I hate the CTA.

Yesterday Chicago was all abuzz over some crazy backups with the trains, caused by a variety of issues (a power outage, suicide - you know, the usual). Luckily, I ride the bus and only have to deal with the bus driver stopping five blocks from my workplace, announcing that she "really had to pee!" and leaving the bus unattended. I was the last one to decide, "Hey, maybe I should just walk the rest of the way to work." I kind of hope someone stole that bus.

I hate the Axe effect.

I hate it when I run out of the good deodorant and I have to use the gross stick of Axe that I've been holding onto for a year. Usually it takes me a few days before I get completely disgusted by my overly masculine musk and rush out to get the good kind.

If there were such a thing as Bridge & Tunnel in Chicago, I would surely be smelling like it right now.

I hate Pitchfork Media.

I'm not even going to go into details with this one because I could dedicate an entire blog to how much Pitchfork annoys me (plus, it's already been done). So I'm just going to give two examples.

In today's review of The Lemonheads' new self-titled album, it takes reviewer Nitsuh Abebe three and a half paragraphs before the new disc is actually reviewed. What Nitsuh gives us is a history of The Lemonheads and Evan Dando, including this parenthetical: "(literally-- dude smoked crack)." Now, I don't think this is particularly necessary; if one needs to know about The Lemonheads, they can easily find that information elsewhere.

(Also, I like Come On Feel the Lemonheads better than It's a Shame About Ray.)

Secondly, Ryan Schreiber posted a brief news item about Ryan Adams's website re-design / career suicide yesterday, titling it "Hey, Ryan Adams: STFU." Now, I'm all for some Ryam Adams-bashing because that motherfucker is cah-raaazy, but if you're running a website that takes itself seriously enough to publish barely-readable record reviews, please, someone, suggest that the thirtysomething editor-in-chief use instant message acronyms to berate the talent.

I hate how sarcasm doesn't really work over the Internet.

Yesterday's post, entitled "I hate it when people misuse apostrope's [sic]," sparked a (brief)(and also not that exciting) comment war between me and Anonymous, who wrote:

Should'nt [sic] that be "explaining it's uses"?

Sorry, could'nt [sic] resist."

And I was all, "STUPID." And I laughed and laughed because I love it when people use poor grammar in comments that are intended to make the blogger look like an idiot. I didn't even notice the misused apostrophes in "shouldn't" and "couldn't!" HA!

So I responded, "No," and I explained that "its" wasn't a contraction. Ooohh, diss, Anonymous!

For a split-second I thought, "Maaaybe that was ironic... ... ...Nope! Anonymous is just dumb! HA HA HA!"

And then Megan emailed me and mentioned how I misused the plural form of "apostrophes" in the title, and I was all, "GOD. WHY DOESN'T ANYONE GET THAT I'M BEING IRONIC? GOD."

Then Anonymous left another comment:

I'm fully aware that "it's" is a contraction and I hope that clarification was offered ironically in response to my sarcasm.

And the moral of the story is: sarcasm and irony do not work on the Internet.

I hate it when people misuse apostrophe's.

People who don't understand how an apostrophe works should consult, at the very least, this Wikipedia article explaining its uses.

All others should have their hands chopped off. At least that would deter written communication.

I hate bloggers with book deals.

Sometimes, I think, "Tyler, why are you trying so hard? No one is going to read your blog and want to publish My Life Sucked For A Few Years, Too: Life in a One-Stoplight Town."

And I read this. And I realize that it's really just a fifteen minutes of fame kind of thing, but honestly, that's all I need. Well, maybe twenty minutes would be nice.

Plus it would give me something to talk about at the high school reunions.

I hate Rachel Ray.

Dear Rachel,

I hope you don't think this is about your crazy on-camera attitude and behavior. I think that stuff is just adorable. You love food and get excited about it in your own special way, and you just keep on keepin' on, girrrl.

But please, please, please stop tucking your shirts into your jeans because it makes you look kinda chunky.

xoxo,

Tyler.

I hate that I can't keep a plant alive.

This is the plant I bought at Home Depot. Buying a plant at Home Depot was probably my first mistake, but it was also the first plant I had ever bought, so I admit that I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

And yeah, it's definitely dead now, and we don't know why because it didn't come with a tag explaining how much water or light or whatever it needed. Basically, it's dead and I haven't gotten the nerve to throw it out yet.

Of course, me and the roommates are too lazy to do the dishes until there's absolutely none left to eat on, and instead they pile up on the coffee table. There's also an empty popcorn bag on the floor. And the carpet... let's not go into how disgusting the carpet is right now.

That plant will most likely sit there for a few more weeks.

I hate broken beds.

While making my bed this morning, because my life is that thrilling, my toe banged into something just underneath the bed. When I investigated, I discovered that the hard wooden thing I'd kicked was the middle one of three slats holding the bedspring into the bedframe.

Now that I know this, I realize that it's just a matter of time before the other two slats collapse from too much pressure and the boxspring plunges downward into the floor. A whole foot! So now anytime I move, I do so gingerly and silently, so that I can hear the next creak of destruction. And living alone, I have no hope of remedying this until someone comes over, an event unlikely to occur until I buy another chair to supplement the one I already have. Otherwise we'd both have to sit on my bed and wait for it to die, or the guest would have to realize that he or she was only invited over as a laborer.

There are more exciting ways to break a bed.

I hate musical Starbucks drinks commericals.

Time certainly does not fly by when I'm forced to listen to shitty, jaunty music that never seems to end.

I hate ruining my own plans.

Today's schedule was all set, and it was my doing. Running in the morning, Eastern Market, movie at E Street, home to cook and watch my first Netflix movies.

I woke up at nine. I read On Beauty for an hour, then turned on the TV, and look! It's Ordinary People! That movie my mom made me watch ten years ago that I refused to care about!

And now it's making me cry. I'm not going to the market. Or cooking. Ha. Maybe I'll go to the movie.

Must. Leave. Apartment. Today. Must must must.

I hate Randy Newman and everything he's involved with.

False alarm! I remembered that I hate Randy Newman! He's so annoying!

And it's incredibly fitting that he sings the theme song to Monk, a television show I truly hate! And Ted Levine, who played Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs is on that show! HA HA HA I hate that guy!!!

I hate it when I can't think of things to hate.

Call it writer's blogger's block. I've been trying to think of something that happened today that I really, really hated, but I can't think of anything! We had free doughnuts today at work, I got a free lunch on account that my coworker is "leaving" the office (she's moving to office next door), and my commute to and from work was pretty fine.

Goddammit. C'mon, life, throw me a bone here! I've got bored people on the internet to entertain!

I hate the cold.

It's September and I'm already freezing. There's absolutely no excuse for this. Isn't global warming supposed to make it hotter? I mean, can't we just deal with some shitty hurricanes if it means my teeth won't chatter for hours at a time?

Or should I hate that I'm too skinny and my body doesn't have enough blubber to keep itself warm?

No, it's definitely not my fault. Fuck the planet's weather systems.

I hate being too tired to do anything.

I realize I have an unusual schedule. I get up a tad earlier than the rest of the working world. But even when I take a day off and waste 3/4 of it in my big ugly gold chair, reading and watching movies, I am still exhausted the rest of the week.

Today felt okay. The day was long, but I chugged through. Tyler and I exchanged a series of "whoa life sucks a lot" kind of emails, but at the end of the day, it was 70 degrees and I had a whole free afternoon and evening ahead of me!

So I came home and boiled some potatoes and sat in my big ugly gold chair and checked blogs for two hour and a half hours and now I feel like death. It's probably the concentrated block of time spent doing nothing useful. When I'm reading, at least I'm enjoying myself. When I'm watching TV, it's nearly always because I had planned to watch it and I'm enjoying it (except during Barefoot Contessa, who is never barefoot and always makes me clutch the arms of my chair and grind my teeth). But I can spend hours on my blog reader, willing myself to keep clicking, not looking up from the computer, working myself into a comatose state.

I could go to the gym, but I keep telling myself the gym will be crowded and I'll have to wait for a machine, so what's the point?

I could go out with friends, but they're going out super late and by golly I have to be up early!

I could actually sit up and work on my thesis, but really, who am I kidding? That joke is nine months old

I could put on my pajamas and pop a benadryl.

Hmmmm.

Morals of today's story: I think I need an afterwork schedule. Maybe some extracurriculars that don't involve drinking.




Also, I should probably lay off the boiled tuberous roots. Why couldn't I just bake them like a normal person? Because I'm effing scared of the gas flame yet feel compelled to defy it at any given opportunity!

I hate young adulthood.

From an email I received from Megan:

I think it's normal to feel like dying at the age of 23-24 in this country. I really do. It's become our generation's rite of passage. Can we successfully transition from college to adult life?! Answer: Usually not until we're thirty.

Life after college is stupid.

I hate Crocs.

About two years ago, when people were caring so much about cancer awareness that they were spending twenty dollars on eBay to score a yellow rubber bracelet, I had this nightmare that all of a sudden people were wearing bracelets of all different colors. Red! Blue! Green! Purple! Burgundy! Mauve! It was awful!

That was the only time one of my nightmares came true.

Thankfully, Bracelet Craze has settled down. I think the college-aged fashionistas philanthropists realized that convenience stores were selling them. (Cancer awareness is so not about being convenient.)

But now I have to deal with this:I think someone took all of those leftover bracelets and designed the DUMBEST SHOE EVER MADE. EVER.

I don't get it, America. WHY are people wearing these shoes? They must feel like your feet are having orgasms because there is no other rational reason to wear rubber clogs.

In my quest to understand, I went to the shoe's website to read some testimonials. Here are my favorites:

We were once a 'TEVA' family and posed together in tevas, and now we are a "Crocs" family! :)

Scott Mohan
Lakewood, CO

Once I discovered you make my favorite shoes in white, how could I not purchase them to wear at my wedding?! I knew I was going to be on my feet all day, wearing heels for at least 6 hours. I needed something comfortable to dance in and your shoes fit the bill. I was able to dance all night thanks to your fabulous shoes! I've attached a picture my photographer took of my crocs and bouquet. I hope you enjoy my picture as much as I enjoy your shoes.

Beth Cauwels
Roseville, MN

I live in Crested Butte, Colorado where November through March, there is snow on the ground.Thisfall,I was sad thinking of having to put up my Crocs for the winter. I am sad no longer because I discovered that my Crocs can be used almost year round. I decided to try my new Crocs I got for Christmas on my stroll to the post office about 6 blocks away. To my excitement,my Crocs were great on the ice and hard pack. The soft sole allowed me to grip with my toes and I didn't even slip once. I even watched a girl slip and fall in Uggs and I walked right by her! The holes in them would make them not very useful when it has recently snowed, but since our town plows regularly, I found them to be quite pleasant. Theyalso aren'tthe warmest but with thick socks, you can barely feel the cold. I am psyched that I can wear the most comfy shoes every year round inour harsh, but beautifulclimate.

Kim Elliot

I learned about crocs from my roommate who is also my fraternity brother in Sigma Phi Epsilon. Since then I as well as about twenty of my fraternity brothers and some of our sorority sister friends have purchased different colored crocs. We each have different colors and crazy names to go along with them. They are AMAZING shoes. We wear them to shower, walk around, and some of our brothers even wear them for "nights on the town" and formal events to match their suits. @ One of our events on the beach, we all wore them to protect our feet from the shells and to prevent us from slipping on the boat. To our surprise, the boater that came to pick us up even had pink crocs, we were stunned. The fad has OFFICIALLY taken over Tampa Bay. I see them everywhere, airports, events, beach, etc. I LOVE CROCS!

Patrick Alberts
Tampa, FL

I still don't get it. But I do get this, and I APPRECIATE IT.

I hate unsolicited "food for thought."

From an email received from my mother:

There was an email circulating around at work saying that Maryland just passed a law that bans driving and talking on a cell-phone. A woman who works downstairs replied the next day saying that she stopped at a naval base on the other side of the bridge and asked the guard if it was true, and he said yes. Then on the next day a woman who lives in Maryland replied and said that she hadn't heard of the law, and she called the police station and they told her that it didn't exist. THEN this really annoying woman down the hall, whom I hate, replied to everyone and said, "Maybe it's just a good idea to pay attention while driving anyway and wait to talk on the phone when we get home. Just some food for thought." I wanted to reply back and say, "I think you ought to stop wearing those ugly-ass outfits and lose forty pounds. Just a suggestion."

And you wonder where I get my surly attitude.

I hate it when I get high and have awkward and ambiguous phone conversations, too.

I hate the Barefoot Contessa.

Okay, not really. I hate the fact that I ever even flip past the Food Network, and I despise that I always stop at Barefoot Contessa. She drives me crazy! All the cream, all the sauces, her creepy calmness, her hot-rollered bangs, her suspicious husband/partner who's always sitting around drinking espresso in the garden, waiting for his bitch to bring him some food and a drink with banana liqueor in it.

Oh Ina! You intrigue me! You're more fascinating than Paula Deen, whom I once upon a time did a mean impression of (involving a Ritz crackers joke), one that I've never been able to recreate.

I hate eating nothing but sugar all day.

When you eat pizza with the cheese and toppings scraped off for lunch, a gigantic oatmeal cookie for a snack, and a pint of ice cream (low fat...but still ice cream) for dinner, you're left feeling...like something salty.

You also have hot flashes.

And no energy.

And you want to die.

And you ask yourself, how did you leave the grocery store with nothing but a gigantic cucumber, smart balance and a pint of ice cream? What the hell were you thinking? Why didn't you pick up some Pringles, which you haven't craved since college?

I hate that I didn't bring my own snack from home.

I went upstairs to get some pretzels from the vending machine. I only had dollar bills and of course the change machine was out of order. I walked to the cafeteria to ask for change, and the woman told me that they don't make change. “The change machine is broke?” she asked. “Go ask the lady at the information desk!”

I asked the lady at the information desk where I could get change and she said, “Uhhh...” Suddenly faced with the problem of not having any information, she decided to just give me change from her purse. I went back to the vending machine, kind of embarrassed that I would have to walk back in front of her with a bag of pretzels, only to find that there were no pretzels in the machine and my only options were cupcakes made by “Mrs. Freshly” and nacho cheese Bugles.

Then I decided I’d just go to the eighth floor and try the vending there. But the machine was out of order. I just spent ten minutes searching for something to eat and now all I have are two quarters and five dimes.

I hate that I think about Leigh Lezark.

The other night I had a dream that I was in the Levis store and I spotted Jude Law making out with Leigh Lezark. I flipped out and turned to my faceless, nameless Dream Friend and said, "Grab your camera phone! I've gotta let Gawker know about this!!!"

I hate waking up at 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday.

I realize that I went to bed at midnight last night, which isn't very late at all and doesn't usually force an oversleeping kind of situation, but 6:30 in the morning is an obscene hour for a Sunday.

It's nearly one in the afternoon and I am spent. I haven't left the apartment, but lord, I've read, so much I've read! And I've danced and failed at pancake mush and worked on my thesis and had coffee and eaten a pear and now I feel like I need to roll over and take a nap.

I hate it when I run out of clean underwear.

This happens every few weeks, and everytime I think, "Should I waste two hours of my night doing laundry when I could be doing other great, fabulous things*, or should I just go buy new underwear?"

I'm sitting in a cafe across the street from American Apparel. You have no idea how tempting that is.






*I'd be watching two hours of Stella on DVD, which I most certainly do not hate.

I hate pancakes.

I've already written on this, but it deserves a second mention.

I haven't cooked in four days. I've been eating pears and oatmeal and going out. So this morning I noticed I have milk that is set to expire tomorrow and lots of eggbeaters. Pancakes, I think! Recently I learned how to turn down the flame on my burner, so I thought this was a manageable project.

I pour. I wait. Nothing happens. I attempt a flip. The pancake folds on itself. Another flip. It looks like scrambled eggs. Wtf?! I scrape into garbage disposal. Try again. Same deal. I get annoyed. I pour the rest of the batter into the pan. Scrambled pancakes.

Can you get samonella from eggbeaters? It was really hard to tell if everything was cooked through. It tasted delicious with a little butter and lemon juice, but I might be dying from food poisoning in an hour.

I hate forgetting to close the blinds.

Particularly when I'm dancing to of Montreal. My window faces the street and another building on the opposite side of the street. My neighbors got a show this morning.

I hate how hard life is.

Excerpt from an IM conversation:

Me: I bought The Aristocrats today
Me: but I should have bought Batman Begins
Me: dammit.
Friend: LIFE IS TOUGH
Friend: I DONT KNOW HOW TO WORK MY DIGITAL CABLE
Friend: WE ALL GOT PROBLEMS

I hate the Red Eye. And Zach Braff.

Breaking news from today's issue of the Chicago Tribune's Newspaper for Dummies:

On top of his already busy schedule, Braff tries to find time to approve the loads of friend requests on his MySpace page. Eventually, he also wants to tackle things on his "life to-do list," he says, including learning to horseback ride, playing the drums and flying a plane (He is taking flying lessons).

OHMYGOD that's so crazy because I'm on MySpace too!!! And Zach plays the drums? Wow. He's so normal. Just like me! Zach, I formally apologize for ever insinuating that fans of Garden State have no personality. See ya at the Snow Patrol show, dude!!!


PS. Zach, get some Burt's Bees for reals. Those lips are looking rough.

I hate the p-word.

I'm pretty damn liberal when it comes to expletives, and there are very few that I don't enjoy. One of them is the common euphemism for vagina. I hate that word. I hate it. And do you want to know why? Because it reminds me of first grade. This should give you an idea of what life was like being educated in the Westmoreland County public school system, but this is absolutely true. When I was in first grade, a girl pulled down her pants and told a classmate to "suck it."

I hate turning 23.

When you turn 23, all of your friends who are younger than you think you're suddenly ancient, while everyone you know who are older think you're too young to be taken seriously.

Except for your father, who will call you at seven in the morning to sing to you and ask, "How does it feel to be 22?" When you tell him your actual age, he'll say, "Jesus! 23?! You're old!"

The only nice thing about turning 23 is that you can thank sweet Baby Jesus that you didn't turn 24. Because that's old.

I hate gas stoves.

I'm always afraid I'm going to set something on fire. My soup will boil over and I'll have a big flaming tomato mess and I won't be able to grab the potholders or worse I'll grab them and they'll catch on fire, rendering me completely at the mercy of flaming tomato soup, which will then spill onto the kitchen floor, through the living room, and chase me out the door.

I've been told that's not how gas stoves work, but I'm not familiar with these kitchen strange kitchen devices. I am best aquainted with the microwave, and for reasons Kelly will understand, the two of us should only be allowed to use the microwave under supervision.

I hate True.

It's embarassing enough for a coworker to walk by while I'm checking MySpace, but it's really bad when these stupid goddamn ads for True keep popping up and displaying animated ladies trying to get me to DO them.

I hate the short urinals.

Look at that. Can we make peeing in public restrooms a little more awkward, please?

I hate vending machines.

Particularly when the metal rings in the row of Poptarts have an empty slot in the front, but plenty of Poptarts behind the empty one. You'd have to pay for two Poptart packages to get one!

I don't even like Poptarts that much, but the vending machine has been like this for two weeks, and it's making me crazy.

I hate awkward walking situations.

I hate walking in front of people you kind of know but not really and if you were walking together you'd be screwed because after "Hey, how's your day and how was your weekend(which isn't really appropriate because it's already Wednesday...maybe it's time for "What are you doing this weekend?")" you'd have absolutely nothing to say. Except it's more awkward because the person behind you that you kind of know is probably staring at your back thinking the exact same thing and wondering if they need to speed up or slow down in order to avoid awkward confrontation and the inevitable lie of "Oh hey, I didn't notice you walking in front of me!"

Sure. Asshole.

I hate unclear style guidelines.

What are we, Jotyco? We can't do MLA anymore. We're playing with the big kids now; no more ambiguity with the serial commas. Chicago? It would be fitting. AP? Perhaps more familiar. Let's set some standards, TyCo, c'mon!

I hate missing shows.

Band of Horses, I may not have heard of you until two weeks ago, and I realize that it's my fault for ignoring certain key music news sources out of pride, but I really wanted to see you tonight! You had to go and sell out the Black Cat. I took a nap for you, Band of Horses! I was going to shower again! I was going to skip the nutritious meal I had planned and instead support the establishment you're playing by drinking my dinner at the bar! But no. Now that can't happen.

Now it's me, Trader Joe's wine, polenta and black bean casserole left over from Sunday, and maybe a cigarette out in the parking lot, if I'm feeling really decadent.

I hate taking off work for things I don't want to do.

And I'm going to take a giant leap into a puddle here and go ahead and say I hate the DC DMV and inspection center, where I'll be spending all of next Tuesday.





I'm not sure what the leap-into-the-puddle metaphor is about. I was grasping for something that seemed within reach and far more comprehensible, but I failed to reach it, and you ended up with a puddle metaphor.

I hate it when I make a mistake a third time.

Shit. I did it again. This time, it was "Live in Sunshine" by The Rapture, and I was 100% sober

I hate overgrown bangs.

You can't wear headbands and look okay with overgrown bangs. Hair gets stuck in your eyes, or worse, your eyelashes. Your forehead gets itchy. You have to spend extra time blowdrying. This reduces laying-on-the-floor-staring-at-the-ceiling-before-work time, which is very valuable to your mental well-being.

I need a bang-trimmer in the train station, like a shoeshiner.

I hate when my mom leaves me voicemail.

She never calls about anything fun. It's either someone accidently sent a piece of my mail to her house or she needs help copying and pasting or she keeps getting junk mail about Viagra and AOL won't respond to her complaints about it. I don't have the energy for a return phone call without a cup of coffee. Or a cookie. Hmmm. A cookie. I could use a cookie.

I hate falling asleep as soon as I come home from work.

Because then all your plans have gone to shit. If you're going out, you have to re-shower, re-dress, etc. If you were going to work on something, you're groggy. If you're going to cook something, you can't be bothered to get dressed again to go to the store. If you had planned on going to the gym, all the good machines are inevitably taken by the time you wake up.

I feel sleepy.

I hate self-promotion...

...but I can't help myself.

iHate my iPod.

I finally filled up my 20GB iPod this week, and it's really frustrating. I keep getting more music, which means I have to go through my five thousand songs and decide which ones I don't like as much. It's like I'm living Sophie's Choice.

Just because I don't listen to all 69 Love Songs doesn't mean I don't want to have the option!

I hate how Coke makes my mouth syrupy.

Granted, I probably shouldn't be drinking a can every morning.

I hate running out of diet coke.

Because then there's nothing to mix the rum with.

I hate What's His Name.

Seriously, pick a name already.

I hate it when they give me work to do.

I hate it when I come back from lunch to find a pile of AP score reports six inches thick sitting on my desk.

I hate it when my roommate sabotages my coolness.

Remember when I accidentally listened to one song for eight hours and screwed up my Last.fm statistics? Well, on Saturday, when I came home drunk as a skunk, I somehow didn't realize that "Careless Whispers" by Wham! was playing on my iTunes. Loudly. And repeatedly. It wasn't until a few hours later did I wake and wonder, "WHY IS THIS PLAYING?" I did not realize, however, that it was on REPEAT, so I changed it to another song which then played fifty times before I figured it out.

I was really confused in the morning, obviously, because I didn't remember playing "Careless Whispers" in the first place. Stranger things have happened, so I just decided that I was drunk enough to want George Michael's voice lulling me to sleep.

Last night I mentioned it to my roommate, who giggled for a few minutes after confessing that she was the one who put the song on repeat.

So here you can see that my weekly top artists are a little uneven:

And also, here are my top four most-played tracks:Notice how the song is lacking the plural. I look like such a jackass.

I hate getting robbed.

You probably do, too.

Today was a testament to the credit card. I can cancel my Capital One in five minutes with no problem, but I'll never see that $36 in cash again. Fucker.

I hate hangovers.

I'd like to blame my headache on the dirty martini I had with dinner, but I'll concede that it was probably the seven beers I had afterward.

I hate it when I get that drunk.

You don't know how bad it gets until you get really, really drunk and then throw up in some dude's dirty bathroom and THEN walk a mile home in the rain.

I basically had a walk of shame without the sexy hookup.

(At least I'm not so drunk that I'm misspelling words.)

I hate indecision.

Peanut butter oatmeal cookies or cheap wine?

I hate older women who hang out in "hip" coffee shops.

Listen, lady, don't come in here to use the free wireless, mention that the owner of the place "should really display her artful bathroom mirrors somewhere," and then ask the barista to change her punk-rock music. "It's all fun, I understand that," you say, "but I really can't think with it playing so loudly!"

Go back to Starbucks and listen to the new Sheryl Crow. It'll really help you think while you sell your antiques on eBay.

I hate setting off the smoke alarm.

I woke up this morning and laid in bed until I didn't feel hungover anymore. When I got up, I was ravenous, and all I wanted were pancakes. Although I'm relatively new to cooking, I know how to make pancakes. So easy! So I decide to make crepes. With lemon and powdered sugar and ohmygodi'mbackingermanyagain dreams.

But I didn't have any of that nonstick spray. And it didn't occur to me to use butter or margerine on the pan. So I used canola oil spray. I'm not sure if this had any effect on what happened next. Maybe not.

So I toss my first crepe in the pan, I'm scooting it around the pan, I'm singing with Regina Spektor. Then a black spot appears in the pan. It got bigger and bigger the more I poke at it with the spatula. That's when I realized it was the spatula. My black plastic spatula was melting into the canola oil spray and my goddamn crepe.

I ditch the spatula in the sink with the black crepe, pour some more batter, grab a new spatula, etc. But this crepe cooks fast. Way fast. So fast that it's barely on the pan before I smell burning and frantically try to flip it. About a minute after I pour the third crepe onto the pan, the smoke alarm goes of and I realize I'm standing in a cloud of smoke, as the flames from the burner writhe up around the pan.

I'm feeling more delicate now than I was when I woke up.

At least I found this in the fridge to eat instead:

I hate when something goes wrong at the end of a perfect night.

I hate when you've had a great time out, best time you've had in months, with good friends and cheap drinks and way too many cigarettes, and as you're walking home at the end of the night, you realize you left your sweater at the bar.

I hate when the cable guy gets lost.

I hate when you see the Comcast truck pull up ten minutes before the three-hour window they gave you to install your, ahem, Internet and cable, and fifteen minutes later, no Comcast employee has appeared at your doorstep. Not even a phone call. Comcast dude, are you lost? Can I direct you? I don't even care about the Internet or cable anymore, I just want out of my apartment, where I've been held hostage for the last three hours, thanks to you! It's a beautiful day, and I have walks to take, people to watch, freckles to develop!

Sidenote: Thank you, kind generous neighbor, for your wireless Internet access. It's kept me sane this last week and a half. Although I did consider stealing from you until you blocked me or threatened me, I chose not to, out of respect for you. You're quiet, and I appreciate that. And I'm sorry if I play of Montreal's Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies loudly every night while I fix dinner, but it's a long album and I can't bring myself to listen to a spoken play called "The Cause of Gauze" without a little distraction.

I hate CNN.com.

CNN.com is airing CNN's original 9/11 broadcast in its entirety on Monday. And it's free! Can you believe that?! Awesome! What a great way to memorialize those who lost their lives by watching it ALL OVER AGAIN! GREAT IDEA!

I hate that Jeremy Piven thinks I give a shit about what he has to say.

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

I haven't actually listened to the audio to this video since my speakers at work are not connected to my computer (hello! the iPod is more important!), but that does not mean that I'm still tired of celebrities like Jeremy Piven who feel the need to express to me through a MySpace video that they care more about their hair plugs and perfectly-groomed stubble.

I hate my stupid generation.

Of all the things in the world get upset over, thousands of my peers have come together to fight back against one fascist regime: Facebook.

(PS. I don't hate the Facebook news feed, surprisingly. I love it. I go on Facebook once a week, so it's nice to have all of my stalking done for me. Good job, Facebook!)

I hate that Suri Cruise is so goddamn adorable.

But that doesn't make this whole mess a bit less creepy.

(PS. Oh, John Grisham. No one cares about your real life murder mystery. Call me when you write the sequel to The Client and maybe I'll listen to what you have to say.)

I hate bagel stores that open after 6 a.m.

I have to be at work at 7 a.m. That's fine. But that means that when it's my turn to bring office breakfast on Friday morning, I need stores to be open so I can purchase office breakfast.

I could have baked. I could have. But I just moved, you see, and I didn't have a muffin pan. Or flour. Or sugar. Or even raisins that I could have fashioned into a raisin loaf with the help of some wine, because that's all I had in my fridge Thursday night. Wine. Half empty bottle. With cork floating in it. Another story.

So I resolved to buy bagels Friday morning. I even went by the bagel store the night before to see what time it opens. No times listed. But I wasn't worried. See, I live on a busy street now, one with lots of stores, so I assumed something, anything, would be open.

But as I stood in the rain Friday morning at 6:30 a.m., I knew I was in trouble. I'd walked half a mile in either direction from my house, and there were no bagels, no breakfasts, not even lights to be found. It was cold and rainy and dark. I stood in front of the bagel store. I stared in the window. I gave myself a five-minute limit before I would trudge to the metro, breakfast-less. Time passed. Suddenly there was movement in the dark. An employee must have gone in through the back door! Bagels for everyone! So I stood. I waited. I anticipated warm, luscious bagels, cinnamonn-y raisin goodness. I was hungry. The bagel store employee took off her rainjacket. She picked up her newspaper. She stood in the middle of the goddamn bagel store and read her goddamn newspaper while I stood out in the goddamn rain, waiting, anticipating, and hungry, watching her.

Obviously she had to open the bagel store at some point. There were other people waiting with me at this point, and we all stared in the window from beneath our umbrellas. When she did open the door, I angrily barged in, and she must have sensed that. I asked for a dozen assorted bagels. Oh ho, how silly. I should have specified that assorted meant an assortment of bagels, like maybe two of six different kinds, and not, say, six sesame bagels, four everything bagels, and two hard-as-a-goddamn-rock plain bagels. Who eats everything bagels?! On Friday mornings?! People are going OUT on Friday, people are talking long happy lunches, and people do not need onion breath and poppyseeds in their teeth! Plus the bagels were a day-old.

My first Friday morning office breakfast was not a success.

I hate the fact...

...that I love watching the TV that is in the treadmill at my new gym. And it has cable. And I watched Gilmore Girls on it while running. Am I ashamed? Probably not enough.

I hate OK Go.

Alright, I'm going to be completely honest here. I paid money to see OK Go in concert. Twice. In the same year. Did I mention this was when they were touring with The Donnas? (Let's not start on The Donnas.)

Anyway. The point is that these concerts were back in 2003, when I was a sophomore in college. This was when I was under the impression that anything not played on MTV was "indie rock". Oh, how confused I was. It didn't take me much longer to figure it out and look back on the me from three weeks before with an older, more mature understanding that everyone's gotta grow up and learn from his mistakes.

The OK Go of today is essentially the same band as the OK Go of 2003. They're basically rip-offs of shitty Weezer. (Or is shitty Weezer a rip-off of OK Go? Discuss amongst yourselves.) They avoid writing intelligent "fun" music, instead write songs like "You're So Damn Hot" and dress funny. And that bald guy shaves weird designs into his facial hair. What a cut-up!

And now they make those stupid videos where they dance funny. I'll admit that they are clever enough to trick most of America's white people under the age of twenty-five into thinking that means they make good music, but it's not going to work on me. Nice try, dudes.

I hate people from the suburbs.

I hate it when thirty-year-old men from Homewood, Illinois talk ghetto.

I hate my Internet paranoia.

I downloaded the new Magnolia Electric Co. album on Sunday (don't worry, Jason Molina, I promise to buy it when it comes out next week), and I was going to listen to it while I was trying to sleep. I loaded it into iTunes. I clicked the shuffle icon and the repeat icon so that if I fell asleep before the album finished it wouldn't play all night.

On Monday morning (well, afternoon; it was Labor Day, after all) I woke up and it was still playing. Turns out that I only hit the repeat icon once that it repeated the song that was playing when I got in bed. I guess I fell asleep before I realized what happened.

It played 164 times.

And of course the first thing I thought was, "Shit! That's totally going to fuck-up my Last.fm statistics!"

I hate how you talk on your cell phone.

Look, there's a reason why Verizon isn't selling walkie-talkies. If you want to use your cell phone as one, please go to the toy aisle in Wal-Mart and buy a pair. Cell phones have those nice speakers that are built for your ear and pretty good microphones that will pick up what you say. You can hold the phone up to your head and, I promise, the person on the other end of the line will be able to hear you.

Trust me, if they could see you talking to them would probably think you're an asshole, too.

I hate polenta.

I've never actually tried polenta. But I want to. Badly. It always looks so enticing in its squishy plastic wrapping with little ends tied up like candy. It's the soft, plastic-coated texture and the appealing bright yellow. It's impossible to read a vegetarian cookbook without at least seven references to polenta. Polenta, it seems, is often fried, which can't be a bad thing. Yet I doubt I will ever fry myself some polenta. Nor will I bake it. Polenta is beyond me somehow. I can't cook, I don't like to try new foods, and anything described as "a thick mush of cornmeal" feels too Little House on the Prairie, even for me. I am destined to always be curious about polenta but lack the courage to try it.

I guess it would be more accurate to say that I hate the power polenta has over me.

I hate stingrays.

RIP, Steve Irwin.

I hate smoke alarms.

There's something about the shrill, piercing beep of smoke alarms that makes me lose my shit. Especially when they go off when you're only cooking bacon and NOT setting your apartment on fire.

I also hate that our smoke alarm is on the ceiling, which is a good fifteen-feet high. And when said smoke alarm goes off while I'm cooking bacon, I freak out, especially when I locate the alarm for the first time and realize, "No, I cannot jump ten feet in the air." And then I realize for the first time the need for a kitchen table and chairs. If only we had room for them, we'd have something on which I could stand to be able to turn off the alarm. Instead, I had to stack two milk crates in the middle of the front hall and then jump on them.

The alarm turned itself off before I managed to even reach it. That motherfucker.

I hate making death coffee (and dribbling it all over myself).

I hate when you're measuring out coffee and halfway through you forget how many tablespoons you've already put in. Kulturamt Neuss spoiled me with prepackaged coffee servings, and now I'm incapable of making coffee the old-fashioned way -- by measuring. You inevitably add more coffee than you need and then it tastes like death, even when you didn't use the pour method!

Along the coffee vein, I hate when I take that first slurp of coffee from near the rim and it dribbles down the side of cup. Extra points if a couple drops hit your clothing.

I hate roaches.

I hate it when your roommate sees three roaches scurry about the apartment, and tells you that one of them was this big while holding up her fingers, indicating that she saw a roach that was about two and a half inches long for real!.

Your dreams for the next few days will involve a lot of bugs, and you'll never walk around your apartment barefoot, and you'll carry around a canister of Raid for a week.

Unless the roaches sing and dance like in Joe's Apartment, because that'd be totes adorable.

I hate drinking too much coffee.

I hate when you reach the point just beyond your personal caffeination comfort level. For me, it's about cup number four, depending on the brand and the roast.

Coffee ceases to serve its purpose when you're typing 150 words per minute but have to go back and delete a typo every third word. When your drink sloshes over the rim of the cup every time you try to set it back in the saucer delicately, you're in trouble. And when you can't make your eyes focus on anything but the line where the walls meets the ceiling, a line that appears to be jumping up and down, you've reached a point of no return. Instead you have to sit and be ineffective and wait for the inevitable slump, which feels like sobering up from a mid-afternoon bender.

I hate grocery stores.

I hate big grocery stores. The light is too bright. The lights and the freezers make too much noise. There are too many colors. It's always freezing. There are too many products. There are too many brands. I get overwhelmed. I end up spending an hour looking at the ingredients listed on six different varieties of instant oatmeal, and then I walk out without buying anything. And when you walk out of a grocery store empty-handed, the employees always stare at you. Because who walks out of a gigantic grocery store without having found what they wanted? Grocery stores sell everything these days.

That's why I like my new grocery store. It's about twenty by fifteen feet big, it offers two varieties of every type of product, and no single item costs less than $4, ensuring that I will never purchase anything there.

I hate your stupid opinions.

I hate it when people fill out the "favorite movies" section on their MySpace profile with movies they don't even like enough to be considered a favorite.

I can tell that they don't really like these movies that much because they don't even know the correct title.

Death Became Her? Are you really that goddamn stupid?

And you there: it's not called Swinger. There is more than one swinger in that movie. In fact, there are TWO OF THEM right on the DVD case. Get it right.