• I’m hating that I don’t have enough rage to fuel this site on a daily basis.  I brought in a couple other writers (Angie and Amy) and they don’t appear to have enough either.
• I’m hating on the news media — headlines like Celebrity X in Hit-and-Run Accident, Unhurt isn’t news.  Celebrity X Decapitated in Freak Shopping Cart Accident is.
• Hillary Clinton’s death throes.  Really, if the rest of the campaign goes as it has — 52% Obama, 48% Hillary, then she’ll need to get 89% of the remaining superdelegates, which is goddamned unlikely.  (Play with the calculator here.)
• I’m hating on the IAAF, but only a little bit.  They did comply with the CAS (Court for Arbitration in Sport) ruling stating that Oscar Pistorius would be allowed to compete in Beijing.  But that it had to get to this point sucks.  The IAAF originally ruled that Oscar’s prosthetic legs gave him an unfair advantage.  Can you imagine?

Let me start off with a disclaimer — I’m not one of those tree-humping, hemp-wearing “Free Tibet” types.  I gladly acknowledge that what China has done to Tibet amounts to no less than a steaming mountain of bullshit, but I also recognize that the only thing that’s going to “free” Tibet is a nuclear thrashing of China, which is not something I am inclined to support.  (Nor would I support the use of nukes anywhere else.)That said, it still gets my hackles up when companies like Yahoo! collude with the Chinese government to help turn the mess surrounding the Lhasa riots into an even-worse situation.  I understand that there are local laws to contend with when doing business overseas, but to outright assist the local government in this seems, well, a bit slimy.

I’m all for self check-outs. They serve a purpose. Suppose you only have a few items, are in a bit of a rush, and have an IQ over 50. The self check-out is definitely the way to go. Hey, I’m not a complete bitch. If you meet two of the three above criteria, go ahead and scan your own stuff, why not? It is like being in a free cashier fantasy camp.

Allow me to paint a picture of terror. I stopped by Meijer today for one specific thing. Apparently they are the only store that carries a specific brand of pretzel that my good friend enjoys. I happened to be in the vicinity of a Meijer and thought I would be a good friend to my good friend and pick some up for her. Little did I know that my small act of kindness would result in me wanting to strangle an elderly woman.

I find the pretzels and proceed to the check-out. It was mid-afternoon on a Saturday, so there was a clear lack of short lines. Since I was going to pay cash anyway, I head over to the self check-out. There are four stations, but only two working. The signs say “12 items or fewer” (thank you, Meijer, for not using “or less”) so I mistakenly make the assumption that I am only a few minutes from continuing my errands. In line ahead of me is a woman who is old enough to have been a babysitter to Larry King. From a few feet behind her, I can count at least 20 items in her cart. Yes, her cart. A cart in the self check-out line. I should have known then that I was in for an annoyance.

So she ambles up to the station, relying heavily on the cart to support her dusty bones. Now, in all fairness, the volume on the station was up pretty high. That being said, she was startled every single time she scanned something. Nevermind that it took her at least 10 seconds to find the bar code on all 32 of her items. Nevermind that she had to look at the cashier at the podium after each of her 32 items as if she was looking for positive reinforcement for a job well done. Nevermind that she groaned every time she bent into the cart to get another of her 32 items. What annoyed me the most was how she jumped when the check-out made noise… every noise.

Then this chick has the nerve to try and write a check. Who writes a check at the self check-out? I mean really. Who does that? Old ass bitch who can’t read or count does. Apparently my growing irritation was written on my face because I was barely finished blurting out “oh come on!” when the cashier was leaving the podium to assist old ass bitch who can’t read or count. On her way to assist, the cashier opened another one of the stations so I could handle my business.

I scan my two items, pay cash, and head for the door. Old ass bitch who can’t read or count was still working on her check. I snuck a look over my shoulder as I went and there were easily twenty people in line. I like to think that those twenty people saw me as a hero for speaking out.

There are times when I like to really splurge and stay at a super expensive hotel.  When I do so, I have very high standards and almost universally those standards are met and my expectations are exceeded.  For example, when we stayed at the Four Seasons at the bellman offered to iron my pants.  I declined, but it was nice of him to offer.  There are other times when I really just need a place to sleep, so splurging isn’t appropriate, but at any hotel, especially a large national chain of higher-than-budget level hotels, I expect a certain level of service and basic accommodations.  My experience this past weekened wasn’t a terrible one, but it did remind me of several things that irk me about staying in a hotel and caused me to mentally prepare this list on the way home yesterday.

• Bedding that is appropriate to the climate of the city or region in which the hotel is located — There is never any reason to have a down comforter in Houston, Texas.  I understand that the down comforter is a symbol of luxury to many and I’m sure that it is cheaper for them to purchase bedding in bulk rather than cater to specific regions, but couldn’t they at least have sensible bedding in places like Florida, Texas, and other somewhat tropical locations?  The low temperature in Houston on Saturday night was 61 degrees with about 85% humidity.  Because of the humidity, there was no way to get the room cool enough to warrant using a down comforter, but at the same time the tissue paper thin sheet provided too little coverage.  We have a coverlet on our bed at home, along with 600 thread count sheets and it’s perfect for almost any weather we would experience.  I’m all about snuggling up under a down comforter on those chilly nights in San Francisco, but in Houston it’s just ridiculous.
• Lack of night lights in the bathroom — I’ve stayed at some higher end places that did and it was a great touch.  It’s sometimes hard to find the bathroom for those middle of the night necessities when you’re in an unfamilar room with strange furnishings, so a night light provides just enough light to show you the way.  The only other alternative in most rooms is to leave the bathroom light on all night.  This isn’t a problem in rooms where you can dim the lights in the bathroom or where the door closes properly, but it is a huge problem in a room with blinding flourescent lights in the bathroom and a door that will not close.  Night lights are cheap and make guests happy.  Check into it.
• Internet access that you have to pay $10 a day to access — Any hotel that purports to cater to business travelers should provide free internet access in the rooms, preferrably wireless.  It cannot be that expensive for a hotel to provide this service because every little dinky roadside motel we passed on the way to Houston advertised “free wifi”. 
• Valet parking that costs $25 a night — Houston isn’t Manhattan or Washington, DC, or even San Francisco.  There is ample parking in most parts of the city and space is not at a premium, even in the downtown or shopping districts.  I understand charging for parking and understand that valet is an extra service that requires staffing and such, but if you charge so much for that service that no one uses it, then it becomes a waste to pay those people.  We opted to park ourselves and noted as we drove through the garage that all of the spaces reserved for valet parking were empty, so I guess other guests also found this a bit ridiculous.

Hello cats and kittens. I’m the newest addition to the DLOH writing crew. There are now enough of us to warrant being called a crew, and so it shall be done.

Some things you may read me ranting about: drivers in the Chicago area, stupid people and their stupid reasons for not paying their bills, my puppy’s insistence on eating his meals twice, horrible movies, horrible tv shows, and/or the blatant misuse of the ellipsis.

I grew up in Minnesota. I learned how to drive in snow and ice. The climate in Minnesota is not that different than the climate in the Chicago area. Why is it people feel the need to go 85 in a 55 on two inches of ice? Also, when there is easily a distance of 6 or 7 car lengths in front of me, why nearly clip the front of my car moving into my lane, on two inches of ice, on a bridge? Ever heard of steering into a skid? Apparently not. Ever been told to tap the brakes? Never? Well roll down the window and listen because I’m yelling it at you from the car ahead of you.

Having just returned from my first trip outside of Texas in almost two years, you would think I’d have a ton of stuff to hate on — stupid people at the airport, being packed into an airplane like a sardine, dirty hotel rooms, over-priced food, delays, traffic, etc. — but this was actually one of the most pleasant trips I’ve ever taken and included no major snags or annoyances. However, there is one thing that has bugged me every time I’ve been to Vegas and it continued to annoy the crap out of the me this time. What is that you ask? People who bring their kids, sometimes infants, to Las Vegas for a vacation.

Back in the mid- to late-1990’s, Las Vegas briefly attempted to rebrand itself as a family vacation spot. Hotels built huge pools with fancy water slides and “lazy river” features. Shows were geared towards families and hotels with kid-friendly themes popped up all over town. Families flocked to Vegas for a couple of years, but locals and high-rollers started to complain about how the place had changed, the economy tanked, and a new marketing campaign was launched. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years or so, you’ve seen the “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” ads all over TV. Apparently, many under-the-rock dwellers didn’t see that ad and continue to take their kids to Vegas for a little family fun. I thought the family-friendly stuff was a little dubious to begin with, but now that the city has done a complete 180 it has to returned to it’s rightful place as a very adult travel destination.

Despite the guys handing out cards for hookers, the trucks with pictures and ads for escort servies (”Hot Babes”), the larger than life image of a half-naked Toni Braxton on the side of the Flamingo Hotel, the drunk assholes walking the streets at all hours, the incessant smoking, free-flowing booze, and, of course, gambling, I still saw countless people walking the streets and casino floors at midnight with infants in strollers and miserable looking small children in tow. What makes this even more perplexing is that Vegas is no longer a cheap vacation spot. Sure, if you’re way off the Strip or out in Henderson, you can still get a cheap room and $4.99 buffet, but the Strip now caters almost exclusively to a high-end clientèle, or at least to those with lots of expendable income. For what we spent on a long weekend in Vegas, a family of four could have gone to Disney World for four days! It pisses me off when I read travel message boards and I see people asking about “child friendly” hotels in Las Vegas. There are none! There is no place in Vegas that is appropriate for a child. These parents need to stop being so freaking selfish, deal with the consequences of procreating, and take the little ankle biters to see Mickey.

This week, I joined the growing ranks of those with HDTV sets. In doing so, I discovered that there’s some sado-capitalist involved with creating the specification for HDTV.

You’d have to be living under a rock to not know about HDTV — the first sets went on sale in the U.S. in 1998 — but what you probably don’t know is that the whole system is a mish-mash of standards — there are multiple “levels” of HD, plus there’s the ongoing format war in the high-def DVD field (however, it looks like HD-DVD is pretty much done for).

My big point of hatred here, though, isn’t those things — figuring out the difference between 1080p and 720p is easy enough, and so’s waiting for the high-def DVD format war to shake out. No, my point of contention is the cables.

Yes. The cables.  Cables have become to HDTV (and computers, for that matter) what film was to cameras before they went digital…a necessity that costs far more than it should.  I mean, really, $40+ for an HDMI cable?  Really?  Could you buy me a drink before you fuck my ass?

Furthermore, could we settle on one standard, goddammit?  Composite video, HDMI, DVI, etc., don’t all work the same.  But they should.

Ah, well.  At least I got to see Zednik bleed in high-def.  Because holy shit, nothing shows off high-def like someone with a severed carotid artery.

• The proto-goths that feel the need to wear all black and mope. If you’re not going to make it your full-time lifestyle, don’t do it at all. (Disclaimer: I’m not goth. Nor emo. I just think that if you’re going to adopt a lifestyle, you damn well better be thorough.)
• All the “ZOMG IF YOU DONT BUY DIMUNDS YR GF WONT LUV U” ads. Didn’t we just get this same spiel at Christmas? I suppose there’s some solace in that I don’t have Lexus trumpeting a “make it a Valentine’s Day to remember” line of bullshit.
• Also, Zales? The stupid sperm-looking diamond pendant? So generically ugly, I’d expect to see it at Wal-Mart. Really.
• That people have gotten to the point where they think that V-Day is the only real time to have to express their emotions to their significant other. For fuck’s sake…if you love him/her, do stuff outside of holidays/birthdays. I guarantee that your relationship will be much better for it.

Today, I’m hating on politics.  Huge.

First, allow me to bag on Ron Paul supporters.  It’s bad enough that your candidate, while full of good intentions, is a racist nutjob.  But do you guys really have to be such arrogant, snotty little shits?  Seriously.  Their holier-than-thou crap is almost as off-putting as his isolationist stupidity.

And in the fairness of balance, I’m going to bag on Hillary Clinton for being stupid enough to run in the first place.  It’s not that she beat Obama for California last night — I respect the fairness of the process — it’s that she doesn’t seem to realize the depth of hatred that people have for her and how that’s going to be a polarizing factor for the right and is going to unite them in an effort to ensure she’s not elected.  I also hate the fake tears, and the smug sense of entitlement that she radiates.  (I’ll vote for her if she gets the nomination, though, because I’ll be damned if I’m voting for McCain.)

Part of me wants to bag on McCain and his Vietnam-era mindset of “any negotiation, any withdrawal of troops amounts to surrender.”  That’s a rant for another time.

• Billy Mitchell — I didn’t even know who Billy Mitchell was until last night and now I probably hate him more than I hate the woman from the Video Professor commercials. Billy Mitchell is the world champion of Donkey Kong. He set the record for Donkey Kong back in 1982 and despite being bumped from the top spot a couple of times in recent years, reclaimed the throne last summer. If that’s what he has chosen to dedicate his life to, fine, but the guy is also a world class asshole. In the documentary King of Kong, he compared the “battle” between he and his challenger to the debate over abortion and compared himself to some very controversial figures in history. He also has really bad 70’s hair with winged bangs and a porn star beard. He has legions of loyal-to-the-point-of-creepy “fans” and proteges and strings them along like a cheerleader humoring the dork that helps her with her homework. He really is total delusional and a despicable person. Watch the documentary and you’ll agree with me.
• Mike Huckabee — I have been pretty indifferent to Huckabee thus far and despite the fact that he is terribly uninformed and kind of goofy, I didn’t hate him until recently. He gave a speech right before the Florida primary in which he claimed that evangelicals were being disenfranchised in American politics and compared their plight to that of African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. Where in the hell has this guy been for the past 7 years? Yes, I know, Arkansas, but they do have TV there, I’ve watched it. This country has been run by a self-proclaimed evangelical Christian since 2001 and the platform of the Republican party and the Republican Congressional agenda has been set by evangelicals since the 1980’s. I have no idea where he (or his campaign) got this idea, but it’s nuts.
• Attorney General Michael Mukasey — I don’t really expect much from Bush appointees at this point, but this guy takes towing the party line to a whole new level. During a Senate hearing today he refused to call waterboarding torture, but said that if it were done to him, he may “feel that it was.” I’ve never been in the military, have never been in combat of any kind, and will probably never be interrogated by anyone, so I have no idea what it really takes to get an answer out of someone save for what I’ve seen on 24. However, I do not understand why the government/military/CIA/DIA cannot just man up and say “Yes, we torture people. We do horrible things to them that are in clear violation of the Vienna Convention and other international law. What are you going to do about it?”