What's That You Say?
Maybe it's just us, but we're pretty excited that today's the first day of autumn. Think about it - we're losing baseball, but we gain lots of football. Wheat and fruity beers are hitting the bricks, but Oktoberfest brews are just hitting their grooves. And most of all, the weather's getting colder - which can only mean one thing: more time spent inside creating cannon fodder for the Say. Good times.
That said, this week's Comment of the Week comes from OldPosterKnownAsCranky, who serves up a reminder that Overheards should just stay in their allotted column, never to wander into other forms of pop culture. Especially when they involve Dick Cheney's favorite turn of phrase:
Tom Cruise character: Did you order the Code Red?
Jack Nicholson character: Go f yourself.
Michael Corleone: You broke my heart, Fredo. You broke my heart.
Alberto Gonzalez-Corleone: Go f yourself.
Rocky: Adrian! Adrian!
Adrian: Go f yourself.
Jack: I'm king of the world! Woooooo!
Iceberg: Go f yourself.
Has sort of a different ring to it, no?
After the jump: revelations in gun comment policy and your unabashed musings on arty suspicious packages.
Photo by Nivad.
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It seems that every week, we've got a whole ream of comments about guns to sift through. Usually, it's just too exhausting, so we end up highlighting them in a couple of sentences - we figure if you want to read the same arguments over and over which don't settle anything, you know what you're getting into. This week, obviously, was no exception.
Refreshingly, in this week's Magical World of Monkeyrotica, Monkey surveys these large sampels of gun comments and suggests some guidelines. Oh, the satire:
What dcist really needs are some common-sense gun ban comment regulations.
-Commenters must be fingerprinted and have a mandatory background check to ensure they've not been convicted of a felony, are not mentally ill, or an anonymous troll.
-A mandatory 30-day "cooling off" period before commenting on the gun ban.
-A limit to two comments per month.
-Commenters are allowed to submit a comment from outside DC, but they have to pay a $200 transfer fee via DC's only licensed comment registrar (Send checks to Monk E. Rotica (Esq., Dr., Dr., Mr. M.D) Allow 4-8 months for delivery).
-Before commenting, posters must enroll in a dcist-approved rhetoric training program provided by the Georgetown Debate Team and Toastmasters (Lacanian and post-structuralist rhetoric is ineligible and will result in a mandatory comment "suspension" in "quotes.")
-Semi- and full-automatic comments, as well as high-capacity assault-style comments, will remain illegal.
-When at home, comments must be unloaded, disassembled, locked, placed in separate rooms, and only used in cases of "imminent danger."
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Well, that certainly was interesting - your comments were all over Tuesday's big story: an artful protest in Columbia Heights which authorities didn't quite grasp - resulting in a shut-down of the Columbia Heights Metro station. Eventually, Greenpeace and street artist Mark Jenkins took responsibility for the hubbub - though it seems that these types of incidents over the last few weeks may be getting to HCE.
Can someone start a suspicious package/bag/bear blog?
We really need to keep track of how much all this over-response costs.
How about some risk vs reward algorithms? Or just some common sense policies. A bomb doesn't go off for over 6 months, then you can stop hyperventalating over every little thing until the next one actually does go off.
I'd much rather see this money spent on catching actual criminals instead of chasing tails.
Common sense, that's funny. But hey, for all the paranoia over suspicious packages, at least we can all revel in the fact that our financial futures are in very good hands. There's no need to have a conniption about that, right?
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Sometimes here at the Say we read comments which just feel like we're talking to someone over our eighth drink at the bar. Reid, welcome to the club:
I'm just saying that he should be playing it fair. If he wants to call her a "Sexy Safeway", than he ought to be calling it the "Handsome Harris Teeter". Is he comfortable enough with his heterosexuality to say, "yeah, I can admit that Trader Joe is a tall glass of all right. But so what, that doesn't mean I want to get with him."
I know that he's still trying to play down those Eastern Market rumors, but there's no need to act all macho towards Safeway just because one crazy night of "youthful experimentation" when the all the lines between Adrian and the historic Aldoph Cluss building were wiped away in a blur of Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers and whippets.
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It's true - as ClevelandRocks points out - the new MLK memorial might just be lacking in subtlety:
Yeah, it is controversial. Not because MLK might or might not deserve a memorial, but controversial because of the weird design and imagery used.
Personally, I don't understand why we need giant memorials for everything that happens in our world. It's weird to me. A small, personal, down to earth statue of MLK would be great. This figure, 30 feet tall, emerging from rock like the green lantern in business wear is just too macho and hyperactive to my tastes. And slightly creepy. We can do better.
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So, are we taking official odds yet on whether or not "Participant Five" is even still alive?
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Look, hungeegirl - maybe they just have really short attention spans. Which would be really unfortunate, seeing as how they're police officers and all.
"hey lois, remember that time i was on duty as a MPD police officer?"
*cut to stupid joke unrelated to anything*
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McGillicuddy, someone's got to play us through the downfall of Western Civilization:
question: did my tax dollars buy that decorated band geek's fancy harp? oh, and shouldn't they be practicing war somewhere, not music? replace that oboe with an AK47 please.
i can see the headlines how: Chinese Invasion Met With Fierce Tchaikovsky Crescendo.
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You know what we haven't talked about in awhile? The stadium! (Hey, anything to get us off the guns for two seconds.)
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NotInTheCoolCrowd, don't you know that you're supposed to factor in this sort of delay every day?
Ugh, I seriously had to walk a block out of my way for the president of Ghana? Would anyone even recognize the president of Ghana?
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IMGoph, we hate highlighting comments like this, but we couldn't help but noting your despondency in response to a recent homicide:
hate crime or no....it's going to be like nearly every other crime in the district....unsolved.
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It appears as if the consensus is that action to legalize same-sex marriage in D.C.? Good. The timing? Not so much.
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cooter, it's just a modern take on the traditional dish:
Why is there a picture of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the pho king site?
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Homer: Good news, everyone! I got in a fight with the garbage men and they're cutting off our service!
Marge: Oh, lord, now what are we going to do? Just let the trash pile up?
Homer: Hey, I'd rather live in a dump than in a world run by snooty garbage men.
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Oh yes, awards - I suppose we have to give those out.
This week's recipient of the Avatar Award for Achievement in the Field of Avatars is guest number 10, who's username is DCTC approved. Which is definitely not as good as being kid tested, mother approved - but hey, if you want to settle for less, that's your business.
And our lucky Username of the Week winner is Megatron. Why? Because Megatron is badass, that's why - his catch phrase is "lesser creatures are the playthings of my will." There's no way that shouldn't be rewarded with something.