Category: Wyatt’s Words

I am in consistent admiration of those people who can seemingly get so much done in the course of a day.

Whether it’s a CEO that can hold 5 meetings and still find time to get out of the office and spend time with his family, or the mom who wakes up at 5AM to workout before going to work, it’s always one hell of a balancing act.

When I’m having a panic attack over realizing just how much needs to get done and the fact that it’s just not happening today and it seems like everyone around you is both trying their best and dropping the f*cking ball, I’m wracking my brain like Tara Reid’s plastic surgeon trying to fix that stomach – “HOW DO I FIX THIS?!?!”

DON’T LOOK IT IN THE EYE IT’S SENTIENT

I’ve heard from nearly a dozen people that “mindfulness” is the key. Be present. Live in the moment.

It’s the Hallmark card of psychology right now, and it doesn’t goddamn work. Sure, it can calm you down for one moment. And then the next moment the panic machine starts again and you feel even MORE anxiety because you screwed up at doing the one thing that was supposed to keep you from being anxious.

The key is to act like a camera aperture: be able to zoom into focus and zoom out quickly.

Anxiety, and by extension, anxiety attacks, usually come with the symptom of “tunnel vision”. You become so overwhelmed by stimuli that as a survival mechanism, your body focuses on literally what’s in front of you. If your eyes were camera lenses, you’d be blocking out everything around you and focusing on a pinhole because it would be literally all your system could handle.

It’s a learned skill to be able to focus on the minute but not lose track of everything else around you. Imagine if you’re standing on train tracks and you’re focusing on a piece of gravel next to the ties. You’d ignore the fact that a 100-mph locomotive is about to fricassee you into bite-size chunks.

Similarly, if you’re focusing solely on the train that comes, you won’t notice the penny on the rails that will derail the train hilariously.

I’m about to veer on the edge of science here.

You have two brains. You have a functional brain which manages your normal functions, and you have an uber-brain which manages your brain. If your regular brain starts going off the rails, you have a second brain to shout “CALM THE F*CK DOWN”. Otherwise, the slightest thing that’s off, from the rustle of a leaf to a crooked painting would cause our hearts to explode in panic. You have a body that can govern your sensibilities – that’s what separates you from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Hyper-focusing is the product of your regular brain. Predators and those at the top of the food chain have specially-attuned instincts and senses, like smell, that’s far beyond ours because their standard brains have developed the ability to pick up a scent from miles away.

“Big-picture thinking” is the product of your uberbrain. The ability to manage enormous amounts of input and stimuli, the depth of memory you use at your disposal that’s beyond typical muscle memory – that’s uberbrain talking.

And talking is important.

When your uberbrain can’t talk down your regular brain, or when you become lost in your uberbrain and lose what’s right in front of you, your body panics. It’s akin to a loss of consciousness. Overwhelming experiences, trauma, anything that causes you to faint – all of these are a sign that your system is overloaded.

But when your uberbrain can calm down your brain and tell it that everything will be ok, when your brain can see the steps in front of it and use that input for your uberbrain to function – you’re at your best. You can zoom in and zoom out like a camera aperture, and do it quickly enough to get two simultaneous pictures of what’s going on around you. It’s a muscle that’s responsible for this communication, similar to the corpus callosum which connects the right hemisphere and left hemisphere of your brain and allows them to “talk” to each other.

Like all muscles, it must be trained. And you can do it where you’re sitting right now.

Think of an emotionally difficult situation. Could’ve been a traumatic situation, a time where you experienced loss, an accident, or a bout of nervousness. Let your memory experience the feelings, the sights, the smells of that time. Focus. Engage your animal brain.

Your heart rate increases. You may sweat a little, shake a little. Your body is re-experiencing the traumatic situation.

Then use your uberbrain to rise above your body and look at the world around you. You’re sitting on the couch, or at a desk, or in bed. You’re not actually in a dangerous situation. Everything’s fine. Look at the big picture. Engage your uber-brain.

Let the animal brain talk.

Then let the uberbrain talk.

Let them talk to each other for a few minutes. Feel a little worry (“but what about THIS”) and let your higher brain calm it down (“you’re literally sitting in Triscuits crumbs watching Real Housewives—there’s literally nothing to worry about and you’re safe”).

You’ll notice your regular brain is picking up the stimuli around you (cat hairs, 72 degrees, soft blanket, comfy desk chair, novelty mousepad) and feeding it back to your uberbrain which is thinking about possibilities (what if the faulty accelerator pedal on my Camry causes me to drive through ANOTHER cupcake shop?) This is great progress, because it means your brains are talking and helping each other, using all functions of your body to both calm down and move your body and mind and consciousness through this situation.

What you’re doing isn’t easy. It feels a little like exercise, doesn’t it?

That’s because you’re exercising the muscle that communicates between your two brains.

The more you do this, the better you can handle what life throws you. Because it will throw you challenges and curveballs and completely unexpected holy-sh*t-the-world-is-collapsing-around-me-how-will-I-survive-through this situations that you’ll want to numb or distract from and you can’t. You can’t numb them all and you can’t distract from them all. You will never, ever be able to, in the same way you will never be able to just sit around in bed while everyone around you takes care of you for the rest of your life. You’re gonna have to get up and walk to the fridge eventually.

Train your brains.

Succeed.

Win at life.

And you’ll be happy.

There’s a Latin symbol of a snake eating its own tail called the ouroboros, pronounced similarly to a drunk Brit trying to say “outer boroughs”.

It’s supposed to represent how everything is cyclical, infinity, light/dark, feedback loops, and other things that a bunch of people who had nothing better to do than carve marble in the nude and get drunk on ill-prepared wine would come up with.

bro…bro…be cool

As a side note — can we stop acting like the Greeks and Romans were all that?

It’s been 2000 years.  Out of everything they ever created, you’ve got some crumbling columns and a few scraps of philosophical ideas.

If you had no Internet, no TV, mild to warm temperatures, and lived in an advanced city with a few decades to spare I’m sure that you could easily come up with a few of those concepts a week, let alone in an entire lifetime.

This was the best we could do?

Do we look back at hunter-gatherers in awe?

Or do we fetishistically pay homage to the Goths or the Vandals, outside of using both those terms in wildly different contexts completely removed from their original description?

*travels in time machine back to the 500’s*

IN THE FUTURE PEOPLE NAMED AFTER YOU WILL WEAR DARK MAKEUP AND LISTEN TO CRAP MUSIC WHILE MOANING ABOUT HOW AWFUL THEIR LIVES ARE

Of course not.

So Greeks and Romans should not be any different.  There’s nothing special about a bunch of lazy sunbaked alcoholics who decided to lick a few reeds together and scribble down some ideas.

In LA, we call that “Sunday brunch”.

By the way, if modern-day Greeks and Italians are any indication of what the ancients are like, I am not impressed.

Has there been any further or more disappointing fall between an ancient and modern culture than the Greeks?  They went from being the most advanced civilization in the world, the “birthplace of civilization”, to being unable to balance a checkbook.

I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH FREE CRAP!

It’s like the stereotypical football star uncle who shows up to Christmas hoping he can ask for another loan every year because he’s got a “million dollar idea” and just “needs a few bucks to get it off the ground” and we can “go into business together” and “be partners” and “you wanna be rich, don’t ya?” and you smile and nod like you would talking to any other crazy person and stuff another roll in your face so you don’t have to respond how you want to respond and you’re hoping with the few remaining brain cells he has to rub together he doesn’t notice that you claimed to be gluten free recently.

And as he backs out of the driveway in his “bitchin” Fiero, you wonder — where did it all go wrong?

View post on imgur.com

i don’t know uncle rico, how much of my money do you wanna bet you’re not going to pay back the loan I gave you last Christmas

An indicator of success for a civilization is initial hardship which also translates to individuals.

The Romans came from the Etruscans, an early and advanced civilization, the same way the Greeks developed from the Minoans and Mycenaeans, early and advanced civilizations.

There’s such a thing in life as “peaking” — getting too big, too quickly, and then having nowhere to go but down.

It’s why if family fortunes don’t get blown by the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren will most likely find a way to burn through all that Schlitz money realdamnfast.

This is why the British civilization became one of the most successful in history and to a degree, still is–they started off as a bunch of Roundheads and Viking nomads and just slowly, steadily built upwards from there until they basically created the modern civilized world.

Same with America.  The early settlers didn’t even know if corn was for eating, smoking, or hilarious warfare.  But gradually, we grew into the giant we are today.

in my search for this i found a dating site called “Native American Passions”, if any of you are interested

There’s also a shadow of success to live in if one becomes too successful, too quickly.

Look at the Egyptians.

The best thing to come out of there is over 5000 years old.

You know something’s old when Jesus is the halfway point.

In over 5000, five-thousand, cinco-thousando years, the best, BEST they have to show for themselves is a life-sized LEGO sculpture.

Even with their primitive tools, it took just 44 years to complete, or about the time we’ll finally get the stretch of bullet train between Delano and Bakersfield built.

it doesnt count as private development if you need a federal loan, xpress west

Even if they learned nothing, even if they used the same exact methods to the present day, they should have about 113 pyramids by now.

If it weren’t for them bringing people by their place to see a few artifacts like an aunt who harps on her ORIGINAL Thomas Kinkade painting (see?  he signed it.  SIGNED IT.  1 of 400) the country would collapse more than it already has.  More than 1 in 10 dollars is spent by a tourist, and more than 1 in 10 Egyptians is employed because of tourism.  They’re not Dubai saying “come and see our incredibly advanced cities of glittering skyscrapers and hotels shaped like boat sails”, they’re showing you the fruitcake from Christmas 1962 that they keep in the closet and trot out every year.

fresh as the century it was baked in

It’s effectively a society that’s cashing in its royalty checks from millennia before.  There’s no incentive to grow, advance, move forward, prosper, write a sequel (Giza 2: Electric Boogaloo!) or anything.

And speaking of no incentive, I need one to stop biting my nails.

My poor exasperated mother once offered me $100 to stop as a kid, which was like, 100 Hot Wheels.

I stopped for a few days.  I collected the $100.  I started again one day, completely unconsciously.

I’ve stopped for a week or two at a time but got the habit of just nibbling around the corners, or just testing the thickness of each nail with my teeth like a chef making sure the pasta is al dente.

When I’m anxious or hungry, it starts again, and happens so unconsciously that I usually am not aware of what I’m doing unless 1) someone points it out 2) I start bleeding.

I’ve tried manicures, I’ve tried polish, I’ve tried more addictive habits to replace it, and nothing works long-term.

see how cool smoking is kids

So please–if you see me, tell me to stop.

And if you have any ideas to stop, let me know.

Because I’m consuming my own tail here and instead of representing the cyclical nature of life I’m representing every failed civilization — literally consuming myself.

I used to do this all the time and I still kind of do and I believe it’s more of a West Coast thing.

When something’s off, or unusual, I always say it’s “scary”.

Oh, your insurance premiums are going up?  That’s just “scary”.

Your dog came down with typhoid?  So “scary”…

Your house was broken into by the Bling Ring and they stole nothing because you’re a broke-ass b*tch?

“SCARY”.

But what does that mean?

Life can’t be filled with that much unrelenting fear.

You can’t be “so scared” all the time.

Most importantly–there’s a difference between *being* scared and *feeling* scared.

Feeling scared is a normal human emotion.

One of my favorite moments on Family Guy is in the episode where they make fun of the South:

Hi, uh, excuse me, you guys. Yeah, I’m here to pick up my son, Chris Griffin. Uh, he’s here to finger the guy who held up that convenience store. M-maybe you’ve seen him, his name is Chris Griffin. Oh, wait a second, y’know, I think I got a picture of him, somewhere…h-here you go. [gives the picture to the one who robbed the store] Yeah, you can go ahead and hang on to that, I got a ton of ’em at home. In fact, I was gonna throw that one out anyway ’cause Chris messed it up by writing his school schedule and a list of his fears all over the back of it.

We all have a list of fears, whether it’s something as innocuous as spiders or complex as commitment.

And let me tell you, there’s nothing worse than an arachnophobe that can’t commit! *takes drag off Virginia Slim*

You feel a lot of things that aren’t real.

You can feel nauseous on a car ride, but that doesn’t mean that your body is ready to undergo a dramatic explosion of brain matter.

You can feel full after Souplantation (if you don’t, you’re not American and didn’t get your money’s worth) but that doesn’t mean your stomach will burst, Alien-style, with focaccia.

And you can feel horny without tackling and furiously humping the senior citizen cocktail waitress with the wooden leg and holiday-themed press-on nails.

When your feeling enters a state of “being”–you’re doing something wrong.

Nobody wants to go on a trip with the person who wails about their nausea and wears it like a uniquely pathetic badge of honor.

Nobody wants to eat a meal with the person who unendingly b*tches afterwards about eating that last zucchini muffin.

And nobody wants to be around the person whose old-fashioned glass you have to monitor for fear they’ll titgrab the hostess.

This applies to all emotions.

Are you angry?

Jealous?

Sad?

Or are you an angry person?

A jealous person?

A sad person?

Or a scared person?

If you can’t tell the difference–find someone whose opinion you trust who will tell you *the* truth (not the truth you want to hear) and ask them.

You’ll likely be surprised.

What you see as that one incidence of anger or fear has likely been an aspect of your personality that you haven’t noticed.

And know that you know this–do you want to be that person?

An angry person?

A jealous person?

A sad person?

Or a scared person?

That judgment is up to you.

But the fact that you’re curious enough to reach the point where you can make that judgment shows you have demonstrated the initial willingness to change.

It’s the first step.

It’s the hardest step.

There will be hard steps down the road, mind you.

Changing is both the hardest thing you can do in terms of sheer will and the easiest thing you can do in terms of obstruction (really, there’s nothing that stops you from changing, ever).

Maybe it will be worth it.

Are you happy where you’re at now?

If you’re not, stop being scared.

Feel scared.

And change.

I’m not great at interacting with people.

For starters, I’m intense.

Not intense like “awesome!”, more intense like “will attack you with a battery of thoughts, words, and commentary and stop making noises by moving your lips in the figures of speech, because I’m still talking”.

I’m not for the weak. I pick up on everything going on—sounds, smells, cues, placement of objects, etc. I’m like your dog, but with night-vision goggles on.

we will fight fire with fire.

–cats

That probably puts off 50% of people right there.

People have different temperaments. Just think among your group of friends.

how was my day? it was fine, thank me

Half of them run at a slower speed. At the deepest end are the most unflagging of stoners, who can’t be bothered to move if they bong-lit the apartment on fire.

Then there are the casually-stoned, the non-inhalers, the leisurely, the relaxed, and the calm.

None of these people enjoy intensity. It harshes mellow.

The other 50% of people run at a faster speed. There’s the brisk walkers, the mild joggers, the sprinters, and the most unhinged of cokeheads.

YOUKNOWI’MGONNAGOBACKTOSCHOOLANDGETMYGED

YOUSHOULDDOITYOUSHOULDDOITROLLERGIRL

I’m somewhere right below “sprinter” on this scale. There’s a constant beat going and if things aren’t moving, I get irritable.

I do best around people who operate at about one half-notch below me in speed. If I’m convinced you’re keeping up with me but that I’m moving too fast, I can then slow down and be relatively comfortable.

But life doesn’t work this way.

And then I realized–I have no chill.

Lots of people have their meditations–golf, art, hiking, exercise, writing, glassblowing, underground gardening, whatever.

I don’t have those. They bore me and if I don’t get them right the first time, there’s little incentive to continue.

I have to spread my chill over the day to keep functioning, like a hummingbird who ingests sugar to stay alive. And as a result, I can be self-indulgent. It’s hard to stop at one chocolate because it’s the perfect distraction. Anything that can take my mind off what’s going on is a plus. My future office will have rhabdomancing acrobats in the background just to give me something to look at.

WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE?!

Also, I challenge myself in weird, spiteful, masochistic ways.

How many cups of coffee can I drink before I go for an intense run and be able to get back to work with increased intensity?

I only need, like 2 hours of sleep, right?

Of course I can get this writing completed in a crowded coffeeshop!

Unfortunately, my lack of chill gets taken out on other people.

Most people probably don’t notice.

But for those who do it’s visibly off-putting.

Who wants to engage with someone who’s consistently high-strung, hardheaded, and physically uncomfortable? If there’s someone shifting in their seats, I will bet you this half-filled jar of nail bitings it’s me!

There’s few people I can relax around, and I treasure those that I can. And to those that I can’t–I’m sorry. Not “sorry not sorry”, not “sorry BUUUT…”, not “sorry IF…”, but sorry.

I’m not great at interacting with people.

For starters, I’m intense.

Not intense like “awesome!”, more intense like “will attack you with a battery of thoughts, words, and commentary and stop making noises by moving your lips in the figures of speech, because I’m still talking”.

I’m not for the weak. I pick up on everything going on—sounds, smells, cues, placement of objects, etc. I’m like your dog, but with night-vision goggles on.

we will fight fire with fire.

–cats

That probably puts off 50% of people right there.

People have different temperaments. Just think among your group of friends.

how was my day? it was fine, thank me

Half of them run at a slower speed. At the deepest end are the most unflagging of stoners, who can’t be bothered to move if they bong-lit the apartment on fire.

Then there are the casually-stoned, the non-inhalers, the leisurely, the relaxed, and the calm.

None of these people enjoy intensity. It harshes mellow.

The other 50% of people run at a faster speed. There’s the brisk walkers, the mild joggers, the sprinters, and the most unhinged of cokeheads.

YOUKNOWI’MGONNAGOBACKTOSCHOOLANDGETMYGED

YOUSHOULDDOITYOUSHOULDDOITROLLERGIRL

I’m somewhere right below “sprinter” on this scale. There’s a constant beat going and if things aren’t moving, I get irritable.

I do best around people who operate at about one half-notch below me in speed. If I’m convinced you’re keeping up with me but that I’m moving too fast, I can then slow down and be relatively comfortable.

But life doesn’t work this way.

And then I realized–I have no chill.

Lots of people have their meditations–golf, art, hiking, exercise, writing, glassblowing, underground gardening, whatever.

I don’t have those. They bore me and if I don’t get them right the first time, there’s little incentive to continue.

I have to spread my chill over the day to keep functioning, like a hummingbird who ingests sugar to stay alive. And as a result, I can be self-indulgent. It’s hard to stop at one chocolate because it’s the perfect distraction. Anything that can take my mind off what’s going on is a plus. My future office will have rhabdomancing acrobats in the background just to give me something to look at.

WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE?!

Also, I challenge myself in weird, spiteful, masochistic ways.

How many cups of coffee can I drink before I go for an intense run and be able to get back to work with increased intensity?

I only need, like 2 hours of sleep, right?

Of course I can get this writing completed in a crowded coffeeshop!

Unfortunately, my lack of chill gets taken out on other people.

Most people probably don’t notice.

But for those who do it’s visibly off-putting.

Who wants to engage with someone who’s consistently high-strung, hardheaded, and physically uncomfortable? If there’s someone shifting in their seats, I will bet you this half-filled jar of nail bitings it’s me!

There’s few people I can relax around, and I treasure those that I can. And to those that I can’t–I’m sorry. Not “sorry not sorry”, not “sorry BUUUT…”, not “sorry IF…”, but sorry.

It’s been two weeks and no response from Trader Joe’s on their weird employee-unlocking-the-bathroom-door-and-walking-in-while-I’m-using-it-gate.

While everyone makes a big hoopla over some chick who slept with a Kotaku writer and how there’s a time-old tradition of the media being in bed (literally) with industry in exchange for favorable coverage, the real controversy is that Trader Joe’s has not responded to my message about what went down over their bathroom hijinks.

but what would #gamergate think about this?!

But the best response I got to it was as follows from “Zen”:

Let’s reflect: When you enter your favorite eating establishment or your favorite bar and you use the restroom, you enter a stall lined cavern. Each privacy stall is equipped with a lock. Is there also a lock on the main door? Please. Is that lock for you “the Prince of Bathrooms” to keep everyone else out? There is only to be a lock on the door when you enter a room with no privacy stalls surrounding the toilet.

You speak of legalities? You claim to be a “lawyer” in your bio? You should do your homework.

What should happen here is you should go apologize to everyone in that store for your lack of knowledge. I wonder how Trader Joe’s feels about you using images of their conglomerate and slandering them.

1) Like George Washington (or was it George Michael?) said, not all bathrooms are created equal. The one at TJ’s in particular has a stall with a small latch and an open urinal (what an ugly word) with a sink. It’s a one-person setup, and given the neighborhood, Trader Joe’s would probably appreciate not having two dudes in there at once.

2) I’m finally recognized as the “Prince of Bathrooms”, although I’d never take my throne because that’s just gross in a public bathroom and I’d have to have super-ebola to ever use it.

3) I claim to be a lawyer the same way Zen claims to be Zen.

4) You’re right. I should have gone to the manager and each of the cashiers and stockboys and apologized for not knowing it was ok for employees to unlock the bathroom door and barge in on someone else using it.

5) I don’t know how Trader Joe’s feels because they never responded. But they should feel comforted in the fact that through almost-daily purchases, I’ve individually bankrolled 85% of the next store Trader Joe’s opens in Southern California.

Anyway Zen, if you’re reading this, 10/10 would troll again.

I’d like to shake your hand and buy you a drink.

I love Trader Joe’s.

Let me repeat:

I have a passionate, undying, borderline-fanatic love for Trader Joe’s.

damn right it does

I shop there at least once or twice a week, sometimes once a day, because the prices and the variety are unmatched.

But I had an incredibly uncomfortable experience today at the Trader Joe’s on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood that I should share.

I walked into the store to buy something for lunch and headed to the restroom–after all, they say you should never shop on a full bladder, or something.

There’s one men’s and one women’s restroom, so I ducked into the men’s which consists of a stall, urinal and sink–standard stuff–and lock the door behind me.

stahhhhhhhhp ittttttttt

As I’m washing my hands, I hear what sounds like a key opening a lock. As soon as I turn around, an older man with a Trader Joe’s badge proceeds to walk into the restroom.

I’m in shock.

What if I was actually, you know, going to the restroom right then?

never is a man more defenseless than at this exact moment in his life

“Uhhh…excuse me. I was using the restroom,” I say, hoping he’s either senile or they just discovered uranium behind the restroom wall or there was some other valid reason for the dude to barge in and not even knock and ask if anyone’s in there.

Unfazed and looking down as he uses the sink, he says “the restroom already has privacy and has a separate stall.”

Odd answer.

I ask, “then…why is there a lock on the door?”

“Eh, the manager from 9 years ago never changed it out”.

I walked out of there still dazed. What if I was a woman, how violating would this feel to have some stranger just unlock the door your locked while you’re using the restroom? What if someone did that to my mother or a friend of mine?

I picked up my “Middle East Feast” and paid, and asked to talk to the manager.

The manager was checking out another customer and sent over someone else to talk to me.

I echoed what happened, and the young girl didn’t understand which employee I was talking about. I didn’t grab his name because I was still in “wtf” mode of the situation but offered an accurate description of him. She shrugged her shoulders and said “yeah, it happens” and that was the extent of how far I got with her.

I left the store and emailed corporate letting them know the situation, got the confirmation the message was received, but no response. I’m pretty surprised by that sort of conduct–not only does it violate customer service etiquette, it violates human etiquette. If I did that to someone in my own home, they could likely sue me for sexual harassment.

So why would it be ok to have some strange employee just walk on in, no knocking, unapologetically, at a store where I’m using the restroom?

I don’t really give a damn about this kind of stuff, but idk what’s wrong with this Trader Joe’s store. This week alone I found plastic wrap baked into one of the falafels I got there and I’ve been shopping at Trader Joe’s and this store in particular for years without incident not to mention I’ve never found a foreign object in food before that isn’t hair.

I recommend Trader Joe’s to people up and down, but I’m not gonna go back to this store anytime soon.

your neon sign beacons towards sadness and despair

I’m not claiming credit for this, but…

Mila and I would like to welcome Wyatt Isabelle Kutcher to the world,” wrote Kutcher. “May your life be filled with wonder, love, laughter, health, happiness, curiosity, and privacy.

Congratulations to the new family.

I met Ashton Kutcher when he first joined Two-and-a-Half Men and I had to deliver a Segway to the set for taping.

He was very intelligent, engaging, and polite, and joked about how the founder (well, actually, the guy who bought the company) died after falling off one of the machines.  I also helped John Cryer ride the machine I brought, and he was equally intelligent, engaging, and polite.

Well, crap.  My name went from being a last/family name to a boy’s name and now it’s a bona fide girl’s name.

Still, it’s nice to think that in a couple decades I can finally live my dream: marrying myself.

 

I’m no expert on foreign policy.

I’ve been to Canada and Mexico and when they asked “business or pleasure” I never said business for 2 reasons:

1. I was smuggling Beanie Babies out of Canada
2. If I said I was going to Cabo for business they’d laugh and then detain me

Speaking of laughs, I’m not nearly witty enough to write for The Daily Show or Letterman.

After all, how many liner notes saying *mug for the camera* can a man write before losing his mind?

If this were a “Friends” episode, this would be “The One Where I Was Blocked By Mort From Bob’s Burgers”:

The facts: ISIS started in 1999, well before Bush/Cheney were even in office:

The Islamic State, still regularly described as ISIL, ISIS or Daʿesh, originated as Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999.

So did Bush create them before even winning the election?

That’d be a hell of a hat trick.

Ye Olde Trustye Wikipediae has this to say about Clinton and the War in Iraq:

The bombing campaign had been anticipated since February 1998 and incurred wide-ranging criticism and support, at home and abroad. It became one of the roots of the 2003 invasion of Iraq which resulted in the deposition of the Ba’athist Iraqi government.

So Clinton apologized, right?

“You know, if they hadn’t gone to war in Iraq, none of this would be happening,” Clinton said in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” referring to Cheney and former President George W. Bush’s administration, according to USA Today.

Of course.

If only he replaced “they” with “we”.

But remember, it depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is.

“Is” is.

Isis.

I’d like to think I’m a relatively low-maintenance individual.

I’m self-sufficient and my diaper only needs to be changed once per day.

Which is why I was stunned to find out that I have a really low Uber rating–and I’m not an Uber driver.

How is that possible? (you say)

Cuz Uber drivers rate passengers too, dummy.

Ratings are out of 5.

Now, if you’re an Uber driver and your rating is below 4.7, they tie you to the back of an UberXL (the big ones) and drag you around the greater metropolitan area til you give better service and/or fire you and take away your iPhone.

what did I ever do to forsake you

It’s a good idea so that drivers provide the best service.

But I’m a passenger.

I’m paying.

And according to Uber drivers, I suck.

Needless to say, I’m inconsolable.

I found some tips online to see how you can earn a high passenger rating:

• Compliment their car or music
• Ask them about themselves (how are you doing, where are you from, how long have you been driving)
• Make small talk (how about this crazy weather/traffic/drunk people, do you have any weird stories, have you ever been to place xyz)
• Tell them a little about yourself or where you just came from/are going to
• Have the address of your destination or tell the driver how to get there
• Leave a tip for efficient service
• Don’t throw up in the back seat

Ok, let’s go through these one by one.

• Compliment their car or music: I’m a car nut and like to use UberX most frequently (cuz I’m also cheap) so I get a wide variety of cars.  9 out of 10 times I will either compliment the car or make a generic positive compliment about it.  Am I too cloying?  As far as music, the only things I’ve heard in an Uber are Top 40 or Top 40 Dance Remixes.  So unless Katy Perry is driving me, I’m probably not going to compliment their music preference for “the stuff everyone is listening to”.
• Ask them about themselves (how are you doing, where are you from, how long have you been driving): I come from a long line of Torosian men having in-depth conversations with strangers.  Check.
• Make small talk (how about this crazy weather/traffic/drunk people, do you have any weird stories, have you ever been to place xyz): I literally can think of one Uber ride where I didn’t talk to the driver.  One out of dozens, and now that I remember it, I DID talk but it was a 40 minute drive and I was reading emails in the backseat so I wasn’t my gabby self.  I got the same driver again and he was really nice so I doubt he tanked my rating.
• Tell them a little about yourself or where you just came from/are going to: I do this in 7 out of 10 rides because the other 2 out of 10 rides have painfully quiet drivers who either grunt occasionally or respond in a halted, mousy voice.  No dice, suggestor of these tips!
• Have the address of your destination or tell the driver how to get there: Unless the driver is telepathic, the whole idea of it is to tell the driver how to get someplace they’re taking you.
• Leave a tip for efficient service: You can’t leave tips for Uber drivers.  Trust me, I’ve tried.
• Don’t throw up in the back seat: shit.

It was a late night, I ate some room-temperature tuna appetizers (one of the only times in my life I’ve literally tasted myself getting food poisoning), and when the driver showed up he took the absolute wrong route back to my apartment.

We were at Hollywood and Vine.  Hollywood.

I lived off San Vicente and Wilshire.  Brentwood.

You can reach that destination a variety of ways, namely taking Sunset Blvd, Santa Monica Blvd, Wilshire Blvd, Olympic Blvd, or if there’s traffic and you dislike anything remotely scenic, Pico Blvd.

where scenery goes to die

Or if you enjoy beatings, the 10 Freeway.

also known as an “LAPD Thank You”

So with all those options available, bizarrely, our driver chose to take the 101.

Through the Valley.

To the 405.

Back down into Brentwood.

That’s a 20 mile drive.

On surface streets, it’s about 9 miles.

I remember spending most of the trip feeling like dying, and I remember protesting loudly when we obviously weren’t taking a sane route back home, and I remember being so dizzy and sick I slumped against the glass most of the drive.

Instead of taking 30-45 minutes, it took an hour and a half.

Relief came when I saw the Getty.

*insert Hallelujah chorus here*

Almost home.

And then for the first time in my life, I projectile vomited.

I felt terrible, and offered to pay the driver cash on the spot to clean it up and for his obvious inconvenience (tuna appetizer in the backseat of his Uber–wait, that stuff’s expensive.  He should be paying ME)

He kindly refused the money and said Uber would pay to clean it up.

So, it looks like Uber took the money out of my passenger rating.

I still believe in Uber and it’s saved my butt (and other body parts) in more situations that I can count.

Anyway, if you haven’t signed up for Uber, then 1) shame on you cuz it rocks and 2) use this coupon code when you sign up:

uber.wyatt