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.

I was on my bike, sitting in the left-turn lane on my way back from the gym this afternoon when a guy in a brand new red Mini convertible flicked his lit cigarette onto the ground right in front of me.

I was about to express my displeasure with his action when a guy pulled up behind him in a black Audi S4, shouting, “It’s called an ashtray, dickface!”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. And thanks to him, I didn’t have to. Thank you, my anonymous, foulmouthed friend.

I took my current job just under 2 months ago. Since then I have driven over six thousand miles, almost all of it either to, from, or for work.

I have bought 28 26 tanks of gas to accomplish this feat, at a total price of $1031.28.

I am really starting to wish I had a Prius.

Normally it takes me 45 minutes to get from Santa Monica to Santa Clarita. Today, it took me 1 hour, 35 minutes.

15 minutes spent just getting ON the 405 freeway to go north, because for no apparent reason, the 10E-405N interchange was ridiculously backed up.

Then after I finally broke free of that, I got right past the last exit before you go down the hill towards the 101 when traffic ground to a complete halt.

Just under two miles and just over 35 minutes later, I finally passed the source: A flipped-on-its-side pickup truck, along with the Scion that apparently hit it (whose entire front end had been reduced to a six-inch scrunch of metal) and a Lexus that glanced off it with more moderate damage.

The whole thing closed down three of the six lanes of the 405, right before the giant mess of the 405-101 interchange. It was staggeringly awesome.

The picture is so beautiful all it needs is a caption:

A nude man is apprehended on the 405 freeway around noon today after he was seen running in freeway lanes near Sunset Blvd.

This idiot shut down the busiest freeway in Southern California for half an hour, tying up traffic in both directions for hours.

That’s what one drunk and/or high schmuck can do to this city. God help us if Al-Qaeda gets their hands on a nudist colony.

To the construction workers at working on that new building just east of Olympic and Bundy:

I realize that when you build a building, you have to bring in a large number of steel beams. However, I’d like to request that you do two things for me and my fellow commuters in the future.

1. Don’t schedule the steel beams to arrive at 7:45 in the morning, or really at any point between 7 and 9am, also known as Rush Hour.

2. Don’t have the truck carrying the steel beams be driven by someone who obviously very recently got their trucking license.

It was fun to sit and twiddle my thumbs on Olympic for 15 minutes while you tried – 12 times before I fucking lost count – to back the truck laden with beams onto the construction site.

I realize my fellow commuters weren’t helping by leaning on their horns, but I certainly understand their desire to express their frustration.

Seriously, do not pull that shit during rush hour again or I will get out of my car and steal your little hand-held stop sign and beat you about the head with it.

Love and kisses,
Ellen

A brief comparison of my old and new apartments, and the neighborhoods containing them:

Time to Work
Old: 20-35 minutes, depending on traffic.
New: 10-15 minutes, depending on traffic.
Winner: New

Flooring
Old: Grody, easily stained and horrific to clean carpet.
New: Hardwood floors.
Winner: New

Kitchen
Old: Termite-infested cabinets, linoleum from the 70′s, barely enough room to turn around.
New: Brand new everything, marble floor, granite countertops, decent size.
Winner: New

Bathroom
Old: Tiny, with the sink and mirror in the hall for some reason.
New: Still fairly small, but self-contained. Marble tile on the floor and in the shower, brand new fixtures.
Winner: New.

Bedroom
Old: Large room, tiny closet.
New: Moderate size room, huge closet (which I’ve basically turned into a storage area.
Winner: Draw.

Owner/Management of Building
Old: Extremely sketchy company that is quite possibly a front for the Russian mob (How many legit property management companies do you know that operate out of a PO Box?).
New: Single owner that people have actually seen, using a property management company with actual offices.
Winner: New

Closest Fast Food Restaurant
Old: In-N-Out
New: KFC
Winner: Old.

Closest Store
Old: Costco
New: 99¢ Only
Winner: New

Closest School
Old: Massive public high school, right out my window.
New: Language magnet school four blocks away.
Winner: New

Distance From Beach
Old: 1.7 miles
New: 2.3 miles
Winner: Old

Cat Control
Old: Cat couldn’t get out of the building, could only see other cats in the building.
New: Cat keeps trying to run out the door into the neighborhood every time I leave the house, other cats come to the window and mock him until he starts yowling at them.
Winner: Old.

Tangent alert! I took Chaplin to get chipped this morning, and I found it odd to be putting a chip in him the week we aired an episode with a kid trying to cut a chip out.

Parking
Old: Gated and underground, but with a tendency for the gate to get stuck at inconvenient times.
New: Off street.
Winner: Old, but not by much.

Vertical Transportation
Old: Elevator, prone to breakdowns and squeaking like a crying child.
New: One flight of stairs.
Winner: Draw.

Bottom line, there are a few things about the old place that I’ll miss, but the new place is far, far ahead in all the areas I really give a shit about. And I probably shouldn’t live two blocks from an In-N-Out Burger anyway.