"Your cologne smells like you took a bunch of flowers and rammed them up my nose with chopsticks."

Do you want to disguise your true identity, infiltrate top-secret government buildings, and disable nuclear missiles that have already been launched? There's an app for that.

"The problem with looking young is that you either have to date a pedophile, or be one."

A couple of years ago, after watching Revenge of the Fallen, I swore that I would never again subject myself to the torture of viewing metal-on-metal violent porn directed by Michael Bay. However, since I'm only in Seattle once a year, I will occasionally disregard my principles in order to do something at my family's bidding, which in this case, was sitting through a movie rental that happened to be the third installment of the Transformers trilogy.

While my complaints against the movie are many - corny dialogue, egregious treatment of women, suspension of not just plain old disbelief but all-out incredulity, and the literal deus ex machina towards the end come to mind - my biggest gripe against the film is that it NEVER ENDS.

Does Michael Bay actually think that Dark of the Moon is some sort of cinematic masterpiece? What a self-indulgent and hopelessly oblivious prickhole. According to the DVD, the movie's runtime is 154 minutes - about 150 minutes too long in my opinion, and a modest estimate considering it felt more like six hours. So please, moviemakers, do us all a favor and try to be a little more self-aware. If you're going to produce an enormous, disgusting, hot, stinking piece of crap in order to lure in the masses and make a quick buck, then make it a quick movie. Don't pretend that it's art and don't try to fool anyone into thinking that it will get better, because it won't. You still get to charge the same price for theater tickets and rentals, and I'll be less mad at my family for making me watch it. Everyone wins!

And family, please, I beg of you. I'll do whatever you want. I will wear the hideous holiday sweater. I will stay in on the weekend and play card games with the family. I will attend church and not ask the pastor questions he won't be able to answer. I will visit relatives I don't like that I never hear from anyway but am obliged to sit through dinner with. I will partake of that dish that looks like vomit. I will hold the newborn baby from that random acquaintance and pretend it is cute and try really hard not to drop it. I will go shopping and buy things you don't need so that on Christmas Day I can wrap them up and give them to you and get in return things I don't need. But I will not, will not, WILL NOT watch another freaking Transformers movie!

"It's okay. No Missus to blatantly lie to this Christmas!"

I'm supposed to be on vacation but I'm actually working. That's right; it's 3 in the morning and I'm still up, trying to cram what should have been two weeks worth of careful research and thoughtful writing into one night of hasty Googling and unedited typing to submit to a very (understandably) impatient magazine editor, who not coincidentally, happens to be a former English professor of mine at UCI.

I was so sure when I graduated that those college all-nighters were behind me, once and for all. Clearly, I knew very little about what it really means to be a writer. When Hank Moody said, "Don't be a writer; it's like having homework every day for the rest of your life," he wasn't kidding.

Oh well. I'm pretty sure I'll pull it off. It worked when I was taking English from the very same guy, and he asked me to do this article for his magazine, so he must like my last-minute writing.

"Life is just a bunch of and-then-whats."

LAX to SFO to SEA, write about the Occupy Movement on my laptop while supposedly spending Christmas with the family, fly back to LAX just in time to drive off to Vegas and ring in the New Year with friends, then back to the City of Angels again, where at some point I will have to resume working in an office and paying rent like a normal person. It's going to be a very postmodern holiday season.

"The only problem with a 20-year-old body is that it comes with a 20-year-old brain."

I've been back in L.A. for a few days now, but have been a little too preoccupied to write anything new. First of all, I have been trying for months to secure a freelance gig that may or may not pay, and may or may not get me published, in a magazine that may or may not have a circulation of almost 500 people, and this past week was the first where I was more than 50% convinced that something might come out of all the emails between the editor and myself. This is primarily because he is being a bit more responsive than normal and seems to need me on the job. Second, I'm a little behind schedule at the gig that does pay. Third, I lost my iPhone, and getting back on the communication grid has been more or less of an ordeal.

But now I'm here, sitting at my computer (in my underwear, of course), and trying to kill time while I build a custom .ipsw file for my "new" iPhone 3GS, which is really a downgrade from the 4 that I previously had but lost. Unlike other humans who are here because of Darwinian natural selection, I did not have any anti-theft devices in place on my phone. Passcode lock? Had it, got annoyed every time I needed to use the navigation system while driving. Find My iPhone? I wasn't even aware of the app's existence until the night I lost my phone, at which point it was too late anyway. Besides, it only runs on iOS 5 and I was still on Firmware 4.1. And trust me, I called and texted my number a million times, making pathetic appeals to the new owner's nonexistent conscience. I suppose giving up your conscience for a $700 phone is a fair trade.

I hate people. Especially poor people. Especially poor people with no credit that can't get an iPhone of their own.

But Reeny, you might say, you're poor (all writers are), and you owe Uncle Sam a lot of money for putting you through college, so your credit's probably not fantastic at the moment...

Shut it.

***

I wrote all of the above two days ago, left it in draft form, and forgot to publish it. Basically, my phone had finished installing the firmware and I got distracted with setting it up. Oh well. Read on for my two-day update.

***

Here's a bit of advice for smartphone users: never downgrade to an older model. After a year of looking at pictures and applications on an iPhone 4, going back to a 3GS is like taking out my contacts and viewing the world through a bubble-wrap lens.

That is all.