Where C-SPAN is the local TV news
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| The Washington Canard Where C-SPAN is the local TV news |
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Monday, December 20, 2004
HE HIATUS ME Anyway, I've got something less than 48 hours left in Swamp City before I fly back to the Rose City for Christmas and New Year's, a bachelor party and wedding, and if I'm lucky, the deep fat frying of a turkey. In the meantime there's a Motown-themed company "holiday" party, another column to file, and numerous loose ends to tie up. So you know what this means: Hiatus! It should be a big year for the Canard. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a view from the balcony where the Canard is often composed on during warmer times:  IT'S SUCH AN IMPERFECT DAY What a miserable day. Not enough sleep last night, and that's just my fault. My balcony door was slightly ajar, letting in more of a draft than usual, and that's my building manager's fault. Then before running out the door I glance at the WeatherPop icon in my menu bar, informing me that it was 12 degrees outside — but felt like -7. I wrapped my scarf around my head an extra time and stormed out into the cold. And it was really cold. When I got to work, everyone was still wearing their coats, and a few of them, hats. This is because the heat wasn't on, either broken or shut off, we didn't know. And it was too early to call the help desk. Eventually we called and got through, and then … it got colder. And colder still. We drank hot cocoa and spent our day working in hats and coats. I was still cold. The best part of my day was writing and posting my latest column for DCist, on the Titanic Memorial way down in SW. Read it here. Just before I posted it, I read — at DCist, of course — that some idiot had jumped in front of a train along the Orange/Blue line at Metro Center ... which of course is precisely in the middle of my route home. Hearing that delays were just 20 minutes, I figured I could get lucky or wait it out while rounding into the homestretch of The Corrections. Apparently I was misinformed. No trains were moving through Metro Center along Orange/Blue. My train went out of service at Farragut West. The loudspeaker told us to exit the station, cross Farragut Square, and get back on at Farragut North. This was better than sitting underground for three hours … but it was really, really cold (even as I write this, my legs ache from the cold). Tomorrow is "secret Santa" at work, and somehow I got stuck with an intern I barely know (not because I'm a jerk, but because he's never, ever around). At Rite-Aid I was going to buy him a gigantic Hershey bar and a wall-plug carbon monoxide detector. Funny! Well, it was funny at the $8 listed in the aisle — like a kick in the gut at the $40 rung up at the cash register. (I still got the Hershey bar.) So I crossed the street and bought a T-shirt from Ben's Chili Bowl. With this kind of luck, he won't even be there to accept it. Or if he does, it'll turn out he's lived in DC all his life. Now it's the early evening and I'm trying to figure out what I need to get done before leaving for Portland this week. Writing this post was one of them, and now I've got that part done. Thursday, December 16, 2004
LET'S BREAK A DEAL I am so angry I can barely put words together. I think I'll just let Mike Wilbon do it for me: It's a great idea that private money finance at least 50 percent of the cost of a new riverfront baseball stadium. It's a smart idea to protect the District from millions of dollars in penalties resulting from some phony stadium construction deadline that is unlikely to be met. It's common sense and good business to challenge a bunch of fat-cat Major League Baseball owners on every clause and every dollar asked for when spending $500 million or more on anything non-essential that includes a playpen for multi-millionaires.  The coverage is downright apocalyptic this morning. The Nationals have suspended business operations, and deposits on season tickets are being returned. MLB says it will take their wayward team elsewhere if the stadium deal doesn't go down the way the District promised. I, for one, believe them. A little while ago someone tried to tell me that MLB is bluffing. That makes no sense. It may be true that DC is the best location to move a team, unless of course the city can't find enough investors and the stadium falls through (RFK, pictured here, isn't nearly big enough). When you think about it that way, Las Vegas -- or even Northern Virginia -- starts to look like a better option. But DC only has one option. Wilbon's analogy:[For MLB, it's] akin to finally agreeing to a date with somebody who has stalked you for five years, then being stood up.Hear, hear. (Elsewhere in the paper, the Kids section offers an swell analogy involving hamsters.) But city councilor Linda Cropp -- the Cruella DeVille of this nasty episode -- doesn't think so, and now she's going around saying mean, ugly things such as: "I'm willing to let baseball walk."And: "I am not trying to kill the deal. I'm putting some teeth in it because I'm really disappointed with what I got from major league baseball."The deal you got? YOU? Fuck you, lady. I hereby announce my version of Democrats' "move to Canada promise: If Linda Cropp succeeds in destroying the last chance for DC to get a baseball team and then becomes mayor, I will move back to Arlington. I really should, anyway. The taxes are lower there. Maybe they'll even have a baseball team. Wednesday, December 15, 2004
YES, I'M AN ANTI-DENTITE Exiting the U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo (try saying that five times fast) Metro station at 13th street, one finds this:  Questions: What if that gum was Bubblicious? What responsibility does a dentist have to the Metrorail system of Washington, DC? What about gum (let's say it's Trident) that's in the mouth of somebody who is on a train? Will Metro have me arrested for chewing gum like they would for eating french fries? I'd call up WMATA and ask to see their research, but somehow I don't think I would get very far. Tuesday, December 14, 2004
UH OH I try to avoid Wonkette whenever possible, but a little while ago an aquaintance brought this post to my attention:  Will I admit that I actually once lived in this apartment? Will I further admit that I at one time occupied the top bunk therein? No, not today I won't. I don't care what you've heard. Monday, December 13, 2004
THE WASHINGTON CANARD CONSOLIDATES ITS POWER My first contribution to the much more widely read DC blog DCist ran today. Assuming all goes to plan, every Monday I'll be profiling a different little-known landmark in Washington and the surrounding area. Today I look into the history of and stories behind Sonny Bono Memorial Park. Friday, December 10, 2004
LOGORRHEA Well, I'll be damned:  The Nationals logo is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the generic result of techniques commonly applied to corporate advertising campaigns. The NoVa man whose website points this out is not, as it happens, a disinterested observer. It turns out he's been promoting his own designs for a Washington baseball club logo for a year or so, long before baseball in DC was a sure thing (note, the deal is still not done as of this posting). Here's a few of the logo concepts he's worked out:  The baseball as Capitol Dome is inspired, particularly the bottom one, where the blue stitches remind me of the longitudinal ridges on the actual building. I'm not so sure about the K street lobbyist swinging the bat, but it's a funny and even knowingly endearing take on the city's lobbyist culture. His proposals run into a bit of opposition on this MLB message board, where he also claims to be in the process of licensing his ideas to the team. I assume the likelihood of these concepts being incorporated into a future design is minimal, but anything's better than the would-be Fuddrucker's sign. In any case, it also happens that the franchise itself already has a hat-appropriate circular logo:  The Nationals are still selling hats with the cursive "W" last used by the Senators in the 1960's, and while I don't hate it, neither do I like it. And did they have to buy it back from the Texas Rangers? I wonder. The fact that this round logo is buried halfway down Nationals history page (what has it been, a month?) and not visible anywhere on the Nationals front page makes me wonder about how seriously they're going to push it. In fact, there is only one item in the official store which features this icon, and it's not exactly wearable:  In case you were wondering what it's called (how could you not be?) this is a "Forever Collectibles Washington Nationals Beanie Bear." No, it's not a Teddy bear, though that would at least be appropriate, presidentially speaking. Thursday, December 09, 2004
I'VE SEEN BETTER DAYS "Wrong side, wrong side, wrong side, wrong side. Wrong side. Thanks."Who am I quoting? Me, trying to ascend a stopped escalator at the U Street Metro stop (not pictured below right) while those ahead of me try to descend — by walking down the same side of the elevator as yours truly. Why should it be so difficult to walk on the left side? These people may not drive, but surely they've had a moment to study traffic patterns. Not to mention which side the trains run on. It's probably not a good idea to lecture perfect strangers in such a terse manner, but I had the protection of my iPod at the  time. I've complained a million times about the system's notoriously unreliable vertical operation, and I'll complain at least a million times more.
I can't rely on the Metro, I can't rely on my fellow passengers, and I can't even rely on my iPod — it needs a replacement battery, quick. So who or what can I rely on? PTI, you're all I've got left. Wednesday, December 08, 2004
SPEAKING OF WORK UnemployedKerryStaffer.com is a neat idea, sure. But shouldn't the ostensibly un-busy proprietor have written more than two posts before soliciting attention from certain gullible Beltway and UK publications? I predict a brief, ignominious un-career for this sham-blogger. UPDATE -- What, you're John Edwards? And you had to sell your stereo to buy food? I'm even less impressed. But hey, I hope your wife gets better. THE DEVIL'S WORKDAY It may be days before Oh Metro! gets around to another update, so allow me to highlight a Washington Post editorial pointing out that Prince George's County, Maryland, pays Marcell Solomon, one of its representatives to the Metro Board as much as $100,000 a year -- nearly five times the stipend paid to Metro board members from other jurisdictions. The other members' annual compensation ranges from nothing to $22,000. ... Making the financial arrangement all the more curious, Mr. Solomon is actually an alternate member of the board who can act only when the voting member from Prince George's, Charles Deegan, is absent. Mr. Deegan was named to the job by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) and as a gubernatorial appointee receives a stipend of $22,000 a year.Others make nothing at all. I'm tempted to say that I'm in the wrong line of work, but so apparently is Charles Deegan. I could also say, nice work if you can get it -- but something tells me Marcell Solomon is about to lose it. Fortunately, there's another cliché to fall back on: Enjoy it while it lasts. Tuesday, December 07, 2004
BRAVO, BIL KEANE, BRAVO!  Someone out there really, really does not like the Family Circus. And if you're thinking "Hey, I don't like the Family Circus," well, I promise: There is someone out there who likes that particular comic strip even less than you. This someone has a lot of time on their hands.
Over the past few years, someone has been registering reviwer accounts with Amazon and putting up bogus reviews of the Family Circus books, then registering more to offer votes of confidence in said reviews. And they're not all negative reviews, either. Here's one that's positively glowing: A triumph of the human spirit..., June 2, 2003Sometimes the reviews are more conflicted, seeing room for interpretation in Keane's twisted vision: The real American Gothic, December 3, 2004And others are highly critical, but still sound like a back-handed recommendation: I was expecting cartoons., January 24, 2004Other reviews focus on drug use, gender issues and Jacques Derrida. A blogger named Dalton Rooney has them all. Hat tip and general recommendation: IRTCSYDHT. Monday, December 06, 2004
MR. TEA Just now I was thinking about the word "T-shirt" and its variant, "tee," used only in the absence of "shirt" (trust me, it's not important why). This put me at Google, where I just had to find out how many illiterates were hawking their wares as "tea shirts." Believe it or not, I didn't find that many. Instead, I found a vast fashion niche (or as vast as any niche can be) that I never knew existed. Friday, December 03, 2004
OH! If this blog didn't exist, I'd have had to start it (although it wouldn't kill them to update a little more often. More substantive posts coming along later this weekend, assuming Blogger calms down and lets me in a little more often. |
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