this has been rattling around in my head for quite some time.

It seems pretty umm, socially odd, now that I’m writing this, but here goes.

Everyday, when I come out of the underground tunnel that we call the Van Ness-UDC Metro station, I have to cross this small street on my piddly little walk back to the apartment building. It’s really a pretty small obstacle to getting back and planting myself on the couch for some serious QT with a Kirin Ichiban and my good friend Google Reader. But the intersection is one of many on Connecticut Avenue that includes a left-hand turn signal for people that are attempting to get back to their apartments and, well, do the same thing I want to do.

I understand and empathize with these left hand turners. Frankly, I almost pity them in a way. These are people that obviously have to commute somewhere around the Beltway during rush hour – which would probably be hellish enough – but not only that, on my walk home, they are coming southbound. Which means they probably work at some firm in la-la suburb land. Plus, they have to pay for gas. (I’ll cut them some slack on the whole killing the environment thing, because, honestly, I’m not sure how much more they could take before offing themselves.)

The lights are a small concession for these poor people that spent a third of their lives in their cars.

Where was I? Right, crossing the street. So, as I’m walking up, just minding my own p’s and q’s, I always have to stop at this light – since during rush hour, it’s just not a very long light. Fine. I don’t mind waiting for cars – as I’ve already described in way too much detail. However, when other pedestrians get to the crosswalk, they usually simply just walk across whenever the light for Connecticut Avenue should turn green. Oh, if only it were that simple! The light for that left-hand turn always comes on. And you know what happens here – people try to cross in that whole “if we cross together as six people, no one can hit us!” logic.

I do not buy this logic. I wouldn’t accept this logic as a gift, and frankly, I kind of want to boycott this logic’s manufacturer. I find this logic insulting and I want it off my television.

I’ve seen the video footage of those poor women getting hit by that Metrobus. I know what drivers are like around here.

The hardest part to comprehend is that it’s not even possible to tell when someone is actually turning or not at the intersection. Every time I stop there, there is someone that I will brandish “the Leader of the Pack.” This is the same person that feels the need to budge in front of everyone else at other busy crosswalks (Farragut Square comes to mind), when a Metro train arrives at the platform, and other situations. This jackass decides the level of certainty that the people that want to cross the street have of making it. I mean, it’s always 100% according to this person, so it really doesn’t involve much work. As far as I can tell, it mainly involves just sticking your head out – usually with a cigarette in your hand blowing smoke into people faces – and seeing if there is a car with a turn signal on at the front of the line. If not, everyone go! If so, you wait, and the Leader then turns into another one of my favorite roles, the Stink Eye Giver. Basically, if a car is actually turning and making use of the light, this person will give it the stink eye whilst walking in front of it. For what reason, I’m not really sure.

This just furthers my dazed outlook on the whole damn situation.

So I don’t participate. I vote with my conscience on this one. I kindly wait until the little, white, illuminated man tells me that it’s my turn to walk, and also informs me of exactly how many seconds I have left on my journey across Yeazey.

But part of me knows that this Brotherhood of Preemptive Crossers is always looking at me like some sort of outsider, a rebel who isn’t joining in their little game, their union. I swear to god, I’ve gotten the stink eye before.

But you know what? I don’t care. Because someday, when I’m walking home from work, and some idiot steps in front of a 1998 Ford Taurus trying to get back to Van Ness East for some relaxing on the couch, someone is going to need to call an ambulance.

I will attempt to not give the stink eye as they’re loading him or her onto the gurney. But I make no promises.

maybe i’m crazy, but:

Is it just me, or is Mountain Dew the most inappropriately named product in the world?

Because, honestly, if I found a bunch of neon, radioactively-green carbonated water on some leaves whilst hiking, the last thing on my mind would be, “wow, that sure looks like some mountain dew.”

okay, just for the record: project runway predictions.

After the runway show:

• Rami’s was UGLY. I don’t care if all the losers from past seasons liked it, it was awful.
• Christian’s collection – loved the hats, not so much on the gothic. Black is hard to design, though, according to couchmate Sara.
• Jillian’s was great. Totally didn’t see that one coming. Lots of colors, extremely wearable, good stuff.

So, my last second prediction is Jillian first, Christian, then Rami.

We’ll see if I’m right. If it’s Rami, it’s time for a break from this show. Ugh.

abbreviated thoughts on target.

OMG, new cart escalators!

On a more serious note: the fact that the ”job application kiosks were full at around 9:45 a.m.” means that the Target (and the mall as a whole) is at least fulfilling one of it’s primary objectives – supplying a large amount of employment to a city that needs some in order to continue a positive trend in unemployment rates which has flattened in the past two years. Now, if it only follows through on raising property values in Columbia Heights and fostering more growth in the neighborhood, then it could be a smashing success.

Plus, you know, now I don’t have to drive to Rockville to buy socks.

brilliance.

Really busy with proposals and other posting, but I made time last night for sure to catch the big Arsenal match at the San Siro. This just had to be posted.

Mmmmm, delicious.

A world-beater, this Cesc Fabregas is.

(No Milan representation in the Champions League makes it even sweeter. Cheaters, the lot of ‘em. I don’t care how great Maldini was, they fixed matches. So, good riddance.)

don’t hide it, you watched these.

If you were a kid at any time during the 80s and 90s and had cable television, chances are that you’re pretty familiar with Clarissa Darling and the Bar None Dude Ranch. Although a shocking (…or not) number of these child actors seemed to call it quits on their television careers not long after their stint on Nickelodeon, some of them went on to bigger and better things. Like what? You know you’re dying to know.

Nice little retrospective on Nickelodeon shows at Neatorama to accompany your coffee this morning. Ah, memories.

i wonder what the market’s like for a “professional ironer.”

From a message that I just recieved from my friendly neighborhood listserv:

Our long time maid has given up house work and is devoting her efforts
to ironing. She’s been with us for 30+ years and is very nice and
works hard. If any of you have need of a part/full time ironer, please
let me know…

Wait, what? I too have a “professional ironer,” although they go by the more common name of “dry cleaner.” Or, in a lean month, ”Aaron.”

Not to be crass, but there can’t be any real money in this, can there?

saturday morning newspaper.

To me, there really isn’t anything better than waking up on a Saturday, pressing some coffee and sitting down with the Washington Post. And no, I’m not one of those people that read the Times even though they don’t live in New York – unless you count mingling amongst the columnists online, or perhaps the occasional crossword (of which yesterday’s version just absolutely crushed me. It wasn’t even close). Nope, I’m a WaPo reader, because I think it’s important to read your local newspaper for, what else, the local stories.

When I get the paper, I don’t just read the front page first. I pull out the Metro section. The B section. Because while reporting on Kosovo and the election is great and often entertaining, it’s not anything that isn’t available from 689,000 other outlets, most of which are a Ctrl+T and a twenty-letter web address away (and, unsurprisingly, are of better quality). The metro section is where the newspaper’s character lies: stories about immigration in Prince George’s County, crime in the area that affects people I know who live in those neighborhoods, farmers markets, reactions to the local storms of this week, and so forth. These are the things that matter to me in my everyday life – and I guarantee you that CNN is not running a think-piece on a spike in lead levels in some DC tap water.

This, I think, is to blame for the decline in print media over the past few years.

In their infinite wisdom, the men and women who run the gray ladies of this country had a decision to make about fifteen or twenty years ago that would significantly alter the future of newspapers in America. With digital and televised cable media becoming such a force, something had to be done. On the one hand, the choice could have been made to increase the focus on local events, thereby making the newspaper into an even more relevant piece of a person’s every day life. The other option was to attempt to make every newspaper into a carbon clone of the ones that are heartlessly pushed out daily by the Tribune Co. and every other massive conglomerate that doesn’t really care that you can’t read about, as long as they’re selling car ads.

So, guess which option prevailed?

From an essay in this month’s Esquire by David Simon (creator of The Wire and former reporter for the Baltimore Sun):

And I am still as clueless as the captains of the newspaper industry when it comes to the Internet, still mistaking the Web as advertising for the product when, in fact, it is the product. I don’t yet envision the steep declines in circulation, the indifference of young readers to newsprint, the departure of display advertising to department-store consolidation and classified space to Craigslist.

Admittedly, I can’t even grasp all of the true and subtle costs of impact journalism and prize hunger. I don’t yet see it as a zero-sum game in which a serious newspaper would cover less and less of its city — eliminating such fundamental responsibilities as a poverty beat, a labor beat, a courthouse beat in a city where rust-belt unemployment and crime devour whole neighborhoods — and favor instead a handful of special select projects designed to catch the admiring gaze of a prize committee.

Simon knows. This is why no one is actually reading newspapers anymore – there’s nothing in them, for the most part that truly resonates with them – only pieces that are bred to win Pulitzers and keep the newspaper in business as nothing more than a relic of the way things used to be. The newspaper is such a piece of American arcana that it will never truly die, only slowly mope into a state of meaninglessness and antiquity.

But I’ll still enjoy it with my coffee this morning, while it’s still got some legs. To section B, long live section B.

[photo by Chris Cantrell.]

neat! (to me, at least.)

Forget the Film, Watch the Titles is wonderfully tailored for people like me that can’t bear to not shed recognition on the art that goes into things which most other people ignore or actively dislike.

Then again, I recorded the Super Bowl on my DVR while watching it live.

At my apartment with people over. 

So I could comb through the commercials later without people talking over them.

To summarize: my artful recommendation might not hold much weight with the non-obsessives. Just sayin’.

[h/t web zen]

the definitive dc transportation wishlist.

Richard over at Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space has a lengthy revised wish list for District urban infrastructure/transportation changes and additions. If you’re living in the area, take half an hour to read this and discover that you want pretty much everything included within.

Personally, I’m a big proponent of a streetcar link that roams across Rock Creek Park from Woodley Park to Columbia Heights/U Street – if it’s part of a larger link system, even better. Right now, here’s my options for visiting friends in that area of town from my place:

• walking, which is not happening in inclement/humid weather or under any sort of time constraint;
• gambling heavily with the ludicrous “Adams Morgan/U Street Link” bus – which usually takes longer than walking. (Every fifteen minutes during rush hour and weekend nights, that’s the biggest crock from WMATA, an organization that has plenty of ‘em. The last time I used it, a Saturday night around 9 pm, it took forty minutes for a bus to arrive.);
• or, taking the Red Line all the way into Gallery Place-Chinatown, then back out to whatever stop on the Green Line.

A street car running across the Duke Ellington bridge seems the perfect solution. Make it happen, powers that be.