• 2:39 AM
  and the protecting of youth from

The newspaper on the front step of Helen's apartment building is wrapped in a blue plastic sheet. On this is rubber banded a ditto reading "DON'T STEAL NEWSPAPERS! You can be fined $5000 and sent to jail for 1 year. Blah blah blah teams of trained inspectors will be dispatched to track you down somehow." This is the anti-theft device they're using for newspapers these days. I've seen that same paper on the step without the heavy handed mob tactics - maybe someone has recently filed a complaint about their paper being stolen? Or maybe, since this is put on by the publisher, this is way to discourage people from reading each others papers? I dunno - some kinda papester like idea? Except with real stealing?

Today I had a date! I have, over the years, learned that even an unemployed boy should take his girlfriend out on a date once in a while. Even if it has to be "Dutch". Went to cafe flora, saw Lost In Translation. The movie was better than I thought. For some reason I had gone in there expecting to be annoyed by the Asian stereotype fun-at poking, but it wasn't bad at all, save the weird masseuse scene. Oh, and that it starts with a butt close-up held for far longer than I like looking at a butt. I did manage to restrain myself from saying "OK - A BUTT" in the theater. I'm not normally given to public ridicule, but you have to understand that I think the word butt is intrinsically funny. Like the word "barf".

After the movie, we drove to get a Coke (the Taco Bell on 4th St. is not 24 hr, again), and waited behind an SUV in the (non taco bell) drive through for a little while. When we got up to the window, the server said in an exasperated tone, "Those people were so stupid! They got their food and just sat there at the window for a long time! Gah!" It was funny - I think the fast food workers usually hold in their frustrations, especially since their next customer will likely be every bit as awful as the last.