Three complaints, in order of ascending social importance

1) OK, I have this friend who bought a bunch of Nationals season tickets. Ten of them, in fact. For the full season. That's 810 tickets total. Really a lot. He plans to distribute them to clients, sell them on eBay, etc., which is all good and fine. We've known each other for a few years, and we've been to Caps and Redskins games together, so he knows I'm a fan.

I let him know I was willing to buy a multiple-game package from him at the single-game face value, which is still slightly more than he paid for them. It's a fair deal; he can unload some tickets easily, I avoid supporting (i.e. getting ripped off by) the Ticketmaster mafia.

But, no; no dice. He won't sell tickets to me at the single-game price, which is more than what he paid. He insists on a markup above even that.

So, this message is for my friend. I guess it's your prerogative; you can do what you want to do. The truth about Roni is she's a special kind of girl, etc. But really... what kind of friend charges a markup?

And, yes, they're going to be a hot ticket at first; everybody's going to be excited that baseball is back. But that will wear off after a couple months. And there's not likely to be a ticket shortage at any rate. RFK holds a lot of people for a baseball stadium. Last week I had no problem getting tickets for the July 4th game. Plus, the team is going to be awful. (This could be the slowest National League team ever assembled.)

And I was willing to go to 10-15 games or so and take some of those 810 upper-deck tickets off your hands. But not any more! Don't come crying to me when the Nats are 38.5 games out of first in the dead of August and you can't find anyone on eBay who wants to pay your stupid markup (plus $15 FedEx shipping!) to see them host Milwaukee on a Wednesday night.

2) I've been to three bars in the District in the past week: the Dubliner, the Hawk and Dove, and the Four Provinces. None of them carry my favorite beer: Bass.

So, at least now I know for sure that D.C. has it in for me.

3) I had never heard of Wanda Alston until last week. She sounded like a firecracker; probably the kind of person you would hate to have as an enemy. She appears to have been very active in trying to make her community a better place (as opposed to what I do, which is bitch constantly). That kind of person is a rare find in Washington.

And then she died at the hands of some criminal mastermind who apparently stabbed her, took her credit cards, and used them to buy gas for random passersby in exchange for cash, in order to support his crack habit.

This city completely sucks.