why i hate smooth jazz

some mornings the shuttle driver turns on the radio, and invariably when one of them does, they tune it to a smooth jazz station, or as i loathingly call it, "smooov jazz". which has got me to thinking, why do i hate it so much? i know some perfectly reasonable people, some of which i share genetic material with, that enjoy smooov jazz. this morning i think i finally put my finger on it. there are three ingredients:

#1: it is catchy enough to intrude upon other thoughts you might be trying to have. this alone shouldn't make me hate it, i like lots of catchy music.
#2: it has a distinctive style. again, not enough for me to hate a form of music.

critical is #3: almost every time i'm listening to it, i'm captive. in someone else's car, on an elevator, on the shuttle, in the supermarket.

so, maybe if i actually listened to it by choice once in a while i wouldn't hate it so much.

too bad that's not going to happen.

new lows in life maintenance

i'm not home much. i work long days, commute 2-3 hours round-trip, and spend my weekends catching up with people and squeezing in some quality time with my boyfriend. as a result, many life maintenance tasks slip through the cracks. my hard drive isn't backed up, my mail from the last month is in a heap on my kitchen table, my Quicken is horribly out-of-date, and there are usually unclean dishes on the counter (not dirty, mind you, i did rinse them because, come on, i'm not disgusting). and my car is horribly neglected. not only have i not taken it in for a much-needed tune-up for a few years, it's dusty on the inside and crusty on the outside. this morning i was putting gas in my car ($3.999/gallon!) on the way to catch the shuttle. i decided, hey, maybe it's time to wash those songbird gifts off my driver-side window. so i grabbed the washing-squeegy thing, and scrubbed. and scrubbed, and scrubbed. then i went back into the car and emerged with my ice scraper, and i scraped. and scraped, and scraped. by the time my tank was full i was down to one diamond-hard chunk which i decided to leave as a reminder to get my damn car washed. to tell you the truth, i didn't know bird crap could do that, i'm starting to worry about my paint job. too bad you can't leave a car to soak.

one upside, though: i finally got some use out of the ice scraper.

iTragedy

it was a sad weekend for the old, dear electronics in my life. Saturday morning i was wrenched from sleep at 7am by my iBook's swan song. it sounded like electronic gasps, each rising in pitch from the last. i knew the end was near. we only had a couple more hours together, and it was fading in and out, but i used our time the best i could. (read: the hard drive kept locking up and i spent two hours rebooting, copying as many files as i could, shutting it down, and repeating.)

r.i.p. 2003-2008 (that's, like, 75 or 80 in laptop years)

then there was the incident with my cell phone. i got my little Nokia 6610 around 2002 and it has put up admirably with my abuse, including my bar trick where i (1) get a little punchy, (2) throw it across the room, and then (3) reassemble it and make a phone call. i had a premonition that it will ultimately be lost to a toilet bowl (it has a bad habit of popping out of my jeans pocket at inopportune moments, but it's always missed), so when i couldn't find it anywhere Sunday night i still had faith we would be reunited. i stepped back through my day, and came up with the only place that it could be: the ball pit. Sam and i had swung by Google on Sunday so i could show him the playground where i work. on the tour, i jumped into the ball pit. i had the presence of mind to check for my car keys when i got out, but hadn't thought to take inventory before i jumped in. this morning when i got to work i borrowed a friend's cell phone, and headed for the ball pit. i heard its muffled chirping the first time i called. i stood thigh-deep in plastic balls, calling my cell phone over and over, digging furiously to uncover it. even with it ringing, lighting up, and vibrating, it still took me 15 minutes to recover it. i got to it just in the nick of time; it had one battery bar left when i pulled it from the pit, just before the walls of the ball-hole i'd dug caved in. it's home now, recovering from the ordeal (i.e., charging). it's a good thing, i don't think i could have handled losing both in one weekend.