Controversial topics and sweeping generalizations about people with different ideas or values aside, life boils down to the day-to-day. A grind, if you will, filled by most American homo sapiens with the incessant thrum of monotony.

Wee, off and running again. As a journalist, the grind affects me just the same. I save up frustrations as fuel for slow weeks. For example:

Domino's used to be all about getting you pizza. When you consider the skill required (one hand), and the materials (probably less than $1), a pizza joint is making a steal.

(Note to self: franchise.)

Tuesday is a two-fer day for pizzas. Did you not know? I didn't.

Neither did the person who answered the phone when I ordered. I was bested by corporate efficiency; denied my 2000 calories of meat, cheese and grease. When did "don't ask, don't tell" start involving pizza?

A minor inconvenience. Trivial at best, but, one of many.

A close friend came to stay with me for the week recently. That was in December. Funny how that works, isn't it?

His girlfriend broke their engagement. Two months later, the extra bedroom in my apartment reeks a little of grease and cigarettes and looks like the closet threw up. Does this make me loyal or does this make me a pushover?

Clean the kitchen, and he invariably makes a mess. The fridge is a warzone. Friendship's a bitch. But hey, I'm a friend -- a good, passive friend, willing to cope.

(Note to self: do not live with friends).

Interpersonal woes are something you can usually resolve with open ears, but circumstances which you can't control are frustration incarnate.

I ordered a bass and amplifier for myself for Christmas. I'll tell ya, playing package-tag with the United Postal Service is a great time sink. A month after initial shipping, I still have no amplifier due to malfunctions, invisible address labels that cause returns, and lethargy on the part of the company who sold it to me.

Nothing says loving like, "Hey, we've got your $544.36 and we're not giving it back" to me. Lame.

Better to have abstract annoyances than stare-you-in-the-face ones; a dripping faucet, a bed full of plaster dust (don't ask), a shirt that's cut horrendously wrong, but you only notice after taking off the tags.

The thump of subwoofers around where I happen to live is the king of them all.

It's true. The guy who leaves his stereo system cranked so I can sample his beats while he goes inside somebody's place for 10 minutes is doing me a public service, right?

Thanks! What a bro. Yeah. Glad I know you.

The guy in the shoebox apartment next to me likes the occasional 1 a.m. thump-out, too.

My 7 a.m. newspaper mornings are so chipper now.

This neighbor had the befuddled look of a man invited to a stew barbeque when I protested to his face.

Individually, complaints are trite. Collected, they are stand up comedy.

It's the angst that gets the laughs. Tee hee.

Nick Todaro is a senior journalism major from Shreveport and serves as associate editor of The Tech Talk. E-mail comments to nst005@latech.edu.