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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Tuesday, August 29, 2006
GREAT SPAMS OF THE INTERNET I know Blog P.I. is on its way to being a success now that moderating spam into the trash bin is becoming a several-times-daily task. If you've managed a comment section before, this should look familiar: Hi! Thanks for this amazing site. Good work. By the way, look what sites I has made:Just as clumsy and illiterate as the genus filtered out of my e-mail, but delightfully tailored to the medium. See? I do not judge strictly what sites you has made. Sunday, August 27, 2006
REALI BITES Quizzed by the Washington Post for its overhyped Sunday Source section, which curiously showed up at my door on Saturday morning, ESPN's Tony "Stat Boy" Reali held forth on the sporting nature of our fair city: Is it a sports town? That's an interesting question. It has what it takes to be a sports town, because it has so many people from different areas. . . . There are passionate people about sports here. But there is not one sports bar I would go to in this entire city. Not one.That's an interesting answer. I thought one of the reasons why Washington was a less than stellar sports town was, in fact, because it has so many people from different areas. In fact, that was about the only thing Amy Sullivan got right in her overreaching overview of local fandom. Also... did he just disrecommend ESPN Zone? Lucky for Reali, Eisner's not around anymore — otherwise, he might've been Easterbrooked. Friday, August 25, 2006
METUBE & AND AN ANNOUNCEMENT If you're wondering about the Euro jaunt write-up, it's going to take at least a few more weeks. The notes are all on paper and I've even catalogued what's in each of the one-third of one-thousand photographs taken during that week, but it's become a project, and projects don't happen overnight. Or, as the case may be, within one month of returning from said jaunt. Like you care. In the meantime, I'm finally getting to know my YouTube account, and I've just uploaded the first of what will be many videos that only I will really care about. Here is my second-eldest, second-youngest sister running away from the deadly Oregon surf at Roads End Beach, just north of Lincoln City: And here is the last time I ever saw the Meier & Frank (since swallowed up by the Macy's empire) Santaland Monorail: I received no small thrills from riding that monorail some twenty years ago, and my youngest sisters were on this ride, not that you can see them here, but let's not make a federal case of it. Months after these short videos were captured (December 2005, the both of them) I have a new memory card that's many orders larger than the one assisting this unsatisfying footage, so longer videos await. And who knows, some of them might actually have something to do with the District. You can start holding your breath right... now! In considerably less frivolous news, congratulations are owed to my eldest (and youngest) brother Matt aka PDXNQD, who as of this weekend is engaged to be married to his longtime girlfriend Emily, a very cool girl whose monogrammed tissue paper she gave me a pack of, also in December '05, and which is still proving useful as I battle my undiagnosed allergies. If that isn't a propitious prognostic, I guess nothing is. Sunday, August 20, 2006
DON'T GET 2 CLOSE 2 MY FANTASY (FOOTBALL TEAM)  This is the first year I'm playing in more than one fantasy football league, one through work and another with fellow alums of the OC. Last week The Bumping Uglies picked up Eli Manning (oh well), Clinton Portis (c'mon, shoulder, I know you can do it!), Reuben Droughns (fingers crossed), T.J. Houshmandzadeh (not a Duck, but nobody's perfect), Antwaan Randle El (go Skins!) Mike Vanderjagt (we'll forgive the playoffs) and Washington's defense (uh, not so good last night). Also, just for giggles, I have both Matt Leinart and Vince Young. I mean, one of them will produce... right?The Zombie Lombardis draft tomorrow, and with any luck I won't have so many parenthetical second-guesses. At the very least, I know I won't be following Page 2's "advice" to make Joey your number one pick: 1. Joey Harrington, QB, MIA -- You just took one of the worst quarterbacks in football with your first pick. The other team owners in your league will laugh at you. Mock you. Call you stupid. But you'll just sit there in silence, staring straight ahead with a subtle but confident grin on your face. And soon they won't know how to react. Why are you smiling like that? Why aren't you responding to their taunts? Do you know something they don't? Is Harrington getting the starting job in Miami over Daunte Culpepper? Is Miami coach Nick Saban installing a pass-happy offense? Are they woefully unprepared for the draft? Congratulations. With one pick you've taken total control of the entire draft. Now they are all putty in your hands.Poor Joey. It's not entirely his fault, after all. Pretty much everything associated with Michigan is in the crapper these days — 7% unemployment, anyone? "Robocop" was ahead of its time. Now, of course, Joey's playing backup in Miami, where A.J. Feeley actually once started, just two years and so very long ago. Feeley is now in San Diego, where he takes more snaps from Trey Parker and Matt Stone than he does under center. Then again, Harrington's going into his 5th year in the NFL, and Feeley, if you can believe it, is going into his sixth. If you consider that the average NFL career is just 3.8 years, then both of these guys are unqualified successes. But not that you'd want to draft them. Update — Well, in spite of previous declarations, The Zombie Lombardis took one Joey Harrington in the 17th round of 17 rounds, the second-to-last pick overall. My other league only went 15 rounds, so that's my defense. It's not a great one. Here's hoping Daunte Culpepper suffers a season-ending injury sometime before Tom Brady's bye week. Saturday, August 12, 2006
RHYMES WITH ORANGE Voting is a rare and sacred event for a people who have virtually no representation in Congress — even if that non-representation managed to shut down Stephen Colbert. Every four years Washingtonians vote for president, and though the District is currently allocated three electors for the Electoral College, it's basically the same as voting in Texas or California: You know which way the state, or as the case may be, district is going to go. In off-years, we vote for Mayor, and this year is a free-for-all because the mostly-successful Mayor Anthony Williams is stepping down. He's already delivered on baseball, and with or without him, the fight over the new stadium is getting ugly, so he's probably better advised to quit while he's ahead. Which leaves us with a swarm of city councilors who all think they're up to the job. It's always possible that they are, but I haven't had enough time to develop any opinions about them, save for a strong dislike of Linda Cropp, and voter registration closes Monday. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. But if I do, there's one other candidate I won't be voting for:  It's pouring down rain at 8 a.m. on a weekday morning, and you've got teenagers (who should be in school) in shorts and T-shirts wandering around U Street getting soaked to the bone, while senior campaign staffers huddle (not pictured) in the doorway of a nearby Quizno's? For shame, Mr. Door Hinge! If you win, I will vote with my feet, which will be in my mouth, as I promise to talk and talk about moving to Virginia and then never actually do it. Are we clear? Thursday, August 10, 2006
OVERHEARD IN THE DISTRICT* Smoking woman: Oh my God. You can get the fake ID and just keep going. I knew I hated Maryland. *With apologies to OiNY. Tuesday, August 01, 2006
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE VERIFIED Note: This is cross-posted to Blog P.I., though I promise I won't cheat like this too often. Between writing for that site and, you know, actual work, I just haven't had any time to put together my Euro-trip series. Or much of anything else. But it's coming, I promise. I'll be damned if I took 350+ pictures just so they could take up space on my hard drive. Stephen Colbert has long had it in for my home state of Oregon, alternately tagging it "California's Canada" and "Washington's Mexico." We Oregonians are used to being ignored by the other 50 states, except when we decriminalize marijuana, legalize assisted suicide, or our senators grope their female colleagues, or our figure skaters take out a contract on their competition. So Colbert's mock disdain is more than welcome. Last night he took another whack at the Beaver State, in the context of lampooning Wikipedia's open-editing policy and bias toward triviality — "Any website that has a longer entry on "truthiness" than on Lutherans has its priorities straight." — and purported to change the entry related to his Oregon fixation, live on the air: "Now, Oregon is Idaho's Portugal is the opinion I've always held. You can look it up." But did he really change it? That's what the Wikipedians have been talking about since 11:41 p.m. EDT last night. In fact, somebody with the username Stephencolbert did in fact make that very edit (as well as another one mentioned in the segment) about four hours before it aired on the East coast. Of course, the allegedly careless Wikipedia administrators are taking no chances; if you click over to "Stephencolbert"'s User Talk page, you'll see this: At Wikipedia, we appreciate your interest in the project, but your username matches a well known public personality and has been blocked. To protect against impersonation, please provide confirmation of your identity to regain access to this account. User:Tawker has sent an emailed request and left a voicemail with the Colbert staff requesting confirmation, let him know and this account can be re-opened.For what it's worth, I'm a fan of Wikipedia, and the complaints Colbert jestingly cites are fairly well-addressed in the current issue of The New Yorker. Though the site is imperfect, it's highly perfectible. And Britannica will never collect its own List of neologisms on The Simpsons, which I require. P.S. For more high quality Wikipedia humor, don't miss last week's edition of The Onion. |
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