7.28.2005

Reason #818 why I can't live here anymore

I can't live in a city where The 50 Most Beautiful (People on Capitol Hill) is presented in a completely non-ironic fashion, and I'm expected to take it seriously. It's like living in some kind of parallel universe where the Key Club from my high school went back in time and took over the world.

Wow, who has the unfortunate task of having to put this thing together? "Oooh, this is going to be a tough one. Get me Glamour Shots on the phone, STAT! Okay, we're going to need soft focus here... softer... softer........ softer...."

This dude's my favorite:



"Oh, hey! Didn't see you there. How ya doin'? I'm good, just... just, uh, hanging out, by this... uh... pillar here. Yup. We sure have some great examples of Greek, and/or Roman, architecture, here at the Capitol. Where I work."

I still can't believe they cancelled "Wind on Water"

It is a joyous time throughout the land, for Bolero has been released on DVD.

Bolero was basically a soft-core vehicle for Bo Derek, directed by her husband John, who apparently wanted to exhibit her naked body to the world (obviously, this was before the advent of the Internet). It's also widely considered to be one of the worst films of all time. It easily took the Worst Picture Razzie in 1984, and currently is stationed at #59 on IMDb's Bottom 100 list, one spot ahead of/behind Cool As Ice, a movie... I own... um... on laserdisc.

But don't worry about that! The point is: Bo, as an actress, was, shall we say... problematic. Sure, she's famous for being Dudley Moore's perfect 10, but if you've seen that, you know the illusion is shattered as soon as she opens her mouth. Her awfulness was further exhibited in John Derek's Tarzan, the Ape Man, another pseudo-soft-core job.

But it was Bolero where our vapid heroine proved she couldn't even act her way out of a wet paper bag. As one IMDb commenter says:

Having worked in a theater that exhibited "Bolero" on its first run in 1984, I can attest to the fact that, during most showings, at least a third of the audience walked out before the half-way mark. A lot of people demanded their money back on this one. To be frank, a fair number of them were disappointed because they expected explicit pornography and instead only got soft-core.

Bo is in search of ecstasy--"E-X-T-A-S-Y," as her character says early in the story. Later in the movie, during a fantasy sequence, Bo sees a neon sign that reads, "Extasy." She says, "See? I was right - 'X'," then makes an "X" in front of her face with her two index fingers.
Utterly hilarious. You could definitely make an bonafide argument for Bo as "Worst Actress Ever."

So, yeah.

Bo Derek.

Right now, you're probably thinking: "What does this have to do with anything? This is not related to D.C. in any way. James is totally wasting my time. I could be downloading baby panda porn right now."

Well, let me put it this way (you pervert). Let's say it was your job to pick someone to fill out the board of trustees at the Kennedy Center. Would you pick the worst actress ever? That's what Bush did, apparently as a reward for Derek putting her unique charms toward the 2000 campaign fundraising effort.

I'm sorry... this just seems so backwards. We're talking the preeminent performing arts body in the country... and Ms. "E-X-T-A-S-Y" is on the board? That's like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame deciding that, from now on, Dokken chooses all potential inductees. Completely nonsensical. Or it's like putting Exxon in charge of the EPA. (Wait, did that already happen? I'm so confused.)

7.25.2005

I generally try not to fall into the cliche of complaining about the weather

But when you can basically see, and/or chew the air... that is really not fun to be in.



On the bright side, the swampy, oppressive heat really brings out the city's underlying aroma of sewage; like a fine wine. If wine were made from crap.

Entertainment for the day

Rick Santorum!

Live XXX chat room action!

7.22.2005

KMFWMATA

If only we lived in a city where the bus actually showed up. Instead of totally not showing up.

I'm really getting the feeling that half the buses on the schedule don't actually exist. This has happened to me twice this year already: I'm waiting for the bus like a good citizen, and it just. Doesn't. Show.

And it sucks if you're waiting during off-peak times, like Toby was, because there's no backup coming. You wind up standing at the bus stop for half an hour, feeling like a chump for deceiving yourself into thinking the bus would actually come this time. It's as if Metro is mocking you: "Why did you want to go somewhere at 10 p.m., anyway? Silly person. People don't need to go places at night." And this is in, thanks to our uncanny aversion to streetlights, near total darkness.

So, as a proxy for Toby, and for everyone else who has been left in the lurch by Metro's complete retardedness, I would like to say: "Fuck You, Metrobus. Fuck You The Maximum Amount."

A 12,000-word treatise on Timbuk3's "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades"

OK, not 12,000 words. But really: this is one of the best songs of the '80s. It's got that upbeat tempo, and the harmonica, and it's definitely one of those songs I could imagine listening to while driving up the coast in my convertible. (If I had a convertible and if we had a coast.)

But beneath the surface, "TFSBIGWS," the acronym I call it by all the time in real life, is not really the happy song it sounds like. It's actually got a dark, satirical message at its heart that a lot of people miss, which only makes me love it all the more:

I study nuclear science; I love my classes.
I gotta crazy teacher; he wears dark glasses.
Things are going great, and they're only getting better.
I'm doin' all right, getting good grades;
The future's so bright;
I gotta wear shades. I gotta wear shades.


See, though, you can't just gloss over the "nuclear science" reference and assume that this is merely a peppy yuppie anthem. His future's so bright, literally, because it's filled up with the nuclear holocuast that he will help bring about. In his quest to fulfill his fantasy of achieving his economic dreams, this young man has lost sight of the big picture, and helped to bring about his own destruction, not to mention the world's. Simple and brilliant, even if a lot of people don't pay close enough attention to get true message (See also: "Born in the USA").

Which brings us to some strange news from last week. You guys know Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Anal Lube), right? You know, basically the most powerful homophobe in the country? The guy who equates homosexuality with bestiality and child abuse? One of the guys who wants to write restrictions of gay civil rights into the Constitution?

Of course you know him. Now, what kind of person should really, REALLY not be working for Sen. Santorum? Correct, the gay kind. And in any other normal reality, that would be the case. But, this being Washington, home of some heretofore uncategorized brand of Bizarro Reality... the good Senator's communications director, Robert Traynham, is gay.

Samma... hamma... WHAAAA?!?! How does this happen? If you're gay, isn't Santorum the ABSOLUTELY LAST FUCKING PERSON YOU WANT TO BE WORKING FOR? Dear fucking Lord. Wouldn't you have loved to be a fly in the wall during that job interview?

SANTORUM: Well, son, everything seems to be in order here. I'd like you to be my new communications director.
TRAYNHAM: Thanks, sir!
SANTORUM: Now, you're not, you know... that is to say... you're not ho-mo-sexual, are you my boy?
TRAYNHAM: Um, well actually I am, sir.
SANTORUM: Ahhh. Oh. I see. Hmmm.
[uncomfortable silence]
SANTORUM: Well, I don't see how that's a problem. Just put on this armband and badge for me...
TRAYNHAM: Oooh! Pink triangle brooch!

Yeah, I don't get it. I can't even begin to guess why somebody who was gay would decide to work for Santorum.

But that's part of the D.C. mystique, isn't it? We have some of the smartest people in the world living here. We're one of the most literate, well-educated cities in the world. Tons of bright young people come flooding in by the busload every year. So many smart people who could use the power of Washington to make the world a better place.

But too many of them wind up compromising their ideals, or even, as in this case, actively working against what's in their own best interests. Traynham seems to me like the young man in "The Future's So Bright"; he's so determined to make a name for himself in Washington, so determined to get the salary, so determined to achieve the status that comes with being a top Senate aide, that he's lost sight of the big picture. He's working for a man who is actively working to restrict his rights. Traynham's working for a powerful man who believes his sexual preferences place him on the same level as pedophiles. (And you think your boss doesn't like you.)

Traynham, a Santorum staffer for eight years, called his boss “a man of principle. He is a man who sticks up for what he believes in. I strongly support Sen. Santorum.”
Wow. The future's so bright, he's gotta wear culottes.

7.18.2005

An ugly time for journalism

The True Father Times needed a reporter to send to the G8 Summit in Scotland. So, of course, True Father sent Jen Waters. Because, really, where do you go once you've covered the hell out of rich peoples' dog houses and the crazy lady who makes paper out of old blue jeans? Clearly, the logical next step was to dive into the compliacted world of international politics.

Oh, and also, Marie Kester Coombs made it back into the TFT (under "Culture Briefs?"). You remember her, right? The white supremacist lady they regularly publish, who oh by the way just happens to be the wife of Managing Editor Francis "Fran" "Franny Boy" Coombs? (That totally is his full nickname. Francis "Fran" "Franny Boy" Coombs.)

But the bestest blow to el journalismo ever: Judith Miller is in jail! For those of you who forgot/never knew, Miller's patented "fake scoops", published in no less a newspaper than the New York Times, gave the pro-war lobby a lot of fake ammunition with which to convince themselves that blowing up some random brown people in retaliation for 9/11 would be an acceptable cathartic release.

And, more recently, it appears she may have helped someone in the administration commit some light treason with regards to the outing of noted superspy Valerie Plame, JUST as Plame was about to foil Lena Olin's master plans for world domination. (Or, I made that last part up in my head.) So just like that... Miller's in jail!

OK, but the judge didn't go all out here. I was disappointed. He could have sent her to the D.C. jail, which is everything you'd expect from a pound-you-in-the-ass jail in D.C., and maybe even less. It's way run down, way way over capacity, and inmates keep killing each other and stuff. The Bowtie was supposed to have set a new population cap for the jail 17 months ago, but, you know, that would require work, and there's no way to get a decent photo op out of it.

So Judith Miller, being a quasi-celebrity who merely helped deceive America into the Iraq slam-dunk cakewalk we still find ourselves gaily skipping through, does not get sent to real jail. No, she gets sent to Alexandria jail instead. Oh man, I can't even type Alexandria without having it show up in magenta. How bad can prison be there? It's, like, Jail Lite. Or maybe Tropical Fruity Jail with Mango and Passion Fruit. LAME!

Oh, FYI, apparently me wishing that Judith Miller had been sent to Super Scary Jail instead is mean-spirited.

But I am appalled by those who seem to be reveling in her jailing (incidentally, for a story that she never wrote) as retribution for the stories she did write during the run-up to the Iraqi War. Is this what the anti-war movement has come to?
Ummmmm... yes. Nobody would actually listen to reason or caution during the run-up to the war... so at this point, yeah, schadenfreude is basically all I've got left. Aww, Judy has a tummyache from jail food? Awwwww. That's adorable. And she can't get the other inmates to switch from rap videos to Fox News. Again, hilarious. If I thought I could get away with it, I would go down to the Fruity Jail posing as a visitor, and then basically laugh and point at Miller through the glass for several minutes.

So yeah, I'm definitely enjoying this. I'm hoping this goes on for a while, and that I get to hear about Judy getting sold for cigarettes or something. Hey, there's a reality show I would watch: Judy In Jail. Coming this fall on Fox. Oooh, I, um... need to go make some calls about this.

7.12.2005

Baby panda dead pool

Anybody running one?

7.07.2005

A complete and utter disdain for our environment

You know what I love? Sewage. Lots and lots of raw sewage.

And I'm in luck, because when you're in Washington, you're soaking in it! For example: the C&O Canal park? Smells like sewage. Apparently, the park sits atop a big long sewage pipe. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Somehow, some way, Pierre L'Enfant is to blame.

You know what doesn't smell good in hot, July weather combined with the high humidity that comes from living in a swampy climate?

Raw sewage.

How about that Anacostia river? Oh, yeah, guess what's in it? I'm thinking that it might be sewage. Maybe the most disturbing statistic ever: about 740 million gallons have already flowed into the Anacostia this year. WOW that's a lot of crap. The problem is that D.C.'s infrastructure can't handle more than half and inch of rain before overflowing. You can't swim or fish in the river without risking serious health problems. Appropriately, most of the sewage comes from federal buildings, including Congress.

And guess what's in the Potomac? It's... gender-confused fish? Ummm... that's not good. Male fish are laying eggs. And that's our drinking water, too. Is it turning all of us into biological females? That would explain our collective lack of driving ability. OHHHH NO I DINNNNNT! Ohhh, my misogyny is hilarious.

Well, I guess that takes care of every possible body of water. They're all polluted. Why stop there? There are so many other aspects of our environment to defile. For one thing, animals at the National Zoo still aren't safe. An emu, a lion, a lemur, an orangutan, a Komodo dragon and a partidge in a pear tree have all perished before their times. So at least there's some variety in which animals are dying... a zoo should have variety. Maybe they should just ditch the whole "zoo" concept and change it to "taxidermy museum."

Oh, and don't forget global warming. Washington is doing its part! That EPA aide who dumbed down a global warming report got a job with Exxon-Mobil, the leader in funding global warming "skeptic" scientists. Should have seen that coming... there's nothing quite like retroactive bribery. And Twinkie the Kid is still dragging his feet on reducing greenhouse gasses. Four-plus years after pulling out of Kyoto, we've made absolutely no progress.

The way I see it, in the future, if we don't become the Road Warrior society first, we'll surely become the Waterworld society, which obviously is even worse. Kevin Costner + gills... brrrrr. I'm SO not having kids.

Oh man

So sad about London right now. I've been through those tube stations and on those double-decker buses dozens of times.

7.05.2005

Things I notice

At the Nats game on July 4, i.e. yesterday:

Before the game, I hung out on the balcony overlooking the Will Call window. I'm pretty sure I saw Adam Eidinger heading for the gate, carrying a big posterboard-sized bag marked "art supplies". "Uh-oh; it's signage time," I said.

Sure enough, midway through the game, between innings, several people held up signs in the right field purple seats, spelling out: "STRIKE 4 DC STATEHOOD". Then they flipped the signs to read "BUSH PLAY BALL WITH DC".

Unfortunately, the signs were only revealed for a total of about 30 seconds. And, as is often the case with D.C. statehood campaigning, no-one noticed. Except me. (And I can't do anything about it.)

See, this is just weak sauce. Right field? During a commercial break? If you're going to pull off political signage at a ballgame, you have to go all out to get maximum exposure.

1. Scalp/sneak/bribe your way into the Diamond Club.

2. Situate yourself above the rotating advertisement just to the right of home plate.

3. Throw your sign up against the netting. The bigger the better.

4. Do it during an inning, so that the cameras will have no choice but to show your sign during a pitch.

5. Wait for the ushers to show up and ask you to remove the sign. When they arrive, refuse to take down the sign; argue instead, to stall for time.

6. It will take a couple minutes for enough security guards to come eject you from the stadium. But it will be too late; the entire MASN-viewing public will already know that Peter Angelos Eats Babies.

This would be most effective on a weekday night, towards the end of a game, when the Diamond Club has mostly cleared out and it's easier to manuever around the empty seats. For maximum TV exposure, do it on a night when ESPN or ESPN2 is showing the game, because it will be more likely to show up on their various highlight shows.

(Not that I've... um... thought this through to the last detail, or anything.)

James's super-crappy, jumping-the-shark, stream-of-consciousness post: in 3-D!

I love trying to explain my job to people. It's like a contract of a subcontract, but I work in the building of the contractor, even though I don't get paid by them. When the funding gets cut, my group is the first to get laid off, rather than the regular employees. That's what led to me working in MFing Reston for most of last year.

But I made it back to my new old job when the position re-opened. I figured this would be a good thing, not only because it's closer to home, but because the environment is a little less poisonous and a little more flexible. Plus, I figured there was a chance of getting a halfway decent raise come Scheduled Mandatory Raise Time, since the people in charge here like me better, instead of what happened last year, when they made up some lame excuses not to give me a decent raise.

Sadly, nuh-uh. I have two bosses: one does the evaluations, the other gives the raises. My evaluations were pretty good, but it turns out that there's competition for the subcontract contract this year, and in order to better re-compete for it, my company decided to give shitty raises at the scheduled mandatory time.

Thus, my raise: two percent. Two fucking percent.

Guh. Fine, whatever; better to have a job with a crappy raise than not have one at all. So much for my dreams of replacing the Maxima with a car not made from papier mache. But, feeling daring during the Scheduled Mandatory Raise Time Talk, I mentioned to Raise Boss that it was disappointing getting The Shaft two years in a row, and that the last raise I was really pleased with had been two and a half years ago. And that it would be nice to get some extra salary thrown my way after we know for sure that we still have the contract.

Only then... ONLY then, after I'd dared to suggest that a raise outside of Mandatory Raise Time might be nice... did he pull out my evaluation and start looking for ways to shoot holes in my hopes and dreams. Well, you see James, you only got 4/5 in Quantity of Work and Quality of Work... you really have to get 5/5 for me to consider breaking all the Mandatory Raise Time Rules. I wasn't sure how to respond... I always thought the quality of my work was great, and the quantity was pretty much based on whatever they gave me to do. But it's hard to argue when they have a sheet of paper that says otherwise, isn't it?

What sucks is that now I feel like a chump and that they're taking advantage of me. I took this job almost four years ago because I was positively desperate for someone to hire me... it was the only interview I was able to get after about six months of looking. I took a maybe-lower-than-average salary because I was so happy to just have found a job. But now, after all the shafting, I'm definitely getting below fair market value for what I'm doing (software engineering).

And it super sucks because I can't understand why my company doesn't find me to be valuable. For example:

- I can write good. I love to write, and I'm good at communicating ideas... especially at taking complicated ideas and making them easy to understand. This is unique in my field, where most of my co-workers are borderline illiterate and can't form coherent sentences. There aren't too many people with an MS in computer science who also have an English degree, but I'm one of them.

- I have an eye for design. I did page design professionally for a while, and I pay close attention to colors, layout, things like that... which is useful when you're designing a user interface for a piece of software. It has to make sense and do that whole conveying-complex-ideas-into-layman's-terms thing, but visually.

- I don't consider myself a pure scientist, but I am a good problem solver. Even though I don't have a hard-core scientific or mathematic background, I'm good at organizing and executing programmatic solutions in a logical way. I've never been stuck unable to solve a problem of my own making. Plus, once I get used to a new system or language, I'm super-fast... there's only about a three-four week learning period before I feel like I'm in Turbo Mode, and could crank any kind of program in record time.

(BTW, I don't usually do the self-flagellation thing, but I'm currently in a desperate struggle to feel better about myself. Please forgive me.)

Bottom line: I don't know too many people who have my combination of right-brain and left-brain skills. (Just don't ask me which half does which.) I can do the creative thing, and I can do the logical thing. So the question is... why doesn't anyone find that useful?

OK, there are people who appreciate what I can do. But most of them are related to me. The most rewarding work-related things I've done since I took this job weren't even work-related. My brother has been doing website-building work. One time, he was having trouble with a piece of Javascript code and was stuck trying to figure it out. I jumped in and found the problem in a couple of hours. In another case, my wife was trying to solve a complicated database problem while crunching some numbers, and I was able to construct an SQL query to do the job and save her a lot of time.

And both of those things were 100 times more rewarding than anything I've done at this job, because the people I helped really appreciated what I did. I love hearing "James, you're the best," and then I can kind of look down and put my hands behind my back and say, "Awww, I'm OK."

That's also why blogging has been so much fun for me: because it's more rewarding than anything I've been doing professionally. It basically started just as a way to exercise the... er... left? side of my brain? (Nope, right side. Dammit.) But it's also helped me become a better writer, and it's helped me get in touch with something I had been sorely missing: being appreciated for my creativity by completely random people. Writing, and having other people enjoy my writing, is just a great feeling.

But I do have some problems. Namely: trying to recover from a lifetime of people telling me how much I suck. This is not good, because those are the opinions I tend to think of when I want to blog. I've gotten a lot of e-mails from people telling me they love the blog... but, of course, the way blogs work is that you tend to attract people who agree with you. When people don't agree, or want to call me a stupid moron, it tends to be in the comments or on their own blogs. I don't feel the need to get involved in some kind of dramatic blog-fight, which would be about the lamest thing ever, but the way my mind is wired, it's those people I tend to think of more than my fans.

And it's the criticisms in my own mind that keep circling around until I can't get anything accomplished. Why would anyone want to read what I have to write? Does anybody in the entire world agree with the opinions I'm about to post, or am I just going to get lauged at and thrown in the trash again? Is anybody going to get this obscure pop-culture reference?

Well, this blog has answered many of those questions. Yes, some people want to read what I write. Yes, some people will agree, and some will not. Yes, some people will remember that Barry Bostwick, host of last night's "A Capitol Fourth", was the bad guy in the direct-to-video werewolf movie Project: Metalbeast. But the criticisms in my head are still paralyzing, in terms of taking the next step as a writer.

Because, let's face it: blogging is the easy way out for a writer. I said to myself at the beginning that I would spend no money and make no money off why.i.hate.dc. I figured it wasn't fair to myself to spend money on something that should just be for fun, and that it wasn't fair to make people pay to read my stupid writing. And then, I just started writing. It was short things at first, culled from articles; later, I started getting into essays, until I became a full-fledged long-form blogger. But there was still no risk or reward involved; I could write for a couple hours, get the instant gratification of people reading my stuff, and then forget about it.

But now I'm questioning that philosophy. Maybe if people aren't going to take me seriously as a computer scientist, I should start taking writing more seriously. I don't know whether I could turn that into a profitable full-time endeavor down the road. But in the meantime, in the immediate present, it couldn't hurt to try to...

oh God... couldn't hurt to try to...

write a book.

Yeah, I know, I know. It's a cliche, isn't it? Bloggers going on to write books. But see... Wasingtonienne has a book. Wonkette has a book. They both started blogging after I did. And am I a better writer than they are? Hells yes.

And there are a lot of reasons why I should not write a book. Believe me, they weigh heavier on my mind than the positives. For one thing, I have only the foggiest idea how to get published (I hear "sample chapters" are important?). But dammit... I've written so much over the past couple-plus years, and so many people have actually enjoyed what I've written, that I have to try this.

It's going to be difficult. For one thing: I hate books. Books are so pretentious. They’re all, "Oooooh, look at me! I’m a book! I’m sooooo important and socially relevant! You’d better read me, or you won’t be able to have an intellectual conversation about me with your peers!"

Then you read it, and at the beginning the author rambles on for nine pages in detail about exactly how green the grass was on some particular day, and it takes days just to get through the whole thing. You have to break it up into several readings, and if you’ve put it down for a few days, it’s hard to remember what was going on when you stopped. (“So wait, Bilbo begat Frodo, and Frodo begat… who?”)

But I have to try, even though there will be detractors. Oh, there will be detractors. Many, many detractors. But I'm realizing that, when even your biggest detractor resorts to "borrowing" your material, it's probably a sign that you're doing something right. (Oops, I said I wouldn't start a blogfight. Oh well.)

So yeah. I've gotta do this. I'm going to try to put together a why.i.hate.dc: the book. It may be slow going, and it's going to suck staring at an empty Word page and thinking, "What the hell am I doing? Typing, with no guarantee that anyone will read it?", but I've got to give it a shot. It could be the start of a more fulfilling future, in which I bring joy and happiness to the book-reading world. (Or, failing joy and happiness, at least a lot more profanity.)

So... yeah. Maybe I'll start tomorrow. At least I won't feel guilty about working on it while on the job.

7.01.2005

What I've been up to

Baseball.

Lots and lots of baseball.

Specifically, watching the Natty Nats. Seriously, I've been to, like, 15 games already. I was there Wednesday night until about 12:30 a.m. because of a rain delay, and Metro was nice enough to actually stay open and get me home. I was there last Saturday, and I'll be there again Monday and Wednesday.

How great is this? Team's in first place, with a middling payroll and no superstars... I had forgotten what that looks like. So fun. And RFK's the most pitcher-friendly park in the majors, leading to more tight, exciting games.

Ah, but so very many ways to screw it up. And we came up with a few. For example: still not on TV. The team just swept Pittsburgh; none of those close games were on TV. In the series a couple weeks ago against the Los Angelheim Angels, a game in which the opposing pitcher was thrown out for cheating, and Frank Robinson got in a shouting match with the opposing manager... was not on TV. The following night, Chad Cordero enters with a one-run lead, loads the bases with no outs, and gets out of the jam. Very exciting and dramatic... oh and what? Not on TV.

But it's worth it, because it means Peter Angelos is not getting so much money for MASN, which does my heart good. Amusingly, he took out a full-page ad in every paper in town last week, urging Nats fans to call their cable companies to demand that his Satanic regional sports network be picked up. To which all Nats fans basically responsed, "No. Because you're Satan."

Some rich people we tolerate, and others we don't. Some Republicans in Congress are really concerned that George Soros might become a part-owner of the team. So concerned that they threatened to take away baseball's antitrust exemption if it happens!

I wasn't even so mad about the threat itself; I've come to expect that kind of nonsensical meddling by Congress in random local affairs. Big surprise, it's our old friend Tom Davis who's behind this. (And nobody, I mean nobody I've talked to has cared to defend this latest bizarreness.)

I was more upset that... this is what you guys decide to play the antitrust card on? What about all those other times when you could have pulled the exemption or threatened to pull it to fix baseball's problems? For example, without the exemption, the judiciary could have intervened during the '94 strike and saved the World Series. Or, even better, without the exemption, baseball wouldn't have been able to keep the Expos from moving to D.C. using a monopolistic cabal of owners.

And now, you finally, finally play that card because you disagree with a potential team owner's politics? Whiskey... Tango... Foxtrot?!

Meanwhile, D.C.'s been eager to welcome the team with open arms, but not enough to, you know, not break into the players' cars at RFK while the team's out of town. Twice.

"I asked the security guard after the first time, 'Are you going to have security?' " McCraw said. "He said, '24 [hours a day], seven [days a week]. You don't have to worry about nothing.' Well, he was wrong."
No, no no no... you don't understand. In this case, 24-7 means "Every seven hours, I'll stop by and check on your cars for 24 seconds. And then go get a donut." Welcome to the D.C., bitch! For reals: when somebody employed by D.C. government says they're going to do something, you have to understand that they're completely lying. Just pretend it's Perpetual Opposite Day, and it will make a lot more sense.

Speaking of which: how about the mayor? So full of himself at that game I was at a few weeks ago, as his admirers cheered him on; so proud of his forthcoming $500M stadium. And poor Eastern High, right next to RFK, can't even afford more than one box of baseballs for its team. (The mayor had promised to go to their first game after they helped teach him to throw less like a girl for the Nats opener, but, you know... Opposite Day.)

Unfortunately, that's the kind of fiscal imbalance that upsets only me. I may have a serious problem.