What's That You Say?
It's Monday, and you know what that means. Comments galore!
Last week Pope Benedict XVI was visiting Washington. Having the leader of one of the largest religions in the world in the city was kind of a big deal. We here at What's That You Say? totally get that. But pope-a-mania also got a bit tiring, clogging our news feeds over the past week or two. Now that he's gone, we can get back to having DCist mainstay topics in our RSS readers. Thankfully, voteprime welcomes back regular Metro delays to that fray, this week's refreshingly non-pontiff-related Comment of the Week:
Hey there, Delays. It's nice of you to finally show your face around here again. We shared so many beautiful weekends in a row together last month. You, always making me wait, teasing me with false arrival times on the displays. Getting me excited when you'd show up on my side of the track only to find out the trains going the other way. Delays, we had so much fun!
And then you just disappeared. Leaving me alone in the metro, catching trains on fairly predictable schedules, getting to my final destination in reasonable time frames. God dammit, Delays, I missed you.
But you know what? I'm over you. IT'S BEEN 4 WEEKS and you think you can just show up in my life again, just like that? No. NO! You're gonna have to earn my trust again before I open my hear to you. Oh, I'll go down into the metro. And I'll wait and wait, but I'm not gonna like it. No sir, I won't be fooled by you again.
After the jump, more non-Pope related stories and the comments you felt obliged to leave with them.
Photo by randomduck.
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We asked you to help us decide whether U Street was in Shaw or not. 83 comments later, and the consensus is probably still out.
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Krisa felt that the expansion of AP availability in D.C. public schools was a good thing:
We should absolutely encourage students to be challenged and take more difficult courses. My big fear is that AP will become marginalized by the popularity and desire of students to have it, and so the grading scale will be redistributed and dumbed down in much the same way that the general curriculums have been. Once that happens I guess we'll need an AAP exam.. Not everyone that wants to should necessarily be taking these classes, but crap, it's a lot better to have it and challenge people than to assume they're all lowest common denominator.
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The drawn-out saga of the D.C. Madam is pretty much over. So, was her strategy the right one to take? Or was it just a desperation heave by someone who knew they were going down in flames?
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Well, Neko Case was not performing at the 9:30 Club with the New Pornographers...and then she was...but then not again - but as fedward points out, when she's not singing, there's still plenty to be heard from the Vancouver collective:
See, I don't buy that math either. Dan contributes three (great) songs per album, but it's not like he stands on stage the whole time. He comes on for "his" songs and he leaves again. So he was really only missing for a few songs last night (and as that goes, Carl's gotten pretty good at "Jackie, Dressed in Cobras" so it was really just "Execution Day" and "Testament To Youth in Verse" where he's missed). I think saying any one person carries more weight in the NPs misses the point of the band, especially since the band themselves like to point out that it's all a very collaborative effort.
I'm not going to say I didn't miss Neko, but I don't have to hear "Letter from an Occupant" at every show, nor do I think she's half (or a quarter) of the band. Feh.
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We know it's only April - but the lack of butts in seats at the new ballpark is a little disconcerting. drew in adams morgan, thinks that it's due to a melange of reasons:
It's going to be hard for our team to drive attendance because there are a lot of variables for and against. There is the aspect that Zippy points out, that we are a city full of fans from other cities.
There is the fact that we have a losing record, and their record hasn't been impressive since we got them.
There is the fact that we don't have a compelling rivalry - just yet, a la the Red Sox/Yankees or White Sox/Cubs, etc.
The team is going to have to play better, or the wow factor of the new stadium will quickly diminish.
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We saw that too, boondoggle, we even put a post up about it!
Did anyone see on news when Bush called the Pope's speech 'awesome'? He next asked the Pope if he wanted to stay over and play Guitar Hero while Mom makes Hot Pockets.
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We guess that "United Shut Down By Crew" was probably not the clearest headline ever. Sorry, towlesjm!
Perhaps you could amend the title a little bit so those of us with tickets on United Airlines don't have a heart attack? That'd be super.
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Beer and wine at the Target? Sounds good to most of you (and us, too).
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Metro's automatic doors malfunction .00000018 percent of the time, so they're now going to have train operators opening them manually. This led OldPosterKnownAsCranky to share this little nugget with us all:
I haven't seen doors opening on the wrong side. But I did sit in the front car of a Metro train and have a Metro guy who had gotten on at Union Station get off at the Metro repair shop between (I think) NY Ave and Rhode Island Ave metro stops. The conductor slowly stopped the train, the guy opened one of the doors, hopped out, door closed, and we kept on going. I had never seen that before. But it was kinda cool.
What was scary was the Metro driver's fingernails. She had super-curving claws of death. I dunno how the heck she was able to do much with those scary claws.
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Speaking of Metro, blittle suggests proper etiquette for riding the trains with tourists:
Nah, I like the: "Excuse me, please. Excuse me. May I get through please? That's my train." While gently pushing them to the right. I think it's a good technique as I always receive compliments from tourists like, "Thanks for the Education.", "Oh, you're in a rush?" and my favorite, "Hey bitch that's my toe."
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Clown pants, tourist pants, there's really no difference.
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Whee, it's Award Time! Cue the sirens and the balloons!
This week's Avatar Award for Achievement in the Field of Avatars: We've been waiting to give erincarly props for her mathematical homage to synth rock. Then again, she could just be a scientist who likes music. In any case, it probably ends up in sexiness, so congratulations.
And this week's Username of the Week is WvOvMutilation. We sure do love us some Pixies on a Monday morning.