I took this picture many, many months ago, but it seems like I've been seeing this ad on the back of the 8 bus all the time:
"Screw those people I might kill...If I get a DUI I'll have to ride a bus! With all the poor people!" Guess what, Ted C. Barr — I ride the bus on purpose. I don't even have any DUI convictions. Hell, I don't even drive drunk.
This is the kind of attitude people need to get over before we'll be able to have decent transit around here. Cars always seem to be treated as the default option. The state and federal governments will throw piles of cash at road projects, but if you want to raise your own local taxes so you can keep your buses running, Olympia will kindly ask you to sod off. Granted, Metro buses can be pretty unpleasant at times (and this very route is a prime example), but driving and parking a car in and around Seattle is pretty shitty in itself — and that's with our government subsidizing the hell out of the practice.
Uncle Metro isn't all bad, either. I'd pick a 20-minute, $2.25 bus trip downtown over a traffic and anger-laden drive, topped off with $2.50 per hour, impossible to find street parking, any day.
First this, then this. Maybe Cliff Lee can top it all off and throw a perfect game for the M's tonight, and Milton Bradley, just to piss off all the vitriolic Cubs fans harboring an irrational hatred of him, will hit a pair of home runs to seal the win.
Oprah has taken a break from her book club and swimming in her wave pool of cash a la Scrooge McDuck in order to set up a little contest. She wants to give one of us peasants our very own show to play on the Teevee.
Naturally, about a bajillion people have submitted video auditions for their various show ideas. Some are probably legit, most are bullshit. NONE OF THEM MATTER!!!
The winner is already obvious. His name is Zach Anner, and he's awesome.
Zach has Cerebral Palsy, which he notes is "the sexiest of the palsies," and he wants to create a travel show for people who never thought they could travel. I love this on so many levels. He makes me laugh in that way where you can't breathe and you're not making any noise, just contorting your face like a gargoyle of mirth.
I adore his show concept. It's original and would actually serve a purpose. My grandparents spent much of their lives not going anywhere. Part of this was due to a depressing lack of interest, but part of it was because they were nervous about things they couldn't plan for or control. This would have been a great show for them.
All the other levels, I can't really put in to words other than to say: Zach is awesome. Please vote for him.
I don't know how to get his original audition to embed here, and even if I did, I wouldn't. Oprah might come after me, and I really value my knees and ability to not be in prison. You can find his hilarious audition tape here. Watch it now and fall in love like I did.
In light of his (hopefully) imminent victory, Zach also recorded a pilot for his show which I have embedded for your viewing pleasure.
Recently there have been some shenanigans afoot on the contest site. Somehow a competing submission for "Dr. Phyllis," a self help/advice show of some sort, (read: "BOOOORRINGGG,") racked up an astounding 300,000 votes in 20 minutes to take the lead from Zach. Fortunately the nerd masses of the intertubes caught the change, cried foul, and Zach has since regained the lead thanks to their subsequent nerd marketing efforts. But we need to make sure this can't happen again. If Zach doesn't win I will cry and I refuse to be held responsible for the well being of any small animals in the vicinity. Vote for ZACH! Do it for the puppies.
...is a paper-mail from the University of Washington that says "Hey, you should come to our law school*," and an e-mail that says "We shipped your god damned laptop."
Come on, I know one of you can pull through today!
Impatience causes me difficulties in life.
* At this point, i'd even take a "Stay the hell out of our law school, peasant!" Knowing what state I'm going to live in once August rolls around would be real nice.
The top of Seahawks Stadium* used to look like this:
Actually, it looked worse than that. The once-white roof kind of looked like the mildewy inside of a seedy Aurora Avenue motel room shower, only three or four shades darker. Then, as of a couple days ago, it started to look like this:
And look! There are even little worker dudes on the top!
So they're painting the top of Seahawks Stadium blue. It's like what I do when something in my apartment is dirty--cover it up! They've only done this with the west-facing side so far. If they go this route with the other roof, the Seahawks are officially dead to me.
* And yes, it's called Seahawks Stadium. Neither Qwest Communications International, Inc. nor their $75 million have any bearing on what I call the place.
...Because that's exactly what the world needs, isn't it? One more unemployed newspaperite dumping his random musings on the Internet.
What are these musings going to be? Depends on how lazy I am. Ideally, it would be more than some dude writing about his monotonous life (and oh, how monotonous it is!). Perhaps I'll manage to get back to writing about all the crazy goings-on in the ridiculous local political scene. Maybe not. Maybe I'll just sit in my basement writing about my cats. And I don't even have cats. Whatever happens, it'll probably be a bit of a rocky start, but that's ok...because no one knows it's here!
And anyway, this "introductory" post is really more for the benefit of all our readers months and years down the line, who want to see where it "all" "started." Right? Sure.
We blog about some stuff sometimes. Garrett likes to blog about things that piss him off. Lauren likes to blog about things that make her happy. We both live in the Pacific Northwest, but in different cities, but hopefully not for long.
