OMG, I'm so mortified, the police saw the super-absorbent tampons in my purse.

In college, a woman known campus-wide as "Crazy Jenny" sat at the exit of the library and half-heartedly peered into students' bags to make sure they weren't stealing anything with a Dewey Decimal Number on it. Every time I had to open my bag for her, I resented it. Not because it was a huge burden to open my bag, but because it was such obvious bullshit. If I wanted to smuggle out a book, all I had to do was bury it at the bottom of my bag, since she clearly wasn't going to do more than peek into it with one of her crossed eyes.

And now, the DC Metro system is going to deploy a legion of Crazy Jennys to conduct random searches of Metro riders' bags to "to deter terrorist attacks and increase the overall safety of the Metro system."

You can probably HEAR my eyes rolling. I mean, just five months ago the police busted a Metro station manager after she told an undercover police officer that she could hook him up with prostitutes and a sex party for $100. She even used the Metro loudspeaker to pimp. This is the frontline against terrorism?

Metro officials said the new plan to randomly search riders' bags was not in response to a specific threat "but prompted by increased security concerns before next week's election and the inauguration as well as by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and later bombings of commuter trains in Madrid, London and elsewhere." Helllllllooo, a fucking MONKEY could have figured out that the Metro system is vulnerable to terrorist attacks. And, by the way, it is 2008. If the Metro system is so vulnerable, what the hell have the Metro Powers That Be been doing for the last seven years?

Moreover, the actual program is total B.S. and will do absolutely nothing to make people safer, just more annoyed to be commuting another day to a soul-sucking job in a nascent police state. According to Metro, inspections could take place at any Metro facility at any time. But, just before a random inspection at a specific station, Metro Transit Police will post signs alerting riders to the inspections. Surprise! Not. Individuals who refuse to have their bag or bags inspected will not be allowed to enter the Metro system with those carry-on items, but they will be free to leave the system with their items.

So, a bad guy (or his scouters) notices that Metro is checking every 12th bag or something at Capitol South Metro Station. Instead of taking his statistical chances, he decides to walk 4 blocks to the Federal Center SW Station instead. Duh.

Of course, Metro threw a thinly veiled disclaimer into its press release, just in case people think the program is lame. "If the initiative we are announcing today does nothing more than remind us all that there are people in the world who have vowed to do us harm, and that vigilance is the key to defeating them, then this program will have succeeded."

So, if the program helps instill fear in people, it is a success. Is that what we have come to as a society? As long as people are looking over their shoulders, giving the stink eye to people who look Arab, and assuming that the white powder on the Metro platform is anthrax, then we are all better off?

Right.

Random searches are not going to deter anyone or keep would-be terrorists "off balance." Short of strip-searching everyone on their morning commute, what can we do? Nothing, probably, except cross our fingers and push for foreign policy that doesn't piss people off. That may sound flippant, but I honestly would rather live in a society with risks than in a city dominated by searches, uzis, police tape, roadblocks, and Crazy Jenny.

ADDENDUM: My friend "Sarah Jane" suggested that I carry around a bag with weird stuff in it in case I get searched. Like a bunch of sex toys. Or clumps of hair. Or headless Barbies.

Why does a TV show make me so angry?

Have you seen the new Fox TV show Fringe? I fucking hate that show. I hate it enough that I post comments about how much I hate it in chat rooms. I hate it so much that I purposely watched it again last night so that I could write about my hate in a semi-educated manner.

Why so much hate? I can't stand shows like According to Jim and Til Death and would never watch them, but I don't feel the need to proselytize about my hate for those shows. Just Fringe.

This hate is completely irrational and a little pathetic, I admit. I totally need to get laid. Not denying that. But while I am not getting laid, I am going to explain why I am such a hater.

The show centers around FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham, mad scientist Walter Bishop, and his genius son Peter (aka Pacey from Dawson's Creek) as they investigate events involving fringe science, such as telepathy and reanimation. If you are thinking, wow, this sounds A LOT like the X-Files, you are right.

In fact, there are so many similarities, I think X-Files creator Chris Carter could sue J.J. Abrams for violating his intellectual property rights. Of course, the X-Files borrowed from other science fiction, no question. But Fringe, at its core, is the X-Files, without the originality, charm, subtlety, and of course, Mulder and Scully.

This, fundamentally, is why I hate Fringe. It offends me. It cheapens something I admire and value. I hate it for the same reason why Hollywood (so far) hasn't remade classic films such as Gone with the Wind. It is impossible to imagine anyone but Vivien Leigh playing Scarlett O'Hara. It is impossible to imagine Gone with the Wind remade with CGI or in HD. Some things are better left untouched, unremastered, and unadulterated.

Fringe is completely derivative of the X-Files, in big ways (FBI agents investigate paranormal activity potentially linked to an international conspiracy) and in smaller ways. One example: on the X-Files, Mulder and Scully frequently busted out flashlights in dark rooms, often providing the only lighting in the scene and creating the show's trademark creepy ambiance. In the Fringe episode I watched last night, Olivia (the main FBI agent) took out a flashlight of her own at a crime scene ... in broad daylight.

What amazed me the most about last night's Fringe episode was that it borrowed from not one, not two, but at least three X-Files episodes to cobble together a single plot. In this episode, a serial killer kills women to extract their pituitary glands in order to slow a rapid aging process. I immediately thought of the classic X-Files episode in which a genetic mutant killed people to extract their livers so that he could hibernate for 30 years and yet another X-Files episode in which an African immigrant in need of certain hormones killed people to extract their pituitary glands. In another scene, the mad scientist admits that he used to be part of a government program designed to cultivate soldiers. This immediately reminded me of the (somewhat ill-advised) X-Files mytharc involving the government plot to create super-soldiers out of alien DNA. (OK, it sounds stupid when I write it).

In addition to being completely derivative, Fringe has a fatal flaw: the show lacks a skeptic and therefore lacks a constant, a basis in reality. From Episode 1, the seasoned FBI agent Olivia was quick to believe in the crazy ass shit the mad scientist was dishing out--you can talk to your dead boyfriend telepathically as long as he hasn't been dead for more than 6 hours!!! As annoying as Scully's incessant "Mulder, you aren't suggesting that..." and "Mulder, do you expect me to believe..." was at times, Scully's skepticism kept the show honest. Without a skeptic, Fringe is like MacGyver on paranormal steroids. In last night's episode, the FBI agent was able to solve a crime using an "electric pulse camera" to capture the last electric impulses that traveled along a murder victim's optic nerve and therefore reveal what she saw before she died.

Over-reliance on this sort of deus ex machina = boring. If, when confronted with a seemingly intractable problem, the mad scientist can just say, "Oh, we can solve that, all we need is a flux capacitor, some chicken wire, and a set of 30 weight ball bearings"--without a single character batting an eyelash--then I am not interested.

My hair is racist.

This weekend, after experiencing yet another bad haircut, I made a solemn vow: I am never going to let an Asian man or woman cut my hair again.

I have had my hair cut on several occasions by men and woman of varying Asian descent--Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese. In general, these stylists spoke poor English, suggesting to me they were recent immigrants (as opposed to second or third generation) who likely received much of their early training in Asia. With Asian clients.

Asian hair, in general, is bone straight and thin. My hair, on the other hand, was tailor-made for the 1980s: big, wavy, full of texture, and easily shellacked into gravity-defying shapes.

Every time an Asian stylist cuts my hair, I hate it. They either (a) cut my hair all one length, allowing my hair to settle into an unflattering triangle shape, or (b) cut too-short layers into my hair, giving me a little Sarah Palin up-do poof without the folksy charm.

Conclusion based on anecdotal evidence: Asian stylists don't know how to cut my hair. I'm sure that this isn't true across the board, and I've never had an Indian or Pakistani stylist, but ... I vowed this weekend, after yet another triangle-shaped haircut, NEVER AGAIN.

The difficulty, of course, comes when calling to make an appointment at a salon. When the receptionist suggests a stylist, I can't ask, at least not without sounding icky, "Is he Asian?"

So, this morning, I call a new salon to make another appointment to get rid of my triangle hair. I make an appointment to see a guy named Frank. I don't ask his ethnicity and instead roll the dice that Frank is a white boy's name.

Wrong. Turns out Frank is Asian, too. Don't they make flaming homosexual white male hairstylists in DC?

Of course, I let Frank cut my hair anyway. I told him over and over that my hair is wavy, that I like it wavy, that I am low-maintenance, and that I rarely blow my hair dry. He spent many, many minutes blowing dry my new Posh Spice hairdo and using a flat iron to straighten it.

My hair looks kinda cute now, but I won't know its true nature until I wash it and let it do its thing. So, the judgment is out on Frank. Will he buck my Asian stylist stereotype, or will he be Exhibit F proving that my hair is racist?

I don't want to think about Uncle Joey having sex, OK?

In 1995, my friend Peter introduced me to the best 'fuck you' anthem ever written: Alanis Morrissette's "You Oughta Know."

It was a slap in the face, how quickly I was replaced.
Are you thinking of me when you fuck her?

It was every college girl's feminist anthem, blasted in dorm rooms to repair wounded egos after drunken hook-ups gone bad.

Today, while listening to my Ipod at work, "You Oughta Know" came on. Still awesome ... but ... it doesn't pack the same punch.

Maybe it's because I'm not 21 anymore. Maybe it's because I am so single/unattached/frigid that I can longer relate to this kind of angst. Or, perhaps, just perhaps, it's because we now know that the man who inspired this song is kind of an asexual doofus.

Comedian Dave Coulier--better known as "Uncle Joey" to the Olsen twins on Full House--recently confessed that he caused Alanis' angst.

Uncle fucking Joey? Really?

Uncle Joey inspired her to scream, And every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back I hope you feel it...well can you feel it?

I'm sure he's a nice, funny guy. But he was on Skating with Celebrities, for pete's sake.

I wish I could erase this piece of trivia from my consciousness. Because now, when I hear this song and start singing along with the first verse, I inevitably visualize Alanis going down on Uncle Joey in a theater.

As precocious Stephanie Tanner always said to her wacky Uncle Joey, "That's rude." And kinda gross.

FOR SALE: Frosty genitals

Americans are justifiably bullshit-pissed about the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, especially since the executives who reigned over the whole mess are going home at night to their mansions with regulation-sized squash courts. While these executives are sleeping soundly in their 400 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, Americans are buying billions in the most toxic mortgage-backed securities that no one else wants.

This site is why I love the Internets: www.buymyshitpile.com. This site allows you to use a form to "submit bad assets you'd like the government to take off your hands. And remember, when estimating the value of your 1997 limited edition Hanson single CD MMMbop, it's not what you can sell these items for that matters, it's what you think they are worth." My favorite things that people have posted:

Snow Penis: $5 million

Hannah Montana 3-D Glasses: $200,000

23 Pairs of "Like New" Men's Underwear: $963.97

My Girlfriend: $99.99

I don't really have any assets, unless you count my X-Files collection. (After the disastrous X-Files movie, this might count as a "bad" asset that needs to be marked down.)

I think I would like to sell my piece-o-crap TV that has wood paneling on the side. You have to whack it just right to make the sound work sometimes. But it turns on! PRICE: I would like a snow penis, please.

But falling off the wagon feels so good, oh yes! Yes! YES!

Inspiring hope for chronic masturbators/fornicators everywhere, David Duchovny has checked out of rehab after successfully completing treatment for his sex addiction.

Here's my question.

For alcoholics or drug addicts, there's no such thing as "just one beer" or "just one hit off the apple bong." So, if he really is a sex addict, as opposed to someone with sexual compulsions/general asshole-ness, does that mean he can never have sex or jerk off again? If he has sex with his hot hot wife, is that the equivalent of "falling off the wagon"?