Big Cars with Two Doors

Riding-style boots. David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Sake. The last four Radiohead albums. Coconuts.

These things are all pretty difficult to get in to, but yield some reward if you have patience and resolve. Particularly if you are stranded on a desert island with the latter as your only form of nourishment. *

Also difficult to get in to? The backseat of cars with two doors! The lever pulling! The seat yanking! The head hitting! All the frustration inevitably resulting in "you know what? Let's take my car instead."

I do not begrudge small cars of the two-door variety. If the VW bug had four doors, I doubt any of them could accommodate a full-sized human. However, there is a Ford F-ing Explorer model with two doors. I'm sorry, but expect that my doors/MPG ratio is better than 1/6.

Next up for Banishment: Automated Pay Parking Garages vs. Words with two correct spellings

*What would a shipwreck movie be without a montage of the protagonist dropping and rock-bashing coconuts until finally devising a reliable way to get to the edible part? It would be a disappointment, that's what.

Stupid Baby Names

Like Crocs or mullets, stupid baby names initially felt too much like low hanging fruit. Then came Bronx Mowgli Wentz. Poor, doomed, Bronx Mowgli.

Firstly, please take a moment to say "Bronx Wentz" out loud five times in a row. As much as I would like to see poor little Bronx avoid the ranks of countless celebrity offspring relegated to "designing t-shirts" or "spinning records," the alternative is far scarier. If he manages to extricate himself and lands, say, in corporate America, some poor sap will have to answer the phone "Bronx Wentz's office" a hundred times a day. This will likely result first in lingual exhaustion, and then in murder-suicide.

And then there's the Mowgli. Mowgli. I hope this means that Pete and Ashlee have accepted that the best thing to do for their son would be to "lose" him in the Indian jungle so that he can be raised by a friendly bear. But I doubt it.

Also, just because his name ends in an "x" does not mean he gets to be automatic besties with Maddox, Pax, and Knox Jolie-Pitt. Maybe he'll have better luck with Sage Moonblood Stallone, Speck Wildhorse Mellencamp, or Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig Palin.

Next items up for Banishment: Big Cars with only 2 doors vs. The Cheesecake Factory

Special Thanksgiving Edition!

In light of the upcoming holiday, it seemed apropos to reflect on some things that will never incur the wrath of this particular blog. While I am most grateful for my amazing family/friends and for generally being dealt a royal flush in the poker game of life, here are some (random) other things this Banisher is thankful for:

Google Maps: Without this, I would have probably gotten lost trying to find my computer to write this entry.

Red Bull: Like coffee. Only awake-er.

Top 40 Radio: Just because I don't need to own "Single Ladies" or "Whatever you Like" does not mean I don't want to hear them. A lot.

Campbells Soup-at-Hand: For those times when even a spoon is one too many dishes to wash.

VH1's Celebreality: They now have a dating show where the prize is two men who were rejected by a woman called New York, who is famous for being rejected by Flavor Flav. Women are competing for Flavor Flav's castoff's sloppy seconds. The joke is on us and they are laughing all the way to the bank.

Being a child in the 90s: We had the best Disney movies, Nick in the Afternoon, and awesome teen idols. We still wanted to be astronauts when we grew up."Hope" was not a buzzword or something that had to be reclaimed. We could turn on the TV without being reminded that the Earth was melting or that there are organizations that hate and seek to destroy us. I hope we can get back to this place.

Have a safe and wonderful holiday. Stupid Baby Names are on the chopping block next Tuesday.

Joggers on Busy Streets

Forgive me if this post is too LA-specific, but this is a phenomenon I have also noticed in San Francisco and New York (where I suppose you could contend most streets are busy, but I digress).

Sitting on the patio at Saddle Ranch on Sunset Blvd., one of the most famed thoroughfares in Southern California, I counted eleven (11!) joggers going by.* It would be difficult to find a street to jog with more 1) stoplights 2) traffic 3) junkies** 4) smoke-filled outdoor patios. My companion at the time wagered that perhaps they were wannabe actors hoping to be discovered.

If that is the case, I would recommend these jogger-actors that reach out to the car-honkers, to see how many dates with women they have procured by laying on the horn as they drive by. I don't think the best first impressions are made as one party is in a blur of motion, but perhaps I am just old fashioned that way.

I understand it may be difficult to avoid busy streets all together, but what perplexes me is why these joggers choose noisy, polluted, congested streets as their route of choice as opposed to smaller streets in a residential neighborhood. Oh, and please stop trying to make me feel bad about being in your way. It's a sideWALK. Not a sideJOG.

*Bottomless Mimosa brunch, and no, I was not there all day
**Hurdles?

Next up for Banishment: Nail Art vs. Stupid Baby Names

Waiters Who Don't Write Down Orders

Doctor: We'll operate first thing in the morning!
Patient: I'm sorry doctor, but I couldn't help but notice you haven't written anything down in my chart since I was admitted.
Doctor: Well, that's because I am an excellent doctor.
Patient: Yes. I'm sure you are. But--
Doctor: No "buts." It's all up here (points to head). There's nothing to worry about really. It's a very minor procedure.
Patient: Really? A double-amputation is minor?
Doctor: Oh. You're not the appendectomy?
Patient: No.
Doctor: Hm. Well, I best be on my way before your friend here in Bed #1 wakes up. With no legs. And a ruptured appendix. Damn.

When a server does not write down your order, one of two things happen:

1) Your order arrives in a timely fashion and is correct down to the last detail. You are pleased, and you tip in a manner commensurate to how you ordinarily would for good service. You most likely do not even remember or care that the server did not write down your order.

2) Your order is incomplete/incorrect*/arrives out of order. Suddenly you are IRATE. If only they had written down your order, this could have been avoided. Why do they do this? Do they think I am impressed that they can get 90% of an order correct without writing it down? Well, guess what? There is no A- in Bringing me My Dinner. It is graded on a pass/fail basis. You FAIL.

It has come to my attention that many servers who do not write down orders are required not to by their employers. In these cases, those employers are the intended recipients of my ire. I also know that waiters and waitresses work very, very hard, and often have to deal with outrageously rude customers...it is just beyond me that they would forgo a rudimentary instrument that makes their lives so much easier.

*I said no cilantro.

Next up for Banishment: Joggers on busy streets vs. Second Life

AshleyMadison.com

For those of you who did not click the link, ashleymadison.com is a dating website for married people looking to have an affair. Their tagline: "Life is short. Have an affair." Originally, it was: "Life is short. Life is shorter if your spouse finds you on this website and there is a loaded gun in your house," but for some reason, that deterred a lot of potential clients.

As horribly painful as the admission of an impulsive bad decision or developing feelings for someone else would be, how in a million years could you soften the blow if your wife/husband found out you were using this service?!?! "Honey...I'm so sorry. I just wanted to sleep with someone else. Anyone else, really. Just so long as it wasn't you. So, yeah. This was totally premeditated and had nothing to do with being tempted by another specific individual or situation. My criteria? Just one. Not you."

I'm most intrigued by the people who run and profit off of this website. And how it is that they offer an affair guarantee program, for the most dedicated of cheaters. Not to sound all old school or square...but seriously. Where are your mothers? Oh! it's this guy. And in this interview, he says he would be "hurt beyond belief" if he found out his wife were using the site. *Head explodes.* Do unto others, indeed...

Next item to be Banished: Non-Stop CNN Ticker vs. Waiters/Waitresses who don't write down your order

Car Alarms

At some point our lives, a parent or teacher relates to us the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. By the tender age of three, we typically understand that screaming bloody murder for no reason will make it much more difficult to get attention when we actually need it. There are some exceptions.

So. Makers/buyers of car alarms. Did your parents not read to you when you were young? If they did, you were clearly not paying attention to the Wolf-crying Boy and his ensuing plight. I doubt there is a single instance in car alarms' entire history of someone hearing a car alarm and exclaiming, "Honey, a car alarm! Quick, call the police!...Nevermind there's no time for that we must STOP THE ROBBER!" Even if we accept that the sound will deter a robber once it has been set off...at that point they have already broken into your car.

Much like the parents of the wolf crier, we have become conditioned to ignore the shrieking of car alarms because we know that they are not indicators of any actual peril. The list of things more likely to set off a car alarm than a break-in is quite substantial: a neighborhood cat, a love-tap from another car, a grazing by a bicycle, a gust of wind, a statistically insignificant change in atmospheric pressure or temperature, an electrical malfunction of the stupid device itself, and so on.

Stop the noise pollution. Go lo-jack. Or go old school.

Next items up for Banishment: Ringback tones vs. AshleyMadison.com