up to the minute...or not

Whoa. I just went 10 days without blogging. This may be the beginning of the end for this blog. But now I will point out something stupid that bugs me. Maybe that will revive the blogging juices.

I've mentioned that I like those google ads that appear across the top of the gmail screen. Sometimes you can find fun stuff. But then every now and then you get a sponsored link like this:

Cruise Ship Sinks www.washingtonpost.com - Cruise Ship Sinks Off Antarctica. Get Up to the Minute News Now!

Remember that cruise ship that sank off Antarctica? More than a year ago? That's what the link goes to. A news story dated November 24, 2007. Uhhhh...great work, washingtonpost.com. Way to be up-to-the-minute.

Fleas Navidog!

This story from tomorrow's Post combines two things I really like: dogs and community. Oh, and sincerity. And bad puns. And Christmas. I LOVE Christmas.

holiday mayhem

I am a huge fan of Carolyn Hax, the advice columnist. I've read every single chat and regular column since she started, 11 years ago. (I say every regular column because I don't try to keep up with the edited chat excerpts they run four days a week.) Today's chat is a particular masterpiece - about halfway through she switches over to the annual holiday horror stories extravaganza, and, wow, people have some crazy families. Transcript here. I laughed til I cried.

so, what you're saying is, I shouldn't see it?

Best line from Hank Steuver's brief review of the latest Star Wars movie: "I'd go on explaining "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," but you'd think I was high."

gee, I'm a tree

I hated this guy's class. Apparently he's some kind of math education genius. I do remember liking geometry, so maybe it worked.

But I'd like to mention how much I particularly disliked one thing the writer mentions as a positive: that this teacher pushes students hard, then "lifts the mood with some lively intellectual jousting on nonmath topics, such as sports, that he knows interest them."

Yeah. I challenge anyone to come up with a way to get the 13-year-old me to hate a class more than breaking up the MATH with FOOTBALL.

look, it's my hometown paper, I'm attached

Ok, I know, this is the third post in a row with the "wapo" tag. But I read the Post a lot! (Online. I know, I feel guilty, but I can barely remember to pick it up one day a week - Sunday - from where the delivery guy leaves it downstairs. Daily would never happen.)

Anyway. This time, I'm here to point you toward the investigative series on Chandra Levy. They're up to part six of 12. It's a great read. Check it out.

space chimps

I saw the most god-awful movie last weekend. In other hands, Space Chimps could have been a great story: The grandson of the first chimp in space is wasting his life getting shot out of cannons in a circus. Then he gets called up to join the space program and finds himself.

The reality is cliche-ridden, insulting, smart-assy, doesn't hold together, and is also, did I mention, terrible. Ham III sexually harasses the girl chimp astronaut until she falls in love with him. One of the three space engineer characters is an Indian guy with a funny accent because, ha ha ha! Foreigners are hilarious! So is hitting people! And they kept calling the chimps monkeys. Argh.

So, I'd recommend skipping it, although the guy next to me laughed a lot. I think he fell for the thing where you decide a movie must be funny because you're seeing it for free. I watched it for the work blog - it's about space and animals and stuff, it's a clear choice - but we don't waste blog space on things we don't like.

(I posted on the work blog last week, by the way, with something super funny, so go look at it.)

P.S. The guy who reviewed Space Chimps for today's Post agrees with me.

poor summarizing skills

From the Post homepage:


"Technicality"? The guy didn't bring the gun with him. To quote the story: "Police explained to Heller that he needed to show officials the guns he wanted to register -- and allow them to be test-fired -- as part of the registration process." Right. So, if you want to register a gun, you should bring the gun with you. Hardly a picky detail. One might even say, freaking obvious. Also, it appears from the story that the guy knew he had to bring the guns to get them registered. I don't think "technicality" fits.

(I'm guessing the people who write blurbs for the front page are far, far away - a whole state away, probably - from the people who write and edit the stories.)

washington times, 50 cent

Here's a review of Candide from the other paper in town. One would expect that paper to be snippy about the political jokes. Still waiting to see if the Post reviewed it. (They did write into it.) (UPDATE, 7/8: Post review. Doesn't even mention the chorus! Bum!)

The Washington Times is definitely the #2 paper in town. A distant #2. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's #3 or 4 now, after the free papers they hand out outside metro stations.

For the last couple of weeks there's been a teenage boy outside the station closest to my work wearing a "Washington Times Summer Youth Hawker Program" sign around his neck, holding a little stack of newspapers. I can't imagine he sells many. Every time I come up the escalator he looks so hopeful, it just kills me. I could take pity and buy one, but...I don't want a Washington Times. (And I don't think anyone else does, either. Aah! The guilt!)

names, names, names

Check out this column from the Washington Post about evil condo associations. For one thing, it makes me happy I rent. (And rent from nice people.) But check it out: The main characters both have first names for last names. So the story is all about "Alexei" and "Olivia." Especially odd because they're both men.

commuting news

Apparently the local commute made national news today, so let me tell you, yeah: It was truly awful. For everyone but me.

First, the overview: Power went out in a big part of downtown, so tons of office buildings lost power. Dead traffic lights meant traffic was such a disaster that three pedestrians were hit by cars. There were two fires, several hours apart, in the biggest downtown metro station (little fires, but big enough to shut down one tunnel). Several stations lost power; one had to close because the escalators are so long that people walking up kept needing medical attention. One guy's implanted defibrillator went off (ouch).

Now, my morning: At 8:30, I got on the metro. The train was a little slow, but got to the station at close to my normal time - I think I managed to travel in the window between the two track fires. The power was out at my stop, but there were emergency lights so it wasn't too dark. I strolled out the open fare gates. I walked up the short escalator. The one street I crossed had working traffic lights. The power was on in my office.

Yup. On the most disastrous commuting day of the year, in the most disastrous commuting week of the year - a day when, I note bitterly, lots of people didn't have to work 'cause their offices had no power - I had a perfectly normal day.

precision and style

The Post dug it.

stupidity

The other day I was reading the paper while I ate my lunch and got to the comic strip Liō, which the Washington Post picked up fairly recently. I already didn't like it much, but now I also think it's dumb. Here, read the strip in question and come back.

I'm assuming the artist wanted the samurai to be saying "Banzai!" which, well, I don't think samurai really yelled that, but it would make sense for the joke. But guess what that word actually is?

Yep, the samurai is yelling "Dwarf tree!" Not quite as threatening, is it? Newsflash: those characters aren't just pretty little stick drawings. They actually have meaning. Compare: Banzai - 万歳; Bonsai - 盆栽.

do not interrupt my quiz show, monkey

I just got home from a highly crankifying day at work, and I thought, oh good, I can watch Jeopardy. Jeopardy will make me happy. And 30 seconds into the intro - it's the college tournament - they break in with an ABC News Election Update in which Charlie Gibson tells me that he is confident in making the prediction that Hillary will win the primary in West Virginia, where the polls just closed. Seriously? This was worth breaking into programming for? *I* could have confidently made that prediction. A *monkey* could have confidently made that prediction.

Here's something else a monkey can do. (See also the Date Lab editors' chat.)

money

Is it just me, or is this one of the dumbest articles ever? I mean...seriously, there are people who don't realize that if you're making $47,000 a year, maybe you shouldn't be spending $300 a week on going out? Ok, obviously there are people who don't know this, because she writes about them.

But this quote is what really annoys me most about the story:

D.C. is also a town where networking is part necessity, part hobby. It's a town of lawyers, lobbyists and consultants, a town of power lunches, happy hours and party-hopping. There are people who make tons of money and people who make so-so money, and you don't want to be shut out of the social scene even if your salary is not up to par.

"It's a town where people want to fit in, so I think sometimes people will spend in order to fit in, and that might mean dining out a little too much or buying clothes that are a little too expensive," said Kim Reed, a financial planner with Garrett Planning Network in Chevy Chase. "It's a very prestigious town. . . . If you live here, you kind of get sucked into that."

I don't think I need to point out that that all this has basically nothing to do with my social life. Those stupid stereotypes about D.C. are so. infuriating. And it's particularly annoying when the big local newspaper, which I expect to have a more comprehensive view of the city, runs the same tired old stereotypes as if they're established fact.

prejudices confirmed

I grew up in Maryland, so of course I have an innate anti-Virginia bias. But as more and more of my friends have insisted on living there, I've made a lot of progress toward getting over it. I can drive on 66. I know where Alexandria is in relation to Arlington. Goldarn it, I've driven all the way to Woodbridge for a four-year-old's birthday party.

Then I read something like this and all my progress goes out the window. Virginia, are you listening to me? You are dumb.

reading

This Sunday's Post had two 100% fantastic articles that you should read.

First: Ruben Castaneda wrote an article for the magazine about, as the subhead says: "On the job, he covered the District's crack cocaine epidemic for The Post. But, all along, he was one of its casualties." It's a fascinating window into addiction. Read the first scene and I can guarantee you'll want to keep going. Dude still writes for the Post - here's a crazy story he worked on today.

Second: The last in a year-long series of articles called "Why We Compete" (answer: I don't know, but I think it has something to do with testosterone) is on this completely insane game they play twice a year in the streets of Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands. The game involves one ball and about 300 beefy Scottish men pushing against each other. People board up their windows and contestants are knocked unconscious (then get back in the scrum).

so nutty

Monday night I went to a tapas place downtown with S.Ball and Barkley. They're both work friends of mine, from different jobs, and I thought they would get along, and indeed - the three of us are now on a tour of not-too-expensive-but-still-really-nice D.C. restaurants. Jaleo is one of the first places in the country to offer this special ham from Spain called jamón ibérico. Barkley, a big foodie, had read about it in the paper and said we had to try it.

I have never tasted anything like it. To quote Barkley: "It's like eating butter!" Me: "It's just so...nutty!" S.Ball: "This is slammin' ham."

The pigs are fattened partly on acorns, and you can totally taste the nuttiness. It's not at all salty; it's even kind of sweet. The three of us shared one ounce of ham, sliced really thinly like prosciutto, only way better, and it probably took us six or eight minutes to get through the one tiny plate (repeating our quotes, above, in shock). I highly recommend it, if you can find it at a restaurant near you, and can't wait for them to start getting the even higher-grade stuff. Because I'll totally be back.

hax-approved picture books

If you have presents to buy for small people, Carolyn Hax (the Post's awesome advice columnist) wrote a very funny guide to some books she tested out on her little boys. And if you don't have presents to buy for small people, you should read it anyway 'cause it's funny.

ride safety or lack thereof

This article in today's Post, which points out the near-total lack of regulation of amusement park rides, makes me feel good about hating them. I've always felt kind of wimpy about it. I even went on a big ol wooden roller coaster a few years ago just to prove that I could. I screamed the whole time, not in the "I'm having fun!" way, and I was still shaky a couple of hours later.