There is peace in the house. GTA has been found.

And I thought I was the only one going through this. Poor Andy. All across the country women are hitting the limit with that damn Grand Theft Auto that came out a few weeks ago. I’m sure there are Halo 2 widows out there, but you talk to me in two weeks, ladies.

For those of you who don’t know, GTA is a game where you are a gang banger, drive around with your crew, stealing cars, motorcycles or farm equipment and doing crime missions. For HOURS and HOURS at a time. The soundtrack is constant gunfire, rap music and shitty pop music from 1991. Somehow, I did not find this constant noise relaxing. After about a week, Steve agreed to wear headphones or keep the sound down except when receiving info about his next “mission.”

The tv/stereo/entertainment system was the absolute LAST item to be packed, boxed up at 9am for a noon arrival of the truck. Steve had horrible withdrawl. You would have though his morphine drip had been ripped from his arm. It was the first thing unpacked and set up.

I had come to the conclusion that I was living with 19 year old Steve. It was starting to get REALLY annoying, but talking with Carolyn reminded me that he is still dealing with Great Personal Tragedy (tm) and if this is his healing process so be it. I found peace with GTA.

Then, the unthinkable happened. Steve LOST his copy of GTA. He took it out of the PS2 while Carolyn was here, put it down somewhere, and it’s gone. Sad Steve is so much worse than 19 Year Old Steve, that I even went through 300 CD cases looking for the missing game. Madden 2004 was found (and is ready whenever you want to play, Jeremy) but GTA remains MIA, and today is Day 4.

In other news, the new Countess material killed last night. I went with the girl forwards. You know you kicked butt when the next comedian steps on stage and goes, "uh...I don't know if I can follow that," and he can't.

Our new favorite horrible reality show is Nanny 911. It might as well be called Birth Control 911. The two episodes that have sucked us in have both involed families with 5 boys, all under the age of 8. These people are at wit's end. Yes, Nanny puts the families on the road to recovery, but you have to wonder how it got so bad in the first place. 5 kids? What were you thinking? I'm sure the chaos writing was on the wall after kid #3. Are your children referred to as the little terrors of the neighborhood? To your faces? Do you constantly get sneers from people when your family goes out in public? Guess what. NOT ALL FAMILIES GET THOSE SNEERS. You are THAT ANNOYING FAMILY. The village understands that being a parent is a really hard job. We will cut you a lot of slack. Temper tantrums in Target happen to everyone. But the village can also tell the difference between children who need a nap and a passel of brats who have been raised by wolves. You birthed them, it is your job to raise them. Your "Moral Responsibility."

Dear Sweet Internet Machine, I missed you so!

The move has been completed. I got back my security deposit, and almost all the boxes have been unpacked. There is still much to be put away, and many shelves to be procured so things can be put away, but for now, we are in.

Bush may still be president, but you wouldn't know it by this neighborhood. It is solidly Artist-boho/Hispanic/Really Old Italians. Bumper stickers are for Kerry, Raider Nation, and The Mystery Spot. My 1991 Honda Accord gets admiring looks. (they may be casing it for parts, though)
I saw a older guy wearing a beret at the Trader Joe's. Our next door neighbor is a RISD grad who is a freelance animator. We are 1.3 miles from The Red Lion. We have a screen door. Have we found Austin in LA?

The Countess is making an appearance tomorrow night (11/17) at Second City LA at 9:30pm. The theme of the show is "Pissed Off!" Of course, I want to rant about the election, but so will everyone else. I think I will use the "Oldsmobile Drivers" or "Girl vs. Boy Fowards" as jumping off points. No one needs a glamorous chin puppet lecturing them about politics. (I swear, www.thecountess.net will be up and running in early 2005. I started in August, but life got in the way of creativity)

I'm going to be off-line for a week or two while we move and wait for the DSL to be installed at the new place. I leave you with an uplifting blog link. I'm sure I got this from BoingBoing or Collin of Fizzle and Pop. It's a guy who moved up to Alaska to teach Junior High. He has great photos as well.

I've calmed down about Succession.

As fellow blogger Collin reminds me, and Mike D in Austin too, there are blues at heart living in the red, and reds here in blue. Just because the vote tipped that way, say getting 54% or whatever, that means 46% went the other way.

Pack. More. Boxes.

Later this afternoon...

Who says we don't have seasons in SoCal? I know it's fall, and the first week of November, because the whole neighborhood smells of steer manure, the fertilizer of choice.

Instead of more packing, I'm planning Succession. Or at least Divorce. Not from Steve, ya big sillies. Blue from Red. Red from Blue. And I'm not the only one.

Like the Blue and the Grey 150 years ago, the dividing line is morals and interpretation of the law. It makes people spitting angry on both sides. They can't understand why I would want one more cent of my hard earned cash to go to taxes that help out those lazy bones and kill god's creatures in utero. I can't understand why they don't want to help old, sick, poor and already born people. That I don't like killing people with guns or electric chairs, but sometimes it's necessary, and so are abortions.

I don't like colonization, big businesses getting even bigger and more deregulated, and greedy CEO's. They don't like environmental conservation, uppity women who think for themselves or paying more for products made in the USA if it can be imported cheaper from China.

They don't want to know about the worker who made whatever they wear, eat or drive. I don't want to know about Holy Crusades in the Name of Faith. Somehow, health insurance and affordable perscription drugs are less important than that there are People Out There Who Cuss at the Dinner Table.

Everything is connected, which I'm sure is Their argument as well. Glass half full, glass half empty.

Someday in the future, poeple will be staging Blue and Red re-inactments. Costumes will consist of hipsters in over-priced pseudo thrift wear from Diesel vs. doughy folks sporting JC Penny and Lands End. Over in the Blue Camp they will serve Starbucks half-cafs, bottled water and sushi. The Red will be serving ambrosia salad, pimento cheese sandwiches and BBQ that smells so good the hipsters wonder why they are fighting in the first place. When they Red start waddling up to the battle line, talking about Moral Values, Democracy and how King W was the greatest leader before WW III, the Blues will remember.

I have not had a chance to comment on the election, as I have been working the past few days on some costumes for "That's So Raven." Lisa and I logged 30 hours each between Tuesday at 10:30am and 4:30pm today tranforming 4 Barbie pink bridesmaid dresses into even more hideous Pink Monstrosities. More trim, more flounces, new poofy sleeves, bigger net skirts with sequined embroidered hot pink flowers...these dresses went from merely tacky to Craptastic!!!! While we sewed in the last of the hooks, the producers came by, had heart attacks, and put Raven in a lovely black Sex in the City cocktail dress instead. The End.

How do we get paid? By the hour. Somebody signed off on that original picture of her in a big, pink gown.

If I could figure out how to do the Blogger stupid new "we don't really have a good photo download for Mac users, even though we are Mac users ourselves" you could see the glory of these dresses. I'll just let you imagine. Somewhere Barbie is very, very jealous.

On to the election...

I really thought Kerry would win. I was so damn naive. Looking at the new map Red/Blue, or as Heather Klinke emailed to me this morning (which of course, I can't fucking download) The United States of Canada and Jesusland, I was really struck where the votes went. I seriously considered succession. After reading a bunch of other folks' blogs and my beloved BoingBoing, I am not the only one who feels that way.

I am reminded of a great book I had to read in college called Ecotopia. If it wasn't already packed somewhere, I'd dig it out and re-read it. It is a bit of an earthy-crunchy sci-fi novel, where the West Coast has become it's own country. Some of the theories have come to pass, we now recycle, wear cotton and hi-tech moisture wicking fabrics, use computers, flextime and men help take care of the kids. We are not living in tree houses in free love communes and smoking pot 24-7 (at least here in North Hollywood, I can't speak for Topanga Canyon.)

There was another book whose title escapes me- a non-fiction sociology book about the "Ten Nations of America." The writer wrote for the Washington Post or something, and he broke the USA into 10 socio-economic regions. It ended up including a bit of Canada for the Pacific Northwest Region, Northern Mexico was included in the Southwest and Texas regions, and Florida was in a region all its own that included the Caribbean. Again, it all still rings true today.

I at least feel proud to live in a state that is solidly progressive, even with a Republican governor. In addition to going overwhelmingly for Kerry, we passed a Proposition to fund stem-cell research with bond money. When I lived on the east coast, I lived in blue states. I live with like-minded people who respect my viewpoints. I'm sure people in the red states feel the same way.

The conspiracy theories are starting to surface. I think the churches got out more votes than the college campuses. That's it. The Dems need to find their Carl Rove, and beat them at their own game.

I'm having quite the bloggy day...

So I posted a comment on Sloth's website today. She had quite the diatribe about Oprah, women and getting out to vote.

Here's my comment to her blog:
You forgot to mention reduced funds to Head Start, reducing who is eligible for overtime pay, and keeping the minimum wage down.

I just read "The Mommy Myth" and it was very powerful, and completely reserched. Every stat was footnoted. Social progress peaked in the 1970's, and it has been a downward slide starting with Reagan ever since. You don't need to be a Mommy to get pissed. Just female.

Here's what I got back from another reader:
i would like for you outline for me exactly what you don't like about
the overtime pay bill. personally, i think blocking OT pay from those
making over $200,000 a year, forcing them to offer lower paid
employees the opportunity to collect it rather than claiming it all
for themselves is a pretty damn good idea. so please enlighten me as
to the flaw, particularly in regard to those making less than $200,000
whom the bill is protecting and helping.
(name witheld)

Here's my response:
Dear (name witheld),

Here in the State of California, the current Republican administration is trying to re-classify the jobs that would be eligible for overtime pay. Currently, if you are classified as management or salaried, and do not get paid by the hour, you are exempt from receiving overtime. What I disagree with is the reclassification of jobs such as nurse, firefighter, and police to that qualification. The base salaries for those jobs is low enough. If you take away the overtime, what's left? These are grueling jobs, with frequent 12-14 hour shifts. Sometimes the only thing that gets you through the day is doing the math in your head.

I ask you, who makes over $200,000/year and works on an hourly basis? I work in the entertainment industry, where salaries can go quite high. Post production workers can command $100/hour, and many on a crew can get $40-60/hour to start. But once you get to a certain level, you start to make a day rate, or a week rate or a salary. The director, the star, the producer-all making buckets of cash, but not by the hour and not subject to OT.

Doctors, Lawyers? Who are these mythical hourly workers? If you can find that many hours in a week, and keep up the pace 52 weeks a year, to get to $200,000 then my hat is off to you.

Also, here in the State of California, they have changed overtime to not be after a 8 hour work day, but after a 40 hour work week. A worker can be scheduled for 37 hours a week, over the course of 7 days. It could be 6.25 hours for 6 days, or 3 ten hour days and a 7 hour day. They receive no overtime for the ten hour days, and they don't qualify for health benefits, for which you must work 40 hours a week. This is a well-documented management system in place at fast-food restaurants and "big box" stores like Wal-mart.

Migrant and farm workers-not only exempt from OT, they are exempt from minimum wage requirements as well. This may not be a concern where you live, but here in SoCal it is.

And bills are not so simple. What provisions have been attached to it? It's title may be Overtime Overhaul Bill, but then what is all that pork barrel lines underneath?

I'd be happy to read your blog, if you have one. I'm guessing you will shed light on the opposing viewpoint.

And the slam dunk:
robyn, i owe you an apology. it's not like me to get aggravated by
political opinions of others. please accept my apology on the OT
email.

I'm sure there was a time-sophmore year of college perhaps? When everything I owned would fit in a couple of suitcases and boxes. At least into a car, with maybe a twin mattress (no box spring) tied to the top. No computer, no crates of tax returns and paperwork, so few books. A garbage bag of bedding and towels. No furniture that I didn't find on the street or cheap at a yard sale, and that couldn't go back where I found it. Adult life had not been lived yet, and I had few belongings.

Those days are so long gone. The kitchen stuff alone is 8 boxes, and it's not everything. The thing is, I use it all. Carla marveled that we have 5 frying pans, and that doesn't even count the special Cast Iron Fried Chicken Pans. I use them all. Grilled sandwiches and eggs are a specialty of the house. I culled a few things- a couple of teapots, old tupperware with missing or cracked lids. House count is 25 boxes so far, and we haven't made a dent in the place, or so it seems.

The Difference Between "Girl" Forwards and "Boy" Forwards

Girl Email Forwards are inspirational in some way. They reinforce the notion you are a strong, beautiful woman, and the heartfelt, wise, amusing in a non-threatening way words are sure to put a smile on your face. Common themes are ageless beauty, faith, the love of a child and hapless but lovable husbands. You are urged to forward said email to 5 of your dearest friends so that they may also feel the love. No one has bothered to delete the other 7 forwarding headers, so you have to scroll way down to get to the message.

Boy Email Forwards involve photos of penises, boobs, deformities and animals. Usually all at once.