Golden Guac

Yesterday marked my first visit to Chipotle. Yesterday was also the day I received a coupon for a free burrito in the mail...or maybe it had my boss's name on it, but he doesn't really need to know that. The coupon managed to sit unused on my desk for a whopping three hours. Amazing, I know. So I guess my first visit to Chipotle wasn't really a visit--it was more like food stamp redemption instigated by intense hunger, lack of willpower and my depleting bank account.

I arrived at the brand new Chipotle location and began to review the menu. My coupon entitled me to "one burrito, burrito bol, or salad." There were three different burritos on the menu, I didn't know what a "bol" was, and who goes to Chipotle for a salad? The nice man behind the counter informed me that I could get any of the burritos, the "bol" was a burrito without the tortilla, and that I was right to think that getting a salad was stupid. He steamed my tortilla and passed it to the woman next in the burrito assembly line.

After the meat, beans, sour cream and salsa were heaped onto the tortilla, I requested guacamole.

"That will be an additional $1.40. Is that alright?"

I silently stare at her in disbelief which, in retrospect, made for a very long and awkward silence. After she repeated the cost of this spoonful of guacamole again I started laughing and politely told her to forget it.

$1.40??!?! Is this guacamole laced with liquid gold? Are the tomatoes, onions and avocados from the fucking moon?! Precious metals or grandiose shipping and import taxes are the only two things that I can think of that would make a spoonful of guac that expensive. And if that's the case--buy your fucking guac at Ralph's, Chipotle because guacamole isn't something that I'll take out a mortgage to buy on my burrito. And another thing--my coupon said FREE burrito. If your intention was to get me in the restaurant frequently, which it was, you should have just given me the guac.

I'm giving Chipotle a boo, not just because of this incident, but because it's no comparison to Anna's Taqueria in Boston (where the guac, and anything else you want, is added at no additional cost).

La-La Land

Today is officially the most beautiful day in my short history with Los Angeles. Not a cloud in the sky, sunny and 75, and not a drop of humidity in the air.

This day allows me to forgive Los Angeles for her recent weather turmoil and to remember why I moved here.

This day, and any day like it, get the antithesis of a boo...whatever the proper word for that is.

Monopolistic Anarchy

I understand corporate survival strategy and the desire to vertically integrate. I also understand the desire to take over the world. Some basic services are regulated by the government and thought to be better outside of a market economy, and some are not. One company can't own broadcast television stations that reach more than 35% of the national broadcast television audience, but one company can reach all those same people with 9000 owned cable channels. I don't really have a position other than to say, in my experience, monopolies really suck for the consumer.

Yesterday, per the request of my boss, I left the office for lunch. I returned home where a gourmet hot pocket was waiting for me. My building excitement for this hot pocket, while sad, was just the beginning of my troubles.

My apartment door had a little white card shoved in the door jam. It was from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Apparently I hadn't paid my electricity bill in about 9 months and they had "discontinued service." Right.

I don't pay my electricity bill.

I live in what's called a "corporate suite." Before you get all excited, trust me, it's less glamorous than it sounds. Basically all is included--utilities, rent, furniture, etc. And it's all part of my job's compensation.

Apparently they failed to mention I wouldn't be compensated for the painful situations my compensation creates. I called my leasing agent--"I'll take care of it."

Flash ahead five hours as I'm returning home from work. Though slightly annoyed, I'm ready for that hot pocket I couldn't have at lunch and my DVR that is just bursting with amazing programming.

Still no power.

Long story short, all my food spoiled, I discovered that, while the Department of Water and Power can turn off your power when you're not home, they can't turn it on "for safety reasons," and when they tell you they'll be there that evening, they really mean that you're going to have to call back five more times before they'll tell you someone will be there in fifteen minutes and then actually show up the next day only after you've attempted to shower in the pitch black. Oh, and reimbursement for my spoiled food? Not so much.

One would also think the Department of Water and Power would send some delinquency notifications before banishing me back to the stone ages, right? Wrong. Consider highly influential monopoly number two--the US Postal Service.

I have lived in my current apartment for about nine months. In that time I have become friends with my mail man. He's a cute little Asian man who always seems to have a quiet little smile brought on by perfect contentment with his job and his schedule. After running in to him in the mail room several times and smiling back at him I finally introduced myself and shook his hand. Since that time I have stopped receiving other people's mail, and got a special mail man's "Happy Birthday" when he noticed the pile of greeting cards I received.

So--because I befriended the mail man, I didn't get the delinquency notices that weren't even for me, read for four hours by candlelight, couldn't eat my damn hot pocket, was rendered speechless when I realized I couldn't threaten to take my business elsewhere, which then lead me to an epiphany. I suddenly realized that "the customer is always right" is nowhere near true.

More accurately, "the customer, acting as a consumer in a market economy, while not always right, will be generally satisfied as businesses compete for their patronage. Customers of government regulated corporations and service providers, while sometimes satisfied, are really never right or wrong--they're just there."

Garbage Never Sleeps

This is a photo of my garbage man--or rather, my garbage truck, which seems to bring a different man to my apartment complex each and every morning.

Perhaps I should define morning. This photo was taken from my apartment at 7 am. So when I say morning, what I really should be saying is the asscrack of dawn.

It's difficult to tell from this photo, but this garbage truck is the mother of all garbage trucks. This is a front-loading garbage truck, and is the bane of my existence.

While I recognize that dumpsters do need to be emptied, do they really need to be launched into the air by hydraulic prongs, tipped over, and then psychotically shaken back and forth to the point where I feel like a plane has crashed in my parking garage setting in motion a chain reaction of explosions and destroying everything? Putting necessity aside, does this psychotic dumpster shaking really need to happen at 7 am?

For those of you fortunate enough to have those nice men riding on the back of a regular sized garbage truck heaving trash into the abyss as they drive along--consider yourself fortunate. Please never take for granted what those men do for you.

First and foremost, these men and women provide each and every person with an invaluable service. If these people went on strike, we'd all have a problem. Secondly, the normal garbage men riding on normal garbage trucks are relatively quiet.

With that said, please do not misunderstand my frustration. Even though we sleep, the trash never does. I value the service that I am provided, but 7 am?!?!? Will it be a huge problem if the trash gets to the landfill, say, in the afternoon? I'm sure the men and women that drive the most horrendous, makes-a-sonic-boom-sound-like-nothing garbage truck share my opinion when I say BOO to the garbage retrieval schedule.

MySpace-aholics Anonymous

I have recently realized that I have a problem.

Good guess, but no, it's not that hosting a blog based solely on bitching makes me appear bitter in the eyes of those who know me--and even those who don't. And, incidentally, I do realize that a good portion of you probably have no desire to meet me for fear that I'm a huge bitch. I'm really not, there's just a lot of things in life that are fundamentally frustrating. While I do write those frustrations down in order to blog about them later, I just want all those in the blogosphere to know that I am honestly not bothered by said frustrations for more than the twenty minutes it takes to write about them. Now--back to the point...

MySpace is the death of any and all productivity.

There, I said it. Some of you are probably throwing your hands up in disgust wondering how a person could say such a thing about their precious online community, while others are just rolling their eyes and thinking that I'm one of those uber conservative, sheltered individuals that won't let my kids watch television and refuses to get high speed internet. But, no matter how you reacted, I bet that just reading the title of this particular post tempted you to open another browser window and check your MySpace profile. This is not ok.

I initially joined MySpace after I moved to Los Angeles. I had graduated from college and felt as though I needed to move on from The Facebook, the wildly popular online community which requires a college email account to join. I found a couple friends from high school through MySpace who, although they weren't "lost," had been lost to me and I began to use the voyeuristic website more frequently. My casual use escalated to such a degree that MySpace visits during a minute or two of free time at work somehow resulted in the loss of an entire afternoon. It's very scary when you know what you were doing for those four lost hours, but can't really remember--like how many people, bands, and filmmakers can a person stalk before it gets ridiculous?

Because of my MySpace obsession, which drew my attention from other more important websites, I had no clue why Mexican-American high school students were running down the 10 Freeway on my way to Santa Monica. I had no knowledge of the new immigration law proposal that is plaguing the country's Latino community at the moment.

After that realization, I have curbed my MySpace consumption and advise all to do the same. I can proudly say that, although I logged in briefly today to read a message I received, I have not logged in since last Thursday.

I hesitate to give a big boo to MySpace, so I'll just say boo to MySpace's mind-control potential.