remains of the ride

There comes a time in every nearsighted girl's life when she needs to go to the eye doctor to renew her monocle prescription. And so came this day in my life yesterday, when I arrived at the lovably puntastically named For Eyes optical in downtown DC for a check-up. Once there, I was quickly told my eyesight had neither deteriorated nor improved, was given the same exact monocle prescription (incidentally, my pince-nez prescription also hadn't changed) and robbed of $130.00 because of my lack of adequate vision insurance. And although I look and feel quite rakish now, much like this monocled feline...


...A much better story is what happened before I got to the eye doctor. A much better story took place in the cab ride downtown, when I got into a rather interesting discussion about dignity with the driver. It was like a page/scene straight out of "Remains of the Day," except instead of an aging English butler, the main character was a thirty-something Sudanese man. And instead of the English countryside, the setting was L Street. And also, I'm pretty sure Mr. Stevens, the butler in "Remains of the Day" who was played on screen by Sir Anthony Hopkins, never uttered the phrase, "She wanted me to be having sexy on her." (Don't worry. We'll get back to that in a moment.) Luckily, however, considering that I apparently wear a monocle now, I was able to reprise the role of English gentlemen, so this literary comparison still stands. Except I assure you I was never a Nazi sympathizer. And I'm poor. And a woman. And not English. But whatever, it's too late. Let's just go with it...

"People in DC, they don't have dignity," said the driver.

"Hear hear, good chap!" I said.

"They say, to someone like me, disrespectful things because they are very much ignorant."

"Kind sir, whatever does one utter that should be so unbecoming?" I said, whilst buffing my monocle with my plus-fours. (And for the record, despite how disturbing that sounds, this is not when the phrase, "She wanted me to be having sexy on her," came up.)

The cab driver continued: "I give example. One time, I picked up someone in night. This is what made me not ever work in night again." He paused. "Should I tell you? I don't want you to take offense..."

"Carry on, my good man," I said, reapplying my monocle. "As an Englishman, I take offense to only two things in this world: smudged monocles and, of course, dental hygiene."

"She was white, like you, and drunk, like..."

"I assure you I am sober, good man! This flask is full of...tea. And crumpets. Blended together. With fish and chips. And gruel. That's how we eat in England."

"She was from another state. Maybe California or LA. She stay at somewhere like Ritz Carlton in Tyson's Corner. Rich. I take her all the way out there. Long way. As we come near she say, 'I can't believe I end my night with cab driver.' She said with hate. Like I not good enough."

"Cor blimey! She sounds like a manky, pissed up nutter of a scrubber!"

"What?"

"She sounds like an skanky asshole."

"Yes! She wanted me to be having sexy on her! But was mean and embarrassed because I am not yet a powerful man."

"But you have dignity."

"Yes. Even as cab driver now. This why I refuse her and refuse to work at night. I have standards. I have dignity! But I have ambitions also."

"I'll say!"

"When I finish school, I will rule people like that one day!"

"Oh?"

"Yes! I will be powerful and control them! HA!"

"Oh..."

"I will get all beautiful women to ask me to be having sexy on them and they will respect me!"

*silence*

"It is the American dream..."

And here I thought the dream was being able to occasionally pretend you were an English gentleman looking to purchase a monocle...

SO MUCH OPULENCE TO HAZ!

When is the next train to Bloo-beery Xkhill??? Treel, I want to haz it.

censorsh*t.

Indeed, it's been a while since I hacked my way into your online lives and offended your sensibilities. However, considering my last few months of essays have been less than inspiring (honestly, a few were the blog equivalent to stepping in a wad of gum, wrapped in a piece of dog sh*t, inside a pile of street puke), I suppose it's no big whoop that I chose to self-censor myself the past few weeks.

Put simply, I've grown rather tired of my e-self. My virtual world has become so predictable, so bloated with loathe, so annoying, that when my real-life self would stumble across these sticky, squishy, smelly online rants a day or two later, all I could do was roll my eyes, wish I could punch my online persona in the face and dry heave. But that last reaction may be because, according to the last three years of "The Anti DC's" existence, all I've eaten were several tons of canned beans...

And so I'm going to expand my palette and take on some new projects. And while that doesn't mean The Anti DC is dead (anyone containing that much legume-derived protein and fiber is fortified for life), it does mean The Anti DC is abandoning the daily essays. In other words, I'm trading in the paper plates for the fine china, which I'll only bring out on special occasions, like when I invite guests over to gather 'round the overturned milk crate I call the dining table (ART!) to serve up a trash-can fire grilled meal of dead Metro rat three-bean salad. In other words, something has to be real f*cked up to earn The Anti DC's patented form of insightful, yet mind-numbing criticism.

Luckily, one such occasion has popped up in the past few days, so set the f*cking milk crate, kids. The dead Metro rat three-bean salad is about to be served.

BEAN 1 -- THE BACKGROUND

On October 30, the National Portrait Gallery opened a GLBT-focused exhibit called Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, which included a video from an artist named David Wojnarowicz. The 30-minute video work, entitled A Fire in My Belly, sought to illuminate what it was like for the artist to live with AIDS, the disease whose complications ended up killing him in 1992. The exhibit opened to good reviews, until one month later, when some dickish religious zealot named Penny Starr wrote an article for CNS that focused on the 11 seconds of Wojnarowicz's installation that depicted ants climbing on a crucifix. Later picked up by Matt Drudge's Drudge Report, Starr's words were suddenly broadcast to the "gotchya" Internet, which got the priests at the Catholic League worried enough to stop (allegedly) molesting young boys for a minute and demand the piece be removed from the exhibit. Then, of course, the right-wing loonies in Congress got involved and threatened to cut off funding for the federally funded NPG because, let's face it, to those guys, anything about the gays is like an Internet meme to the rest of us. That is, it's just another way to procrastinate from doing your real job.

BEAN 2 -- THE THESIS

With building pressure from the idiots on the Hill, NPG decided to remove the "offending" work from the exhibit earlier this week.

BEAN 3 -- THE CONCLUSION

While NPG employees said they ultimately censored the work from the exhibit because it became a distraction, I believe they did it because the last thing they needed in an era when arts funding is already becoming increasingly scarce was a political controversy. And for that, I cannot fault their decision. "Look, the Smithsonian museums are like the attic of our country," said Anti DC creative director Terry the Tourette's Turtle this morning over tea and beans. He later amended his statement by adding, "Donkey dick!" And I think I get where he was going here...

The Smithsonian Institute isn't avant-garde. It's not about pushing the proverbial envelope or creating new limits. Instead, it's about depicting the limits that others have pushed elsewhere in the past. Hell, Impressionism used to piss people off, meaning, I doubt that the Smithsonian would have welcomed Manet, Monet and Pissaro with open arms either in 1863, yet today, those paintings are the Institute's reigning jewels. I'm certain in 100 years Wojnarowicz's work will also be looked at differently.

THE METRO RAT -- CHEWY

People are pissed. Hell, I'm pissed. However, unlike most people, I'm not pissed at NPG. Like I said, their roll is to basically play the soccer mom's fridge to the art world. That said, though, I'm disappointed that this decision had to be made, I'm more disappointed that certain members of society, including some Congressmen, aren't reasonable enough to deal with art in more mature manner. In fact, I'm outraged at that. But let me be clear to whom I think our collective outrage should be directed. The criminals here (that is those who seek to silence certain aspects of society) are the Congressmen, who were able to hold a metaphorical knife to the neck of NPG in the form of funding threats. The accessories to the crime, of course then, are the idiots who elected these assholes and the instigators who mistake injustice for righteousness.

Put simply, I look at this situation like I would a street mugging. These dicks in Congress just jumped the NPG, as if they were exiting the Apple store in Georgetown. In order not to get hurt, NPG did what they were supposed to do -- they handed over their MacBook nice and quiet. Can you really blame them?

Luckily, where our nation fails, our private sector can pick up. Transformer, an art space located at 14th and P in Logan Circle, has decided to make sure the work can still be seen, even it if is no longer a part of the official Smithsonian exhibit. And although, they differ from me on whom they are placing the blame (they put the blunt of the blame on NPG), I think what they're doing is a pretty good "f*ck you" to the bullies on the Hill. Seriously, f*ck those haters.

THE DIGESTION -- CONSTIPATION

Despite serving the fancy dead Metro rat three-bean salad served on the good china, I don't plan on getting the verbal runs. (The non-verbal kind, well, that's another story.) Like I was saying before I f*cked all the haters (now that didn't come out right...), I won't be updating The Anti DC every day anymore. What I will be doing, however, is continuing to work on some other projects, of which at least one will involve blogging. For those who may care, I suggest you follow me on the Twitter or "like" The Anti DC on Facebook to get timely updates on any details. I'm crossing my fingers that one day someone besides myself will deem my work vital enough to censor...

get local...please

Maybe it's because I'm leaving work in the middle of the night now at 5 pm, but I seem to be more angry than usual. My head is hotter. My proverbial fuse is shorter, or, as Google translator would say when translated from English to Hungarian to Finnish to Arabic to Vietnamese back to English, "this is still less than ideal." OK.

But seriously. I'm just annoyed -- at the dark, at the cold, but mostly, I think, at the "local" media. When did "local" turn into "outer suburbs" in the DC? I mean, really, it's infuriating when the Post's local opinion columnists write about some stupid sh*t in Gaithersburg, or, as Google translator would say when translated from English to Hungarian to Finnish to Arabic to Vietnamese back to English, "Gaithersburg." (Nice!) And it's even more maddening when so-called "hyperlocal" outlets make the top fold of their front e-page more about Virginia's 11th District than the actual District of Columbia.


The overblown media battle of Fimian and Connelly aside (which, by the way, is taking place in exurbs of Virginia and not even the suburbs), TBD's front page this morning (note: it's since changed) hardly applied to me...or, really, anyone who resides inside the District lines of Washington. Only two (2!) stories out of eleven (11!) were actually about DC. Metro terror and crime on 14th Street. Not to mention, those two stories weren't even written by TBD bloggers/reporters...

TBD's Maryland and Virginia coverage, on the other hand, seems to be superb. If only I was looking for news that didn't apply to my life as a DC resident...

And while I hate to give out free advice, especially since I recently got paid $70 per hour for my consulting skills (suckers!), I'm going to make like a communist right now and give these sites a hand out coupled with a soul-crushing message:

You need to add more filters to your site, otherwise, you're irrelevant. Supposedly, TBD does that, but judging from the above screenshot as viewed by this 20005 resident this morning, their sh*t be broke. I want my front page story on my local news site to actually be local. And I want the other 10 to be the same way. Likewise, I want the Washington Post to hire a someone who understands life in the District proper (Gaithersburg doesn't count), someone who can write a relevant local column for the twenty- and thirtysomethings -- the age groups that compose the biggest chunks of the population here. I know of at least one woman who would be a great addition to the Post's editorial team. And she only charges $70 per hour!

Look Read, I'm not asking for a news outlet to tailor all their coverage to only those subjects I find relevant. (If that were the case, the only things these outlets would need to cover are Internet memes and their own suckage). All I'm saying to these guys is to follow through with what's been promised -- "local" and "hyperlocal" news. (In the latter case, then, even Arlington, which is closer to where I live than many other DC neighborhoods, wouldn't count.) Either hire more reporters to cover undercovered areas (um, like Washington, DC!) or insert a better filter into your aggregator to tailor the front page to the individual reader. If that means all my stories on TBD come from elsewhere, then so be it. If that means the Washington Post needs to hire me as an editorialist and pay me an exorbitant salary, then so be that too. Remember, it's all for the greater good. And my wallet.

post vs. post (affiliates)

I love it when people make fun of the Washington Post. I love it even more when people make fun of it and the Post publishes it. And the best is when the mockers are Post-affiliated bloggers, so that when it gets published on the Post's site, it looks as if the Post paid them to do it. The only thing better would be if Gene Weingarten decided to actually write something funny. Now, that would be real subversion, undermining the Post's credo of being eternally boring, morally offensive and increasingly irrelevant.

Alas, we'll settle for Stage 2, in which David Alpert of the Greater Greater Washington blog takes on Post columnist Petula Dvorak over Montgomery Country speed cameras in the Post's local opinions section.

[Dvorak] cheers the recent vandalism and arson against speed cameras, quoting residents pleased by this destruction of county property. She calls the cameras "vile devices," a "gargantuan gotcha," "horrid contraptions" and "a speed tax." Facts? Who cares.

But then again, when has the Post ever really cared about facts...? And why should they? Welcome to the age of modern journalism, when suddenly only having half the story with a quarter of misinformation you gleaned from Twitter is somehow "the future."

But seriously, sh*t's all kinds of annoying no matter where you look in the media. The Post just seems to annoy more than most because it's supposed to be better. We're supposed to expect more. After all, this is the leading paper in the Capital of the Free World. We should probably be able to hire and retain a slew of local columnists who know what they're talking about.

But no. All we got is the guy in the dumb hat, Mustache McTard and Petula Dvorak, who according to Alpert, would prefer more babies to die than have to stop at a red light.

And ask Dvorak to write a column about Samira Kelly and her 16-month-old daughter in Aspen Hill, or the many other people hit or killed in Montgomery County whose deaths might have been prevented or injuries avoided or lessened had some speed cameras taught drivers to follow the law and ease off the pedal.

Although, wait. A column about statistics and dead pedestrians sounds almost suspiciously like news and, God knows, we can't have that in the Washington Post, especially in the local section. Plus, Dvorak is an editorialist. She's not supposed to write anything useful or enlightening. In fact, she missed the most egregious downside of speed cameras -- they malfunction. I've had one go off when I was legally turning right on a red. I stopped, looked out for traffic, then turned. The camera flashed, and yes, I received a ticket in the mail that I paid because, Petula's right -- it was less cost inhibitive for me to just cough up the $30-or-so than try to fight it. Indeed, I felt a little bit raped by the city that day...

But it gets worse. The other day, one snapped a nice photo of me on my bike. And I wasn't even going through a red light. I guess I just crept up a little too close to the crosswalk. Now, what they're going to do with photos of cyclists, I have no idea, but I'm assuming if this happened to me, it must have happened to others. All this makes me want to do is stop at every intersection with a raised middle finger or make some sort of ridiculous face, like when you're on a rollercoaster and you know you're passing by the in-motion souvenir camera. Hey, if it's Glamour Shots at every corner, I might as well make it interesting.

Which is something neither one of these writers -- Dvorak or Alpert -- seem to know how to do. WHO CARES ABOUT MONTGOMERY COUNTY?! If you're a Metro columnist or a DC-based blogger, write something about the goddamn District. Gaithersburg does not count.

shambles p.i: the get a f*cking haircut/shorts are not pants edition

If you watch the Internet at all, I'm sure you've seen him. This guy:


He shows up on just about every third YouTube video you attempt to watch. And while mostly, I'm just watching morbidly obese cats exercise in Japan, in this case, I was trying to brush up my John Wall-dancing skills by learning "The Dougie" (hat tip: DCist), which I will get to in a moment. First, however, can we discuss this guy's hair?



What the f*ck is going on here? I mean, really, who made this guy, who looks more suited for selling used rape vans, the spokesperson for a political campaign. Oh, you didn't know that? Me neither, until I decided to click through to find out how much a used rape van costs who in hell would hire this guy to be their official spokesmullet. (Surprisingly, his white-board doodles didn't make it clear). Well, it turns out, this is an ad for a group that opposes the bailout of some of America's biggest shipping companies. Being uninformed, as I am wont to be, I didn't even know there was a bailout of America's biggest shipping companies. And after having to view this guy's greased-up coif a million-and-a-half-times (there are a lot of videos of morbidly obese cats exercising in Japan on the Web), I wish I still didn't know. Not necessarily because I don't agree with what he's schilling for (I refuse to give that any deep thought) but because I ask, is being informed really worth the cost -- the cost, of course, being alerted that this guy's hair was deemed appropriate for mass viewing? No. In fact, I think it even had a counter-effect on me. Perhaps, we need more bailouts, and specifically, one for America's haircutting industry. Fantastic Sam's and Supercuts clearly aren't doing an adequate job...

And just when I thought I was over the most heinous shambley assault to my optical nerves, this guy pops up as my online Dougie instructor.


Now, I understand the sagging pants trend. I know about its origin and I even understand it as a fashion statement on occasion. But what we're seeing above is beyond that. This man has turned a pair of shorts into a pair of pants by situating them literally below his crotch. I mean, really, unless his body is twice the length of his legs and unless his femur is actually the shortest bone in his body, this whole look makes very little sense. Not only, I imagine, is it harder to keep pants up when you don't allow them even a smidgen of butt cheek to cling to, but wearing your pants that low makes you look shorter than the shortest oompa-loompa.


I mean, seriously, the fact that even that weird Brown Bailout dude's mullet looks longer than this guy's legs is a problem. In the words of President Obama, "Brothers should pull up their pants."



And before any tea partiers come here again to call me a racist (although they'd probably spell it more like "raysist") and/or tell me how much they wish I would die, let me be clear: If it was a black guy with the oily mullet or a white guy with the sagging pants, I would've said the same thing. Also, my general health is fine and I make it a habit to look both ways before crossing the street, so suck on that, death-wishers!

so many "events" to discuss...

So, I went to the hometown opener of the Washington Bullets Wizards the other night and realized two things: 1) I'm not really a basketball fan (too many fouls make basketball a very dull game!); and 2) I'm a John Wall fan. And while that might seem counterintuitive, it makes sense if you take basketball out of the equation. I'll be honest, I don't really care about how good John Wall handles balls (OK, that phrase just made me like basketball more). I care about his ability to make an intro.



Now, THAT is worth cheering for. Kudos, John Wall. I will attend more basketball games just to see your dance moves.

What's not worth cheering for, however, is the portrayal of Washington, DC, in "The Event." For those of you too hypnotized by John Wall's "Dougie" (that sounds unintentionally dirty), "The Event" is a new television show that combines all the absurdness of "24" with all the 'tardness of "LOST." (I can't wait to find out it's all due to a Hot Tub Time Machine in a cave again...)

Sure, the mystery, sci-fi storyline may seem enticing at first, but a closer look at how this show handles details makes me automatically lose faith. At one point in the last episode they make reference to the Metro. Someone gets on the Metro at Farragut North and sets off east. The next thing we hear is, "She just passed the Van Ness station. The next station is two miles, Metro Center." Uh, really? I mean, just a quick Google and the writers could've avoided that amazingly illogical statement. Why would someone get on at Farragut North, then travel WEST to Van Ness before then traveling east to Metro Center and eventually Chinatown?

Also, this is what the Metro car looks like:


I mean, really, if they can't even get something as simple as the order of the stations or the design of a typical DC Metro correct, how am I going to believe they're going to be able to resolve such a complicated storyline?

But that's not all! Didn't you see? Chinatown looks like this now in TV land:



Look, I wish Chinatown looked like that. I would LOVE to see a legitimate newsstand in this city, but alas, that doesn't exist. I mean, really, who did the research for the set for this show? A toddler? An intoxicated toddler? A blind intoxicated toddler? Because it's just wrong. And like I said, if a multimillion-dollar production crew can't understand that, at the very least, a few thousand dollars worth of stock footage would've been a good idea, then I really can't see how this show expects me to care about it. As far as I'm concerned, a more interesting storyline would be for a scientists to harness the aliens' anti-aging gene and market it to the public-at-large. How would living five times as long as we do now change our way of life? Now, that's a show. I'm going to set it in Miami and use footage of Anchorage to portray it. Now, all I need is a intoxicated blind toddler to ignore all the important details. I smell an Emmy!

even the diapers are probably dowdy...

We're gonna start off today's post with a game. I'm sure you've heard of it. It's called marry, f*ck or kill. I'll give you a moment to get over the unusual display of vulgarity I just used on this f*ckin' goddamn blog. Sh*t. OK, ready? I'm going to name three things and you have to choose one to kill, one to, um, remove your pants around, and one to marry. A zombie, a chupacabra, and this 'tardy "discussion" about DC fashion. Man, this is a hard one...

As for me, I think I'd marry a chupacabra, do a zombie and kill that stupid Washington Post discussion. After all, the discussion's leader, Robin Givhan, already rendered it half-dead when she decided to forego the shift key and make like an illiterate by typing in all lowercase letters.

Also, I have a low tolerance for stupid ideas and attempting to rationalize and defend the fact that most of DC dresses worse than your average diabetic middle American is near the very top of the idiot zenith. (The only thing higher is attempting to play kill, f*ck, or marry with a zombie, chupacabra and an Post-led online discussion about whether DC is dowdy or not.)

Really, isn't this a moot point by now? I mean, all it takes is a few steps outside and you'll know instantly -- people (in general, of course; I understand there are exceptions) don't try to dress fashionably here. The culture doesn't allow it. Now, can we please stop debating that? It's a waste of e-space and, honestly, a little boring to blog about. Moving on...

So, how 'bout that election? Wait, what? You didn't get to vote for anyone because you live in DC and don't have Congressional representation either? Yes, f*ck the elections...like a zombie. As far as I'm concerned, I'm kind of sad Christine O'Donnell and Alvin Greene didn't make the cut because bat-sh*t crazy is much more fun to mock than boring. (See above for a prime example of yawn.) But alas, we'll have to make do with the lot we've been given. At least David Vitter got re-elected! And you know what that means! IT'S DIAPER TIME! A-A-A-A-A-AHHH!

questions of the week

Why does this guy hate Virginia so much? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the 'burbs either, but I'm not planning to bomb the sh*t out of it. Also, awesome job perpetuating the stereotype, you asshole -- you just made every sane Pakistani's life in this country all that more uncomfortable.

How is it that the biggest start at this weekend's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear is Sam Waterson (that is, besides the two hosts)? Now I don't feel that bad for missing it.*

Why is all the attention on Brett Favre's penis, when the most disturbing image in his "alleged" text are his Crocs? Crocs > Cocks on the offense scale.

Why does John Kelly have a job? His articles sound like they're being written by that guy who relies on his stupid to show that he's funny, rather than substance. Can we please finally replace him with R. Kelly? R. Kelly > John Kelly on the Kelly scale.

WHY ISN'T THIS ARTICLE THAT SAYS EATING CANDY IS GOOD FOR US (kinda) HEADLINE NEWS?!

This is a two-parter: 1) Why does DC Water have a mascot? And, 2) More pressingly, why does this new mascot roll in a rape van?

True, @mydcwater, it is harder to rape in a midsize sedan...

Lastly, since we're on the Twitter tip, I'll let fake Clarence Thomas (@clarencethomas) ask the last question:


*I'll be volunteering with the childrens for a group that helps kids process grief after losing a parent or other close family member. Yes, I am a saint.

jesus, i'm f*cking critiquing a corn maze...

A friend and I went to a farm out in Virginia this weekend to buy some delicious gourds. Mission accomplished! (I roast a mean pumpkin seed.) And since we each paid $9 to get into this phantasmaGOURDia (HA!), we decided to stick around to do the corn maze. After all, there's nothing I like more than getting lost in a creepy field after I purchase gourds. However, we all know I'm the Kanye West of the blogosphere -- "I'm so gifted at finding what I don't like the most" (except it usually takes me longer than 35 minutes and there are a lot more giant papier-mâché Michael Jackson heads involved) -- so I'm going to tell you how sh*tty everything was.


Anyhee-hee (shamone!), there were two problems with this weekend's corn maze -- the corn and the maze. Apparently, there was a draught this year and the corn only achieved dwarf status. Seriously, it was so little! Maybe 4 feet high, tops. Some of it lower, all of it sad, brittle and brown. In fact, so fragile was this tiny, dry corn that instead of relying on just the corn to compose the walls of the maze, this corn maze also used police tape. Which, actually, was kind of fitting because that corn was pretty dead.

But even if the corn had been luscious and green, there'd have still been issues with this maze. So, the way it's set up, you enter map-less, hoping to stumble upon the first trivia station where you'll find a question and three answers. Next to each answer is a direction (usually, "Go right," "Go left," or "Go behind"). If you answer the question correctly, you'll be guided toward the correct path, which will get you to the next trivia station and so on. If you answer wrongly, you'll be sent TO HELL! Just kidding. You'll be sent in a loop or something and have to come back and try again.

Anyway, at first we was all about this, as it's so rare that knowledge, opposed to dumb luck or just being dumb, actually helps you get ahead in life these days. But then we saw the first trivia question: Why did the chicken cross the road halfway? A -- So she could lay it on the line (Go right); B -- Because she forgot to bring her egg (Go left); C -- She wanted to see egg-sactly where she was going (Go behind); or D -- WTF is this?! THIS ISN'T TRIVIA, YOU ASSHOLES, IT'S SOME STUPID JOKE! (Go ask for your money back.)

Unfortunately, that last choice wasn't an option, so we ended up choosing one of the other three at random and got lucky. When we reached the next station, we were pleased to find an actual trivia question (something about how many eggs on average a chicken lays per year), which of course we got right (300!) and were able to move on. Next, we found another stupid riddle. Then a legitimate trivia question! Then another stupid riddle. And so on...

The whole thing came to an end with an answer sheet so you could see what you got right and what you got wrong. Unsurprisingly, we got all the legitimate questions correct, including, thanks to the Maury show, what the word meaning "fear of chickens" is:



Alektorophobia for days, bitches! But for real, in total there were only three questions that had facts for answers, which, in my opinion, is what makes a trivia question a trivia question. The other three questions were riddles, meaning there was no right or wrong answer, just a bunch of stupid ones. Do not want. Half the fun of the maze is knowing you can use your brain to get yourself out. The stupid jokes don't allow that. With those, you just have to guess, like an idiot.

So, I don't know. It was a time. It wasn't really that good and it also wasn't bad. The corn maze was corny, but the pumpkin and squash selection was GOURDgeos! (SHAMONE!) I'm really not sure if it was worth the $9 admission fee, but I'm also not sure it wasn't. Sure, it wasn't the corn maze of my dreams (I dream often about labyrinthine field crops AND GOURDS!), but it was still a corn maze, which is pretty cool just by definition. Yeah, OK, I'd go back. And actually NOT to burn it down. Success!

college kids need better protest ideas immediately

Hey, remember when you were in college and your biggest care in the world was the swimming pool? Yeah, I'm looking at you George Washington University...

OK, I get the need for college kids to protest sh*t. It's what you do when you don't have real problems to worry about. But a swimming pool rule? Surely (and yes, I'll call you Shirley if I want to; you kids probably don't even get that...), there are better things to spend your time kvetching about. This is 2010! There are multiple wars going on! The economy is in shambles! Global warming! AIDS! KOALA AIDS! I MEAN, COME ON! What's become of you today, college kids? Hell, even when I started college in the late '90s (pre-George Bush!), we found something more substantial to protest than a freaking swimming pool. The war on drugs. (Stop laughing and hand me the damn Cheetos.) Kids these days -- they're all stupid.

And here's another thing that's bothering me -- this TBD event re-cap of Tim Gunn's talk at the Corcoran. The write-up is good enough, but the photos? Well, considering TBD has money behind it, you'd think they'd be able to send their bloggers out to cover events with better technology than what the average 7-year-old carries around these days. Just sayin'. That kind of unnecessary amateur gaffe makes even Vladimir Putin a sad boy.


The only thing that'll make him turn his frown upside down (although in Russia, frown turns you) is this video of a cat farting and hiccuping at the same time. Delightful!

And since it's Friday and everyone's gearing up for the weekend, let me leave you with the only thing that can top that -- a link to Katherine Chloe Cahoon's video, Why Single Girls Want to Meet European Men. I can't wait to see Kristen Wiig reenact that word-for-word. And also, this one about beachwear, in which Ms. Cahoon is standing in the ocean in a dress with a handbag. Now, if THAT was the consequence of a women's-only swim hour at the GW pool, then Erin Pew might've had a point...

for ginni thomas's sake, i hope she has a drinking problem

I don't think there's another activity in the world that results in a more diverse set of consequences than binge drinking. On the one hand, you have hilarity; on the other, car accidents and death. And then there's that huge swath in the middle. Ask any 18-year-old college freshman and I'm sure you'll here a myriad tales of drunken fights with unmemorable origins, awkward hook-ups, the unfortunate intoxicated text messages...

Or you can ask Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. For those of you just on the cusp of grown-up, allow me to remind you that Clarence Thomas was once accused of sexual harassment by a woman named Anita Hill. And, yes, while today it seems the rest of the world wasn't thinking about this snippet of news that happened almost 20 years ago (after all, we have lives to lead, or in my case, naps to take), Mrs. Thomas was. But why? The only explanation that makes any sense to me is that this she-douche got a little tipsy one day and decided to drunk dial Anita Hill begging her to ask God to grant her the divine guidance to apologize for calling Clarence a supreme creeper.

I mean, how else can you rationally explain why -- after 19 years! -- someone would think it smart to drudge up such an unsavory issue in such an idiotic way? Then again, Mrs. Thomas has started digging her way into the butt of the Tea Party, so perhaps rationality isn't applicable here. Which mean, jeez, maybe she was sober... But even assuming that, did she really not realize the wider consequences of this action?

Not only did Anita, who today works as a professor at Brandeis College, rightfully refuse to apologize, but now another woman, who says she used to date Clarance Thomas, has come out in support of Hill. She confirmed to the Washington Post that Justice Thomas is, indeed, a total letch:

Lillian McEwen, a retired administrative law judge who said she dated Clarence Thomas from 1979 through the mid-1980s, [said]: "The Clarence I know was certainly capable of not only doing the things that Anita Hill said he did, but it would be totally consistent with the way he lived his personal life then."

So yeah. Either Ginni Thomas is an idiot or she really likes the sauce. Personally, I'd rather be known for the latter (hell I'm drunk right now), but I get the feeling that when it comes to Mrs. Thomas, it's the former. Seriously, what a f*cking moron.