So I am doing this thing with the typewriters. I place typewriters around Governor’s Island and let people type whatever they want on them to make an “Analog Internet.” I finally have all the typewriters I need, but now I must get typewriter ribbon. Real pain in the ass. However this is New York. You can get everything here. From seventeenth-century Russian tea cups to Chinatown turtles that have salmonella.

Anyway there’s this stationary store next to my office that’s been there for, I dunno, a thousand years. It’s kind of charming. Very disorganized. I think they have a cat. There’s a big sign in the window that says WE HAVE FILOFAX REFILLS. I mean who has Filofax anymore? Maybe the kind of person who ALSO has typewriter ribbons! Ah, I am smart. I go in.

“Hi there, do you have typewriter ribbon by any chance?”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”
“OK nevermind.”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! A TYPEWRITER? ARE YOU KIDDING?”
“No, I’m serious. I need just the ribbon.”
“HAHAHAHAHAH! WHO USES A TYPEWRITER ANYMORE? HAHAHA I’VE NEVER HEARD ANYTHING THAT FUNNY IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!”
“Yeah that’s great. Do you know of a place that might have….”
“HAHAHAHA! A TYPEWRITER! ARE YOU FOR REAL? WHAT? YOU LIVE IN THE ICE AGES?”
“No, it’s for a project…”
“A TYPEWRITER! TYPEWRITER RIBBON! I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS. WHERE DO YOU WORK? THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY?”
“Alright, thank you.”
“No, no we have it, it’s on that wall.”
I look at the wall. It’s not the right typewriter ribbon. In fact, it’s INK CARTRIDGES.
“Uh no, that’s not it.”
“HAHAHAHA I KNOW THAT’S FOR PRINTERS. MAYBE YOU SHOULD GET ONE.”
“Thanks, have a nice…”
“NO WAIT! Let me make some calls.”
He calls up someone.
“PAUL? YOU THERE? PAUL? HAHAHAH SOME LADY HERE NEEDS TYPEWRITER RIBBON, CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? YOU DO THAT KIND OF STUFF RIGHT?”

So the people who advertise proudly that they have FILOFAX REFILLS cannot even BELIEVE people use typewriters. This is insane. I mean does anyone use organizers anymore? Not even soccer moms use that shit. At least typewriters, you know, look cool.Hemingway wrote all of his books on a typewriter. You know Hemingway right? He used to work for the Museum of Natural History.

Anyway, the douche sends me to Paul. Paul’s ’store’ is not really a store. More like an office on the fourth floor filled with crap. Paul’s place is wall to wall typewriters. They repair typewriters. The antique, dope kind. The kind that I have. I get my typewriter ribbon. This is ALL THAT FIRST GUY HAD TO SAY. “Sorry lady, we don’t carry typewriter ribbon here, but why not visit Paul, down the block. He specializes in antique typewriters.” That’s all he had to say. I mean really, how hard is that?

Then on my way home, I was behind a guy who was smoking and then he FLICKED HIS CIGARETTE BEHIND HIM which then HIT ME IN THE LEG. And he had absolutely NO idea. I wanted to sucker punch him. I just stood there kind of shocked. I mean who flicks a cigarette BEHIND them. No one does that. This is how fires get started and San Diego burns down. This is also how people catch on fire. Just saying. Plus it’s rush hour, there should be no flicking of cigarettes in a crowded street. I mean just throw it down and step on it, right? So there’s this guy standing near me and he was like “Make him apologize to you! Go!” But by that point smoker was gone. The guy was obviously smoking pole since he was such an enormous dick.

So today, I got a double-helping of douchery. A double-helping! I was trying to cut down on the douchery, you know, to look good in a bathing suit this summer. (Ha ha ha JK I avoid the beach because I hear there is sunshine there and I don’t really do well under those conditions.) So, in short, once again, people are dicks. I know I’ve said this before and I should expect it, but really it just constantly surprises me. I guess this is the “mystery of life” people are always talking about.

The Europeans are taking over New York City because the dollar is like the limp-wristed kid in gym class that gets shoved in a locker and the Euro is all hopped on on roids and captain of the varsity football team. So now everyday I hear people say “Oh it eez zooo cheap here!” and a little piece of me dies. Yesterday I bought half a sandwich, soup, and a coffee and it cost like eleven dollars. It was one of those situations where you are in the line and you are like, eleven dollars? Really? Can I return the coffee?

Anyway so this European stopped me for directions and I gave it to him. I get stopped for directions all the time because I look non-threatening. That is what happens when you are Asian. You look non-threatening. Even if you are holding sweet ninja stars, people will be like, those are sweet Hello Kitty ninja stars, also, where is the Apple store? Anyway I don’t really mind. So I told this guy where he could find the Apple store so he could buy like six iPhones because they are so cheap. (The Apple store is actually limiting how many you can buy.) Anyway I tell him very nicely and then he says,

“Arrigato!”

BLEARH!

Are you kidding me? I cannot STAND this. If I had a drink in my hand I would’ve thrown it in his face. This is why I should always have a drink in my hand. So I can throw it in people’s faces. I’ve never done that before, but it looks very satisfying. Once in London, Rosalyne (who is Taiwanese) and I were in some bar and this guy came up to us and bowed and said “Arrigato” and we were both like. No. That’s rude and tried to explain it. And the dude just couldn’t understand. So we gave up. There is no cure for stupidity, that was a harsh lesson learned, my friends.

So I guess the lesson here is that if you see an Asian on the street, please don’t say “arrigato.” Instead say “ni ho ma” or just give them the finger.

On a separate note, Hello Kitty ninja stars would be amazing.

I was watching Predator the other day. It was on Spike TV. I think Predator is always on Spike TV. Anyway, that movie is so sweet. Both Jesse “the Body” Ventura and the Governator are in that movie. So there are TWO actors in Predator who eventually became governors. But wait, the guy who plays the Native American who is of course, all in tune with nature, is a man named Sonny Lapham who is not at all Native American but plays one on TV. He actually ran for governor of Kentucky but dropped out. Fairly recently. Isn’t that crazy? It blew my mind a little. I bet you Carl Weathers will run too. I’d totally vote for him.

I just had some pineapple and my tongue is very itchy. I want to scratch that crap out of it. It would really suck to get gonorrhea of the mouth from a pineapple. Oh god, it kind of burns too. I am told it will go away. It has not gone away. I should cut my tongue out, just like in Oldboy and like Dead or Alive or whatever that movie was. Anyway if I cut my tongue out, people would cheer, they’d be like, finally, she shut the hell up! We are winners! But then people forget that I write for a living. I’ll never shut up. Joke is on YOU! Ha ha ha!

Tonight the office is having a “pool party” and at first I was like dude, it’s raining and freezing out. And then I read the fine print and it’s pool as in billiards. Which is a lot warmer. However, I suck HORRIBLY at pool. I mean say what you will about bowling and my Granny Tortoise Style, which I should actually trademark so others do not bite my sweet technique, but I cannot apply GTS to billiards. I’ve thought it through and it just seems totally impossible. Part of the problem is that since I am on the short side of human, my arms are also on the short side. I need arm extensions. Maybe I can get one with hooks because I’ve kind of always wanted that. HOOKS dude! Hooks! You guys remember Police Academy? She was the officer who was really soft spoken and then at the end she’d go FREEZE DIRTBAG! And then everyone would laugh oh that Hooks, what a card. I think she did it at the end of each of those stupid movies. I think there were probably like a hundred Police Academy movies. Anyway I loved the Police Academies when I was little, but let me tell you, I had horrible taste in movies when I was little. Good god they are so bad, I was an idiot when I was nine.

You know how when people say “I’m a nice person, but . . .” then they say something that makes them clearly not a nice person, and maybe more like a dick. But since they preceded it with “I’m a nice person . . .” it is like suddenly they have a free pass to be a dick, just this once since clearly they have never, ever, ever been a dick before and are always nice. Anyway I am a nice person because I gave the huge silver yoga ball that JoMo stole from the Beaux Arts Ball to the yoga studio I go to and they were very excited because they don’t really have the funds to buy their own yoga balls because only five people go there. So I have done my good deed for the day to show that I can actually be a nice person. But I guess that means normally I am a dick. So in this case I should say, “I’m a dick, but I donated the yoga ball to the yoga people.” But of course I am not being that nice since I didn’t actually pay for the ball and in fact it was stolen, though not by me. So I guess that brings us back to the original point, which is that I am a dick but not the biggest dick ever since I didn’t steal, which means that JoMo is the biggest dick ever, which he is anyway since he doesn’t read this blog and therefore got a Shoutdown in some previous post where I gave the Shoutdowns. God this is all so terribly confusing.

So in conclusion: I am a dick, but I am occasionally nice. Also, JoMo is a dick. I think that covers it up and I really should’ve written that to begin with. Now you are there scratching your heads being like, dude, this doesn’t even make sense. And then I would have to agree with you because in addition to being a dick, I am also agreeable, which seems at odds with each other, but if jumbo shrimp can exist, so can agreeable dicks, right? I like Fig Newtons.

Let’s talk about bowling. Bowling is the only thing my doctor has told me to avoid completely: “Your tendonitis is bullshit, don’t go bowling because it will break your fingers in half.” OK she didn’t say that exactly, but you get the idea. I said I would never go bowling because who even GOES bowling in the first place? I do not live in 1955. The only bowling people do now is on Wii and even then we all know Mario Tennis is better. Like I do not think it will be a problem to avoid bowling. It’s not like avoiding wheat or dairy (on a side note I had to go on a wheat- and dairy-free diet to figure out some allergy issues and I was totally angry and hungry all the time so I caved in after two weeks and told my doctor at the time that I rather die tomorrow by eating pasta than live forever and never eating toast again, and then he kind of gave me that passive-aggressive thing that doctors do, as if to say, sure, fine, WHATEVER, it’s your life and you’re going to die but hey, don’t let ME stop YOU from eating your precious toast. And I’m like holy shit am I paying you to be a total dick? So then I left for another doctor who was like yeah I’m not gonna force you to do anything unless you are in the throes of death because I am not a jerk. She is the best.) Anyway, what I mean to say is that not bowling is not a problem.

But then Pony came to visit from Hawaii and the whole office decided hey, let’s go bowling. And then I gave about a thousand other suggestions that does NOT involve bowling, such as air hockey, ping pong, skee ball, and trapeze lessons, which all got shot down because everyone I work with, especially Pony, is a real douchemeister. YES YOU HEAR THAT? YOU ARE A DOUCHEMEISTER.

But hey, I am a team player. I figure, I will go bowling but I will not bowl. I will watch and drink beer. Delicious beer full of wheat.

Done and done.

Anyway while at the alley, I figured out a new way to bowl that does not require me to break my fingers in half. It was a technique I knew would make all my coworkers talk mad shit and make fun of me but by that point I was drunk so who cares. They are all douchemeisters anyway. So I walk up as far as I can go in the lane and then do a granny roll between my legs, but I do it, very, very slowly with very, very little spin on it. It kind of just rolls straight ahead and then hits the pins squarely in the middle, and then I get a strike. Yes. That is HOW YOU DO IT. I was the winner and I was victorious. Granny tortoise style, much better than the crane or praying mantis style. Jackie Chan would be like, whoa, wtf, I am going to cop that shit for my next movie. And then Jet Li would do it. And then Steven Seagal would do it but like, no one would care. And then some place, somewhere, Jean Claude Van Damme would be like, I am going to make Bloodsport 8 in tortoise style and everyone would be confused because they thought Van Dam was dead and then he’d have to explain, no, I’m not dead, I’m just Belgian. And people would be like oh right, Belgian, like the waffles, you know, I thought you were Danish, like the pastry. And then Van Damme would sulk and get his fake tan on.

So bowling: I give you the thumbs up.

God I almost forgot that today is April Fool’s Day. So that means everyone has to watch this video because that is what you are supposed to do for April Fool’s Day.

You are also supposed to watch this one, but it’s kind of “played out” you know what I mean? But it’s still classic. It will make you wail on your guitar and kick your mother in the face. This video will melt your face and blow your mind.

In other news, I slammed my hand in the door and now it is kind of, sort of, HOZED. I don’t know how I exactly did it, but it got pinned between the door and the wall. Seriously no idea. But all of the sudden I screamed like a little girl and then hunched over and stuck my hand between my legs because for some reason when people hurt their hand, they stick it between their legs. You see ball players do it all the time. You also see them adjust their junk but that is a different story. Anyway, it’s not like in an erotic way, but more like OH GOD THIS HURTS SO BAD WHAT CAN I DO? I BETTER STICK IT BETWEEN MY THIGHS. Anyway it is bruised now. I am trying to avoid the letters a, q, and z but it is difficult.

And I discovered more pee in the stairway. This time on the seventh floor landing.

Happy holidays, everyone.

I am cleaning out my apartment in order to turn my 187 square foot COMPARTMENT into a PALACE. How do I do this? I’m glad you asked! It is a very complicated process, but I like to think of it more as a voyage of discovery. I am thinking that as I clean out my junk, my crap, my shit, my detritus, and my late 90’s and early ought clothing, I will actually find a door that leads down a hallway into ANOTHER ROOM and I will discover that this entire time I was actually living in a ONE BEDROOM PALACE and not a COMPARTMENT. Then all of the sudden I will realize I am getting a very, very good deal on my PALACE. By the look on your face, I see that you are very excited.

What I discovered on my voyage of discovery is that I am really just keeping the same amount of shit, but reorganizing it so they are in different boxes. This creates a problem. In order to turn my compartment into a PALACE I actually have to get rid of things, as in move items from my compartment to a location off the premises, most likely the trash or Goodwill. What I found is that I actually don’t have a lot of stuff. My apartment makes it seem as if I have two tons of shit crammed in a one ton truck. But actually, I have probably half a cup of shit, but my apartment can only take 3 teaspoons of it. Therein lies my problem.

I wish that as a like, totally famous writer, oh my god, I lived in more glamorous conditions, but instead I live in a compartment surrounded by my own shit. I have to say it’s really nice shit though. I mean look at my table. It’s from IKEA. Nice right? It even has a funny name. I also found a big bag of Homies which I decided I could not part with and instead, I will be giving them away to my peoples. If you want a homie, email me and I will mail you one for the low, low price of free. Because, like I said, you are my peoples.

I am walking down the street with Mr. Morrison. We are discussing dry cleaning for some reason. Since my family is Korean and know the owners of every dry cleaner in the greater Los Angeles area, I wait until I visit to dry clean EVERY ITEM OF CLOTHING I OWN. Seriously. I hate paying for dry cleaning. It’s like paying for toilet paper. I wonder, why the hell do I have to pay for this crap if I’m gonna wipe my butt with it? Seems unreasonable. It should be free. Everyone uses air, and that’s free. Why should toilet paper be any different? If you vote me president, I promise free toilet paper and in addition, ending the war. I’d also levy a huge fine on people who don’t pick up after their dogs and people who do not laugh at my jokes. You think I’m joking? Being president is a very serious job, I don’t know if you know that. That’s not to say that I use my dry cleaning to wipe my ass, but I could since my dry cleaning is free and therefore cheaper than toilet paper. I think I’m overexplaining here, I hate when I do that. OK back to the story.

Anyway, a late nineties Civic is stuck in traffic on Sixth Avenue (ha ha ha I mean Avenue of the Americas). There is very bad music coming out. It sounds like Korn or something like that. I don’t even know what Korn sounds like, but I’m 99% sure it’s Korn. Korn is really hardcore because of their use of the K. All really hardcore things use a K, like kasserole, kite, kanana, and kookie. So you know Korn is like, wow, you guys must really rock. Not like that fake Led Zeppelin “band,” I mean they don’t even have a K IN THEIR NAME. Maybe if they were Ked Zeppelin they’d be a lot bigger and things would be different. Anyway this dude in the passenger seat rolls down his window and yells at us, HEY! YOU READ MUCH?

I am like, huh? So, I say, Huh? I SAID, DO YOU READ MUCH? Then he laughs and they drive off. I kind of don’t get it, until Morrison points out that we both wear glasses and that the car is from Jersey. Because most people who drive up Avenue of Americas (ha ha ha I mean Sixth Avenue) in my hood, are coming from the Holland, which is like a big urinary tract that empties in Jersey. That is to say, if you are from Jersey you might think reading is, like, a bad thing and you should make fun of people who might actually do it and, holy shit, actually enjoy it. OH MY GOD YOU TOTAL LOSER. And if you wear glasses you must read “much” and therefore you should be stuffed in a locker. The point is, I don’t think everyone from Jersey sucks, but that if you are listening to Korn and you are from Jersey and you might, just might, BE A TOTAL DOUCHEBAG.

And the sad part, is that I don’t read enough. I don’t even write enough. Given that is what I do for a living, it is a very complicated and sad situation.

I can’t tell if the universe is like, hey Annie, I am down with you let’s be BFF 4-eva k thx or if the universe is like, hey Annie, I hate you and I will slap you on the mouth.

About two weeks ago, I had band practice. You know how moving is a pain in the ass, with all the packing up heavy stuff and moving heavy stuff and then unpacking heavy stuff? Well basically everytime I have band practice it is like moving. It SUCKS. Monthly spaces are too expensive, so we use hourly spaces and that means we have to HAUL HEAVY SHIT across town. So to make my life easier, Heather keeps my xylophone for me because she doesn’t have to bring anything with her, except for her voice, which is pretty portable last time I checked. Meanwhile Andy and I have to bring like two tons of shit. Which is fine. I will move heavy things in the name of rock. DO YOU SEE HOW DEDICATED I AM?

Anyway she accidentally left it in a cab two weeks ago and we basically went into oh-shit mode. That is when you say “Oh shit” several times in a row, in case you are wondering. We filed a report with the Lost Property Unit. This sounds more official than it really is. Basically you call, leave a sobbing message about your lost property, and then no one calls you back because there are more important things the NYPD does than look for your stupid xylophone, like track down criminals and tow cars. Then we called every taxi garage in Long Island City and Manhattan to no avail. There’s literally like 50 garages in Manhattan alone. So as a last-ditch effort, I posted an ad on Craigslist’s Lost & Found, which is like a forum of desperation. It’s full of people who have lost their cute pets and their iPods and their wallets and their grandmother’s wedding ring and it’s like you KNOW no one is ever going to find anything. But I posted anyway. Long shot. Now we have a show coming up so I thought, OK. I have buy another one. THIS SUCKS. So I bought one on Ebay.

Last night I got an email from a woman who was trolling on Craigslist and she happened to work for Checker Cab. And she happened across my ad AND OH MY GOD SHE HAS MY XYLOPHONE. One of her drivers brought it in. I almost peed myself. I was like HOLY SHIT ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? What are the odds?

Then I thought. WAIT A SECOND. I just BOUGHT a new one and can’t return it because it was from Ebay. So that is when I realized the universe was taking a piss on me. I am standing here, wet from piss. I can tell you right now the universe had asparagus for dinner last night.

So now I have TWO xylophones. TWO! That’s one more than I need, and like TWO more than normal people need.

If you are not normal and want a xylophone I will sell one to you.

If you already have a xylophone, and want another one, I will sell one to you.

And in an unrelated note, we just got an email from a kid “What do emo people do? What is emo exactly?”