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If you regularly ride the DC Metrobus, chances are that you've come into contact with some crazy situations. I've seen an elderly, white, disabled woman launch into a fit of racial aspersions after a young black man tried to help her secure her wheelchair. I've seen crazy vagrants verbally antagonize groups of people. But nothing I've seen on the bus tops what I saw today.

You can generally spot the crazies on the bus pretty quickly. Today a woman was holding up a greeting card for all to see that had a painted picture of an Egyptian male and female. Underneath the picture were the words "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery." Bingo.

Soon after, I noticed that this same woman had copies of almost every single Metrobus route map on her person. But that wasn't enough. She started pillaging the stash of Metrobus handouts on the bus and stuffed them in one of her garbage bags. A woman behind her says, "You done take all them?" The crazy woman didn't respond, but did have a look of contempt in her eye.

The crazy woman then requests a stop. The bus is pulling to a stop, and liquid begins to drip from the seat of the crazy woman. As soon as the door to the bus opens, she immediately runs out of the bus, leaving a pool behind her in the seat and on the floor. It's clear that it it was urine.

At first I thought it was an accident, but then realized that she did it to spite the woman who asked her about taking all the Metrobus maps. So nasty.

The one amusing part of this encounter happened after the woman left the bus. A WASPy looking girl was sitting adjacent to the crazy woman, and the girl sat there completely oblivious to what had happened. In fact, she was so oblivious that the pool reached her open-toed, high-heel shoes, and she never realized that her shoes were soaking up the crazy woman's urine.

Posted by at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

LOST Discussion for Episode 3.15: Left Behind

This week's contributors: Ally, Claire, Laila, David, and Starr

Benedict Locke?

Something is going on with Locke right now, and it's not clear what it is. Some people think that he really is joining the Others, but I tend to doubt it. It seems to me like Locke is actually in command of his situation. I still don't think that be blew up the sub, but made the appearance of it, which Ben thought he orchestrated. Now the Others are probably under the impression that he is joining them, but Locke is totally playing them. Remember about what Locke said about Jack when he was seen catching the football? The same can be said about Locke.

Ally tends to disagree because of all of his recent blunders, like making the hatch implode, blowing up the Flame facility, killing Mikhail, and "blowing up" the sub. She thinks this is another one of his supposed ill-fated courses of action. I actually don't think that blowing up the Flame or killing Mikhail was a mistake, nor do I think that the sub is blown up. Plus -- we are still asking questions about the circumstances around the implosion of the hatch. The ramifications of these decisions hasn't been fully realized, and I think it's leading somewhere pretty significant. Let's not call them blunders just yet.

What is Gained?

So everybody is trying to figure out whether or not Juliet was designated as a spy or not. There are a few things to note about why she might be a spy. First, and most obvious, she had a key to the cuffs. Second, she would have had to be gassed at about the same time as Kate, both of whom came out of their hazes long before Jack. The thing to note, though, is that Juliet knew where Jack was passed out, so she likely didn't get gassed herself. She might have even partaken in the gassing.

The big nagging question in my head, though, is why? What could the Others possibly gain from Juliet being in the survivors' camp? They know where the survivors stay, they know everything about the survivors, and the survivors don't really have any more secrets to keep from the Others. Plus, they all know who Juliet is and her former stature in the Others' camp. It's not like they would ever trust her enough to give her compromising information. It just makes no sense, and I therefore think that she's not a spy.

Laila has an interesting theory about where this is all headed. She thinks that Kate is pregnant with Sawyer's baby. She says it would tie together because Juliet is a fertility doctor. Ally raises a good point about this, which is that if Kate becomes pregnant, it takes a TON away from her character. Plus, if she were pregnant the Juliet as a fertility doctor thing isn't a great tie in, because Sawyer did a fine job fertilizing her himself.

Other Stuff

I was pretty perplexed by the smoke monster in this episode. One of the leading theories I always hear is that the smoke monster kills those who don't repent. Kate has repented to the horse on the island and also said she was sorry to her mom when her mom was in the hospital. Why would it want to kill her now? Was it only Juliet that it wanted? Also, any idea what the little flash was all about? Maybe the smoke monster is just a way to work in product placement for a new Nikon camera.

Looks like Nikki and Paulo are really dead ... (crickets chirping)

A couple of people noted the reappearance of the Mouse Trap board game. Interesting.

Hurley's "con" against Sawyer was pretty cute. I actually really enjoyed this small subplot because Sawyer, who represents staunch capitalism, was shown that the social services that the community provides are very valuable.

Laila thinks the "con" pushed Hurley's level of innocence down a notch because he manipulated Sawyer. I disagree. The lie was so insignificant and only served to better the survivors' community. Besides, I can't think of a better way to get Sawyer to step up to the plate.

Posted by at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This past weekend I went up to New York City to visit Andrew, my housemate during my time in Mississippi. The past day shaped up to be a strangely stereotypical day in New York: seeing a Yankees game, going to a club in Brooklyn, getting breakfast on the Upper West Side, and randomly running into someone I know.

It was Andrew's birthday weekend, so I treated him to a Yankee's game. I generally loathe the Yankees, but it was his birthday. Also, I wanted to at least have the experience of going to Yankee Stadium.

Anyhow, we got to the game late because of a long night out. I'm still not clear on what happened in the first inning, but the Orioles took a 5-2 lead. The Yankees cut the O's lead down to 7-6 by the bottom of the ninth. Then, out comes Chris Ray, the O's closer, who is also on my fantasy baseball team.

Now, I wasn't rooting against the Yankees during the game, because that would just be obnoxious. I was, however, rooting for my closer when he came out because I badly needed a save. Ray gave up a base hit, but also managed to put two away.

So, with one out to go, up comes Derek Jeter. Jeter gets walked. Andrew at this point starts to joke about how much insult to injury it would be if the Yankees ended up winning by two. Then, Bobby Abreu gets beamed, loading the bases. Next is Alex Rodriguez, and Ray manages to get the strike count up to two. But then, almost expectedly, A-Rod blasts a walk-off grand slam.

Even as much as I dislike the Yankees, and as crushed about negative repercussions in fantasy baseball as I was, I still had to give it up for a walk-off grand slam.

Side note: Not only did I not get the save, I accrued a loss, a home run allowed, and my WHIP and ERA got bumped up.

The feeling from the fans after the come-from-behind win was pretty intense. You could even see it empirically. The proportion of people wearing Yankees hats jumped up significantly the night after the game.

After the game, it wasn't clear what we were going to do that night. Ian knew a person promoting a party at a club in Brooklyn, so we headed out to it.

The area surrounding the club was pretty sketchy, but when we went in, it was exactly what I would expect a typical club in Brooklyn to be like: dark, packed, and loud. The DJ was spinning pretty well; about every minute and a half he mixed in a new song, which kept the crowd energized.

All of a sudden it was 3:00 AM, and I took off with Ian. We took an illegal cab home, which was interesting ... and cheap. This dude pulled up in his Cadillac and took us to Ian's place (with two stops) for only $20.

I had to catch my bus today, but putzed around for a while beforehand. I got breakfast at Zabar's, a local restaurant and grocery store that is pretty well known. Everything I had was really good. Then, as I was walking down Broadway, I ran into Ariel, who taught with me in Greenville. Small world, indeed.

Posted by at 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

If you haven't seen this, it's pretty amazing:

• Ian goes on TV
• Got problems? Blame Californians.
• The best part of this story is how the lead points out that he lives with his parents
• Hellooooo, Jenna Fischer
• I can't say that I'm surprised with Cheney's creepiness here
• Best Craigslist entry ever
• House member says DC doesn't deserve a vote because all House members look after DC, promptly receives calls about fixing city problems
• Play video games at work (thanks, JGro)

Posted by at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I first decided to support Barack Obama, I didn't really have strong reasoning behind the decision, besides his charisma. I was, admittedly, on the bandwagon like everybody else. However, over the past couple of months, my support for him has completely solidified.

My first step toward totally backing Obama came when he made he formally announced his candidacy for president. In the middle of his remarks on education, he said this:

Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability.

In saying this, Obama essentially kissed away all support from teachers' unions because the teachers' unions are squarely against school accountability. But -- it's this kind of reform, in a general sense, that needs to take place if poor and minority kids are going to achieve at high levels and if America is going to remain competitive internationally.

I'm sure that other candidates understand this just as well as Obama does, but I have yet to hear any of them say anything remotely close to Obama's remarks.

The point is that Obama is willing to go in front of crowds and tell them things they don't really want to hear -- but that need to be said. He made an even bigger pitch right to members of the teachers' unions, as reported in the Des Moines Register:

But then he talked about "the things that were good about No Child Left Behind," like high standards needed for students because U.S. children will have to compete for jobs with students from countries with more rigorous schools. The act also identified groups of students who need extra help in schools, such as minority students, he said.

Obama told one teacher questioner that teachers deserve more pay to attract people to the profession, a line that drew whoops and applause. "I have to say though, there's got to be a bargain with teachers in terms of more pay," he said.

"They've got to get more pay, but there's also going to be more accountability." (There was audible rustling and mumbling in the seats at that.)

"Now, the accountability can't just be based on standardized test performance only, but that has to be part of the mix, and there has to be assessment tools that are developed in concert with teachers," Obama said.

"If teachers are underperforming, we're going to get them the help they need. But we're not going to pretend they are not underperforming, and that is something we're going to have to make happen," the senator said.

Similarly, he told a group of Democrats that the military budget can't be cut -- something Dems really don't want to hear:

But Obama said "in terms of the overall military budget, I will tell you that we are going to have problems making immediate cuts, because one of the untold stories about this war is the way it has depleted our military.

"The fact of the matter is, we are going to need more troops than we currently possess" because of the pressures Iraq has placed on the National Guard and reserves, he said. "We're going to have to build up the size of our active regular forces. We're going to have to replace the equipment that has been depleted.... There's probably going to be a bump in initial military spending just to get back to where we were."

After that, the United States can reprioritize some military spending. "If we do those things, potentially, over time, we can see some savings. That doesn't mean, by the way, that we're still not going to have to have some of the conventional military forces that we need to protect ourselves from more potential attacks or threats." He cited North Korea as an example.

Obama got virtually no applause to that answer.

The fact of the matter, though, is that the military is stretched very thin. There is discussion in military academia about how close we are to the breaking point of open troop rebellion against their extended tours in Iraq. It's a reality that the nation needs to address, even if Dems don't like the requisite military spending that goes along with it.

Obama's candor got me thinking back to In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part I, an episode of The West Wing. It's the flashback episode where Leo convinces Josh to go to New Hampshire and see Jed Bartlet on the stump. Bartlet is giving a speech to some dairy farmers, when one of them asks about him cutting dairy subsidies, to which he responds, "Yep, I really screwed you there." He goes on to explain that he couldn't let hungry children go without milk, and therefore had to cut the subsidies. Josh, initially distracted, looks up and realizes that Bartlet is the real deal.

That's the same kind of feeling I have when I hear Obama tell audiences like it is. It's refreshing to see someone in the field who can speak genuinely and not compromise their beliefs for political gain.

Posted by at 9:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

LOST Discussion for Episodes 3.13: The Man From Tallahassee and 3.14: Exposé

First of all, check this out. It's hilarious.

This week's contributors: Ally, Claire, Laila, and Starr

The Man From Tallahassee

This week we finally found out how Locke became paralyzed. It was definitely the most intense episode in some time. The biggest question (by far) that the show left with us was how Locke's father ended up on the Island. Is there actually a magical box that makes things appear, or did the Others already have Locke's dad there? I'm of the opinion that Locke's dad was already there for two reasons. First, recall that Ben said, "Get me the man from Tallahassee," meaning that they already had him. Second, Ben would have wanted his dad to use as emotional leverage against Locke -- which we saw Ben admit to doing in the following episode.

Another interesting question is whether or not Locke is the guy who fell out of the window in "The Numbers." That happened when Hurley's financial adviser told him that people who come into money often think that they bring bad luck onto others. I think it has to be a tie-in. Hurley and Locke both lived in Southern California. The only thing that makes me hesitant is that Hurley was in an office building and Locke's dad was in what seemed to be an apartment. I guess it could have been a dual-use building, but it seems kind of odd.

About that submarine... Everybody, myself included is convinced that the submarine was not destroyed. First of all, Locke was wet, suggesting that he moved the submarine or somehow sealed and submerged it. You could argue that he put the C4 on the outside of the sub or something to blow it up. However, the writers left it painfully ambiguous. That's reason enough for me to think it's not destroyed. Also, I really want to think that this was finally the time that Locke didn't get played by someone. On top of it, Locke would be going over the top on them, which would be awesome.

Ok -- big question here... how the hell did Locke get to the submarine? The Barracks was not near water. Unless there is some lake with an underground tunnel in it, I don't see how the story jumps from the middle of the jungle to the ocean.

Exposé

This was one of those tangential episodes that strays from the main story, like when Hugo found the car. However, I think that there is something more to it. The story line has to be building toward something. I can't put my finger on what it is, but I don't think they will end up dead; the sand wasn't very deep. At least one will survive being buried and advance the plot. Maybe Paulo will be able to share some of what else he might have found out in his search for the diamonds. But then again, even if they both die, nobody will be very upset.

A couple of things about the episode were upsetting. Why would Paulo never tell Jack or anybody about seeing Jack and Juliet!? He could have put the diamonds pretty much anywhere, but decided to keep them in a place that other people obviously visit from time to time. Why not move them and then tell Jack about it? Also, why would he never turn over the walkie talkie? That stuff was pretty annoying. Maybe he just felt too alienated by the main group of the survivors.

Other Stuff

The Animal Farm reference was pretty good. I always love a good George Orwell reference.

Charlie is making peace with folks, so look for him to get the axe soon. That's how it tends to go. Laila, Starr, and I all think that.

Laila has a ton of off-the-wall theories that I will let her post.

Posted by at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)