I’m watching TV the other day (as I am wont to do) when the world’s most ghastly prescription commercial EVER sucked the air out of my face.

It was an ad for some drug named Spiriva that probably strong-armed its way through the FDA by the narrowest margin in history. They claim the stuff aids people who can’t breathe due to COPD, but the side effects sound like they’ve begun issuing nerve gas in a handy-dandy inhaler.

When the ad first airs you see poor, hard-of-breathing elderly people doing all the things that poor, hard-of-breathing elderly people do — fidgeting at weddings, hurling bowling balls, staring at other people’s boats. Before Spiriva came along they were stuck in their rooms drinking canned air all day. Now they’re living and breathing and ready to face the world!

You find yourself falling for the okie doke…until the narrator lists the freakiest side effects east of hell. The list is so effin ghoulish you’re sure you’d rather just drop dead of suffocation altogether.

As proof, here’s the disclaimer. Straight from the commercial’s mouth:

“The most common side effect [of Spiriva] is dry mouth. Others include constipation and problems passing urine. If you have vision changes or eye pain, your breathing suddenly worsens, you get hives, or your throat or tongue swells, stop taking Spiriva and contact your doctor.”

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY!!! What is left to take this medication FOR?!?

It’s at times like this when you wonder whether it’s better to just stay jacked up until they can invent something that won’t halfway KILL while saving your life. I mean, if the stuff is gonna choke me to death while bringing my breath back, I’ll just take my chances with the lungs I got. Thanks and nevermind.

By now, it’s been over a month since we’ve moved to San Francisco but I have yet to type up my thoughts on the place. Considering that both Erech andDoug have been asking for my take on the relocation, you think I would’ve gotten myself together by now.

The main reason Eric and I moved here was to get some more “urban” time in before people started demanding that we settle down. I’ve missed living in a major metropolis since I moved out of New York and most of Eric’s city experience involved shuttling back and forth through DC on the Metro. Yep, totally street.

No idea how we ended up setting our sights on San Fran. Could be because there are more web design jobs out here than any other location on the planet. Could be because we already had a few friends out this way. Or maybe we threw a dart at a map and picked the biggest city closest to it (though if that had been the tactic we probably would have ended up somewhere in Steamboat Springs).

Anyway, San Francisco it was. And once we decided to make the leap, we began searching for jobs in earnest. Then I found a gig and our little West Coast pipe dream suddenly became a “You took the job, now get your ass out here” reality. But the planning and logistics were almost too complex for my beleaguered brain. We had to rent out my house, find an apartment, sell the furniture, buy the boxes, find a mover, pack the crap, stow his car, fly the cats…all while I was working remotely at the new job! The stress got so ridiculous I actually LOST WEIGHT (though not really complaining about that part).

All this effort for a city I’d never even set foot in. My new job hired me sight unseen so there was no face-to-face interview. In fact, I’ve had very limited exposure to the West Coast at all. I visited LA a few years back but tooling around a place for two weeks is obviously a far cry from living there. Now that we’re here, I can tell you it was nothing like what I expected. Though I’m a little hazy on what I was actually expecting.

But I can tell you what I WASN’T expecting:

Smoking weed islegalhere. And as awesomely amazing as some people might think that is, lemme just reiterate how much that ish REEKS to people who don’t smoke. It’s one thing to smell it all over a college campus but it’s another to have that stench chasing you up and down the street every time you leave the flipping house. Dammit, people, find something ELSE to smoke for five minutes!

This place is pretty dang empty. OK, so I’m used to the crowds, speed and activity of a New York street. Eric says I only think this way because NYC has me biased against every other city in the world. Totally my stupidity for assuming that all urbanalopolises would give you the exact same “city” feeling.

Mass transit isn’t all that massive. New York also has me used to a stuffy, stanky, rat-infested much more extensive mass-transpo system than SF has to offer. We’d love to take the BART (SF’s subway) more often to get around town but there’s only one problem — we’d have to DRIVE to reach the nearest station. Not to say I don’t understand the reason the subway here is so sparse. Probably not the safest idea to burrow a system of underground tunnels in a city as prone to earthquakes as San Francisco.

Two words: The. Fog. I know what fog is. I’ve seen fog. I’ve experienced fog. This phenomenon they got out here ain’t fog…it’s the effin second coming. It crashes over the mountains like some fifth dimension tidal wave and creates some of the most beautiful scenery you ever wanna see. Though it’s still SPOOKY AS HELL. But in a benevolent way. If that makes sense. Of course it doesn’t.

Prius = the ONLY car. Ever. Of course I knew the West Coast was much more ecologically aware than most other parts of the country. But I had no idea just how COMPLETE the vehicular assimilation had become. Eric and I started noticing an abnormally high number of Priuseseseses ever since we arrived in the Bay Area. But when the fifteenth hump-backed hybrid grazed my gaze within a five minute time span, I made the decision to start COUNTING them. Here are my totally scientific findings since (I kid you not) last Friday.

Number of Priuses spotted on…
Friday: 16
Saturday: 8
Sunday: 8
Monday: 50
Tuesday: 46
Wednesday: 50
Thursday: 59
Friday: 68

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a total of 305 flippin Priuses in the space of ONE WEEK! Like…just…WHAT??!

(I’ve since been informed that there are typical and atypical perks to owning a hybrid. Perks like tearing ass through the speed toll lane and free valet / garage parking in the city. Gotta hand it to ‘em, they’re really doing all they can to reduce fossil fuel dependency out here. But still — 305 sightings of the same car in seven days?? Flippers need to be tagged for wildlife.)

Anyway, lest ye not think I hate it out here or something, let me just say that we’ve probably only seen 1/12th of what San Francisco has to offer. We should be taken outside and flogged for our laziness, but there’s so much to see and do here that it’ll take us forever to even scratch the surface.

Overall, I think SF is a very interesting place with very gorgeous weather and very mind-blowing scenery. And like no other place I’ve ever lived. Which, in itself, makes it pretty darn cool.

Come to think of it, it IS pretty effin cold out here…

Looks like they just concluded jury selection in the Michael Vick case…

Our office has been without A/C since Friday.

This complex is a mere six years young yet, I swear, at least once a week something breaks. If it’s not the A/C, it’s the elevators. If it’s not the elevators, the toilets won’t flush. If it’s not the toilets, the building alarm won’t shut up.

But that’s not what I’m calling to complain about.

My gripe began weeks ago, when I walked into a meeting and was greeted by the strongest B.O. this side of the Sierra Nevada. I eventually narrowed it down to a dude whom, on the surface, looks to be well acquainted with a bar of soap. But once you get next to him you realize that he ROUTINELY smells like a British rugby team. My hunch is that he rides his bike to work in the mornings but doesn’t comprehend the need scour his scunge before marching into the office.

Fortunately I’m not often forced to confront the wafting stench since I only see him in the halls or in meetings. But harken back to the fact that the A/C has been dead for close to 72 hours and you’ll realize the extent of my agony. Dude sits several rows away from me yet the level of molten funk is absolutely SUFFOCATING. Smells like a bag of wet pennies in here.

So I finally finished the last installment of Harry Potter last night — yes, I know, it hit store shelves almost two months ago. But considering it took me more than a YEAR to finish Book 6, a 60-day delay is actually pretty impressive.

Overall I thought the book was a rather enjoyable end to the series, though I had a coupla qualms with it. Anybody else out there got an opinion or am I the only one who read this thing?

(Rather than spoiling it for anyone else, I’ll save any REAL feedback for the comments section…)