HEY! Wipe that Grin From Your Face! You're at the DMV!

Four states have banned smiling at the DMV when they are taking your license photo. I'm sure most of you have been to the DMV. Not much smiling going on anyway. In fact, it is usually a pretty grim experience. A world of chaos and dismay. It ranks up there on a person's "things I don't want to do list" along with 'go to the dentist' and 'paint the garage.' There is no smiling. The 3 facial expressions at the DMV are as follows: Worry, irate and confused. Which one are you? First worry. People are worried they will either have to pay money they don't have, or are afraid they will get caught for something else while they are there. Like unpaid tickets, driving (to the DMV) while suspended or some other, more serious offense. Like a serial killer who needs to take the driving test again, but hopes you don't ask him to pop the trunk.
Then there is the irate. This person feels the world is out to get him and he shouldn't have to be there. They're conversations usually start with "You guys made a mistake" and always end with "I want to speak to your supervisor." Sometimes they throw in the, "I make 3 times the money you make. I'll have your job!" What ever that means.
Then there is the confused. They are the ones who wait 30 minutes in the wrong line, fill out the wrong form and then get in another wrong line and blame the DMV employee. "But, they told me to fill out this form and stand in this line!"
But the DMV are not the squeaky-clean, make no mistake organization they claim to be, sometimes. Just ask Randall Clifton Kling of Orange Co., CA. He fooled the DMV 83 times and created as many aliases and easily collected many, many driver's licenses. In fact, there are over 100,000 cases each year of fraudulent licenses issued by the DMV, which ignite many other criminal acts ranging from fake IDs sold to minors, illegal immigrants having licenses, to a stream of other identity theft crimes. Some of these crimes are due to shifty DMV employees themselves. So next time your at the DMV being told not to smile. Give them a little smile, and a wink too. Just your way of letting them know that you know what's up. Oh, and tell them pistachio sent you. That gets them thinking every time and adds a new facial expression for the DMV...coy~~ Pis out.

Don't Do It...You'll Go To Jail!

I've been on a rant lately about California laws after a string of parking tickets and smog check tickets. My friend got a jaywalking ticket which is unheard of where I come from (Philadelphia). I decided to do some research on the subject and realized that I really have to be careful not to break some of the rules in this town.
For example, in the city of Glendale, CA., it is illegal to drive in reverse. Makes it kinda hard to parallel park I would say. It's also illegal to jump into a passing car in that town. Damn, when I'm driving, I always consider doing that. Especially a convertible full of hot babes going to the beach.
Speaking of the beach, in Hermosa Beach it is illegal not to have toilet paper in public restrooms. Duh, imagine having to call the cops when your sitting on the crapper? "911, what's your emergency?" "Yes, uh, I just did number 2 and I have no toilet paper." "Ok, sir, remain seated and calm...we are on our way!" "ok, hurry, cause I don't know how much longer I can't hold on!" Also in Hermosa, it is against the law to show your naked butt in a playground. Hmm...but I guess it would be OK otherwise, like the frozen food section of the local supermarket. Again, you would be breaking the law if you poured salt on the highway in Hermosa, but pour all the pepper you want.
In Hollywood, It is illegal to drive more than 2,000 sheep down Hollywood Boulevard at one time. I would LOVE to test this one! "But, officer, count them...I only have 1,999 sheep."
In Long Beach it is illegal to curse on a mini-golf course. "BLEEP!! I came so close to getting it in the clown's BLEEPING mouth for a hole-in-one!!" Also in Long Beach, you can't have anything but your car in your garage. WOW! My landlord would be doing 10 to life if he live there!
And finally, in LA it is illegal for a man to beat his wife with a strap wider than 2 inches without her consent. Anything more, with consent, is called sadomasochism, but anything less is not spousal abuse? You will be arrested in LA for licking a toad, hunting moths under a street light or crying on the witness stand. "But, your honor (sob!), I didn't know they were moths I was shooting at (sob!). They looked like vampire bats after I licked that toad, (boo hoo!).
But, it's not illegal in CA to eat pistachios...so enjoy! Pis out!

All We Have to Fear Is...

Don't be afraid. It's just a blog about fear!

I was in an elevator the other day at work coming down from the 10th floor. All of a sudden, around the 7th floor, the elevator stopped and all the lights around the buttons went dark. I hit the alarm button. Nothing. Hit it again nothing. Then it started moving again, but still no lights. It went to the 1st floor and the doors opened. Phew! I can tell you had it been stuck a minute longer and I would have cried like a baby who dropped an ice cream cone (pistachio). I don't know about you, but just being stuck for a minute made my heart drop in my stomach and the feeling of panic and dizziness set in. My co-worker was stuck one time for about 20 mins. We tried to keep her calm by talking through the door. I don't know how she made it without losing it.
Anyway, it got me thinking about fears. Some of my other fears include: drowning, dying in a plane crash and being at a Lionel Richie concert. That fear is called dancingontheceilingaphobia.
There are a lot of strange fears as well. For example: Alektorophobia is the fear of chickens. Image a person with this fear accidentally walking into a KFC! Or how about dextrophobia, which is the fear of having objects at the right side of the body. Let's hope these folks are left-handed. A lot of men have this fear, gamophobia, or the fear of marriage. Which isn't as bad as eurotophobia, the fear of female genitalia or phallophobia- the fear of a penis. There is also Pupaphobia, the fear of puppets. No Sesame Street for you. I wonder if the alektorophobia person would be afraid of Big Bird...hmm...I wonder. And lastly, there is phobophobia or the fear of phobias. I couldn't make this stuff up!
I have other fears with no name yet. Like the fear of being locked in a room with Gilbert Gottfried, the fear of being licked by a llama or the fear of pouring orange juice on my cereal.
Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "All we have to fear, is fear itself." I would have liked to be stuck in an elevator with him!- Pis out.

Driving Me Nuts

You know, I have a message for MapQuest...you suck! I had to go to court here in LA and needed directions, so I went to MapQuest and, as anyone knows if you've driven the LA freeways or own a TV, traffic is a nightmare here already without any added issues. So I'm sitting in traffic and getting nervous because court starts at 8:30 and it's 8:10 now. Finally I get to my exit. "Make a left on Temple," MapQuest says. Ok, great...Temple it is. "Drive 0.1 mile and End at 1633 Purdue St.," MapQuest says. Ok...uh...no, nope, no Purdue St. Now I'm in a panic rechecking directions while trying to drive (damn...wish I had an iphone...not). 8:30 passes, 8:40, 8:50... I finally stopped for directions (you gals know guys hate doing this) and I get some guy with a Southern accent telling me he never heard of Purdue St. and he wasn't from LA. That's the biggest problem about asking for directions in LA...nobody is from LA. Turns out, Mr. MapQuest, Purdue St. is in Santa Monica, not downtown LA!!!!! The funniest thing about this (if there is something funny about this) is the direction link to MapQuest came from the LA Superior Court Web site. How ironic. That way people will miss their court date and have to pay a $525 fine...which, by the way was the reason I was going to court in the first place. I missed a court date I didn't know I had due to some small print on the back of some 4 page subpoena I got (probably) cause I didn't get my smog check done. BAM!!! A $10 fix it ticket became $525. Anyway, I finally get to the court and (here's the kicker) turns out I had no court date cause I chose to pay the fine! I only paid the fine cause the citation said, WE WILL SUSPEND YOUR LICENSE IN 10 DAYS IF NOT PAID. I figured pay it, then fight it. Now it's basically a lost cause.
Anyway, traffic is nuts out here, and I don't mean pistachio nuts either. More like those spicy peanuts. We will continue this talk later. Pis out!

The Problems We Create

I learned a lot about myself recently. I learn that I'm not ready for sushi. I learned that when you get older, you can hurt yourself practically doing nothing and I learned it is very easy to get sucked in to all this new technology. Everyone is tweeting, texting, facebooking and myspacing. I swore I wouldn't get sucked in, but I did. First the cell phone. My first cell phone was a pay-as-you-go cheap-as-you-can-get phone I bought at Target. The battery had to be charged like every hour. I remember sitting at a bar with friends and the conversation went something like this, Friend one: "Look at the photo I got" Friend two: "Check out my ringtone" Friend 3: "Look at the movie I shot." Then my turn comes, "Hey guys, check this out. Mine makes phone calls!" I finally stepped it up and got a real cell phone. One of them flip phones so I can feel like Captain Kirk when I order my Moo Goo Gai Pan and steamed dumplings. Soon I became what I swore I wouldn't...a cell phoney. So caught up in my phoney little world of texting, pix and flix. Now the thing is practically attached to my right hand just in case someone wants to send me a flix of grandma blowing out the birthday candles at 4 A.M.
Now, my phone is a has been. It's all about the iphone now. So we can google "the world's ugliest dog" while we are driving. No sweat...right, because the phone will tell you you have to make a left at the next intersection too, or tell you where to get the best pistachio ice cream ( I know a great place, by the way). I am not upgrading 'til a phone can do my laundry for me.
Then I got sucked into the My Space (oh, that's soooo '05...soooo I'm soooo '66), the first "be my friend" site. Why do I do these things? Now it's Facebook and Twitter. These sites weren't created to make friends...most of these people are friends already. They were made to KEEP AN EYE ON FRIENDS...ha! Now I know when you are online and whether you have a life or not. I'm sorry, but posting "I just got done washing windows" C'mon. I don't know what's worse...the person telling us that, or me taking the time to read it. As far as I'm concerned, everyone should make stuff up! "Yeah, just diffused a bomb" "Getting ready to skydive naked off the Statue of Liberty" "I just got done washing windows...on the Chrysler Building about 1,047 feet up" (yeah, I looked it up on my iphone while I was driving 80 on the freeway!)
Ah, the problems we create. And now, I'm blogging. And is anyone really paying attention? Who knows? Welcome to the Pistachio Chronicles folks where your guess is as good as mine.