"Isn't it funny that by looking hot, you're actually being colder than everyone else?"
--A girl, to her minimally clad female friend at Cafe Nomad.

"What's something horrible that's happened to you lately? Please, let me mine your life for my personal gain."
--One guy to another at Berkeley Bowl

"He disappeared from Google after college. A very annoying quality in a man."
--A girl with a laptop at A Cuppa Tea

"I totally have the first ipod."
"What are you even talking about?"
"Metonymy."
"What? How?"
"Where by 'first', I mean, 'first generation.' Metonymy."
"That's not Metonymy."
"I said one thing meaning another."
"I also do that when I lie."
--A guy and a girl

"Why are you chuckling at Bakersfield? I always thought it was such a nice name for a place. Baker's Field. Like Candyville."
--Kevin Smith, at Zellerbach Hall.

"I never get why they make you take Algebra 1, then Geometry, then Algebra 2. It's like they're trying to make you forget. Like when you're trying to remember a phone number and some ho starts saying '9... 72... 13... 4...' Just like that. I hate Geometry."
"I hate Tammi."
--Two teenage girls at the bus stop on Ashby

"You really don't want me pissing people off right now. I get that." "I don't want you pissing people off ever, and that's what I think you're not getting." --Two guys talking near gate 20 at SFO

"You know how they talk about jobs keeping people off the street? Why do they always say that about guys working at the YMCA, or at the bus station? My job's keeping me off the street too, and literally."
--A man in a suit and tie talking on a cell phone in the lobby of my hotel.

"We need a dolphin with opposable thumbs."
"The combination of a dolphin and a monkey should do it, then."
"Hell of a love child."
"You have not been trained to think that way, so you don't. But I see it."
--Two guys who appear to be doing more drinking than eating at the hotel restaurant.

"And that's what I'm saying. What do you worry more about, social security or printer problems?"
--One guy talking to another, waiting for the elevator.

"I've always got to do what the register says. What if the register says something that's wrong? All customers are the same."
"No, all addition and subtraction is the same."
"Your lattes are all the same."
--Two apparently disgruntled Starbucks employees.

"His phrasing is weird, it's offbeat. He's not pausing at the commas. Hear that? Wait a minute... Dude, he's pausing at the big words."
--A girl watching Bush's press conference on the TV in the lobby of my hotel.

"I'm not the one taking pictures of mannequins all day."
"Mamma, they won't even look at your auction unless you've got a picture, and if I'm the one wearing them in the demo, how can I say they're unworn?"
"But somehow the mannequin wearing it doesn't count as wearing it? I just don't like the thing, it was too expensive."
"The only thing cheaper was inflatable."
--A girl and her mother wandering around a clothing shop.

"So my saying, 'Why don't you try a new life, buy new shoes...'?"
"Not working."
--Two men at Whole Foods

"We'll get going as soon as the rain lets up. *pause* Well, it sure is raining here. *pause* I'm in... *looking around* ...Memphis. I'm in Memphis?"
--A man in a pilot's uniform, talking on a cell phone, at MEM

"How does it end?"
--A guy shouting at the screen during a preview for "The Prince and Me" at the Parkway Theatre.

"Generally 'take one for the team' implies taking one for your own team."
--One guy to another standing at the bar at The B-Cups' show.
(It's a (mostly) girl punk band. Not a lingerie fashion show.)

"The mouse button works best if you click it about a quarter inch from the right. That I have to know that is very, very annoying."
--A guy holding a laptop at Nomad Cafe

"It's ugly. Really ugly."
"Is there an 'F' in how ugly it is?"
--A girl and a guy at IKEA.

"Mom, I need to go to the bathroom."
"God, sweetie, what have I told you about TMI? I didn't need to know that, and neither did anyone else here."
--A girl who looked to be about 4, and her mother, in line for checkout at Andronico's.