I wonder if he used 1-800-Dentist

As I've mentioned before, I'm one of the few Depeche Mode fans who doesn't fast forward through Martin's songs or use his solos at a concert for a bathroom break or concession run.  I think he is adorable and I like the fact that 98% of DM music comes from inside him.  Dave is just a mouthpiece (for the most part), but a dang good one... I will give him that.

But, I am a lover of the Floof.  I was perusing some recent photos of Floof online and found something was different, but couldn't quite put my finger on it.  Was it just his Southern California tan that had replaced his British pallor?  Was it the fact that the Floof was well-maintained and more natural and less bleached?  No?  What is it then.   It was at that point that my friend Holly pointed it out.  His TEETH!

First up, he is actually smiling.  If you look at most all photos of him, he is usually not smiling or smiling with his mouth closed.  At some point in the last couple years, Mart got his teeth fixed. Like really fixed. He had some seriously jacked noshers. The interesting part is that I definitely prefer his jacked up British teeth. Not sure why... maybe because they made him look dangerous. Or maybe just gave him character.

You can really see them in this video.  Great song too.  

So what do you think... better old or better new?

F-R-E-E that spells Free

No this is not a post about Freecreditreport.com.  But I bet you have that song in your head now!

I will forever be an Oakley customer.   They have, hands down, the best customer service ever!  I bought my first pair back in 2003.  I had never spent more than $15 on a pair of sunglasses in my life because they were destined to be ruined by the end of the summer.  So, dropping $175 on a pair was quite reckless for me.  I got a pair of the black A-wires and they were like but-tah.  Couldn't even tell they were on my face except for the fact that I wasn't blinded by the sun.

I took meticulous care of my expensive frames.  That was until January 1, 2005. My Mom and I were at Disneyland and as I pulled them out of my hoodie pocket, an arm got caught and they fumbled out of my hands.  Right into the path of my Mom.  In the exact same second that they hit the ground, my Mom's Nike shoe crunched them into oblivion.  I was in shock.  So was my Mom when I told her how much they cost!

The next day, we headed over to the Oakley Headquarters in Foothill Ranch, which is conveniently located about 15 minutes from my house.  If you've never been there, it's quite the intimidating building! They have a cool store and the aforementioned customer service inside.  I turned over the mangled frame to the tech and he returned with a brand-spanking new pair for low low price of $50.  I told my Mom that was a great deal, so we happily forked over the cashola and left.  Okay, I was happy.  My Mom, not so much.

Fast forward about 2 years.  Still wearing the same glasses and still loving them, I noticed that the "ear sox" on the ends of the arms were starting to fray.  Ear sox are little rubber sleeves on the ear pieces.  I also noticed that one of the arms was a bit looser than the other.  When I took them into the Customer Service, the guy said that they would just give me a whole new frame!  FOR FREE!  I took that offer for sure and went on my way with a practically brand new pair.

Throughout the life of my glasses, I've gone in for free ear sox and free nose piece replacement periodically.  That in and of itself is great for customer loyalty.  The greatest challenge was yet to come.

Tuesday of last week, I was coming back to work from a long meeting.  I was tired.  I was careless.  My shoe fell off.  As I reached down to put it back on, I had my sunglasses in my hand.  The arm of my glasses got caught on my pant leg and as my foot went down and my arm came up, the glasses got bent.  Like really bent.  Like so bent that one of the lenses popped out.  %#&^!!!!!  I really thought that this was it.  There is just no way that they could be fixed.  Right?  

Well, I went back to Customer Service to show them the latest accident my glasses had been in.  The guy had bad news.  He said that that frame had been discontinued and they didn't have a replacement.  However, he said to give him a few minutes and he would see what he could do.  He came back in about 3 minutes 47 seconds with my glasses restored to their former glory!  Unbelievable!   He even replaced the nose pieces.  All for FREE!!!  I have no idea how he did it.  They are slightly looser than they were before, but hey.  They have 2 lenses and aren't all bent out of shape.  No complaints here.

In the same week I thought I lost my beloved pair, I also got a new pair.  Tammy was gracious enough to hook me up with a pair through her super-secretive Oakley connection.   Here's me in my new ones.  Don't worry, I still wear the old ones.  We've been though a lot together.  

Tourist fun in your own town

So this past weekend my BFF Sara was in town visiting.  Okay, so she wasn't here so much to see me as she was to see Depeche Mode, but still...

While she was here, we made a fun-packed weekend of the few days we had together.  When she got to town, the first thing on the list was Mexican food.  If you're from around here, then you don't know how pathetic Mexican food can be in the midwest.  I seriously can no longer eat the salsa there because it's like having chunky ketchup.  I took Sara to one of my favorite places to chill, the Rose Canyon Cantina, that Lori introduced me to.  It's a great little hideaway down in the canyon which has an amazing patio situated among the oak trees.  

Sunday was the day we had been excited about for about 4 months.  We headed out for a walk in the morning and checked out the Ladera Grand Prix, an annual bike race that takes place practically on my street.   That wasn't the exciting part.  We were off to LA to see Depeche Mode.  DM has been one of my favorite bands since middle school.  Sara and I met Penny and Lori over at Lori's house before we went to Irvine to meet up with Andrew and Lori's friend Debbie.  The concert was AMAZING!!!   We were seriously hoping it wouldn't be cancelled like the previous too shows and we we not disappointed.  

I could go on and on about DM, but I won't.  I will say that they played one of my absolute fave songs... "Home".  It's one of the few Martin performs and it's so sad to see the crowd head for the concessions when he gets up to sing.  This is a great video of him performing in Seattle. I literally got goosebumps. I don't know what the significance is of his hand movements, but they're cute. He's really into it.

It was interesting to see the shape of the Floof this time around.  If you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, then you must not be a big DM fan because all DM fans know that the Floof is the entity that is Martin's hair.  We have witnessed it change forms and even take on a life of it's own.  If you want a brief history of the Floof, check this out.  

Full House House Sham

I just want to clear up something really quick. As unbelievable as it sounds, I just had a heated internet argument (if you will) about the Full House House. How did this become a heated argument you ask? Well, I will tell you.

I visited San Francisco in 2005.

While visiting, we stopped by this park in front of the famous "Painted Ladies". Recognize them?

If you said they are the homes from Full House, then you are partially correct. If you said one of them is the Tanner's house, you are flat out WRONG.  

Let's establish that this is in fact the house from the opening credits of the show:

Believe me.  I grew up in the 90s and have probably had the pleasure of watching every one of the bazillion episodes once if not twice.  Note here the placement of the bay windows. Also note that their house is shown to have a flat roof, not a gabled roof as seen above.  The fact is, these "Painted Ladies" are a row of Victorian houses bordering Alamo Square park in San Francisco.  Trust me.  I was there.  The Tanner family didn’t live there and they didn’t know anybody who lived there and they weren’t welcome inside. The only connection is that the Tanners had a picnic in the park during the intro song to make you think they lived there, like the posers they were.

The notion that the Tanners lived in one of these historic homes is ludicrous considering that no one in the family worked except Danny and his morning TV host salary would not be able to support his immediate family of 4 in this over-priced city, let alone all the other hangers-on including all the food Kimmy Gibler ate. 

I realize it's confusing.  We wanted to believe that that was their neighborhood.  But it was a trick and we all need to deal with it and move on.  The producers probably wanted to use these landmarks as the Tanner's house, but couldn't afford the rights.  They probably couldn't show the Tanners picnicking in front of their own house because they couldn't move the homeless bums and crack dealers off the sidewalk.  

You say 'erb', I say 'herb'... because there's a #$%& H in it.

Around this neck of the woods, there are many places, streets, and cities that are named with Spanish words. Go figure. It wasn't all that odd to me, coming from a midwest city like St. Louis where many streets and cities have names with French origins. Although, I must say that the big difference is that Spanish names are pronounced correctly here (for the most part, read on) whereas French words are butchered in St. Louis. (Gravois anyone? Grav-wha or Grav-oy? Grav-oy of course! :P)

I should say that "most" Spanish words are pronounced correctly. When I was new here, I would listen to how locals referred to names of places so that I wouldn't look foolish and bring out my midwest accent. (I KNOW there is no "R" in wash... but sometimes it just sounds that way.)

Anyone who has watched Sesame Street knows that the letter "J" is pronounced as an "H" in Spanish. This is just a way to trick English speakers because really, it is quite ridiculous. Just like how all the vowels are misnamed. A = "ah" E = "ay" I = "ee" O = 'oh' U = 'oo'. 

Anyway, back to my story.  There are several streets that begin with the letter "J" where they are pronounced with an "H" sound. One such example is Junipero Serra.  So, naturally, when you see the street name "Jeronimo" you would say "Heronimo" right?  Wrong. People call it "Geronimo". I have no idea why. Honestly, I try to avoid speaking that street name aloud because I'm just really not sure.

There are other funny street names around here. The Spanish naming convention often results in long street names (especially in nearby Rancho Santa Margarita - even the city name is long!) where they have streets like Avenida de Las Flores (avenue of flowers), Avenida de Los Fundadores (avenue of the founders), and Avenida de Las Banderas (avenue of flags).  What's great about Banderas is that it crosses Antonio Parkway. The intersection is Antonio Banderas. Someone has a sense of humor!

My apartment isn't so bad...

This weekend I was bored and so Tammy and I decided to go look at condos for sale. The market has gone down so much that it's not AS depressing to go see what properties are out there. Most have dropped 40-50% in value since the market crash.

Walking through the condos made me realize some of the things that I could not live without. First and foremost, inside laundry. Do people still go to laundromats? I guess I've been spoiled with a full size washer and dryer in my apartment, but I couldn't live without them. Another thing is a master bathroom. What is the deal with having a jack and jill bathroom connecting the so-called master to the hallway? How is that a MASTER bedroom when by definition a master has it's own private bathroom?

Some of the layouts were just awkward and had poor use of space. For example, a Ladera condo I was really looking forward to seeing was so disappointing. First of all, it was very long and skinny like a row house and since it was attached on one side, there were no windows. It would be like living in a tunnel. Upstairs there were 3 bedrooms. The master bedroom had an odd, very industrial looking metal spiral staircase going up to a small square loft with 2 windows. It looked either like a treehouse or a prison, depending on your mood.

Another condo was also for sale in the same tract, but not open to walk through. it looked promising enough in the online photo:













However, upon seeing it in person, we quickly realized that the condo was SQUISHED between two others like a shim! Check out how close the front doors of the neighbors are! I mean the condo looks like it's about the same width as a double-wide! In fact, a double-wide might be bigger!