In the words of Pee-Wee Herman, connect the dots, la la la-la...

• Strike 1: The LA mass transit strike has been a major disruption for me. I suppose I'm fortunate relative to many bus riders--I have a car, I just choose to ride the bus for cost and stress reasons. So it's been an inconvenience and an expense to drive last week, and possibly this week and beyond, but I'm sucking it up. At least I'm learning interesting new ways in and out of downtown.
  
• Strike 2: The LA grocery strike is a second disruption. Rather than cross the picket lines, I took the chance to do some of my shopping at Whole Foods yesterday. I enjoyed it, though I hope I don't have to do it all the time. It turns out I buy some fairly ridiculous stuff when I go to a place like Whole Foods. Yesterday's trip netted me, among other things, a bag of frozen edamame, a pomegranate, pre-packaged grape leaves, cherry cider, and green tea ice cream. Suffice it to say I normally don't end up with these things when I shop at Ralph's.
  
• Why is it that I can never remember whether music and fashion were always the passion, or music and passion were always the fashion?
  
• I wanted to buy a papasan chair on Saturday and I checked the phone book for the nearest Cost Plus, where I bought my last one. The yellow pages sent me to The Grove, one of many local examples of New Urbanism, a trend of putting semi-upscale apartments Joe can't afford, semi-upscale retail Joe can't afford, and insufficient parking all in one place. It turns out Cost Plus either was one of those places torn down in order to build The Grove or never existed in the first place and is in the phone book as a cruel hoax. So I got my papasan today in Glendale, but only after wandering around an upscale shopping plaza yesterday feeling out of place and discombobulated--always a fun afternoon.
  
• One mitigating factor/silver lining in the Thursday night broadcast of the Yankees and Red Sox--the return of WINGMAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!
  
• Two of the CDs I got recently from Columbia House were More Best of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits' Used Songs. These were important purchases, because I just didn't have enough CDs that could make Mary Worth advise suicide.
  
• No disrespect meant to the stairmaster or Butt Blaster, but I have a new favorite exercise to watch at the gym. This is actually an exercise I occasionally do, but I'm not the one to watch. Here's the exercise: imagine a weight bench parallel to a wall. Sit on the middle of the bench facing the wall with your hands on the bench right next to your sides. Now, supporting your body with your arms, walk your feet out toward the wall until your butt is far enough off the bench to be clear of it. Now, working the triceps, lower and raise your own body weight as if your were raising and lowering it onto...well, whatever one might raise and lower ones body weight onto in this position. Yes, the reverse cowgirl is officially exercise. Seeing a svelte young barely twentysomething doing this at the gym the other day is one of the few things I've seen in my life that literally made my jaw drop.
  
• Jefferson (the roommate, if you didn't know) and I have a running joke based, like many of our running jokes, on a Loveline running joke. It is the misuse of the word "figuratively" the opposite of the way people often misuse "literally". Thus if someone might say, "It is literally a million degrees in here," then Jeff and I might say, "It is figuratively 74 degrees in here." Good times.
  
• Another of my new CDs is Elvis The #Ones. I can't say that I have a single favorite Elvis song, but I have favorites in caetgories. My favorite young Elvis song is "Don't". My favorite Elvis cove if Mac Davis is "In The Ghetto".. My favorite Elvis song performed to great effect on an annual Johnny Carson Tonight Show anniversary show by Sam Kinison is "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" ("I wonder if, you're lonesome tonight. You know I wonder a lot of things, like are you human or ARE YOU A LIZARD WITH A REALLY NICE HAIRDO!! OH-OHHHHHHHHH!!!!) But the most underrated Elvis song in my book is unquestionably "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such As I". Why isn't this one of his 4 or 5 most famous songs?
  
• OK, here's one problem I have with the Elvis, though. It's the song "Teddy Bear". Yes, one problem is that I have to remember not to sing, "I just want to be your Teddy Graham." But the bigger problem is with the chorus:
  

  "Baby let me be your lovin' teddy bear
  Put a chain aroud my neck and lead me anywhere
  Oh let me be, your teddy bear."

  
  Here's the question: who treats their teddy bear like Zed treats The Gimp?!?!
  
• I watched Auto-Focus last night. That Bob Crane had issues, and they came weekly. Oh, and here's a surprise: Willem Dafoe was totally believable as a really creepy guy.
  
• I know I'd be a really bad stand-up comedian, because all I'd ever think up would be bits like this that I know no one else would find funny: So I was thinking about Kenny G and Ali G and wondering if they are related somehow. Maybe by marriage. And I wondered what the "G" stood for. So I looked it up, and it turns out that it's just like Harry Truman. That's right, the "G" stands for "S".
  
• Finally, I'd like to leave you with my impression of every Yahoo Personal ad I've read the last two weeks:
  

  (Insert number between 22 and 33)-year-old girl seeks a smart, funny guy to hang out with. I'm looking for someone who's honest, nice, won't play games, and can hold up their end of the conversation. Looks are unimportant. No, I totally mean it--it's what's on the inside that counts. I want a nice guy. Someone with inner beauty. Someone who reads, like movies, and enjoys quiet nights together. Did I mention looks are unimportant. Just nice. That's all.
  P.S.: No fat guys.
  

  
  Sigh...