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"Go fuck yourself." -Dick Cheney My mission statement: To mercilessly mock anything related to life in the Washington metro area, using as much profanity and sarcasm as possible. |
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5.16.2008
The City is Poisoned. No, Not Figuratively. When I'm by the Tenleytown station, I like to cut through Fort Reno Park to get home. It doesn't even save me a block. It's just prettier, obviously, than Wisconsin Avenue. The park has been closed since Wednesday for grossly unacceptable levels of arsenic. Some soil in the area had over 25 times the safe limit of the deadly chemical. If I were to make a pointless and nonsensical analogy comparing this to the legal limit of intoxication, this would be the equivalent of having a blood alcohol level of 2.0%. I know that number is meaningless, but sometimes it's fun to abuse numbers. Anyways, 25 times the safe limit for arsenic. That is shocking. Wait, no, it isn't. I had to deal with the same bullshit at American University when their Child Development Center was found to have contaminated soil. The Army Corps of Engineers had to tear parts of the campus apart to fix the problem. Why should Fort Reno be any different? Of course Fort Reno's closure is a bit more inconvenient than American University losing its baseball diamond. The Mount Pleasant types aren't going to be able to catch the free outdoor concerts that have been part of Northwest Washington summers since God knows when. I'm sure this disrupts activities at Wilson High School and other youth leagues in the area. One of the biggest draws in a quiet neighborhood has been reduced to nothing. Hopefully it's temporary, but it certainly wasn't temporary over at AU. Oh, and the park has a water reservoir. That's awfully disconcerting, isn't it? This is supposed to be the nice part of Washington? The part with the hopelessly poisoned ground? Yay, DC! Rusty | 3:14 PM | [link] 3 comments Come Back, Trudeau! Garry Trudeau, the author of the seminal comic Doonesbury, has been on sabbatical. Damn you, Watterson for popularizing this practice. I need my cartoon monkeys to work 365 days a year. Anyways, the Washington Post is running other lesser known comics in Doonesbury's space as a until Trudeau returns. The current placeholder is Scott Hilburn's Argyle Sweater. Hilburn obviously has a special gift for taking the foibles of everyday life and churning them into relevant and humorous works of art. Like today's comic for instance:  Hahahahahahahahaah! Get it!? Females are bad at sports! LOLOCAUST! The only thing worse than a bad comic is a comic that's bad and mindlessly offensive. The Washington Post gave this guy a pretty big break. A break he so obviously doesn't deserve. I hope this piece of shit comic gets pulled post haste. Rusty | 2:52 PM | [link] 4 comments 5.15.2008 Misery I've been out of town the past few days. Hurrah. Now I'm back. Boo. I usually insist on traveling by bus. Unfortunately, both bus companies I use, Greyhound and Vamoose, have trapped me inside of buses with no air conditioning. This is unacceptable. With no way to open a window, those buses get like ovens. Demands for a refund were rebuffed and now I have to call customer service. Great. Thanks, Greyhound! I guess I have to start insisting on the MARC. Rusty | 9:48 AM | [link] 7 comments 5.12.2008 It's Staggering How Much More Female Attention I Get When I Wear the Cat Shirt Mount Pleasant supposedly has a dollar store. It's called Dollar Star. There's a bright sign in its front window that says "Uno Y Mas." I'm told that this means "one or more" or something along those lines. I am blissfully ignorant when it comes to any foreign language. It's clear that the owners of Dollar Star are blissfully ignorant about dollar stores. The dollar is supposed to be the price ceiling, not the price floor. Why advertise yourself as a dollar store when almost EVERY SINGLE THING you offer is more than a dollar? Check out this sweet towel:  I assure you that, in the history of humanity, this is the lowest quality towel that has ever been produced, packaged, or purchased. Its absorbency is laughable. How much did it cost at the Dollar Star?MAS. Or how about this sweet t-shirt of a green-eyed cat romancing someone with a rose?  How much did this integral part of any dude's wardrobe cost at Dollar Store?MAS. That shirt has no business being more than a dollar. Mother's Day cards? Mas. Bottle openers? Mas. Small porcelain angel figurines? Mas. Every single thing is mas. This is the equivalent of Pizza Hut serving nothing but hamburgers (though they're already pushing it with this pasta business) or Mattress Discounters selling nothing but cabinets. If you're going to advertise that everything in store is at least a dollar, why not go all out and rename yourself Penny Star? It's just as accurate. I can just imagine a Dollar Star consumer going to a legitimate dollar store somewhere in Delaware or West Virginia and being absolutely blown away. Such is the power of MAS. Rusty | 3:48 PM | [link] 8 comments 5.09.2008 WJLA is the Turd in the Punch Bowl Whenever my friends and I watch a 10pm episode of LOST, we usually stick around for another half hour talking crazy-ass theories (OMG, I think Claire is a ghost!). That means we're talking over WJLA's newscast. Yesterday, we were in the middle of discussing what exactly Jacob wanted Locke to do when WJLA did a feature on Grand Theft Auto IV and how it will make your kids fuck prostitutes, kill police officers, and drive drunk. Watch it here in all of its alarmist glory. Bonus points to WJLA for their "Embed Video" being broken. Sorry, guys. You need to click through. Rusty | 9:52 AM | [link] 12 comments 5.06.2008 This Certainly Explains a Lot Take a nap at a frat party and you are just asking to be graped. Take a nap at work and you can use it as a flimsy excuse to write another sub-par article. Talk about your double standards! Rusty | 10:57 AM | [link] 8 comments 5.01.2008 I'm Only Posting This to "Scoop" Big Head DC The DC Madam killed herself. Rusty | 1:34 PM | [link] 13 comments Crazy 'Bout the Nationals A very big thank you to The Bee in DC for sending me the new Nationals theme song. It's an absolute train wreck nightmare abortion fever dream. It's called "Nuts About the Nats." It has to be heard to be believed. The song was written by a very old man who used to be the PA announcer at Griffith Stadium. "The lyrics for the song are meant to capture the fans' excitement, the rush of emotion and the fun and good times they are experiencing," said Charlie Brotman, CEO of Brotman, Winter Fried Communications and the song's author. Epic fail, Mr. Brotman. Epic fail. If they start playing this at every Nationals game, the boycott is on. Rusty | 9:40 AM | [link] 26 comments 4.28.2008 Guess Who Got Hosed by Metro This Weekend Alright, class. Please open your texts to page 11 of the S-line bus schedule. Pay close attention to the "16th and Irving" column. I got to 16th and Irving at 2:26pm. Just in time for the 2:27 bus. Better yet, if the 2:27 was early, I'd only have to wait a few minutes for another bus to take its place. Pop quiz: At what time did my bus arrive? a. 2:34 b. 2:41 c. 2:49 d. None of the above I'll give you a few minutes. ... ... ... ... Who answered "d"? Correct! None of the above! I stood around like an asshole until 3pm waiting for a bus. On a line where buses are supposed to pop up twice every 15 minutes. That means at least four buses had disappeared from the face of the Earth. I called Metro's customer service line. They told me that the S-line was caught in traffic. I have no ideas what it was like downtown, but there was no traffic on 16th Street. Thirty-five minutes. No buses. I wanted to catch what the Patriots did in the NFL Draft, so I decided to get a burger. Afterwards, I walked to my original destination on 17th and R. That's about nine blocks. Guess how many buses passed by? I'll spare you the pop quiz mumbo-jumbo. Zero. Zero buses. There should have been at least two. Can you imagine having to depend on the bus to get to work on the weekends? Metro has proven itself to be incapable of getting someone from Point A to Point B. I understand that buses will be late. Shit happens. Buses not showing up? That qualifies as ridiculously incompetent. Rusty | 11:00 AM | [link] 19 comments 4.23.2008 Nationals Attendance Watch Anytime there's a subscription only website, I'm loathe to copy and paste large excerpts of their articles. I'm going to do that here. So let me get this out of the way. If you love baseball, and I mean really love it, there is no excuse for you not to have a subscription to Baseball Prospectus. It's only $40 a year and it's worth every penny. The good folks over at Baseball Prospectus have finally taken notice of the Nationals' attendance woes. They are very real. In fact, they are almost unprecedented. Opening Night against the Braves produced a sellout--although the listed attendance of 39,389 was less than the official 41,000 capacity of the new stadium--and the fans were treated to a walk-off home run from Ryan Zimmerman. Upon returning home after a road trip, however, the Nationals averaged just 26,351 fans over their first homestand, a six-game affair. That included a 20,487 night in the second game at Nationals Park, which represented the second-largest drop-off from game one attendance in a new park to game two in the 21 stadiums that opened in the past 20 years:
The Nationals have something of an excuse, given that Major League Baseball scheduled their home opener as an isolated game to start the season. The Nationals immediately traveled to Philadelphia afterwards, and so did not have the continuity of an opening series to aid attendance--something the Reds cannot similarly cite to save face. That doesn't excuse Washington, of course, especially considering that concerns attendance [sic] formed part of the reason for the failure of the city's first and second iterations of the Senators. If the fans can't come out tonight to watch their squad take on the division favorite and the best pitcher in baseball, then something is indeed amiss in our nation's capital. Right there with you, Mr. Baseball Writer (Caleb Peiffer). Something is very much amiss. Temperature, pricing, and the Nats being so shitty are all valid excuses. But none of it excuses the city for not being able to support a baseball team. Why can't Nats boosters accept that this area, despite the large population,Don't believe me? Try watching a Nats home game on television. The seats behind home plate - the best seats in the house - are consistently empty. Even the guys shelling out thousands and thousands of dollars can't be bothered. So what's the over-under on today's attendance? My guess is 26,000 or so. Most of them will be Mets fans. (Since I'm presumptuously dancing on the grave of DC baseball, let me remind you that I'm doing my part. I'm going to games and I'm rooting for the Nationals as loudly as I can. I want baseball here. I'm just not blind. It isn't working and the city is going to be left with the tab and the shame of being a minor league town.) UPDATE: God damn it, Blogger. I know the table is coming up all squiggly. I have no idea how to fix it. Rusty | 1:15 PM | [link] 20 comments 4.21.2008 Potpourri No big complaints, just four little ones. 1. Metro still sucks. On a Sunday afternoon trip from Columbia Heights to Gallery Place, our driver had the peculiar habit of closing the train doors after five seconds, tops. Although it was amusing to see person after person getting stuck between the doors, I'm sure that this practice is neither safe nor particularly customer friendly. I'm sure having a leg stuck in a train door is a frightening experience. I just felt bad for the people who had to wait an extra ten minutes for the next Green Line train. That's how bad it was. The trip from platform to Metro car was impossible for people to make at busy stops. Shameful. 2. Tonic still sucks. I like the idea of having a neighborhood bar and brunch spot that's only a block from my girlfriend's apartment. I like their tots. I like their omelettes. I really like their Bloody Maries. But it's getting to the point where their atrocious service is really becoming a deal breaker. They're always understaffed, leading to unacceptable wait times just to get a table. The male host is consistently rude and unfriendly. The wait staff borders on incompetent. How our two coffees and one orange juice became four coffees and two orange juices, I will never know. (And yes we were charged for the extra coffee.) As noted in the previous link, their cups have a habit of being unsanitary. The water is clearly from the tap. Fuck them. Go to Don Jaime's. The service is friendly and fast and the prices are easy on the wallet. Are tots really worth the extra effort and expense? 3. Burglaries are on the rise. Normally this would elicit a "whatever" from me. Unfortunately, the city's response is a little, uh, interesting: [Commander Joel Maupin] also has increased foot patrols in alleys and instructed his officers to stop anyone walking down a street with electronics to confirm that the goods aren't stolen. What!? This is what it's coming to? Anyone with electronics in the 7th District is facing a presumption of guilt? What are they trying to accomplish here? Will police officers be demanding receipts? If so, that's a horrible intrusion on civil liberties. If not, this is fucking useless since THIEVES WILL LIE! It's not like they have some kind of honor code where they refuse to lie to the police. The police seem really keen on bothering people for no reason. Whether it's bothering people with electronics or trying to go door-to-door without warrants looking for guns, Chief Lanier's tenure has been marked by a stunning disregard for civil liberties. Shameful. 4. Cabbies will probably get a meter extension. Unfortunate, but fair. Cab drivers hadn't been installing meters since they're expensive and it wasn't clear if the courts would intervene and prevent the city from their nefarious plans to have people charged a fair amount for a cab ride. Thankfully, the courts made the right decision and we'll have our meters soon enough. Remember that once the meter deadline comes and goes (it's currently set at May 1), it's a $1,000 fine to any driver without a meter. So if you get into a cab with a zone map, please enjoy the visceral thrill of refusing to pay and knowing that the driver can't do a damn thing about it. Rusty | 11:00 AM | [link] 19 comments 4.17.2008 I Hate the Washington City Paper So why not hate on the Washington City Paper readers as well? The WCP decided to have their first "Best of DC" poll since 1987. The paper features reader picks and staff picks. If the staff picks are as bad as their articles, we're in for a treat! Now, I'm obviously going to be skipping quite a few of the WCP's categories. Let be 100% honest. I am only going to mention things that I either hate or disagree with. For all I know, this could be a great list. But as long as there's a few things that are, well, stupid, I'm going to focus on that. Arts & Entertainments: Obvious Reader Picks: Best Independent Movie Theater E Street Cinema Best Graffiti Borf Best Music Venue 9:30 Club Best Outdoor Venue Wolf Trap Whoa, WCP readers. Don't hurt yourself going out on too many limbs. I'll be honest, I can't even think of an independent theater other than E Street. I can't think of another graffiti artist other than Borf. And the 9:30 Club and the Wolf Trap? Those are the predominant indoor and outdoor music venues in the area. Best Band That Should Reunite Black Eyes Best Band That Should Return to Town Midnite Best Internet Hype Wale Best Local Reissue Label Crucial Blast Best Go-Go Ambassador Maurice “Mo” Shorter Best Go-Go Cause Getting Chuck Brown Inducted Best Label Honcho Todd Hyman Best Place to Make Out at a Rock Club Rock & Roll Hotel Best Record Store as Afternoon Killer Joe’s Record Paradise Best Record Stores–as–Punk History Lesson Smash Records Best Place to See D.C.’s Diversity in Action Malcolm X Park drum circle Best Music Venue Velvet Lounge Best Aspiring Brooklyn Band Deleted Scenes Deepest House DJ People & PlacesChris Burns at Rock & Roll Hotel It goes on like this forever. We get it, WCP staff. You're wicked hip. "Best aspiring Brooklyn band"? Ugh. Fuck you! And if you're part of a drum circle, there is no hope for you. Racial diversity? Maybe? But drum circles are always homogeneous in their asshattery. Food & Drink Stupid Reader Picks: Best Draft Beer Selection Brickskeller What the Hell? The draft selection at the Brickskeller is terrible. "Best bottle beer selection," yeah, why not? But draft selection? This is objectively false. Stupid fucking readers. Best Greasy Spoon Ben's Chili Bowl More limb hopping! Best Dessert Piola Best Happy Hour Piola Best Restaurant Overall Piola This is awfully fishy. I smell ballot stuffing. There is no fucking way that the best happy hour in the area is in Northern Virginia. On, ugh, Wilson Boulevard. No one likes going to Northern Virginia. I went to NoVA to play mini-golf and I came back with train-tracks on my wrists. You know, I give the WCP a hard time, but at least their staff managed to avoid giving props to Virginia bars. I don't go out to restaurants. If I want goat cheese crusted halibut or peppered tuna, I make it myself. So if they say the best dim sum is at Hollywood East Cafe, who the Hell am I to disagree? I don't even know what dim sum is. We don't have Chinese food where I'm from and I'm certainly not going to start now. Readers' Picks Best D.C. Web Site DCist No argument from me. Congratulations. Best Councilmember Jim Graham I was getting all riled up to mock the Ward 1 residents who certainly dominate the Washington City Paper's readership. Jim Graham!? But then I tried thinking of a better Councilmember and I came up blank. Evans? Hell no. Mendelson? Maybe. So congratulations, Councilmember Graham. You were voted the best of a truly mediocre lot. Best Local Hero Adrian Fenty Huh? I strongly object to Mayor Fenty being labeled a "hero." The man is a politician. Some people love him. Others not so much. No matter what one thinks of the man, calling him a hero is a gross exaggeration. Here's how hurting the District is for a real hero: the runner-up in this vote was Marion Berry. Marion Berry: The second most heroic person in the District. Pardon the politically incorrect language, but that is the most retarded thing I have ever read in my entire life. Best Place to Take an Out-of-Towner National Mall Jesus Christ on the Cross. The horrible thing is that I recently had a guest in town and he insisted I take him to the Mall. Ugh. It was the first time I had been to the monuments since I moved down here in 2001. It is the last place I would think to take an out-of-towner. People here are so eager to complain about DC being more than just a federal city. More than just the monuments. But when push comes to shove, that's exactly what we are. A city that's got some tourist crap. Best R---kins Player Sean Taylor Sean Taylor is actually the worst R***kin. It's science. A good safety runs at least a 4.6 40-yard-dash. Sean Taylor's 40 time: Infinity. Or as fast as the worms will move him. Why not vote for Sammy Baugh? He's at least alive. Obnoxious Staff Picks: Best Front Desk Operators Carolyn Taylor, Alice Bell, and Doreatha Williams at the Calverton Really, WCP? Your staff went to every aparment and dorm with front desk operators and these three came out the winners? Or did you just pick the front desk people that you were most familiar with? Best Panhandler Blelvis Best Street Performer Robert Triolo Same complaints. There are so many front desk operators, street performers, and panhandlers. Why include these categories when any discerning reader knows you're pulling these names out of a hat? Why can't they just call these the WCP's Favorite Things instead of using the word "best"? They're implying that they know better than us. They don't. Best Way to Get to DCA for Free and Park for Nothing Ride your bike FUCK YOU! You could say that about every single fucking place within 20 miles of the city. You know what else is an easy way to get to DCA for $1.65 and park for nothing? I'll give you three guesses, you morons. Goods & Services I don't really care about the best plastic surgeon, best tattoo parlor, best shoe store, or any of that junk. But, this: Best Bank Bank of America WTF!? I have never met a single person who was happy with BoA. There is no city in America where BoA could be considered the best bank. God I hate the WCP Staff Picks: In Depth: Best Coffee Tables for Oddly Shaped Rooms Skynear Designs, Design Within Reach, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams In Depth: Best Suburb for Vintage Chic Polly Sue's Vintage Shop, Moonshadow Antiques & Vintage Best Shoe Shopping for the Guy Who Hates Shoe Shopping Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets Best Place to Have Your Mom Buy You Slacks Westfield Shoppingtown Montgomery What the Hell does any of this mean? Shouldn't these lists be enlightening? This isn't enlightening. It's horribly masturbatory. Although it would pretty great if Westfield Shoppingtown put up a sign that said "2008 Best Place to Have Your Mom Buy You Slacks." Best Place to Determine Where You Land on the Kinsey Scale Results the Gym Haha, gay jokes, lol. Then the WCP does something called "Archetypes." I dare you to read this without wanting to punch this smarmy motherfucker right in the nose. Now, I'm no DC expert. I'm sure there are a thousand legitimate gripes with this list that I'm missing. I would be honored if you would leave those gripes in the comments. But the most important gripe is this: The Washington City Paper was, is, and will remain an absolute joke. Their work is shoddy. Their articles are the worst kind of tripe. And their hipper-than-thou attitude that looks down on their readership is little more than pure obnoxiousness on the page. I actually feel pretty badly for giving them so many page views. So please let them have it. I'm leaving the comments open to everyone. Last time this happened it took 12 hours before some asshole was dropping n-bombs. Please do not be that asshole. Rusty | 4:40 PM | [link] 25 comments 4.15.2008 John Wojnowski, This Is Your Time to Shine!
 Anyone who takes the N-line to work knows all about Mr. Wojnowski. He's been outside the Vatican Embassy every day for years. His website is a little wacky, but his sign is 100% accurate. With the Pope in town, I'm willing to bet that the MPD doesn't allow Wojnowski anywhere near the throngs of people trying to catch a glimpse of their false idol. After all, the right to protest and speech only counts in this country if no one important is there to see it. Rusty | 9:38 AM | [link] 17 comments 4.14.2008 So, Nationals Park ...is really, really nice. That HD screen out in center field. Holy Hell is it amazing. It's a shame that the operators don't quite have the hang of it yet.The pitch count didn't move for two entire innings. That's not acceptable, but I am sure that will fix itself in time. And thank goodness the stadium is using on-base percentage and slugging percentage on top of the typical (and outdated) batting average, home runs, and runs batted in. Maybe we'll get lucky and Nats Park will be the first stadium to showcase VORP. There are problems of course. Beer and food are prohibitively expensive. Nationals Park has managed to surpass the 9:30 Club in extorting their captive customers out of their hard earned money. There is no excuse for $7.50 bottles of Miller Lite. And beef brisket sandwiches should probably cost under ten dollars a pop unless they're made from fresh sirloin. Another problem is of course the attendance. For a weekend game against a good team, there were far too many open seats. Baseball is about atmosphere. It's hard to really get the sensation of baseball when the park is only filled to two-thirds capacity. I'm disappointed in the field of play as well. It's a very nice park with very nice amenities, but the field of play is boring. I'm not demanding anything as artificially wacky (or deplorable) as Minute Maid Park's hill in center field. I'm not even asking for a foul pole at 302 feet or a 37-foot wall out in left. But, the park needs something. It needs something like Camden's warehouse or Kansas City's waterfalls. There's nothing in the field of play that gives the stadium a personal touch. The field is similar to the cookie-cutter parks (like RFK) that have become so unfashionable since Camden Yards opened in 1993. I ignored most of the extracurricular stuff in the ballpark. I guess a Playstation 3 booth would be nice for the kids, but I'm already a Guitar Hero champion and spend a good portion of my week playing MLB '08. I don't feel the need to prove my PS3 chops when I could be watching a baseball game. Unfortunately, the stadium has that extracurricular vibe. All that extra stuff is nice, but I'm more interested in a hot dogs, beer, and good baseball. Nationals Park is merely adequate in that regard. I want more than adequate for the stupid financial obligations the city made on our behalf. This post is getting more and more negative. I don't mean it to be. I just wish the same creativity that went into the stadium's stunning exterior was brought into the field of play. But, man, that exterior. Any bad thoughts I had about the stadium were dashed as soon as I got off the Metro. If this neighborhood develops like the city has planned (which I of course think is highly unlikely), the stadium will be an absolute jewel. The park fits seamlessly into the neighborhood. If it weren't for the ticket gates, one could imagine stumbling into the stands by accident. It's that exterior that allow me to temporarily forget all of the bone-headed decisions that led to the stadium being built. That opening lets me do nothing but daydream about baseball for three hours. For that I am grateful. Rusty | 12:49 PM | [link] 10 comments 4.10.2008 This is a Little Callous So by know we all know the saga of Jeremy Miller, right? This poor guy had a seizure at 10 G Street, NE. Seizures are bad, but they're especially bad on that block on G Street. Why? Because it's right next to G Place, NE. The medical personnel showed up at the wrong block and drove off figuring it was a false alarm. Oops. When Miller was finally given a lift to the hospital, he was pronounced dead on arrival. This is especially frightening for me since my block features a 43rd Street and a 43rd Place. If I have a seizure or get hit by a car, I am fucked. Here's how the city is handling the situation: In response to the incident, the department announced yesterday that it has purchased 120 GPS devices for its emergency vehicles. The first batch has come in. Oh dear. GPS devices are only as good as the people programming them. Let's just say that I don't have a lot of faith in DC's Emergency Services. Even in death, Jeremy Miller can't catch a break. While his body went unclaimed, no one in his family was notified of his death. Miller was getting text messages from his mom and no one bothered to give her a call. It is unclear who had the responsibility for notifying family members about the death. The fire department said it was the hospital's responsibility. Howard University Hospital said Miller was dead on arrival, and when the hospital was unsuccessful in reaching family members, it turned the case over to the medical examiner's office. The medical examiner's office said it relies on the D.C. police to make all notifications. D.C. police said they were not notified about the Miller case or asked to contact the family. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.Shit like this is how hopsitals end up with piles of dead babies. Rusty | 2:30 PM | [link] 7 comments Prophecy Update Some people didn't take too kindly to my prediction that the Nationals would flee to Portland, OR with its tail between its legs in the next 20 years. I used Monday's game as an example of why the team's failure in this city was inevitable. The Nationals, in their second game in their new ballpark, failed to reach 50% of its capacity. Now, one game is one game. It's no sample size. It's an anecdotal example. Nothing more and nothing less. As one commenter, Pettey, so eloquently put it: We had a higher percentage of attendance on Monday night then EVERY single ballpark that wasnt hosting an opening day game for their team. The NCAA championship was on, hence no one in America went to a baseball game. Secondly, it was 20 freaking degrees at the game because of the breeze off of the Anacostia (which will be amazing come July and August). I can't wait to see the attendance tonight. I'll be commenting again tomorrow morning. Thanks dickweed... As I noted in my response, his first paragraph is a pretty blatant lie. The Nationals were third in attendance percentage for teams that weren't hosting an Opening Day game. Third. Out of three. If you're keeping score at home, Denver's Coors Field opened in 1995. LAnaheim's Angel Stadium opened up way back in 1966. To be fair to Pettey, his second paragraph was pretty much dead on. There were plenty of external factors working against the home town team. It was pretty chilly that night and a lot of people were probably more interested in seeing the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. (Congrats, Kansas fans!) Not to mention the Marlins and Nationals are terrible. Of course, my easy counter-argument is that the granddaddy of all external factors is the brand new field. When new parks open, attendance is supposed to increase accordingly. This isn't happening here. This is a problem. As for paragraph three, I'm right there with ya, big guy. I checked the attendance first thing this morning too. Nationals Park capacity: 41,888 Attendance: 23,340 So, a hearty congratulations to the Washington Nationals for, barely, eclipsing the 50% capacity mark in the third game in a brand new stadium. Way to support the home town team, DC! Man, we are really getting a lot of bang out of our 674,000,000.00+ bucks! Rusty | 9:41 AM | [link] 13 comments 4.08.2008 Prophecy Let's be perfectly honest. Baseball in DC is going to fail. My best guess is that the Nationals move to Portland or Vegas by 2028. Actually, 2028 seems optimistic. I know the Nationals aren't exactly a great team. And I know that the Marlins are going to be absolutely dreadful. PECOTA has the Nats finishing the year with 73 wins and the Marlins with 71. Games between two bad teams aren't going to sell out. But to fail to reach 50% of capacity in the second game ever in Nationals Park is astonishing. Nationals Park capacity: 41,888. Attendance yesterday: 20,487 This is the second professional game ever in a brand new stadium! The first game, Opening Night, sold out in minutes. You'd think interest would be through the roof. But the numbers don't lie. People simply do not give a shit. There's no demand here for a baseball team. Just like there was no demand for the Senator teams that moved to Minnesota and Texas. At least there won't be any scheduling concerns when Pope John Paul IV hosts a Catholic Mass in 2036. Rusty | 3:22 PM | [link] 17 comments 4.07.2008 Don't Stop Bean Counting Just Yet The Big Lie being disseminated by the Nationals and local media outlets is that Nationals Park cost the city a mere $611,000,000.00. This is not true. And shame on anyone willing to believe it. The stadium is going to cost the city at least $674,000,000.00. I say at least because who knows how much money the city will have to fork over after all of these eminent domain lawsuits are settled. But that's not all folks! Hundreds of millions of dollars don't just appear out of nowhere. Much like building that publicly subsidized stadium in Rustyport in Sim City 2000, these things take loans. Loans that are going to be considerably more expensive than previously thought. The District has begun paying an extra $1.2 million every month because its interest payments have doubled, and in some cases even tripled, on $601 million of these bonds. That represents nearly one-seventh of the city's total debt and includes $24 million for the Washington Nationals' new stadium, the District's treasurer said. City officials were convinced by investment banks that these types of loans would be safe and cheaper than traditional borrowing. It seems to me that these investment goods just pulled the wool over our eyes. More financial mismanagement and more taxpayer dollars being thrown down the Navy Yard Money Pit. Not everyone believed the sales pitch on these securities. Auction-rate bonds were shunned by all of the localities that border the District as well as the state governments of Maryland and Virginia. Hahahaha. Go DC! It's good to know that when there's some kind of rip-off, the District can always be counted on to volunteer our dollars. Got to spend money to make money. Or, alternatively, spend money in order to spend more money. It must be nice to live in Maryland or Virginia and know that your monies are being properly handled. And sure there isn't a lot to do out there, but you can always catch a ride to Nationals Park knowing that the stadium didn't cost you one God-damned dime. And it won't for the foreseeable future. No matter how shitty the loan, any percentage of zero is still zero. Rusty | 2:07 PM | [link] 5 comments 4.04.2008 Chief Lanier Listens to Reason And not a moment too soon. Three weeks ago Police Chief Cathy Lanier and Mayor Adrien Fenty unveiled the "Safe Homes Initiative." Metro police officers were instructed to go door-to-door in the city's high-crime neighborhoods and ask permission to look for guns and drugs in exchange for amnesty. My take on the issue is right here. Needless to say, I thought the plan was the worst kind of bullshit. People would be intimidated into forfeiting their Fourth Amendment rights. Thankfully, some like minded people convinced Chief Lanier to scrap most of the plan. The Safe Homes Initiative is now by appointment only. That way intimidated family members or concerned parents can call for a search without having an intimidating police presence knocking on doors. Even if the plan works now works in theory, in practice is something else entirely. A Safe Homes program similar to the District's was announced in Boston last week after several months of citizen resistance and delays. That department has yet to get a call to search a home. "We're still waiting for the phone calls to come in," said Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston police." I prefer the latter. Rusty | 2:12 PM | [link] 2 comments 4.02.2008 I Need a Courtland Translator Heard the news about one in four adolescent women having a sexually transmitted disease? It's a truly horrible situation. But a horrible situation doesn't excuse Washington Post writer Courtland Milloy to write a fever dream of a column. I just can't make sense of it. The relative lack of attention to men's sexual health has consequences, too. The March issue of the Journal of Pediatrics reports on a study that found that circumcision does not necessarily reduce the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. Why is it taking us so long to deal with these questions? And given that flash of Stone Age insight, should we be surprised if some guy out there still thinks that smashing his penis with a rock will get rid of gonorrhea? What!? What does that mean!? Milloy is being so obtuse and confusing that it's making it hard for me to attack his silly words. I'm going to assume that Milloy think it's obvious that circumcision doesn't reduce the risk of contracting an STD. If that's the case, then Milloy hasn't been paying attention. And if people are smashing their penises with rocks, then, yes, I would be quite surprised. According to the Annals of Internal Medicine for April 1, almost one in four U.S. women who undergo cervical screening are found to have the high-risk human papillomavirus. HPV is a leading cause of deadly cervical cancer. Yet there was virtually no public outcry about HPV until a pharmaceutical company came up with an HPV vaccine. All of a sudden, the health of girls is so important that some states have made vaccination a condition of their admission to public school. The health of girls became so suddenly important because people realized how widespread the problem is. I still don't understand what Milloy is missing.By the way, the plural "states" is wrong. Only one state has made the HPV vaccine mandatory. That would be Virginia. Washington, DC, which is not a state, passed a similar law. Milloy was against mandatory HPV vaccinations on, wait for it, racial grounds. Check it out here. Here's a particularly nasty excerpt: Only the most progressive and caring elected city officials -- in this case, two nice white people -- would propose a program to vaccinate against sexually transmitted disease girls under 13 in a predominantly black school system. And from the CNN page I linked to above: A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls -- nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. Emphasis mine. And Milloy had the nerve to say the vaccinations were a way for whites to control blacks. The easy counter-argument is that the city has a pretty reasonable desire to not have its hospitals filled with cervical cancer patients. Black women are an especially at risk group and DC has tons of black women. It's Chocolate City for Christ's sake. Yet Milloy continues - in a column about HPV being so widespread! - to be suspicious of why people want girls to get vaccinated. If someone could present Milloy's reasoning in a more understandable way than Milloy himself, I would greatly appreciate it. It's enough to make you wonder why schools don't do a better job of sex education. You already know why parents can't do the job. Half of the kids most at risk don't have any parents to speak of, and the other half have parents too busy to try. That's a pretty crazy racial generalization. A year ago Milloy was defending black students from their white Council overlords. Now he's saying that black people, those most at risk, are incapable of raising their own children. Milloy then goes on to advocate for more comprehensive sexual education. No complaint here. My complaint is with The Post giving this hack copy space. I don't think Milloy understands his own views any better than I do. And he certainly doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Rusty | 2:27 PM | [link] 7 comments 3.31.2008 Baseball Stuff What a fairy tale opening to Nationals Park yesterday. The stadium was introduced to the American public on national television last night and star third baseman Ryan Zimmerman put the dot on the exclamation point with his line drive walk-off home run to the left field power alley. What a moment. But let's not get too carried away. The attention being lavished upon Washington is embarrassing. For example, you have this lazy turd of a sentence from Jerry Crasnick on ESPN.com: "Best of all, the shindigs cost a mere $611 million -- or roughly half the price of the new Yankee Stadium." This is where we are now? A mere $611 million? That's the number being bandied about by baseball and it's not true. It's a fabrication. The stadium financing plan had a $611 million cap, but once the fine print came into play, the stadium actually cost $674 million. But what's a $63 million difference between friends? Furthermore, the comparison to New York is, for the lack of a better word, stupid. If someone is telling you that the stadium was a good deal and uses the new stadiums in the Bronx and Queens as an example, please ignore that person. That person is a moron who is not worthy of your time. Baseball has proven itself to be a successful commodity in New York City. Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium are huge. They both sell out on a regular basis. On the other hand is Washington, DC. A city with such a grand baseball tradition that two different franchises have left the city for the greener pastures of Minneapolis, MN and Arlington, TX. So even if the investment is higher in New York, the risk is much lower. But the investment isn't higher. Sure the New Yankee Stadium is going to cost over one billion dollars and be the most expensive stadium in American history. But Crasnick is doing a great disservice to his readers by pretending the final expense is all that matters. Who pays for the stadium is just as, if not more, important than how much it costs. The taxpayers of New York City are paying only $450 million for New Yankee Stadium. Citi Field, the new park for the New York Mets, is going to cost New York's taxpayers $164 million. So New York taxpayers get two new stadiums at a much lower risk in a city with a much larger budget to work from for $614 million. Yeah, Jerry Crasnick, we got one Hell of a deal. One thing that ESPN kept mentioning in their broadcast last night was how quickly the stadium was completed. It only took 22 months. That's pretty fantastic and exceeded my wildest expectations. Sure that means the area surrounding the stadium isn't even close to being ready for the spotlight, but hurray for the city for managing to not default in the sweetheart deal they gave to Major League Baseball. But if the city isn't ready, the city isn't ready. On Saturday night I was traveling from a BBQ in Bethesda to The Black Cat for The Raveonettes concert. That meant transferring to the Green Line. When our Green Line train came, we noticed a ton of people in Nats gear. I remembered that Nationals Park was hosting an exhibition game that night. We got on the train and squeezed ourselves in with the hometown faithful. One stop later the conductor asked everyone to leave the train. It was out of service. About 200 people waited on the platform at the Convention Center stop for 20 minutes and watched four empty trains go by. One person loudly remarked, "Now I remember why I love Washington baseball so much." Everyone laughed. But a $674 million publicly funded stadium? The joke's on us. Rusty | 9:25 AM | [link] 15 comments 3.26.2008 DC Cab Drivers Still Up to No Good Let me start off by saying, "Preach on, brother. Preach on." A pro-DC blogger, David Alpert, was getting the moron treatment from a cabbie and Alpert handled it by the book. When a cab driver refused to drive him to an undesirable location, Alpert called the Passenger Rights hotline and asked for the driver's license number. When the driver refused to let him see his information, Alpert ended up on with a supervisor. And by supervisor, I mean Leon Swain. The guy in charge of the whole shebang. Alpert got his ride and it was made clear that the driver was going to be in the doghouse. So, congratulations to David Alpert for doing everything by the book. But I can't shake the feeling that he still doesn't quite understand the problem. First the cabbie fucked up by refusing to drive Alpert where he wanted to go in the city after he got into the cab. Then he doubly fucked up by refusing to let Alpert see his information. Then he triply fucked up by telling Swain that he didn't want to drive Alpert unless he got the fare in advance. Drivers can do that, but that wasn't the issue at hand. So three fuck-ups. Major ones. And Alpert admits he's heard of these horror stories through the Internets. Yet his sentiment is that he hopes that the driver didn't get into too much trouble. What? The driver was a liar and a crook. He certainly had no interest in obeying DC's taxi laws. Why would one hope that he didn't get in trouble? "Will this driver face actual penalties? I don't really care. I didn't want to ruin his day..." What!? Well, I care on your behalf. I want this guy off the street. He works in bad faith. Not everyone is willing to put themselves on the line for bullshit like this. For everyone who is willing to sit in the backseat and complain about a driver who is sitting three feet away or who is willing to loudly boycott a Subway over trying to extort an extra 11 cents, there are a hundred people who would just leave the cab or pay the extra money or whatever. The timid need protection too. If people don't get outraged by this, especially when they know that many DC cabbie's share these habits, then what's the point? Rusty | 7:29 AM | [link] 19 comments 3.24.2008 WaPo Still Not Clear on Blogging The Washington Post hosts one of the best sports blogs on the planet. The D.C. Sports Bog is clever, informative, and an easy way to accidentally kill an hour. Stuff like the most recent post on the West Virginia men's basketball team loving the shit out of some Manny and Olga's pizza. The Bog has helped make DC the country's preeminent destination for sports blogging. It's wonderful. Unfortunately, it's set the bar a bit high for the rest of the paper. The Post just launched D.C. Wire, a blog devoted to "news and notes on District politics." And it's awful. I don't understand how the Post can get it so right when dealing with sports and so wrong when dealing with its host city. The Wire is terrible. Let's take a looksie at their most recent post. It's dealing with an issue near and dear to my heart: The Nationals Park fiasco. The post is meant to accompany a piece about the six billion dollars being spent to develop the area surrounding the ballpark. Eminent domain lawsuits have prevented developers from getting all the choice land they want. These lawsuits are also driving up the cost of the stadium. Ok, fine. Nothing really new there, but still important information for people who don't understand how incomplete the neighborhood surrounding the stadium is. Anyways, here's the gist of the blog post on the subject: The land owners have asked for $24 million more than the city has offered. Remember, the D.C. Council's cost cap did not include the land prices since there was no way to predict what the court would do. But that's why people like council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) voted against the financing package. What do you think--was the cap disingenous [sic] or were people like Mendelson being nit-picky? Let us know in the comments section. Spelling errors! How bloggy! This is the worst kind of blogging. "There's Opinion A, but wait! Here's Opinion B! Which one is the best? Please tell us in the comments." This is not effective writing. And just to be clear: nitpick –verb (used without object)
It is definitively impossible to be "nit-picky" over tens of millions of dollars. How 24 million dollars is spent will always be of consequence to someone or other. So not only is this post a waste of time, it can't be even bothered to get the crux of its own question right. I think the problem here is that sports writers are supposed to be homers. They have a clear bias towards the Wizards, Nats, Capitals, and R****ins. They root, root, root for the home team and their readers expect that. But journalists are supposed to be unbiased. They can't just come out and say that the stadium agreement was a good or a bad deal for the city. That would be appropriately criticized. So what is the fucking point of even hosting this blog!? Making us aware of events is already covered by the newspaper. If we're not going to get some analysis or some educated opinion, why should I bother? The D.C. Wire will always be handcuffed by being written by objective people. And "objective blog" should probably be an oxymoron. Have the balls to state an opinion or get the fuck off of my Internet. Rusty | 9:25 AM | [link] 5 comments |