"California: The Wish We Were Kidding State."
"Did you vote?"
*silence*
"You forefited your bitching rights."
"So that's what those stickers are good for."
--Two guys at La Salsa

"I dunno, maybe she's right."
"She is not right. Stand up to her! She has to accept you for who you are, or she's not worth your time. You're a pot smoker, and if she can't deal with that, she needs to just find someone else."

--a guy and a girl waiting in line for Underworld in the High Five Cinema. Durango, CO.

"...but I didn't wanna go to Russel Sage."
"So wait...you guys are saying you actually got into good schools, but you came here?"
"Well, I didn't want to be $80,000.00 in debt when I graduate. And besides, RIT only has, like, five girls."
"Yeah, and Purchase has lots of weird people."
"Well what about New Paltz? I heard New Paltz is good."
"I didn't really like the campus..."

-a bunch of Freshman art majors who are all in my Math class

This amused me but saddened me because I know people who go to all the schools they mentioned (and I used to go to New Paltz) and getting into the art department at any of them (with the exception of Russel Sage) is a huge accomplishment. But apparently these kids would rather be here at a semi-party school than at someplace with a good art department...

"Hrm. No, let's go to McDonald's. It's more family-oriented."
--A woman with two children, eyeing the menu at Crepes-a-Go-Go

----------------------------------------------------------

In three and a half years of active evesdropping, this is the single most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I didn't know whether to put it under bizarre or tragic. What kind of person actually talks like a target demographic drone?

"Well maybe then he'd have to choose between us."
"Ok, you're talking about bringing life forms into the world just to make your man settle down?"
"A baby is a life, not a life form."
"I wouldn't make some poor amoeba part of this plan, and that amoeba wouldn't even have to have that jerk as a father."
--Two women talking in the bathroom at Straits Cafe

"I'm going to get one of those new keyboard powered vacuum cleaners
for him."
"I'm sure it will be the best father's day ever, then."
--A terribly earnest guy, and a terribly sarcastic girl, at Berkeley Bowl.

The following quote contains a major spoiler for the finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Read on at your own surprise-spoiling risk. It's in white-on-white text, so you'll have to use your mouse and highlight it to read it.

"How can this even be fair? Is there no justice in the world? I loved the X-files, but I love Buffy more. How can a show called 'Roswell' be going on when Buffy is canceled and Spike is dead? Dead!"
"One, this commercial is old, Roswell was cancelled last season. Two, Buffy wasn't cancelled, SMG quit. Three... do I need to go on?"
"Yeah. Say it."
"Three, Spike was already dead."
"Fuck you and your 'logic.' I'm in pain, here."
--A girl and a guy at the Parkway Theatre's showing of Buffy's series finale, and subsequent rerun showing of the Buffy musical, during a rerun Roswell commercial.

"You act like this is all my fault."
"That's because it's your fault."
"Look, it's not like you didn't want to go to Nick's party too."
"I think we have different definitions of 'go to.'"
--A girl and a guy at Jupiter.

"I've applied to, like, a hundred jobs. I've written twenty cover letters, and I'm just recycling them at this point."
"Well, that's a career for you, in and of itself."
"Cover letter writing?"
"No. Recycling."
--A girl and a guy at Triple Rock.

"I wish this store was in San Francisco. You get such better tips in rich areas. Rich people are the real tippers."
--The guy behind the counter at Tully's (in Berkeley) to the girl working the espresso machine after I'd tipped him the change from my purchase.

---

This is what I get for being in too much of a hurry to catch the bus to walk the three blocks to Yali's Cafe.