walk away from the office down by the ballpark. Now, that's not really horrible or anything. But it only takes me 15 minutes on the bus to go from 5 blocks from my front door to 1 block away from the office building. So I'm on the bus.

This raises two other questions/thoughts.
Why is it the bank that my building is in asked me for my check card (which I didn't have cuz they're not my bank) when I asked to change a $5 bill for bus money? Really? There's such a rash of counterfeit $5 bills you have to validate who is giving you the 5 bucks by swiping their debit card?

The bus offers a ... um ... "unique" assortment of scents. It's almost as bad as if you went to a gay leather daddy bar. (Not that I've ever been.)

Very busy! :)

Looks like that happened to me this week.

Yeah, it's a bummer. You always want to leave on your own terms and on your conditions. In a really strange way, I'm kind of relieved. I had started looking for jobs a few weeks back because I was miserable there. So as of now, they treated me well so I can't complain. I'm not going to say a lot about it since I'm applying for unemployment and who knows what will happen with that.

Suffice it to say that I really liked working with the people in my group, but I was pretty miserable in my job. When I talked to friends, they all basically said they could tell I hated the job at week 3, but I was too proud to admit I didn't like it. I have to admit it's true. But I wanted to give it my best for as long as I could.

Tonight some of my friends took me to dinner to celebrate. And my old creative director actually showed up. He ended up paying for our whole tab, which I have to say was pretty fucking cool of him. Especially since we butted heads once or twice.

Anyway, it's all good. I'm looking forward to actually going to the gym three times a week like I've always wanted and getting some other things taken care of.

In Italy, they're going to start issuing citations for people who snack around some of the most popular monuments. No gelato at the Coliseum. No pizza at the Spanish Steps.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2008-07-16-rome-snack-ban_N.htm

I'm a little bit of a gadget freak. Call me an "early adopter" or whatever. I think the thing is cool and I kind of wanted one a year ago, but I sure as hell wasn't about to plunk down essentially a month of rent for a phone. No matter how cool and buff it would make me look.

Plus, I absolutely refuse to wait in line to buy a phone. What is wrong with these people that are waiting in line in NYC for a week to get a cell phone? Come on people. It's a PHONE. Sure it allows you to have the power of the Internet in your back pocket. But really? You're willing to lose 5 days of your life sitting on a cold sidewalk for a cell phone?.. ..

It reminds me of when people camped out to eat one of the first donuts when Krispy Kreme opened up in ....San Diego..... I heard how wonderful these things were and so when I finally tried it, I guess I expected something magical to happen. And guess what … it tasted like a donut.

Not me, I refuse to wait in line. I'll go Saturday rather than Friday and can probably get in and out in 20 minutes. And if there's a line Saturday, I'll go next week. After all, I don't really want people calling me that much.

But it also got to the point that it did seem a little more like entrapment than actual justice.

I guess the prosecutor that killed himself after they showed up on his doorstep was enough to make NBC stop doing the show. Sounds like they paid a good chunk of change after his sister took them to court.

I have to say I'm glad it's off the air. As much as a train wreck as it was, people always watched it. And more over, why are people so stupid they stay there and talk to some dude that is going to destroy their lives? I bet you $100 that Chris Hanson dude has some serious skeletons in his closet - probably really nasty stuff too.

NBC settles suit over 'Dateline: Predator' episode

Tonight, I get home and think 'good god, what is that smell?'. I think it's the trash, so I go around and take out the trash only to then sit down at the computer and try to figure out what is going in the kitchen.

I hear something over by the window and notice that there are no less than 10-15 huge ass flies at the window buzzing in the blinds. I open one of the windows to try to let them escape and they refuse to comply with my requests.

Anyway, I'm looking around for rotting fruit or moldy bread. Then, even though I'm at home alone, I speak out "what the fuck died in here?" And then a light bulb goes off. I check under the sink and the stank is ever-present.

You see, several months back, I bought a lovely capital punishment device for mice. It caught a few and I promptly put it back but since it hadn't caught anything in along time, I promptly forgot about it. It appears that the device shocked some mouse to death while I was away on vacation. The little guy had been in there so long, he started to liquefy, thus the flies.

And since I'm crafty and the flies would leave when I asked them to, I used the vacuum to suck them up. Those guys are pretty good at getting away, but no match for the Hoover.

This would be the second time I've flown on a 777 (the first was with British Airways) – and I think I've just decided that plane is just simply uncomfortable. The woman in front of me was complaining about not having enough space for her legs and she was only 5' 6". Now take someone that's 6' even – and you can probably just imagine how restful my sleep was.

There was a lot of turbulence, not bad, but just a lot the whole flight long. And I love how they would announce it to you "ladies and gentlemen, we have reached a turbulence zone…bla bla bla seatbelts bla bla bla." Are there actual "zones"? This fascinates me, please tell me more. "As monsieur requests."

The dinner was actually pretty good. Man, the French do love their cheese and bread. Served with dinner and breakfast. Breakfast was gross except for the OJ and yogurt, but how can you fuck up yogurt? The croissant was the driest thing I've ever eaten in my life. And the coffee? Aren't the French known for good cafes and coffee? They served Nescafe (which I know is totally Euro) but it's instant coffee. And seriously, how can Air ....France.... screw up the traditional French bread item

I'm in the process of enjoying my 6 hour layover. The flight was actually late, so now it's less than 6 hours. But alas, I'm too early to check in my bag and go through security, so now I must wait for an hour to check in. And I just realized – there isn't a clock to be found anywhere.

I'm going to be a total nerd for saying this – but after all the bad news about Heathrow's new Terminal 5 (which I'm in now) – it's kind of cool to see. It's not busy AT ALL. Like I'm looking down this huge cavernous departures lobby and I would be shocked if there were 100 people here.

I'm bored as hell right now sitting at LAX waiting for my flight to London, where I will attempt to enjoy a 6 hour layover before flying on to Budapest.

I actually got to the airport so early, that I had to wait 30 minutes before they'd let me check in for my flight. Since I had ample time, I figured I'd pony up and pay the $10 for internet access - at least it's speedy.

I'm flying on Air France's new non-stop LAX-London Heathrow flight. I don't know why, but I didn't expect as many French people to be on the flight. It reminded me of the movie French Kiss where she hears the guy next to her talking and goes "uhg, you're French...aren't you?!?" To which he replies, "I don't like the way you say that 'you're French' with your nose all scrunched up.

Anyway, I texted Ms Pants that and she - like only she can with me - replied with the movie quote "you people make my ass twitch." It literally made me laugh out loud. If you've seen the movie, you'll understand the reference and significance.

Okay, I'm off. More updates later - perhaps in London or maybe at the hotel in Budapest.

One of my projects is in the final throws of picking the cities that are going on the new world edition of the Monopoly board game. Right now, they're getting the votes for the wildcard cities. Personally, I'm voting for the home town city - San Francisco.

So hop on over, register and vote!

http://www.monopolyworldvote.com/en_US/world

I know the magical numbered balls are against me. My lucky numbers do not appear to be that lucky. That's why I just go the quick pick route. But it's the dream of what you could do if you did win. It's the whole idea of plunking down a buck or two and then being able to dream for a day or two.

What would you do if you won? What would you buy?

Some people are idiots. They spend their money on frivolities like coke and hookers. Not me. I have a plan. Let's assume you take cash value (which naturally you would want to do) so you're cutting your pot almost in 1/2. From the $150 million, we're now down to a paltry $92 million.

Then you gotta factor in taxes, so take out another half (I'm not good at math, so work with me here). Down to $46 million. Not much to work with, but I still have a plan.

First, let's cut out all the extravagances:
- Carve off $10 million for a charity donation.
- Charter a jet and rent an tropical island for a vacation among friends. I haven't done the research, but let's assume that's $250k. (Solid 250k's keep the math simple)
- Pay off the house and provide "friendship loyalty" checks (hey, I got secrets that I've got to protect) - drop another mil.

Now, we do the smart planning. We're left with $35 ish.
- Take $10 million and invest it in stocks or a retirement account.
- I'll take $6.25 million and put it in a savings account and some CDs. I'm pretty sure I could live comfortably off of the $250,000 a year in interest that would earn.

With the remaining $20 million, I'm at a loss. I have no idea what to do with that money. I guess there are reasons for the coke and hookers after all.

Luckily, this won't be a concern, since I probably won't be winning anyway.

I voted for Obama. I was an Edwards guy, but like every year, the guy I seem to like always drops out before I can vote. Don’t get me wrong – Obama was my second. (I can’t stand Billary - she wasn't even a consideration. I think it’s her cackle/heina-like laugh.) Plus, it bothers me how her message changes based on polling. I couldn't stand when the "I'm your girl" became her battle cry, then it was "I got 35 years of experience" then the "I can lead on day one."

I like Barack's sense of humor, I think he's got a good attitude, I like that his message is a message that we can be better, do things better and as a country we can be a respected country that we once were. (To be fair, virtually every candidate is jumping on the "hope" bandwagon.)

To be honest, what I really hate when leaders attempt to “lead” by fear. The whole “if you vote for X, the terrorists will get you!” Excuse me? I really don’t think the bogeyman will be any more or less likely to attack just because some political campaign says so, or that they don’t like that CNN is using the fear font in their teasers. (Times New Roman, by the way, is the fear font.)

It’s interesting that Obama is doing well with the younger voters, and Hillary is doing well with the 45+ group. I hope he keeps the momentum going, but I guess we shall see.

And in other news, KPBS is doing this Citizen Voices thing (which as a disclaimer, I did apply for – I mean, they were going to pay you $250/month to blog about politics!). So far, I can’t say I’m impressed. Some dude writing about how he went to vote and they told him no cuz he went to the wrong place? How is that entertaining?

Years ago, I got laid off in December. Why is it layoffs happen in the winter? I would have loved to have been able to take a few months off in the middle of the summer and just kick back and pretend I was 15 again.

Now, our coffee maker sits cold and alone. Never knowing the touch of a human hand. Instead, we all spend far too much money walking 50 feet down the street to the local Starbucks. But when we do good things, we're rewarded with our "good job" awards of $10 Starbucks gift cards.

(No, I don't feel like a rat pressing a lever on command.)