My trip was disappointing to say the least. The car accident we got into within two hours of my arrival proved to be an accurate foreshadowing of what was yet to come. With that said, here are the details I know you’re all waiting for:

• I arrived Saturday afternoon, half an hour early, to find my friend cellphone-less and not feeling well while stuck in traffic to pick me up. We had lunch, went to the store to pick up food and drink for NYE, and got hit by an idiotic insurance-less driver in front of us driving in reverse and totally unaware of anyone else in the parking lot.
• I heard my cousin’s radio show (he’s a DJ on a Seattle station) which was really cool as I had only previously heard him streamed on the Internet.
• When my friend said she lived “outside of Seattle,” she neglected to mention she lived in suburban hell, surrounded by mini malls and chain restaurants. We ate at a Cheesecake Factory, Red Robin, and Zoopa in only three days. G-d help me.
• Hard liquor is sold only in state regulated liquor stores, and is not sold on Sundays. The stores are scary and have security guards. Enough said.
• New Year’s Eve was fun and spent eating, drinking, and watching fireworks with friends. Until … the part in the emergency room where we sat surrounded by at least two gunshot victims, one screaming baby, and one man with his ear in a Ziploc bag. It was loads of fun, let me tell you. (My friend had a Crohn’s flare-up and was in so much pain she needed a morphine drip.)

• We went to Pike Place Market on New Year’s day but unfortunately about 75% of the market was closed. I didn’t get to see any fish being thrown.
• In keeping with the not doing theme, I saw the Space Needle but didn’t go in it, as my friend was a) still not feeling well and b) afraid of heights.
• Seattle, although rainy at times and completely sunless, had better weather than LA. Go figure.
• My new Merrell’s apparently fit in quite well up north.
• My cousin and his girlfriend live in the middle of the city and are way more fun than my friend. [ed. note: Jason, I am sooo staying with you guys next time I am up there. I don't know what I was thinking.]
• We checked out Cupcake Royale, this cupcake place I had read about on the Internet. They were good, not great.
• My friend took the cupcakes home and I met up with my cousin for a non-chain restaurant dinner in Ballard. The area was great and reminds me a lot of my neighborhood–little restaurants, coffee shops, bars, etc. And, my cousin totally saved me by taking me to one of his favorite Thai places, Thaiku, then to Hattie’s Hat, a great bar playing awesome music with $4 drinks. $4 drinks!?!? And on a side note, Ballard was really cool, and I could totally see myself living in a place like that.
• Because my trip was already not-fun, United Airlines decided to add to the un-joy when their entire computer system zonked out, forcing them to check in people by hand (read: using pen and paper). I got to the Seattle airport an hour and forty-five minutes early, e-ticket in hand, waited in the check-in line for two hours, waited in the security line for a bit longer, ran to my flight as it said “boarding closed,” then proceeded to sit on the plane for an additional 45 minutes. Then when I got into LAX, they had us going on a treasure hunt to find our luggage. Good times. And not a single apology from United. Guess who’s getting a letter from me.

Needless to say, I’m glad to be home.

Jdate: Remember my date with Separated Guy? He and I had a great time going for drinks then to Amoeba then chatting in my apartment and ended the night with a hug. Then the following day gave me the friend vibe speech. Oh yeah, him. Well…he IMd me on Jdate tonight to tell me he liked my new pictures as well as the Guster CD I burned for him and he was confused about how he felt at the end of the date and he is in fact still interested. Four months later.

Potential Setup: As you may remember, when I was back in Michigan in November my uncle passed away. Well, while at shiva a distant cousin [ed. note: Mom, who is she exactly?] apparently thought I was cute and smart and oh of course noticed my sparkling personality and…okay, I’ll stop now. Anyway, she recently contacted my mom to find out if I was single because she has a friend (can you see where this is going yet?) who has a son who is in his early thirties, is Jewish, and lives in LA. Uh huh. I told my mom she is allowed to give out my email address and that is it, as I don’t want a repeat of the guy who called my home phone, work phone, and cell phone all within two minutes of my mom giving him all those numbers. My parents now have strict rules about giving out my digits.

Keep in mind there is a very good chance Nice Jewish Boy is either a) in fact not single; or b) has 12 toes. As usual, I’ll keep you posted.

And in keeping with the dating theme, here are some recent dating related searches that landed people here:

• internet dating sucks
• I hate jdate
• jew dating a non jew
• did i see you on jdate t shirt
• nude jdate profile
• dating he is separated
• bad jdate
• dating hell
• jdate guy sent me his nude pic
• aa dating
• dating horror stories
• rude message jdate
• lobster soulmate
• fuck jdate

Happy dating.

So last night when I got home, I wasn’t in the best of moods. However, in my mailbox was a square envelope which looked like a card. I opened it, thinking it was a belated Hanukkah card from a friend. Well, was I surprised when I was greeted with the ever so interesting card to the left!

Questions: Who is David? How does he know I’m single and Jewish? Where did he get my home address? What’s with the baby’s blond hair and blue eyes? How come his website has no mention of wanting to be a baby daddy? And finally, what the hell?! Oh yeah, feel free to call and find out what his deal is and please ask him to take me off his mailing list.

Friday afternoon at work I found out from my friend Sara that our high school friend (and her ex-boyfriend) Bob died.

He was crossing the street, not in a crosswalk, and was hit by an unlicensed driver who fled the scene. I can’t fathom how someone could actually leave after hitting a person on the street. The police ended up arresting the woman, not that that really makes a difference.

Tomorrow morning a bunch of our high school friends are attending the memorial service. It’s going to be surreal and sad and uncomfortable and come on, 31 is way too young to die. I feel so horrible for his parents, sister, and wife.

This weekend, I:

• Learned I apparently went to elementary school back in Michigan with Sarah from The Delicious Life.
• Tried in vain to get my stupid four-year-old color HP scanner to work with my laptop. So. Frustrating.
• Got another inch chopped from my hair.
• Got a manicure and pedicure and my eyebrows done.
• Got sick. I feel like crap.
• Visited my sister on set Saturday night since I didn’t feel like going out.
• Woke up at 6:00 a.m. today in order to attended Bob’s memorial service. While horribly sad, it was almost also happy. Hard to explain. There were probably about 200 people there, including a bunch of us from high school. Is it weird that following the service the guys got stoned?
• Did four loads of laundry.
• Went through half a box of tissue (because of sickness, not sadness) while watching four hours of TiVo’d stuff.
• Realized I have another Girl’s Night on Tuesday and I’m fucking sick.

I’d like a do-over for 2006 please. Because so far, this year has sucked.

Yeah, I’m a dork and forgot that the JIB awards voting begins today. You can vote for my blog in the Best Personal Blog category (Group B) once every three days or something odd like that. Of course, don’t forget to check out all of the other categories as well.

And with that, I’m off to everyone’s favorite store, Rite-Aid, for some NyQuil so I can sleep even more, because 12 hours in one night just wasn’t enough. Zzzz.

Another stupid email:

Hello the pretty one,
This is Mr.iddie from Ohio but studying in a different country, and am 27 years of age looking for my dear one to share my ideas, and leisurely hours with. I like Going out with friends, like swimming, reading, and am a deligent guy who is looking the same.I will really Love to meet you coz the moment i was your profile,it makes me feel like you are the real person i am looking for The Mile:

People come into our lives and walk with us a mile, and then because of circumstance they only stay a while. They serve a need within the days that move so quickly by, and then are gone beyond our reach, we often wonder why. God only knows the reason that we meet and share a smile, why people come into our lives and walk with us a mile. So i will be looking forward to your responds.
with love hassan

Blatant spam, no?

After sleeping more than 25 hours in two days, it’s safe to say I did my part in kicking this stupid cold’s butt. Unfortunately, I did miss out on girl’s night with Eve and Annabel Lee, but I did have time to finally get to work on these two memes, so here ya go.

Meme #1
From both Ari and Erin:

The first player of this game starts with the topic five weird habits of yourself, and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don’t forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says “You have been tagged” (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.

1. I curl my toes then drag them on the carpet. I don’t know why…I’ve been doing this since I was a kid.
2. I stick the word no at the end of a sentence. e.g., It’s hot out today, no? I think it’s a Jewish thing.
3. I hate having more than 10 emails in my inbox, so I will make time to respond in order to keep the inbox number below 10.
4. I will stay up late to unpack because I can’t stand having a filled suitcase just sitting there.
5. I like to drink my pulp-less orange juice with ice and a straw.

Alright Annabel Lee, you’re it.

- - - - -

Meme #2
From Annabel Lee:

Four jobs I’ve had in my life:

1. Receptionist at my dad’s office
2. Counter person at La Petite Boulangerie (a Mrs. Fields bakery)
3. Paid intern at a PR firm (does that count?)
4. Writer

Four movies I could watch over and over:

1. Grease
2. Swingers
3. Breakfast Club
4. Kissing Jessica Stein

Four places I’ve lived:

1. Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
2. Encinitas, California
3. Northridge, California
4. Los Angeles, California

Four TV Shows I love to watch:

1. Curb Your Enthusiasm
2. The Amazing Race
3. Entourage
4. Assorted reality crap

Four places I’ve been on vacation:

1. France
2. Hawaii
3. Israel
4. England

Four websites I visit daily:

1. Yahoo! Mail
2. cnn.com
3. my blog
4. bloglines.com

Four of my favorite foods:

1. chocolate covered pretzels
2. olives (any kind!)
3. mac ‘n’ cheese, especially when it’s baked and you get the crunchy top
4. crispy honey shrimp (the kind you get at Chinese restaurants)

Four places I’d rather be:

1. in bed
2. on vacation
3. in my kitchen using my KitchenAid mixer
4. not in my cubicle

Four books I’ll read over and over again:

1. Kissing in Manhattan
2. The Other Side of Mulholland
3. The Giving Tree
4. Tales of the City

Four people I’m tagging:

1. Erin
2. Ari (payback’s a bitch, eh?)
3. Keith
4. Kristin

TV: New shows I like include Four Kings and Emily’s Reasons Why Not. What new shows are you enjoying?

And in more TV news, does anyone know how they are going to write Mariska Hargitay’s pregnancy into the show (Law & Order: SVU)? Yes, this concerns me.

Commerical: Has anyone else seen the M&Ms kaleidoscope commercial with Iron & Wine’s cover of the Postal Service song Such Great Heights? It makes me want to listen to the Garden State soundtrack over and over. And as a side note, please don’t send me hate mail saying that Iron & Wine is selling out. I say good for them.

Question: If something is morally or ethically wrong, but results in only good, is it still bad?

Vote: Don’t forget to vote!

Little White Dots On Tonsils: Apparently not so good. Guess who is on antibiotics again. I am, I am.

Naked: In a residual NyQuil induced haze, I forgot to put earrings in this morning. I suddenly feel naked.

Quick Recovery: To JAB’s little one who had minor surgery this morning.

Mazel Tov: To David, who will soon have some exciting news for us about Behind Everyman’s transition onto the big screen.

Delurk: I keep reading on people’s blogs that this is National Delurking Week (to which I am apparently a little late to recognize, but whatever), so I think that means those of you who normally don’t comment, it’s time for you to say hi!

I was in the mood to bake, but didn’t want to potchki. So, I found a recipe for chewy chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and decided to give it a whirl. So easy. So good. I omitted the nuts and instead added extra chocolate chips. They are perfect–crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and have a wonderful texture.

Recipe here. Note: I followed the advice of the reviewers and cut the salt to 1/2 tsp. and increased the baking time to 15 minutes.

It’s that time again (I know, it’s been a while). Have a question for me, my mom, dad, or sister? Post your questions in the comments.

Did you miss out on the previous questions and answers? Want to catch up? Click on the word Ask … at the bottom of this post.

Today: Is the 12th anniversary of the Northridge earthquake. As you may remember, I was living in Northridge during the earthquake. Scary stuff.

Dating: Over the weekend I decided to explore Craigslist (should I be admitting that?) and have been corresponding with a nice guy. Don’t know much about him other than a) he’s Jewish; b) he lives near me; c) he’s an employed(!) writer; d) he’s vegetarian. We’re going for drinks on Thursday. Details to follow, if warranted.

Golden Globes: Someone please introduce Drew Barrymore to a bra. Please.

Talking Parrot: Did anyone else read this article about the parrot who leaked information about an affair? Oopsy.

Ask: It’s not too late to ask questions.

Some recent searches that landed people here:

• myspace mail break in to a friends mail
• date wore a diaper
• fannee doolee -pbs -zoom explain
• gentle breakup lines
• to go from straight hair to curly hair using egg whites
• heebs r us
• my jewish boyfriend wants to breakup with me because im not jewish
• did i see you on jdate t shirt
• penis rent
• how do i make peanut butter pinwheels
• brad koch toilet seat still warm
• people with 12 toes
• slept with a married guy

Most popular search phrase of the week for the second week in a row: i hate jdate.

As always, use a few of these search terms in a story. And to my new readers, how did you get here?

TV: I loved Love Monkey. Anyone else see it? What did you think?

And in related to TV news, the Paley Festival is coming up. I really want to go to Grey’s Anatomy, Entourage, or How I Met Your Mother. Who’s game?

Commercials: The Postal Service song Such Great Heights is on another commercial! This time for Kaiser. Who knew it was so popular?!

Why: Why is the physical act of deleting someone from your buddy list so hard, even if you know they should be removed?

Random: Has anyone else tried that Jergens natural glow Daily Moisturizer? I bought the one for fair skinned people and it’s um, turning me orange. What gives?

Vote: I do believe today is the last day of JIB award voting. I’m nominated in the Best Personal Blog category, Group B.

Baking: I bought a new cookbook called 125 Best Cupcake Recipes. So yeah, this means you will be seeing more pictures of cupcakes. I’m also going to attempt to use the pastry bag I bought months ago, so if anyone has any hints or tricks, they would be greatly appreciated.

And finally: Tonight’s my date with The Vegetarian. Please think good thoughts.

Site of the Week: Call Centre Confidential

Top 10 reasons tonight’s date sucked:

1. At 4:00 you receive an email that says, I’m warning you ahead of time…. why, I don’t know (setting the expectations low???)…. but I’m going to be stuck at the office till 7, so I’ll be more dishevelled and irritated than I would care to be come 8. Oh well. Better to make an honest first impression, I guess…
2. You meet him at the bar and he looks nothing like his pictures–the one from two years ago or the one from two months ago.
3. You order a vodka tonic from the cute bartender who asks what kind of vodka you want. You respond with “Belvedere please.” Your date responds with “you like the expensive stuff, huh?”
4. The cute bartender rolls his eyes and says “that’s eight dollars,” and your date doesn’t even offer to pay.
5. The plan to have your coworker call you with an emergency so you can bail early fails because you can’t hear your damn phone ring.
6. Your date goes on and on for about 30 minutes about how much he hates his job.
7. You learn your date seriously thinks his script will be optioned by a major studio in the next few weeks.
8. You hear in detail about the month long illness that kept your date away from the office and landed him in the hospital due to an infected lymph node two years ago.
9. Your date says it would be cool to smoke pot with his parents.
10. You learn all about your date’s collection of $1 laserdiscs from Amoeba.

Another waste of a good hair day. I’m so tired of this. And not in a happy mood.

Friday night I caught up with friends on the phone then watched three episodes of Room Raiders on MTV, thus convincing me I need to date a southern guy.

Saturday morning I was up at the ungodly hour of 8:00 thanks to the smoke detector in the hall on my floor. I guess it needed to be reset or something, but let me tell you, waking up to a high pitch beeping sound sucks. Since I was up so damn early, I then proceeded to do four loads of laundry, clean up my Jdate account so everything is set to zero views, zero emails, zero everything, and cleaned my apartment–all before noon. I then did some reading, some writing, and took a nap before getting ready for my girls’ night out with Annabel Lee.

The plan was to see a movie then have a late dinner. However, when we got to the [brand spanking new] Century City theaters, every single movie was sold out so we were forced to come up with something else to do. We went to AL’s apartment and tried to come up with somewhere to eat at 8:00 on a Saturday night where we wouldn’t have to wait two hours for a table. We ended up, get this–outsmarting the people at The Stinking Rose by making an 8:30 reservation on their website for that night. Hah, we’re so smart. We had a delicious dinner and wonderful drinks, then went back to the apartment and chatted a bit before I came home. It was nice to catch up with each other!

Sunday morning I finally got to sleep in then headed over to meet everyone for a winery tour and wine tasting. The event was organized by Annabel Lee’s young professionals group at her shul, and when I got there I was pleasantly surprised to see Tamara and Joel as well. Our group took a [school] bus out to the Baron Herzog winery in Oxnard and sampled six(?) different wines, some of which I liked a lot more than others. The afternoon was fun–I met some new people (including a cute 22-year-old and a really strange 40 or 50-something) and was reintroduced to others. It was a good time.

Now I’m going to eat something quick then head over to the gym.
—
And in other weekend news, I received three four [ed. note: Thanks mom!] articles from three four different people about Emily’s Reasons Why Not being cancelled. So thanks to each of you for rubbing it in that I have horrible taste in tv shows.

Another gem:

Subject: SEEKING SWEET,CARING/FUN TO SHARE FUTURE WITH
Message: Hello: My name : WILLIAM
After looking into your profile on site,I see interesting things I like about you, Iam interested in Meeting and Getting Acquainted with you.
PLEASE CLARIFY RELOCATION?
HAVE A GOOD ONE
BYE

Clarify relocation? Huh?

Today is my half-birthday.

- - -It appears I have made it to the finals in the JIB awards. How cool is that? Thanks to everyone who voted in the preliminary round, and feel free to go ahead and vote in the finals!- - -Last night Marissa and I caught up over drinks and dinner at Magnolia. Everything was delicious and I can’t wait to go back. I love having foodie friends.- - -Speaking of foodie friends, this weekend a bunch of us will be hitting either Nook or Violet prior to a big karaoke shindig. I’ve been to Nook before and absolutely loved it; haven’t tried Violet yet.- - -For my fellow aspiring author friends, Pauly wrote a great piece about the process of writing his new book, The Lost Blogs, over at Media Bistro. - - -If you haven’t already seen it, definitely watch lazy monday, “the West Coast response to SNL’s ‘Chronic of Narnia’ rap.” (via Annabel Lee)- - -And finally, I have a dentist appointment today for a filling type thing and I’m really freaked out over the shots of novocaine. Waah.

When did men and dating get so complicated?

When I was in college dating was so simple. The Ex and I met in class, went out a few times, hung out at my apartment or the fraternity house, and we were dating. I never wondered if he’d call. I never questioned if we were exclusive.

After The Ex, I dated The Russian. It was easy with him too. We went out a few times, got along well, and he called me regularly. On our fifth date his cell phone rang and his friend asked who he was out with. His response? “My lady.” Right then and there I knew where I stood, and it was nice. He ended up being a schmuck, but that’s beside the point.

Then things began to get difficult. I went on an amazing date with someone I thought to be very special and came home and announced to everyone I met the man I was going to marry. Little did I know that a few months later I would come to find his wedding registry on the Internet.

Following that fiasco, I didn’t trust men for quite a while. Just as I was feeling better about things, I met the attorney. We went out a bunch of times, began to get close, then his ex-girlfriend showed up wanting to give their relationship another go. They of course tried and failed.

Since then? It’s gotten worse, and not just for me. I have one friend who is divorced after only a year of marriage because she found her husband cheating on her. I have a married former coworker with multiple girlfriends. I have a former friend who has proudly slept with a handful of married men. And I know of two married men, both with children, who are more than willing to cheat on their wives.

Who said men mature as they age?

TV: I’m liking but no longer loving Love Monkey. And I really like How I Met Your Mother. What about you guys?

Blog: Has anyone successfully upgraded to the new version of Wordpress yet?

Dating: The shiva setup guy apparently “very recently ended a relationship and isn’t ready to date.” So it’s a no-go.

Friendster: Has anyone else noticed that Friendster is now pimping out their single members? They have a section called “Singles Near You.” How kind of them.

Question: I keep getting visitors via this link. Anyone know what it’s about?

Site of the Week: Two Legged Dog (video)

And that’s it. Damn, I’m boring this week.

The other day on the phone, JAB mentioned she wanted to look on my blog to see who recommended Tortilla Curtain because she wanted to thank him/her. That reminded me it’s time for yet another edition of What Have You Read Lately. Have you read any good books lately? If so, what were they?

Also, if you read a book that someone posted about in the comments in part one, part two, or part three, let us know!

Okay, I have (for the most part) successfully upgraded to Wordpress 2.0. So far, there is one minor problem I have been unable to solve:

Comment notification emails are really goofy. Instead of showing the commenter’s actual email address, it is showing NameEnteredInCommenterNameField@missing-host-name; then when I click on the email to read it, it shows as NameEnteredInCommenterNameField@localhost.

e.g.: It should say: superjux@superjux.com. Instead, it is showing (when H is the NameEnteredInCommenterNameField) H@missing-host-name while in my inbox, then H@localhost in the opened email.

It’s driving me nuts. Anyone know how to fix this? You’ll be my hero.

What a fun weekend!

Friday night I hit the grocery store then went home to relax and install the Wordpress upgrade. The installation was pretty uneventful, save for the weird email notification thing that is driving me mad. (Any Wordpress gurus willing to help me?) I haven’t really noticed many differences with 2.0, although the post preview is way cool. Other than that, it looks pretty. I know, I’m a dork.

Saturday afternoon I did the eyebrow/mani/pedi thing then got back to the City in time to meet up with Annabel Lee, Eve (who needs to start a damn blog already), and Tamara for wine and a delicious dinner at Pomodoro (not the new chain of the same name), my all-time favorite tiny Italian place on the Westside.

Following dinner we caravanned over to Boardwalk 11 for Paul’s Karaoke-A-Go-Go night and had an absolute blast. Some of us, ahem, who shall rename nameless, had a lot of alcohol and performed a few songs that had the crowd really going. By the way Paul, I didn’t hear any Greatest American Hero songs. What gives?

While at the party, I also got a chance to catch up with David and Jamie, and I think David has given me the motivation I needed to really get cracking on my book proposal. As always, it was wonderful to see them and we really do need to hang out again sometime soon!

The entire set of pictures can be found here.

Today is a much needed lazy day. I’m going to sleep, clean, do laundry, read, write, and bake. Yep, a new recipe. Details to come.

I saw this recipe in my new 125 Best Cupcake Recipes book by Julie Hasson. It reminded me of the cupcakes kids brought into school for their birthdays in elementary school so I just had to try them. I used her white cake recipe and of course, my favorite buttercream frosting recipe.

As expected, they were delicious, looked very cute, and were a huge hit with my coworkers.

Some strange verbatim searches that landed people here:

• fat person on ballet shoes
• avarage cost san francisco movie theater
• how do you know it s a date?
• crunchy on the outside comic
• broken noses sexy?
• anyone have a persian boyfriend?
• too short for jdate
• supermarket pull soup after needle found
• pornstar got pregnant by mistake
• nice guy no chemistry
• david perkins looks like
• i smell like indian food
• ugly clothes for fat old cripples

As usual, use a few of these searches to write a story. And to all the new people, how did you get here?