Public Eyebrow Groomer as seen on a Metro Bus

Since I began my adventures in public transportation earlier this year, I have seen a lot of rude, inappropriate and often strange behavior from my fellow carbon-based life forms. I have seen people carelessly put their shoes on bus seats.  I have seen someone leave a half-eaten sandwich on the floor of the train. I have seen a perfectly nice looking middle-aged woman forcibly push her way to the front of a line of people boarding a bus, just to be the first one on. I have shared personal space with people emitting body odors that would make a mortician gag. Yes my friends, I have been to hell and back and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

While annoying, I have grown to accept many of these acts of humanness as part of the deal when taking public transportation. Still, when I see something like today’s featured Metro rider, I can’t help but make a public mockery of it.

Today, while making my connection to the Metro Red Line, I sat across from this girl who was plucking her eyebrows. Maybe some of you think this is OK, but let me tell you, YOU ARE WRONG. Some personal grooming is acceptable on public transportation I would say. Like powdering your nose or putting on lipstick. However, anything involving body hair is an absolute disgusting DON’T. You wouldn’t shave your armpits on the bus, would you? Would she? I don’t know. Fortunately, I made my connection before I had to find out.

laffy4k's photo used through Creative Commons

With the possibility of downed power lines causing local power outages, drivers should use extreme caution when approaching darkened traffic signals. Whether driving on a main thoroughfare or a side street, motorists should treat all non-functioning traffic signals as a four way stop.

Pretty simple right? Sadly no. What would be a minor inconvenience in most cities is a mini-death-race-2000 in the Valley. If only anyone here knew how to treat a four-way stop, but they don’t. There are two possible approaches in the San Fernando Valley: 1.Muscle your way through with speed and aggression, or 2.Sit timidly at the light for far too long until the people behind you honk at you.

Seriously, at all five of the intersections with blackened traffic signals that I passed through tonight, anarchy reigned. The nearest thing I could figure is that Valley drivers only know how to deal with a traffic signal that is out when there is a white-gloved cop to wave cars through. Barring that, they just pretend there is a cop there and somewhat randomly drive through in spurts under the safety-in-numbers theory of traffic. So, in the interests of my own personal well being as well as the safety of all of my fellow Angelenos, I offer you the rules of the road. Please read if you are uncertain. This has been a public service announcement.

Our motto is: If you’re going to be making a merry mess of yourself all over town, please do us all a favor and go home with a stranger.

OK, maybe that’s not an official Metblogs motto, but it should be. The thing is, there are many alternatives to drinking and driving. You can take the Metro, call a taxi, hire a limo, appoint a designated driver, call a sober friend, call Alcoholics Anonymous. Still, with all of these options, so many of us will choose to get behind the wheel of our own car and drive home after a night of boozing. I am not proud to admit how many times I have done this in the past.

According to Y Drive, “The main reason people drink and drive is that they don’t want to leave their cars behind.”

Y Drive's Magic Folding Scooter

That’s why Y Drive came up with an innovative and affordable service that eliminates this factor altogether. When you call Y Drive, a professional driver will come to you on a folding scooter. For a flat fee of $38, the driver will pack the scooter neatly into your car (in such a way that it will not leak or damage your fine leather interior) and then drive you home in your own car. After you and your automobile are safely put away for the night, the driver will ride away on the folding scooter he or she rode in on. Y Drive is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Just call 888.401.3847 or check them out online at ydrivela.com.

Friend of the blog Eliot also told me that he and his crew have been using a similar service in LA called Booze Croozer. Booze Croozer is more like a limo service, they will not take you home in your own car like Y Drive, but unlike most limo services, you do not have to put down huge deposits or book them far in advance. You can call Booze Croozer while you are at a bar ready to go home and they will pick you and your drunk friends up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Booze Croozer’s rates are apparently comparable to taxi fares ($4.99 initial charge and .49 per mile after) and they even offer specials like free shots on “Tequila Tuesdays” or “Whiskey Wednesdays.” Check out their rates here. For a ride, call them at 1.888.496.2766.

Any way you guzzle it, the options listed here are going to be far less expensive than the cost of a DUI or vehicular manslaughter or your life. So please. Next time you get drunk, go home with a stranger.

If you know of any other services in LA that specialize in providing an alternative to drinking and driving, leave us a comment below.

I’m sure I could look this up but I figured I’d just pool your collective insight before doing any real work on my own. Yesterday these termites (I think they are termites) started showing up on one of our window sills, and the floor around it. We’ve cleaned them up but they keep coming back, there was about 50x as many last time I busted out the vacuum. We’ve determined they are actually falling from a skylight about 20 feet above it, possibly through a crack that we can’t see from down here. Now right after we moved in the landlord was finishing getting a door frame replaced because of “old termite damage” but having never lived this close to the beach (where there seems to be no shortage of weird flying bugs) my question is this – would this be a sign of some kind of problem inside the house, or just swarming bugs outside falling through a crack in the roof? Either way I plan to tell my landlord ASAP, but wanted to know from the fine and educated readers of this site if there was anything I should know ahead of time. Thanks!

Should you wish to witness a spirited and entertaining discourse on this very subject, however, why not head out to The Warehouse in Marina Del Rey on Saturday, and catch The Lowdown?

Here’s what your host Jeff Norman has to say about it:

The Lowdown is a bold cultural revival fueled by unique collaborations between world-class artists, authors, activists and other public-spirited leaders. Presenters and performers connect the dots between media, government, national security, sustainability, psychology and the arts. By confronting disinformation, promoting civic engagement and having fun in the process, we help people cope with life in America.

The Warehouse Restaurant
4499 Admiralty Way
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Hosted by JEFF NORMAN and featuring performances and a discussion with

music by I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. (Full set at 5 PM)
Author PETER RICHARDSON
Journalist ROBERT SCHEER
LA Weekly founder JAY LEVIN
Comedian ED CRASNICK
Musician-satirist GARY GORDON
Drinks and appetizers available – no minimum required.
Happy hour discounts from 5 to 6!
FREE admission
Seating is first come, first served.
The evening will conclude with a book sale and signing by Peter Richardson, author of A Bomb in Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America, hosted by Book Soup.

(Ow, my linking hand!)

Pile of garbage in the NaturalMind parking lot, as seen from an apartment complex driveway next door

It wasn’t easy for me to find any information on the business that is moving into this space. A Google search didn’t reveal much, but I eventually found a post on SilverLakeNews.com announcing the grand opening of “NaturalMind” in September 2009 (with September almost over I assume they have fallen behind, as the building remains vacant).

From what I can tell, NaturalMind is going to be some kind of beauty salon, owned by a guy named Arnaud Ozharun. I found his e-mail address on the SilverLakeNews.com post, which I assume he wrote. Unfortunately, the e-mails I sent him were returned with this message, “Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: arnaud@naturalmind.com.”

On SilverLakeNews.com, Ozharun posted a rather lengthy description of his business and also of himself, describing NaturalMind as, “A utopian take on beauty.” Which made me laugh out loud when you consider the pile of garbage he has been forcing his neighbors to look at for months now.

“Natural Mind is a place to contemplate things other than oneself, yet change.” - Arnaud Ozharun

Whatever dude. I’m a reasonable person when it comes to things like this and I understand that, from time-to-time, it is necessary to deal with certain urban inconveniences, such as construction. I’m totally fine with that. What really bothers me is the garbage. Aside from the fact that it is likely harboring vermin, it’s an eye sore and I’m very much sick of coming home to a heap of trash that multiplies in size every day. They need to get a dumpster or remove the trash daily – and how about keeping the garbage in a different spot – like next to their own wall rather than pushed against a neighboring apartment complex’s wall?

I outlined my complaint and suggestions in that failed e-mail, so with no way of contacting the owner of NaturalMind and no success discussing the issue with the non-English speaking workers on site, I have e-mailed Eric Garcetti’s office asking for assistance.

If you have any suggestions for other ways to deal with this situation or know how to get in touch with the owner of this business, please leave a comment here.

Love,

Verdell

Note: It looks like Mrs. Lulu has snuck into the blogosphere again.

Once again I find myself in a dispute with LA Fitness’ business office.

[EDIT: I am in such strong agreement with Mrs. Lulu's rant here that I'd love to see all our readers share their "my gym screwed me" stories in the comments. I think this is an industry-wide pattern of lying to-- and screwing-- customers. If you have an experience like Mrs. Lulu's, read on & let us know. --Lucinda.]

The second time in my husband’s and my two year membership. The first time there was a problem was when he tried to quit his personal trainer contract after the so-called trial period was up. They simply ignored our written and phone requests and continued to bill my credit card. Even after speaking to one of their reps (not an easy feat to accomplish), two more months of illegitimate billing went by before I disputed the charges with my credit card company and got (partial) satisfaction.

Now the same thing is happening with our regular membership. First, let me explain why we’re quitting, as it will give an indication of the quality of the company’s customer service. This post is not a criticism of the facility, nor of the helpful, energetic and cheerful fitness professionals who work there. We always had a great time with our actual work-outs and classes. It is the corporate division with whom I have a beef. I called them in March to try to re-negotiate our contract when I noticed that they were advertising a special at a lower rate than we were paying. I was told that the special was for new members only, but that if I wanted to save money I could drop the towel fee of $10/mo I was paying for my husband and myself. Towel fee?! I had no idea I was paying such a thing, having never been offered, nor even seen, a towel at my gym. I wasn’t told of this fee when I signed up, nor was it made explicit anywhere on my contract. So, great, I had been paying $20/mo for 20 months for something I never wanted, didn’t know I had, and had never used. Any chance for a refund of part of this? Ha, ha, ha. At that point, I decided to look for another gym.

Now to quit. Chastened and hyper-careful after the above experience, I called to make sure my reading of the fine print instructions for quitting in the contract was correct before I even began the process. Since I had monthly billing charged to my credit card, and we had paid the last month’s dues upon membership (along with an initiation fee
and first month’s dues), we were not able to quit until two months after I started the ball rolling (to use a fitness metaphor). I called in early April and since I needed to provide them with 30 days written notice, my automatic payment for May would be deducted on April 25th as usual. Then we had another month to go since we had already paid for the last month; our membership wouldn’t end until the end of June. The fact that we were traveling most of May and June and couldn’t used the gym was of course beside the point, but okay, I understood that contractual obligations are contractual obligations, without which society and culture would fall apart as no one could trust another’s word; dark ages would inevitably follow, wherein the life of man in the City of Angels would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Btw, I’ve always found it ironic that Tom Hobbes lived to the age of 91 (he must have had a gym membership), but I digress.

But the infuriating part comes next. I wrote a letter stating that I was resigning my “family membership for my husband and myself” effective ASAP. I included the membership number on my contract, signed, dated, stamped and mailed it. Taken care of, right? Wrong. After traveling most of the summer, I last week finally got around to checking my bills carefully. Lo and behold, I was continuing to be billed, but only for one, rather than two, memberships. So I called and here’s what I was told by Christine, the member service manager. My letter was interpreted as meaning that I wanted to cancel for myself but not for my husband. I pointed out that I clearly stated I was canceling for both and she retorted that I should have written two separate letters and had my husband sign the second one. I again explained that I had one contract and that payment was made for both memberships by me on my credit card and that the letter clearly stated I was canceling both. She said that I should have known they wouldn’t read the text of the letter and that she could not credit the charges (but would be happy to cancel my membership now). I kid you not, she said I had no right to expect that my two sentence letter would be read and that therefore I hadn’t really cancelled my husband’s membership. I sent her a copy of the letter and another demand that she credit the charges, but she has not responded. So I again have disputed the charges with my credit card.

Is there a moral to this story? Maybe it’s that jocks can’t read? Or that once fitness becomes a habit, it’s hard to quit? Or that “throwing in the towel” is sometimes for the best? But for me, it’s that we should fight capitalist greed, even in small ways, stand up for ourselves against big corporations, and go see Michael Moore’s new movie.

Out with the old...

Enough is enough. How many fires must we endure before we start treating arsonists as terrorists?

I know the jury’s still out on the exact cause of these most recent fires, but just consider all the endangered lives, wasted resources, interrupted commerce, health hazards, environmental damage, destroyed property and the psychological damage that one arsonist creates when he ignites a forest.

If it turns out that somebody did indeed purposely start one of these blazes, doesn’t he deserve an all-expense paid trip to Guantanamo Bay?

Or at least somewhere where he can chill out?