Random Thoughts

It’s Passover. And I’m a Jew. So you may be asking yourself, “I wonder what Eli did for Passover this year?” Well, actually I did nothing. Why? Because my family is made up of Italian Jews. That means my relatives combine complaining and spreading guilt with hot-headed ultimatums. Let me tell you, this is not a good combination. Over the years, family gatherings have gotten smaller and smaller as each splinter of family continues to disown someone and splinter further.

Speaking of family and Passover, many years back my aunt hosted the worst Thanksgiving ever, when she decided to combine Thanksgiving and Passover. The key thing about Passover is that you can’t use leavening (ie yeast). Leavening makes things light and fluffy. Unleavened things are condensed and heavy. Have you ever had unleavened stuffing? Just imagine a turkey stuffed with crumbled crackers and you’ll get the idea. Wouldn’t you like a nice big plate of that covered with gravy? You could eat it, or you could patch a hole in your wall with it. It’s multi-purpose.

Just a bit of friendly advice for the traveling types. Cocktails in Toronto are a waste of money. But maybe you enjoy wasting money. In that case, you should buy lots and lots of cocktails in Toronto.

I just re-subscribed to cable after being on a cable protest for a year or so. Some of you will say I was crazy for abandoning cable. Crazy? Or perhaps was it the smartest idea you ever heard!

When they flipped the switch and the cable came on, I was getting everything. I was only supposed to get like 10 channels, but I had something like 700. So, of course I spent hours looking through my newfound wealth of televised content.

Somewhere in the wee hours on Cinemax I discovered something strange. It’s porn that isn’t really porn. It wants you to think it’s porn. But it’s not. I saw completely naked people who were supposed to be humping. But they weren’t doing it right. It was just so wrong the way they were “doing it”, it was really un-sexy. Thus was born my latest controversial theory. We are now misdirecting a generation of youth on how to hump. You know they’re watching this stuff, even though they’re not supposed to. And they think that’s how it’s supposed to be done.

Two or three years from now, watch out. Bad humpers for sure.

Went back to LA to do some more work on the Friendster Stacked promo. First stop: get my Pontiac Grand Am or equivalent from Hertz. Well, they were all out of their Pontiac Grand Ams or equivalent, so they offered me some crappy Fort Taurus. I haggled a bit and managed to get a luxury model Hyundai with a sunroof. Hello sunshine! Or smogshine. Take your pick.

After a crazy long work day, I checked in to my hotel room at the classic art-deco Argyle Hotel on Sunset. They told me that my room had been upgraded. This room was almost as big as my pad in SF. Clearly they saw me roll up in my luxury Hyundai and knew that I was a man of means…and possibly even a celebrity.

If I hadn’t been so tired I might have been able to figure out how to parlay my upgraded car and room into some other free stuff, like a star on the Hollywood walk of fame or something.

They say that all good things come to an end. They don’t tell you about the secret extra part of that saying that says “after good things come to an end, expect a bunch of crappy things to start happening”.

After living a month-long fantasy life of rubbing elbows with celebrities in LA and jet setting in France, London, and New York, I came back home to discover it’s not a bright idea to leave your trash alone for that long. Gnats or fruit flies or some kind of annoying tiny winged things had taken root in the kitchen.

Then I went to start my car. Dead. Apparently my car battery doesn’t like to be ignored for a month.

Next, I woke up wheezing and started coughing so hard I was giving myself a headache. Went to the doctor and found out I got viral bronchitis. That means I’ll be coughing for weeks. Perhaps months. It also means my Jewish Italian mother will be calling me for weeks or months worrying about my cough and telling me to take it easy and asking me if anything I plan on doing is a good idea over and over again.

Then I came back from work and opened my bag to switch out my sunglasses for my regular glasses. I found the glasses case in my bag, but no glasses. My glasses fell out somewhere. Arrgh!

Please make it stop…