And you can't be close enough

I am inexplicably but undeniably annoyed whenever the commercial for the new AOL appears on my television (and considering how many hours I've been spending on my bed, watching TV lately, this means a lot of annoyance).

Not the one for AOL Video, but the one with the blonde woman--Amy, as we find out near the end of the commercial--exploring the shiny new features of the new AOL experience. We're told that Amy can now do four things at once and "multitask like never before!" She can type something into a search engine and be rewarded with words, pictures, video, music, etc., "all on the same page!" She can now create an e-mail address that is truly her, and she chooses "amy@myworldismusic.com."

AOL is trying to tell us that their new internet service is awesome and convenient and easy and WAY BETTER THAN THE ONE YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW. The thing that annoys me--and while it's not really their fault, I can't help but attempt to peg the blame on them anyway-- is that none of these features appeal to me.

Four things at once? That's what the "create new tab" tool is for on Firefox. I really don't need four windows open at once, it just confuses me. I'd rather be able to switch between tabs.

All that shit on one page of a search engine? No, thank you. That's why I use Google when I want words and Google Images when I want pictures and Google Maps when I want a map and Youtube when I want video.

And that e-mail thing is just asking for cheesy stuff. Amy is a perfect example of that. "Myworldismusic.com?" It makes me cringe. "My world is music" is just cheesy! I can't quite explain why it irks me so, or why I even care, but I just don't. Like. It. Letting people choose their own dot com is opening the door for emo kids to have addresses like "RazorBlade@TornUpWrists.com." Or twelve-year-old girls to have "MrsWentz@FallOutBoy.com." It's just simpler, cleaner, and far less juvenile to have generic dot coms like @gmail.com or @cox.net or @hotmail.com, just like everyone else.

Stop trying to be creative and innovative, AOL, it's clearly not working out for you.

On an entirely unrelated note, what's the most tactful way to get out of joining a cult? Any suggestions? I'm wavering between "You know, brainwashing just doesn't fit into my schedule right now," and "Sorry, I can't make the meeting that day--it conflicts with my bimonthly animal sacrifices at the Y."

Do NOT fall for their treachery, their trickery, their theivery!

Do NOT be duped, fooled, or otherwise taken in!

Do NOT waste your money, time, or energy!

Extra does NOT have long-lasting flavor, NO MATTER WHAT THEY TRY TO TELL YOU.

Granted, I can only vouch for the "cool watermelon" flavor. I bought it today with the mentality that I would soon be enjoying the delicious taste of watermelon for minutes at a time. I WAS SORELY MISTAKEN.

The gum loses flavor after exactly 7.23 chomps. I have done the calculations numerous times and can verify that their flavor is neither long nor lasting, not by my standards, not by ANYONE'S standards!

On a related note, do the nutritional facts on gum labels only apply if you actually consume the gum? For example, one stick of Extra gum has five calories (but is not, according to the label, a "low calorie food") but will I get those calories by chewing alone, or only if I swallow it? Are the calories in the flavoring or in the gum itself? I don't know why this is bugging me but now that I've thought about it, I feel like I need to know.

It is finally, finally, no longer summer in San Diego.

I hesitate to use the words "fall" or "autumn," and I would undoubtedly cause the Apocalypse if I dared breathe the word "winter" in conjunction with the phrase "San Diego" at this point. However, I can say without a doubt that we have entered into what I like to call, "late summer," which will eventually bleed into what is known as "very late summer," the shortest season in San Diego weather patterns.

Late summer is characterized by very cold (late forties, low fifties, Fahrenheit) mornings and moderately cool afternoons (early-to-mid fifties). Nights can get downright chilly, dipping occasionally into the mid-forties and prompting Californians to pile on the blankets and huddle in front of fake fireplaces, fearing hypothermia.

I may even wear pants to bed tonight. (And lest you get any pervy ideas, I usually wear shorts to bed, okay?)

But a friend told me today that a Santa Ana wind is predicted to blow in this Friday, meaning we will lapse back into summer for a few days. *ANGRY, ANIMALISTIC, GROWLY NOISES.*

This will make me sound whiny and ungrateful but I do not care.

I am simply sick to death of this sunny, warm weather!!!

Fucking hell, is it really too much to ask to be able to walk outside with a light jacket on? I am sitting here defiantly wearing a long-sleeved shirt and I feel like I have a fever. My fan is on full blast and my window is wide open.

Southern California really loses at the weather game.

This was the hottest summer in something like a bajillion years, and it seems like it's just not going to end. Here we are in the middle of November --November!-- and it's still too hot to wear a jacket after eight a.m., when the marine layer burns off.

It's funny how Southern Californians like to pretend we have seasons, though. Me with my long-sleeved shirt and flip-flops. Girls at school with short-shorts and scarves, or miniskirts and Ugg boots (officially the worst fashion mishap of the twenty-first century). We try so hard to imagine that it's actually fall, and not just summer minus two or three degrees.

Have you ever had a friend you don't like, and you don't know exactly why you don't like that person, but you just don't? And you don't want that person to know that you dislike him or her, because that would just be... mean. Especially when you have quite a few mutual friends who seem to like him or her just fine. You don't want to be the one asshole being a hater so you pretend to like that person, even though a vast majority of the things that person does irks, annoys, and/or irritates you?

Currently going through that with a friend. And it reeks of suckage. I would never be deliberately mean to her but I'm afraid my annoyance is becoming more noticable when I'm around her and I don't really know what to do about it. I don't want to be "fake" and force myself to hang out with someone I don't like, but I also don't want to be horrible and just drop her.

Social interaction is so much more complicated than math class.

I have been to the new Barnes and Noble four times since its opening on Tuesday. Each time has been better than the last.

Just the smell of brand new books that smacks one in the face the instant one walks into a bookstore of that size and caliber makes me weak in the knees.

And today I turned in a job application.

Pleasepleaseplease let me get this job!!

Current NaNoWriMo is around 15300. My goal is to be at 20000 by the end of today so, heh, I should probably get to work on that.

My current NaNoWriMo strategy is to write as much as possible without thinking at all about quality. Quantity > quality for this first draft. I just want to get the story down, because that's really my biggest problem. Every time I've ever attempted to write a novel, and I have done so many times, I get hung up on how crappy the quality is and I just give up.

Quality is never the goal of a first draft. I need to focus on getting the idea down, on giving my story some structure, on providing my characters with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I have already planned, in my head, things that I want to change in the second draft, but I'm refusing to let myself go backwards and rework what has already been written.

November will be devoted to articulating the plot. It will not be good, it will not be something to be proud of, but it will be a foundation upon which I will build a strong, good book.

Current word count is about two thousand less than what it needs to be. I lost a lot of time this weekend since I was without a computer, but I think I'll be able to catch up. Hey, three day weekend next week, so that'll be a good chance to make up for my slacking.

Speaking of slacking, I still have a page and a half to transfer from my notebook to the computer, which will help close the gap. It's just so tedious, trying to decipher my chicken scratchings and type as fast as possible and going back to correct typos and realizing that I've lost my place in the notebook and... ugh, tedium.

It says, "Real cheese!" on the plastic wrapper of my string cheese dairy product.

This concerns me.

Call me crazy, but when I buy a product called string cheese, I am going to assume that the product I will be consuming is, in fact, cheese. I don't really need to be told that string cheese is made from cheese.

Yet the company that produces my delicious afternoon snack feels the need to reassure its consumers that they really mean it when they name their products. Not only is this string cheese, it is string cheese made from real cheese. Ingenious.

However, these words say much more to me than just real cheese. Those two words tell me that the company is worried. That the company assumes that their consumer needs to be told that they are actually eating cheese. This is either a comment on the quality of their product or a comment on the stupidity of the average American string cheese consumer.

Or it could be a placebo effect of sorts. They tell me it is real cheese, I believe it to be real cheese, I eat it and think I have consumed real cheese and will now feel the benefits of a healthy diet with the appropriate amount of dairy. However, perhaps it is not real cheese at all, and I haven't had my daily recommended dose of dairy.

Those bastards. Now I don't know who to trust.

I mean, it's not really natural for cheese to come apart in such neat little strings, is it? Surely real cheese wouldn't consent to be peeled like a common banana. Real cheese prefers to be chunked, even melted, not stringed. There has to be some sort of genetic or chemical engineering going on there.

Then they slap on that slogan, real cheese!, not bothering to get FDA approval, and proceed to make millions. And we, the consumers, slurp down string chemically-altered-former-dairy-product like the animals we are.

Will my sudden epiphanies stop me from buying string cheese? Has the string cheese industry lost the support of one formerly dedicated customer?

Hell, no! This stringy stuff, whatever it's made from, is delicious.

This is a question that has been weighing heavily on my mind for many long days now.

How do other countries know when to stop wearing white, so as to avoid committing one of the most grievous fashion faux-pas known to man?

In the U.S. it's simple. You are allowed to wear white between Easter (the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox) and Labor Day (the first Monday in September). In other countries, it cannot be this black-and-white.

Do they observe the white season from the first day of spring until the last day of summer? Do they use their own Labor/Labour Days as the benchmarks?

In the Southern Hemisphere, is it completely reversed? Do they wear white from Labor Day until Easter?

Is it only Americans who understand and acknowledge that white is a color that cannot be worn year-round? That to wear a white skirt to a fall dinner party would bring on waves of outrage and pity from the fashionistas in the room? If so, the knowledge must be spread. Abuse of the color white must be stopped!

If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, and you are reading this, and you are wearing white, you must take it off right now.

And if you happen to be an attractive male who just stripped out of his white pants, you must take pictures. It's all about spreading the knowledge.