I’ve been riding Bike 2.0 around a lot – partly to break it in, and partly because of an ear infection that’s keeping me out of the pool until after Thanksgiving.

Since I ride on the Pacific Coast Highway and through Westwood Village quite a bit, I see a lot of really stupid driver behavior when it comes to dealing with bicyclists.

Mostly it’s obvious stuff like failing to check a frakkin’ bike lane for oncoming bikes before opening car doors into them, or weaving all over the place when there are a) bikers everywhere and b) tons of “SHARE THE ROAD” signs indicating that even if you don’t see them now, there are lots of bikers who use this road.

Once in a while, something will stand out as particularly stupid. Monday, I thought it was going to be the woman who looked me straight in the eye as she opened her car door right into my path. But no, I found a much, much greater stupidity.

I was coming up PCH right around here, headed back towards the Santa Monica pier to go home. There was a homeless guy pushing about four shopping carts up the shoulder. He was walking against traffic, which basically meant right at me.

The shoulder at this point is not wide enough to accommodate parked cars, me on my bike, and a homeless guy pushing four shopping carts, so I looked over my shoulder to see oncoming traffic in the lane I would have to briefly pull into. There was one car, but after that, my lane was clear.

I made a hand signal as I approached the homeless guy, pulled very slightly into the lane, and then WHOOSH. A mid ’90s beater of a Ford Taurus that had apparently been in the other lane comes flying by me, missing me by about a foot.

That’s pretty damn stupid on its own, but here’s the really stupid part: This car’s passenger door swings WIDE open. If it had come open about a second earlier, it would easily have knocked me off my bike and probably injured me fairly seriously.

The door just swung there in the breeze for about ten seconds, an empty garbage bag fluttering in the breeze from the passenger seat, and then a hand from the passenger seat nonchalantly reached over and pulled it shut as the car zipped along at 50mph, like this shit happens all the time.

I really couldn’t think of anything to do but just shout at the car, “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!” at the top of my lungs, and then start laughing.

I mean really, if the door had hit me the chances that a) they would have even stopped or b) they would have had insurance if they had stopped were pretty  low. If you can’t even get your car fixed so your door doesn’t swing open when you change lanes, odds are you’re too broke to buy insurance.

And the only reason I was anywhere near that door was that some homeless dude decided it’d be a grand idea to push a bunch of shopping carts several miles up from the nearest store that actually HAS shopping carts.

The odds of those two bits of stupidity happening to converge at one specific point in time are minuscule, and I’m lucky that the even more minuscule chance that it would have wound up with my ass splattered all over the pavement (again) didn’t wind up happening.

But sometimes, you just have to laugh at how incredibly, dangerously, hilariously stupid people are.

Very, very little is happening in my world right now, and there are two things to blame for this. One is a usual suspect: Unemployment.

The more unusual suspect is my car. My car has been a rock. Ten years old, eight of them under my care. Other than routine maintenance and a couple cosmetic scrapes, it’s been quite solid.

Now, however, it’s starting to get old and cranky. It all started when my regular mechanic pointed out that the A/C and alternator belts were really worn out, and that I probably needed to get my timing belt changed.

It’s recommended at either 90 or 105,000 miles, and neither he nor I could find any record it had ever been changed. My car is currently at around 134,000 miles, and if the timing belt breaks it pretty much takes out half the engine, so it’s definitely a bit of maintenance I wanted to get taken care of ASAP once I realized it needed to be done.

My regular guy couldn’t do it because you basically have to take apart half the engine to change it. After getting an obscene quote from a dealer, I was referred by Nate to someone his friends had used, who quoted me a third of what the dealer wanted (and less than half of what my regular mechanic had guesstimated).

So I took the car in on Wednesday, and they shaped up the timing, alternator, and AC belts for exactly what they quoted me, to the penny. Great news, right? Except for one tiny detail.

There’s a thing that goes around the axle, inside the wheel (what it’s called is written on the quote they gave me, but I’m currently too hot and lazy to get up and look for it), and it has a bunch of axle grease in it to keep the axle running smoothly.

So the guy opened the hood, took out what’s basically a flashlight on a long snaky pole, pointed out this item, showed me the decent sized crack in it, and showed me the large amount of axle grease it had kicked out.

It was one of those, “I don’t know what the hell that is or what it does, but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to look like that” moments. Obviously, it needs to be replaced before the axle gets fucked up, since I do know that if the axle gets fucked up, that’s INCREDIBLY expensive to fix.

And of course, since it involves the wheels, if you change one side, you have to change the other so it doesn’t get thrown out of whack. The quote to get it completely fixed brought the total I’m going to wind up sinking into keeping the car running to just over $1000.

Normally, that would be bad, but it wouldn’t be terrible. But since I have no current income beyond the unemployment checks Unkle Ahnuld’s been sending me, it basically means I am a LOT broker than I already was.

Where I previously thought going out once a week for a night with my friends for $25-40 was a splurge, at this point I’m finding that going once a week to In-N-Out burger ($6.10 for a double-double, fries and a soda) is a splurge.

Hopefully something will come through soon and I’ll be able to start living like a normal-ish human again. Or I’ll finally snap and convince myself that living with a roommate wouldn’t be that horrifying. We shall see.

A fun Los Angeles moment this evening (or this morning, really, since this was when I was coming home at 12:30AM):

Speeding down La Brea towards the 10, I came up behind a new-looking sliver Porsche Carerra. The CA plate: 0 IQ.

Sadly, it was just some typical douchebag driving it and not a hot blonde. If it were the latter, that would have been way more awesome.

Several large expenses are cropping up in my life, and they’ve conveniently chosen to do so a) at the same time and b) when I took an underpaying job just so I wouldn’t lose my mind. Causing the most fun at the moment:

The Bed. My bedframe, which has lasted me a good while and at least two moves longer than a cheap-ass Ikea piece of shit should, is falling apart. And this weekend it literally fell apart, though I’ve jury-rigged it so it works until I get a new one.

I knew after my last move it wasn’t long for this world, and I’d really wanted to get a fairly decent bedframe to replace it when it finally went. That was before my old job evaporated.

I’ve found a couple in the $600-700 range at West Elm that I really like, but right now I’m not sure I can afford more than the $200 it would cost to get another cheap, shitty Ikea frame.

Cost to replace: $200-700 + tax, depending on how good a bed I decide to get.

The Car. This isn’t as bad as it could be, particularly given that I’m putting about 700 miles a week on it, but my car is about to hit 120,000 miles, which means a 120,000 mile tuneup.

The dealer quoted me $500, my friendly local mechanic quoted me $300. Guess which one will be performing this maintenance.

I also need a battery, as I discovered a couple weeks ago, so that’ll be about another $100.

Total cost to ensure continued proper functioning of vehicle: $400 + tax.

The Clothes. This is at least for a happy reason, but the death-by-a-thousand-cuts this is causing is pissing me off a bit.

I’ve lost a lot of weight in the last 14 months, so a lot of my old clothes don’t fit anymore. I’ve dropped three jeans sizes, I’m now fitting about a size smaller shirts, and other articles of clothing are needing to be similarly replaced.

I’m trying to get away with wearing my now tent-sized old clothes as long as I can. I was always pretty good at camouflaging the actual extent of my fatassedness, so I can still do pretty well with a fair amount of my older stuff. But the number of items I can still get away with is rapidly declining.

I’m going to take a stab at thrifting for t-shirts and the like, but certain…delicates…you have to buy new, and that gets very expensive very quickly. Even buying stuff on sale from Old Navy, the cost to gradually replace my wardrobe is running around $100-200 a month.

It will continue to do so for much of the remainder of the year, until I stop losing weight.

Estimated cost through end of May: $200-400 + tax.

Grand total, that’s anywhere from $800-1500, plus tax, that I’ll be spending in the next couple of months.

The $600 “Please for the love of God save our economy!” check from W. and the gang will help, as will the fact that I’ve been making a fucking mint off of mileage at my temp job, which is helping to offset the crap salary.

However, I really would have preferred all these expenses come to me when I a) had a job at my normal salary and b) wasn’t coughing up for my health insurance out of pocket.

Stupid money.

Two things gave me nice little “Oh…fuck…” moments this weekend, but for once, luck was actually on my side.

First, I dropped my ATM card at Benihana’s. I’d gone for a friend’s birthday, and dropped my wallet as I was getting ready to leave.

I didn’t realize the debit card was gone until we got to the post-Benihana bar, and I went to pay for drinks and found a horrifyingly empty slot. I walked back, fearing I’d have to go through the colossal pain in the ass of canceling it and getting a new one.

Thankfully, they found it immediately. The card was gone for only 15 minutes, and my bank’s online system seems to indicate that nobody used it in the meantime to pay for their awesome teriyaki steak.

The second almost-oh-fuck came today. I decided to bike down to the beach, but I hadn’t used my bike in some time, so I decided to pump up the tires with my little cigarette-lighter-port powered pump from my car’s roadside assistance kit.

I didn’t turn the car all the way on, I just turned the key so the battery would power the pump. When I finished, I put the pump away and then rode down to the beach. A few miles down, I went to stop, lock my bike, and walk down to the water.

Except I didn’t have my keys. I suddenly realized, “Oh fuck, they’re still in the damn ignition. And the power is still on.” So of course, when I got back to my apartment, an hour and a half after turning on the car, the battery was dead. Part of me was just glad the car was actually still there.

Thankfully, again, I found one of my neighbors that I’m friends with and got him to give me a jump. After a quick drive around, I stopped for gas on the theory that if it didn’t start, at least at a gas station I’d have a better chance at another jump to get home.

Even more luckily, the car turned over like nothing had happened. The short time it took the battery to run down indicates I probably need a new one, but still. Better to have it work for another few weeks until my 120k overhaul (THAT should be a fun use of my economic stimulus check) than be totally stranded.

And that’s how my weekend seemed like it was doomed twice, but it turned out to be pretty much fine.

You are not the same neighbor over-alarming his 1989 Nissan. You live in the building across the alley from mine, and you park in a spot under your building that’s not walled in, directly across the alley from my window.

You have a new car, but you have purchased a very similar but infinitely louder alarm to the one has already caused me much consternation. You have not figured out how to use your new alarm. The goddamn thing goes off every five minutes.

The sound echoes through the alley, and becomes unbelievably loud in this apartment, to the point of actually being painful when I’m in the bedroom.

I am tired, I am cranky and hormonal, and I am in pain. I need sleep more than anything right now, and you, my dear neighbor, are preventing me from getting it.

If you do not learn to use your alarm properly, I may have to come across the alley and duct tape you to the hood of your car so that you can hear exactly how annoying it is.

That is all.

I see this idiot’s Hummer every day on the Fox Lot, and I got sorely tempted to post some pictures here but wasn’t sure whether that’d violate some sort of lot rule.

Thank you, Defamer, for posting that picture so I don’t have to.

Now I can focus on noting that this tool has that delightful slogan on the Yosemite Fund special plate. I can’t tell if he’s trying to be ironic or if he’s just that stupid.

I know you prize your ’89 Nissan, but when moderate rain sets off the alarm repeatedly, you’ve made it too sensitive.

Assorted news and notes:

- I came down with a real nasty sinus bug starting Wednesday. Lots of fun. And by fun, I mean massive pain.

- It takes more forms of identification to be allowed to purchase real Sudafed than it does to pay for it with a credit card. By the time I was done, I was surprised they didn’t want me to leave a DNA sample.

- Even though I was sick, I stayed late at work to watch a big stunt last night. Totally worth it.

- I am already very tired of Christmas and its related parties and gifts.

- I found a mechanic who not only doesn’t suck, but is actively good! Thanks, CarTalk.com!

- Did I mention that I feel like my sinuses are about to burst forth from my head like that scene in Alien?

Fuckin’ kids.

I was sound asleep about an hour ago and was awoken by the cat yowling. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary, but I heard a police radio, so I figured the cops were busting up the guys who hang out in another part of the alley that runs behind my building, and rolled over to go back to sleep.

Then my phone rang. “Hi, Miss Shapiro, this is Officer [X] of the Santa Monica Police Department, I’m outside behind your apartment and it appears your vehicle has been broken into.”

Turns out someone on the alley heard someone smash my passenger-side window, looked out and saw the guys futzing around and called the cops. The cops scared off the thieves, who were apparently just some shithead kids.

They weren’t particularly smart kids, as the only thing they got was a $30 electricity inverter, and if they’d thought for about five seconds, they wouldn’t have even had to break the damn window to get into the car, as both the driver’s and passenger’s side windows were cracked.

I mean, I’m glad they didn’t get my stereo which I went to so much damn trouble to install, and there wasn’t really anything else of value in the car, so I suppose that’s good.

But I was speaking to my next door neighbors, one of whom has been living in the apartment for 17 years, and he said this was the first time someone had smashed a window in the parking lot that he could remember, though he noted that someone had let the air out of his wife’s tires this morning.

Nice to be the new guy in the neighborhood. Now I’m going back to bed, to get up even earlier to try and figure out how to clean up all this glass when I haven’t gotten around to purchasing a new broom or dustpan.