After 10 business days had passed and I hadn’t received my license, I gave the DMV a call. The automated message said it could take up to SIX WEEKS for processing, and that you could speak to a technician if it had been longer than that. Six weeks? Ok fine. It is a government agency, after all. Why would I think efficiency would be involved?

Today I called again because it’s been six weeks and still I have no license. A very helpful and friendly lady told me they couldn’t process my new license because they needed a new picture.

I’ll wait while you read that sentence again.

A new picture, you ask? Like the one I specifically REQUESTED before walking out of the building SIX MOTHEREFFING WEEKS AGO?! Yeah. Apparently they couldn’t use my old picture and need a new one. Great. I asked if they were ever going to let me know, or if they were just going to wait until I eventually called them. “We were waiting for you to eventually call us,” she says laughing. I told her I thought that was stupid. “Honey, you don’t have to tell me about the stupid things we do around here. Trust me.” She was nice, and I wasn’t mad at her because I knew it wasn’t her fault. She clearly had a sense of humor and knew that they had some really bad policies going on.

So now I have to schedule another appointment to go to the DMV to take a picture. Then I get to wait three more weeks before my license shows up (three weeks is the EXPEDITED time frame, mind you). In the meanwhile, my bank has already sent me a new credit card since mine expired in January. They’ve changed my name on it, so now I have no ID to match the card. Awesome. I’m really hoping that any retail stores who want to see my ID are either employing people who don’t pay attention (hi Party City!), or employing people who’ve had to change their names before and understand that crap that goes with it.

Me: Wow. There are a lot of Vancouver fans there tonight.

Donald: That’s because they’re playing in Vancouver.

Me: Oh…

Donald: You’re so pretty.

Sometimes I amaze even myself.

I, like every other sports fan I know, have quite a few athletes or teams that I dislike irrationally. The Yankees, for instance. I have no real reason not to like them, but I cannot stand them. To the point that I will not touch their logo, if I can possibly help it. Illogical? Yep. So when my desk was COVERED in Yankee gear by a coworker who thought he was funny, I freaked the hell out, and refused to work at my desk until someone had removed everything. I hate the Yankees.

Some other athletes I can’t stand, and the irrational reason why:

Brett Favre – Retire already. You screwed over a team who loved you for years and years, just to bounce around from team to team, landing at the rivals of the organization that you found your fame with. Please just retire now, so you can be in the HOF and be remembered for being a great player, not the ass who can’t decide whether or not to retire.

Michael Vick – I don’t think I need to explain why I hate you. I also hate the Eagles for hiring you, even if it is for a backup position. You went to jail, therefore should no longer be allowed to play professional sports. End of story.

Eli Manning – You make dirt look intelligent. I cannot stand your postgame interviews, as you make my IQ drop with every word you utter. It amazes me that you and Peyton are so frigging different. Are you adopted?

Alex Rodriguez – You’re a cheater. You should not be allowed to play anymore. The fact that you were never punished for your cheating just makes me hate you more.

Manny Ramirez – You’re a cheater. You should not be allowed to play anymore. The fact that you were punished for your cheating does not make me hate you less.

Francisco Rodriguez – You were a great player when you came out in 2002. You helped us win the World Series. Off the mound, you’re a jerk. You’ll sign baseballs and pictures for the Hispanic kids who ask you, but completely ignore any other kid.

Steve Nash – You might be a great basketball player, but PLEASE get a a haircut that makes you look good. When you play you look like you haven’t showered in a month. It’s disgusting. (Please note: Shawn Germain of my beloved Ontario Reign had the same problem last year. This year he cut his hair and he is HOT. It worked!)

Scott Schoenweis – Whiny little bitch. You complained because the Angel management wouldn’t make you a starter. You bad mouthed your team to the press, so they sent you to Chicago to play with those idiots. You’re one of two traded players that I can recall being booed when you came back to Angel Stadium.

AJ Pierzynski – Speaking of Chicago idiots, hello the king of them! As I learned yesterday, not only are you hated around the league by fans and players alike, you’re hated in your own town! Maybe you should be less of an ass both on and off the field.

Sean Avery – You’re just a jerk. A dirty player on the ice, and a big mouth off of it. I didn’t like you when you played for my Kings, and I don’t like you now.

If I sit and think about it long enough, I could probably come up with a bunch more. But it’s time to move on to more positive things. Like searching for new recipes to try! Or sitting on the couch watching an NCIS marathon. Whichever.

A few nights ago there was a search phrase which I found sorta odd, so I clicked on it. I saw my blog came up as the first hit as a post I'd written about my birthday last year, and there were three other links below it. Imagine my surprise when the last link looked exactly like mine. I clicked it and was shocked to find that someone had stolen my words and posted them as their own. A few minor details had been changed, but it was still blatantly stolen from my own blog. At first I was speechless. I just sorta stared and tried to figure out why someone would do it. It's not like it was stolen and used for an article, but rather stolen and used as a personal blog post. What's the point of that? A personal blog is there to express how YOU feel, not to steal the words of others and post them as your own. The more I thought about it, the more upset I became. I mentally wrote and rewrote nasty e-mails demanding that the post be removed. I finally settled on a polite but firm message to the author asking them to remove the post immediately. 

It's a few days later and the offending post is still there. Technically, there is nothing I can do, as my blog is not copyright protected. But it seems that common courtesy should prevail in such a situation, and the post should be removed, yes?

UPDATE: Not only has the post been removed, but the blogger cancelled their entire account. I'd rather they had kept it and written from the heart, but if this is better for them, so be it.

Seriously though, I really do come up with great things to talk about while I'm driving. I'm very much considering getting some sort of recording device to document my driving genius, and then I can come home and put down the crazy thoughts that run through my head while left to my own devices. I have a TypePad application on my phone, but since California just outlawed texting while driving (which makes FAR more sense to me than requiring a hands free device to talk on the phone. But I'll cover that in a minute.) I doubt the cop who busts me would see the distinction between texting someone and typing up a blog post while driving.

Sidenote: Anyone from California know if it's also illegal now to use GPS units while driving? Because I know I can drive and text better than 90% of people who try and look for directions while driving.

So, last July California made the switch to hands-free only cell phone usage while driving. And for some unknown reason, I have not written about this in the past, so I'll share my thoughts now.

It's dumb.

Yes, it's important to be safe while driving. Thirty bazillion drivers get into accidents every year, and some of them get hurt or killed, and even worse, some innocent passenger or driver of another vehicle gets hurt or killed due to Driver A's stupidity. However, is the person talking on the phone via headset much safer than the person talking via phone in their hand? My argument is not that cell phone usage doesn't cause accidents. My argument is that STUPID PEOPLE cause accidents, regardless of where the phone is (if it's even involved at all). The woman trying to put on mascara while doing 80 mph down the freeway is far more dangerous, in my opinion, than I am talking on the phone. I am at least looking at the road that I'm driving on, rather than looking into a mirror while shoving a stick into my eye. How about the guy reading the newspaper while he's doing 75 mph? Shouldn't that be illegal?

Before anyone does an archive search and calls me a hypocrite (on this particular issue), I will admit that I have indeed read books on my way home from work. However, I was literally crawling down the freeway at a maximum of 10 mph, and was holding the book on the steering wheel to limit the amount of looking away from the road I'd have to do. Any speeds faster than 10 mph, and my book was closed and on the seat next to me while I drove. Admittedly, it's not safe and if they outlawed it, I'd completely understand. I do not, however, understand the hands free only law.

Proponents of the hands free law say that talking on the phone while driving is a distraction. Ok, let's go with that (however, they don't think that talking to the passengers in your car is also a distraction. Odd, since they're both completely comprised of TALKING TO PEOPLE). Explain to me then how talking on the phone via headset is less distracting than talking on the phone in your hand. Both consist of the aforementioned talking, and one has the added bonus of a hand off the wheel. Ok, so by that logic (or illogic) people should not be allowed to talk to passengers and change the radio station at the same time, as it requires a hand off the wheel. People should not be allowed to eat in their cars while driving as it requires both the mouth moving and the hand off wheel. (Though I do eat while driving, I am not opposed to a law making it illegal. Just because I am capable of doing it without presenting a danger to society does not mean the general population is.) Not texting while driving is a law that makes sense to me. Not holding up a phone while driving does not.

So what is the rule in your state? And do you agree with it?

I don't mind people who want to smoke, as long as they don't do it upwind from me. I don't want to smell it, smell like it, or have my food smell like it. California has a no smoking law in restaurants that I thought also applied to the patio. (I admit I'm not sure if the patio is covered under the law or not). I covered my nose and mouth with my napkin for a couple of minutes, hoping the woman would notice and move tables. She did not. Without a single word, glance, glare, or sigh I got up, grabbed my purse and plate, and moved to a table further away, which was not down wind from her smoke. I did not ask her to stop smoking. I did not ask her to move. I simply took myself away from what I considered a problem. So I was astonished to overhear her say on her cell "Oh I seem to have offended someone with my smoking. The bitch got up and moved away from me."

Excuse me? I'm a bitch because I moved away from her smoke? I don't understand that. Certainly I could be called a bitch if I'd gone with my first instinct, which was to ask her to stop smoking near me, or move away from me (because I can guarantee I wouldn't have been nice about it). But I refrained. It's her right to smoke, just like it's my right not to, and it's my right to walk away from a situation I'm not comfortable in. It is not, however, her right to call me names because I disagree with her choices.

I didn't confront her, though in retrospect I wish I had. Every time I think I can't be surprised by people anymore, I get proved wrong. It's no wonder I get more and more bitter and jaded as I get older.

We chat for 2 minutes, and she says “I can’t do your ultrasound today.” Um, what? The whole point of me calling 3 weeks ago and scheduling for today was so I could get this taken care of. I even told them over the phone what exactly I needed to have done, and they conferred with the doctor before setting the appointment. Apparently, they need to do an ultrasound when I’m at a different point in my monthly cycle, so they can compare with the original findings. Fine. I understand that. Is that not a policy that could be explained to me 3 weeks ago when I made the appointment? I would have gladly postponed a week and saved myself the time off work and the extra $30 I had to pay. Now I have to miss work, again, to go back and start this stupid thing all over.

I’m sure there’s a very logical, reasonable reason for the mistake. People make them. I do it all the time. I’m just agitated at the incredible inconvenience I was put through, and she didn’t even have the decency to fake an apology.

Here’s the thing. The people upstairs from me, the elephant people, they’re middle eastern and a few don’t speak English. I admit, I fully 110% admit that this does not in any way mean that they took my phone. However, the guy next door said he saw them out and about during the time that my phone disappeared from the sidewalk. The fact that the phone was right outside their apartment stairs, combined with the possibility that they know people in Syria due to their ethnicity, combined with the fact that they were seen in the vicinity of the phone during the time of disappearance, sorta leads me to believe that they have it. Or at least had it. There’s nothing concrete saying they have it. Just because they are middle eastern does not mean they MUST know people there. Not all Asians know people in Asia. Same with Mexicans, Englishmen, and every single other ethnicity. I am am not accusing them of having it. I’m just saying that, to me, the evidence appears to suggest that they might be involved somehow. And that is SO frustrating. I went up there TWICE to see if they’d seen the phone. Both times I talked to the women there, so I think tomorrow I’ll see if I can find one of the menfolk. Perhaps the women are just too scared to say something. I don’t want to press charges. I don’t want to cause a fuss. I simply want my phone back.