No one would argue against the fact that L.A. leads the country in opportunities for being hip and pretentious.

Every moment of your life that is not a complete nightmare is happiness.

whenever I encountered a slide show titled 'Eight Diet Foods That Pack on the Pounds' or 'Celebrity Fashion Fails,' I'd have to stop and investigate because hey, it might be information I'd need in some unforeseeable future where I had become, for some reason, a fat celebrity.

It's surely no accident that there are horoscopes in Vogue, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Woman, New Woman, Elle and Cosmo ... but not Sports Illustrated, GQ, Esquire, Field & Stream or Guns & Ammo.

You just never know when it might be cookie time. And, that is what the dogs have taught me.

Men who have a lot of charm have it in place of something real that you are eventually going to want from them and find that they do not have.

A more complex - but only slightly more original - way to feel out of it is available at the hip and pretentious nightclubs and bars along the Sunset Strip.