Craigslist Ad O' the Day

VIDEO FOOTAGE WANTED

Reply to: gigs-321760926@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-04-30, 12:35PM PDT


Need surgery footage of overweight black male, preferably gastrointestinal. Also need orthoscopic surgery footage, preferably gastrointestinal.


Location: Burbank
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: Negotiable. It's for a low/no budget movie.

PostingID: 321760926

Jamaica

Cousin Matt's wedding was in Jamaica the weekend before last. Good times, strange times and drunk times were had. Jamaica is a strange place, mon. First off, it's strange to be a white dude where nearly all the black people are either a) destitute b) serving you c) scamming you or d) all of the above.

Jamaican resorts, it seems, do their level best to shield you from the realities of the island. This seems strange to me, really. Why would you want to visit a country if you weren't interested in that country? It is a beautiful place, though. More musing on this later.

Boule Shoot

My photographic skills are broadening! I purchased a lightbox from Calumet a couple weeks ago in preparation for my first-ever quasi-professional product shoot. The equipment I used can be found here. Neat, huh?

Anyhow, with a minimum of problems, I set up the box, the lighting and came up with these beautiful images. I'm pretty proud of 'em, I guess you could say. Any praise/criticism (as long as its constructive, por favor) is more than welcome. Damnit, it's encouraged.

By way of background, these pastries come from Boule, which is a high-end pastry shop located at 420 N. Highland Ave. in Los Angeles. I highly suggest checking it out. The images (strawberry tart, carrot cake and pineapple-basil gelatto, will be published in late May as part of a review by Yahoo! Food. (I'll make another note, of course, when it actually gets posted.)

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 2, No. 20

NEW COUNCILMEMBERS TO BE SWORN IN
Gary Bric and Anja Reinke will be formally sworn in as the Burbank City Council's newest members Tuesday. Members will also choose a new mayor to replace outgoing Mayor Todd Campbell. Leader.

ARMENIAN RELIEF SOCIETY GETS BURBANK GRANT, BUT NO BURBANK APOLOGY
The society, which provides help to immigrants and refugees, claimed the Burbank committee tasked with recommending the public service grants made anti-Armenian statements. The committee, which awarded a grant of $7,500, says "nuh-uh, we didn't." Leader.

The Tree-Morial

As I type this, I can see a pine tree I planted when I was in second grade. The tree, a 10-cent sapling at the time, was given to me by my mother as a gift for St. Patrick's Day. A bit of the green, if you will. We planted it in the backyard of my childhood home in San Diego.

Since then, the tree and I have grown... it a touch taller than I. My mom passed away, and I moved away, but the tree remained.

And, though trees generally have a longer lifespan than us bipeds, its days are numbered. It is not sick, no. Instead, its strength is causing its downfall, its 40-feet worth of pine needles choking the draining system of my neighbor's pool. A nuisance, a fire hazard, a danger. And, so, it was decided that the best for all involved would be to take it down.

But before it went, my dad callled me down from Burbank for a tree-morial, a chance to say so long. Funny to think it will soon be gone, the green expanse that seems to be in nearly every photo of our backyard, its shade that comforted each one of our pets.

So, a moment of silence on the keypad for the tree, which I never thought to name, because I never thought I would need to.

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 2, No. 19

Good God. I've taken so much time off from writing this silly blog, that I've gotten out of the habit. Well, damnit, no more. And now, for your irregularly updated listing of all news Burbank:

BURBANK TO OHIO - $10
Really. A new airline called Skybus is offering $10 one-way fares from Bob Hope Airport to Columbus. If you have no burning desire to see Ohio's capital city, you can jet on to points further east for an additional $10. Getting back will cost a bit more, though. LA Times. Reno Gazette Journal.

ST. JOE'S NURSES MARCH FOR HIGHER WAGES
Nurses and other staffers marched outside Providence St. Joseph Medical Center Tuesday in an attempt to pursude hospital management that increased wages equate to better patient care.
in unison for fair wages and continued high-quality patient care. Leader.

MIDDLE SCHOOLERS LEARN ABOUT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Nearly a third of John Muir Middle School's student body, about 500 students, stayed home Tuesday to memorialize the 1.5 million Armenians killed by the Turkish government during the first World War. Those left in school saw a presentation on remembering all genocide. Leader.

[Interestingly, this has been an interesting week for all things Armenian genocide related. There has been quite a bit of hub (and bub) regarding an article about the genocide killed (or spiked, in journo-speak) due to supposed bias on the part of the Armenian reporter, Mark Arax. LA Observed.]

A Fascinatingly Annoying Day

Before I begin, I want to point out the sheer number of consonants in "fascinatingly." Nine! Or perhaps eight, if the final "y" counts as a vowel, which I suppose it probably does.

Moving on. In terms of basic irritability, Monday took several pieces of cake. I had the day off, and planned on spending a fair amount watching television and annoying my friends at work. These are the good days, my friends, or at least it so seemed.

My humming happy mood lasted only a few minutes, however, as I dropped my the coffee filter basket, snapping off some weird plastic gizmo... a weird plastic gizmo that allows the whole thing to work. Damnit.

I jumped online, figuring that if eBay sells stuff like this, I could probably find a replacement basket with a few mouse clicks. But, well, no. The Mr. Coffee website lists dozens upon dozens of high-tech machines, including the one sitting, useless, on my kitchen counter. Hell, they'll given send me another one. But a replacement filter basket? Nope.

There are a number of places that sell accessories for Mr. Coffee, but these are spread out throughout the land. The closest was Newman's Vacuum in Santa Monica, where a bored clerk informed me that a replacement would cost $10 and take three to six weeks to get to me. And, oh yeah, if I wanted them to ship it to me, it would be an additional $8.50.

"Uh, so it will take until the end of May to get a filter?" I asked.

"Yeah," said the representative of Newman's. "It's on back order."

"So, where do you get the filters?"

"From Mr. Coffee."

"So I could call them myself?"

"Yeah."

"OK. I'll do so."

And I did. Turns out Mr. Coffee will send me a free replacement, and I'll only have to wait a month. Nice.

Of course, this all sounds like incessant and pointless whining (more so than usual) if that was the end of the tale. But it was not. Directly after getting off the phone, I got a call from the collections department of GE Money, who wanted to know why I hadn't paid them the $500 I owed them.

After making sure they were looking for this particular Daniel Evans (there are quite a few, even in Los Angeles), I asked them what I had bought on the card. Turns out, I had bought a couple of pairs of glasses at Lenscrafts last August, put it on a "No Payments for Six Months" card, and forgot about it.

Damnit. Oh, yeah, I never got a bill because GE Money had the wrong address. Because of this, I was not going to be charged for any late fees or interest, though I had to pay up by April 27.

Weirdly, though, I had returned one of the pairs and had received a refund... Or at least I thought. The collections lady (calling her unpleasant would be an insult to surly people) refused to hear it, telling me to take it up with Lenscrafters. Man.

Anyhow, I did get it cleared up with a second phone call, though with a different due date. Now, I dunno about you, but when I'm dealing with entities that can't get their figures or dates correct, I like independent confirmation. Despite asking for it, it was denied, leaving me to fend for myself against the cold and unfeeling credit bureaus.

Well, whatever. GE Money is a bunch of bastards, and you'd be better off setting your cash on fire than giving it to them.

But, finally, to top off the day, I made an unwise purchase. CompUSA is going out of business, or, at least, closing most of its stories. As part of this, they're having a close out sale, no returns, no refunds. No problem, I think, plunking down $170 for a external hard drive. The box clearly states it's for either a PC or Mac.

This, however, is only true for one kind of Mac, something only clear in the fine print at the bottom of the box. The clerks at CompUSA, well, they don't give a shit, and frankly I don't blame them. Still, I'm now stuck with an expensive paperweight, unless I can off-load it to someone that can use an eSATA Seagate drive. Man.

OK. I feel better.

An Ethics Commission for Burbank

The recent Burbank general election had a certain Lockean quality - nasty, brutish and (thankfully) short. From my perspective down in the flats, it seems odd that so much anger and vitriol would be spewed over a friggin' city council election. This is ostensibly a part time job, and not a particularly well-paid part time job.

I understand that politics is a full-contact sport, and that negative campaigning is a part of life. And this seems right, even fair. You should be able to point out your opponents flaws, as much as you can (and must) tout your own ideals and credentials. But voters must know where those attacks are coming from. And to do that, the city of Burbank should create an Ethics Commission to oversee the local political process and make things more transparent.

(Full disclosure: I work at the Los Angeles Ethics Commission as a senior investigator and have since 2005. I am suggesting that Burbank follow Los Angeles' lead here.)

Study after study has shown that negative campaigning works, but that it has its price. Voters may be turned off, the target of the negative ad will almost certainly retaliate, and grudges are likely to develop.

All of these problems, though, are ameliorated if these negative attacks are bought and paid for by political friends of the candidate. The candidate stays above the fray.

An excellent example is our recent election. Negative ads bloomed on Burbank lawns like so much crabgrass. Countless drivers saw the signs: a red circle with a cross through the words "Married Couples." It doesn't take much to figure this one out: don't vote for Carolyn or Phil Berlin and create a de facto voting bloc. Fine. Good. Personally, I had some reservations about the Berlins for exactly that reason.

But I would have felt a hell of a lot better about it if I knew that Gary Bric or Anja Reinke (the other two candidates) paid for it. But they didn't. They claimed, believably or not, not to know a thing about it. And, if an informed and ambitious citizen wanted to discover what group, exactly, paid for the signs, what that group stands for, and who contributed to it... well, that citizen would be frustrated.

Now, mind you, negative pieces regarding Bric and Reinke also spit through my mail slot. And again, it was not paid for by their opponents. This is not a good thing.

OK, so I"m Embarassed

Yes, I realize it's been more than a month since I've last posted. I really have no excuse, and lord knows there's been plenty of Burbank items to muse on about. However, since there's little point in rehashing old news, I believe what makes sense is to move on from this unfortunate lack-of-posting incident and move on.

Yes, that's what I'll do.