Home Office

Scene: Yuppie Bar in DC

YUPPIE #1: Hey Tadd! Long time no see. How's it going chum?

YUPPIE #2 (Tadd): Biff! Great to see you old chap, I'm doing swimmingly. Thanks for asking chap. How's work, and hows Cecilia?

Biff: Cecilia's great thanks, she's in Gstad with Mumsy, decompressing. Its been a hard fall, what with the fluctuating market and all. Been working quite hard actually.

TADD: Working hard or hardly working!?

(Entire bar laughs uproariously)
---------------------------------------------------------

You may be asking yourself what the point of that little scene was. Well, I'll tell you...

Work.

We all do it, and most of us hate it. Whether it be a job we are overqualified for, a job that does not challenge us, or pointless mind-numbing boredom. There is no doubt about it. Work just basically sucks.

Yes, work sucks. A no brainer right?

However, I recently have been experiencing a combination of work and laziness that is so amazing and so glorious, that I had to put it down in blog form.

You question putting these two seeming contradictory terms together. You equate them with oxymorons like jumbo shrimp or Carlos Mencia, comedian. Well let me tell you something: Even though they may seem to be polar opposites they have been unified in my life.

Yes, I am talking about working from home.

Working from home is what I do now. It allows me to explore the finer things in life, like how long I can wear a sweatsuit without washing it.

Don't get me wrong, working from home sometimes actually encompasses doing work. Thats why I have email and a cell phone. On the flip side of it, however, I can squeeze leisure activities inbetween work tasks.

For example, naps. I can take a nap anytime I want to. I can get up at 9:01 a.m. As long as I am 'online' its all good.

There is a drawback to all of this. Namely, I don't know what to do with myself half the time. I mean you can only watch so much redtube.com and you can only eat so many Chipotles.

In other words, I am the ideal of "Office Space" personified. But I realized that without purpose and direction, daily life is simply a haze of hot sauce, flop sweat and Golden Girls reruns.

Therefore, I humbly solicit suggestions from you, my reader(s). What the hell should I do with my time?

(and don't you dare say look for a new job)

An Extreme PBR Wallet Makeover

Reader (s),

Again, I must apologize for my lack of commitiment to KMS over the past three months. A lot of things have changed since my last post.

For one, I have started a new job, which until this day has compromised my blogging time. Secondly, I have a beard now, the maintenence of which has sapped any addtional time that would otherwise be spent complaining in this forum.

Thanks to Gabe, for coming back from the Orient, and helping me to get the writing jones going again.

Anyhow, this posts' anecdote begins with a party and ends with a spicy fry. The moral of this post is...do not go out till 3am on Wednesday nights, or you shall bring wanton destruction upon yourself.

Wednesday, July 27th. A Wednesday seemingly like all other Wednesdays, except it wasn't...It was to be more glorious than most Wednesday's because it was the premier of my ex-roomate's appartment makeover show on HGTV. As my ex-roomate moonlights as a bartender, he of course was hosting the 'premere' party at his bar. I had a vested interest in attending this event for two reasons: (1) I had lived in the madeover appartment for a year and a half and wanted to see what it now looked like and (2) They have $2.50 PBRs. It turns out that the PBR made this a lethal combination.

I had a lacrosse game that night, so I wasn't able to get to the bar until about 9pm. But when I did, the party was in full swing. I have to give my ex-roomate credit, he filled the place (on a Wednesday nonetheless). So I show up covered in sweat and mud, belly up to the bar and begin with the PBRs and whatnot.

I must say, PBR is delicious. 12 PBRs, and a few shots of whiskey, a reciepe for disaster.

Fast forward to closing time, I look around me and realize that the only people left at the upstairs bar are me, my ex-roomie and some wierd girl obsessed with him that he has no interest in whatsoever. Despite my obvious drunkeness, the situation was getting a bit akward. So I decided to peace out.

Unfortunately for me, the bar is multi-leveled, which means that I must--much like navigating a casino in Vegas late at night to get to your hotel room--actually pass by the downstairs bar before leaving for the night.

Temptation is a sonofabich.

Needless to say, my attempt to pass by the bar without joining in the closing-time-festivities failed miserably.

So, a few Buds and a few near vomit inducing shots later, I was out the door, wandering through DC's beautiful U Street corridor at 3am, drunk as a skunk.

When I got home, I was too drunk to sleep, so I took a shower and ate breakfast. Then I passed out in my recliner, nude.

Fortunately for me, I somehow managed to set my alarm, and was rudely woken by it at 8.15 a.m. Unfortunately for me, I had a crushing hangover, I was naked, had no idea where I was and had to be at work in fifteen minutes.

I frantically got dressed and got everything ready for work. There was one small problem...I couldn't find my wallet. I literally tore my appartment apart in ten minutes. When I had exhausted all my searching options. I cursed myself and my drunken stupidity and concluded that my wallet was, in fact, gone. I also concluded that I was, in fact, fucked.

Because my wallet and everything in it had now gone missing, I had no money, no ID and no Metro card. I had to count out twenty-seven dimes just to get metro fare. When I got to work an hour late, I had to embarassingly explain that I had lost my wallet, and then, like a vagrant borrow money for breakfast AND lunch.

The whole time I had an ego-crushing hangover. This hangover was so bad, it was like something from another time period. This must have been what the Romans felt like after a long night of gorgining themselves on wine and lamb.

I called the bar, no wallet, so after returning home for the day and again ransaking my living quarters. I gave up and set about the tasks of getting all new credit cards, bank cards, ID cards etc, etc.

Friday rolled around and I had spend hours on the phone with banks, credit card companies and the like. I was pissed. By then I had aquired a new bank card and a new zip card.

Saturday, I had to pick up Gabe from the airport, so I spend the day cleaning my appartment and doing laundry.

Laundry.

Unbeknownst to all, including myself, the mesh lacrosse shorts I wore that fateful Wednesday night, unlike any other mesh shorts in the history of mesh, actually had pockets in them. This is where I had put my wallet after my night of PBR fueled debauchery. When I came home and got undressed for a shower, I threw the mesh shorts in my hamper, causing the wallet to dislodge and sink to the bottom the container.

This is where I found it, 4 days of aggrivation and hangover later.

If that isnt a KMS, I don't know what is.

P.S. Gabe, what was up with those girls and the spicy fries? Seriously. Also Jake, that girl you were talking to was a hooker. No really.

Exclaiming Exclamation

We’ve all seen it. We’ve all done it on occasion. But there are some who have a problem. That’s right, I’m talking about the writing e-mails—in particular the use of the exclamation point. The exclamation point is part of the English language, no doubt. And there are certainly times when it can be used appropriately. But, all too often, people use it haphazardly. The upshot: they look like morons. Take the following fictional e-mail:

hey jan!!!!! how are you?!?! i havnt’ seen you in soooooo long!! OMG!!!! We REALLY NEED TO GET TO gETHER!!!!!!

LOVE

emily

You will notice several things about this e-mail. First, the excessive use of exclamation points. Second, the conspicuous lack of grammatical correctness. Third, the chaotic spattering of capital letters and lower-case letters. Finally, the fact that I have used female identities.

The worst part about the e-mail is the exclamation points—by far the worst. The exclamation point is typically reserved for situations of great excitement or surprise. The event must truly evoke some significant emotional response. You can’t just use exclamation points for every sentence that has some emphasis. If you did, that would trivialize the exclamation point itself. Using the exclamation point this way would be like yelling every sentence. This would detract from the force of raising or lowering your voice. It would also convey false impressions if you failed to yell at one point or another. Finally, it is just plain annoying. How would you like it if I yelled in your face throughout a conversation? You wouldn’t, and neither would I. So why, then, do some people feel the need to incessantly insert exclamation points throughout their banal e-mails full of affectedness? The only acceptable use of the exclamation point, aside from the occasional emphasis, is for humor. Placing exclamation points in clever places can often make for comedy. This, however, is not something that most “users” do.

Have you ever been talking to someone who keeps mispronouncing a word, or simply mumbles? Does that bother you? If you said no, then you must enjoy annoying ramblers—such as crackheads or rabid homeless people who urinate themselves in mid-conversation. The linchpin of human communication is the ability to understand what another person is saying. If you can’t understand what someone is saying, you cannot effectively communicate with that person. Intertwined in communication are social norms: those unwritten (and in this case written) rules about appropriate conduct and form. Both of these concepts illustrate why typographical and grammatical errors are beyond obnoxious. When I talk to you, I don’t mumble words or pronounce “great” by saying that was “g followed by the number eight.” If I do, then I have Q-tips stuck in my brain—not in the shallow part either, I’m talking deep in the gray matter. When I talk to someone, I want to be able to understand them. Better yet, I want them to talk to me in a way that is comprehensible and follows certain norms. Do you talk to a child the same way you talk to your parents? In other words, it doesn’t take much time to make a coherent sentence, so why not do it?

Capital letters have emerged as “regular” in the internet world. Frequently people use capital letters to denote yelling. This is typically an acceptable use, since it would be hard to otherwise communicate this, except perhaps with some sort of parenthetical notation. This would, however, destroy the essence of force typically associated with yelling. More common, though, is the use of capital letters like in the above e-mail: undiscerning, slipshod, and careless usage. Capital denotes primarily two things: (1) proper nouns and (2) the first letter of a sentence. Stick with those uses and you should be find.

Enough of that. Most people are probably wondering why I chose to give my fictional sender of the e-mail a female identity. The answer is simple: women (and girls) are the primary culprits of these follies—especially exclamation point. I don’t have the time or resources to venture why women do this, but they do. It is a fact. You don’t think so? If you are a girl, go back through your e-mails (those sent by you and those sent to you by your female friends). What do you notice? Lot’s of exclamation points, capitals, and misspellings! Still not convinced, go through your female friends e-mails and your male friends e-mails. Still not convinced? At this point I, I suggest you turn on the T.V. to, say, MTV and watch a reality show. Are you still resisting the urge to conclude that I am right? If you are, then you might as well sit down and write an e-mail to me about how outraged you are. See how many exclamation points you use . . . .

The Oscars are this weekend, and I still hate celebrities

All of them. I hate them all.

It is no secret that in today's society being famous requires only a pulse. And in the case of Anna Nicole Smith, that isn't even a necessity. In fact, she is probably more famous for dying than for anything she ever 'accomplished' in life. But I digress, I will not do the growing 'celeb' community the favor of actually writing about their utterly meaningless existence in detail. I simply wish to explain why I loath them all so much.

Last night I saw a short clip of a new show on VH1 called "Shooting Sizemore." I don't know if you people know this, but this actor Tom Sizemore (who was actually pretty good in Saving Private Ryan and Heat) , dated Heidi Fliess and has smoked crack rock for most of his career. He is broke, his hair is falling out and he is doing a reality show to make money.

The point here is that celebrities can now make money off of being degenerate drug addicts (I believe Danny Bonaduce did the same thing). Does anyone else see a problem with this?? This is something that is, in general pretty reprehensible and anti-social. To profit from this seems, I don't know...pathetic? Disgusting? Iditotic? I am at a loss.

Then there are the "real" celebs. The big earners. Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman. People who have real talent and big time box office draw. I hate them as well. I hate these people because of their overinflated sense of self importance. Goddamn they are smug! I mean who rents out an African country just so they can have a baby there!?! Not to mention, almost all of these people are complete morons who confuse celebrity status with political knowledge (read: Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Angelina Jolie, Brat Pitt, any character represented in the Film Actors Guild in the movie Team America: World Police). Just stick with the acting OK? Jesus H. Tittyfucking Christ.

Worse than Sizemore or "big" celebrities like Brad Pitt, Julia or Clooney, (who at least are talented actors) are no talents who just want to get noticed. Any reality show contestant who got 'kicked off the island' and finagled a soap opera cameo or Oprah appearance falls into this category. Ian Bernardo, a person with no discernible ability at anything and who is obnoxious to the point where it actually oozes from his pores, is the most obvious example of this. This guy was on American Idol for about 15 seconds. Yet, he seems to think that his NY accent, flamboyant homosexuality, JAPiness and skeletal look make him good celebrity material. Its as if he has somehow become intoxicated by the stink of his obnoxiousness. Be back in 5, I have to go vomit to punish myself for burning energy thinking and writing about this waste of space.

I feel much better now, thanks for bearing with me.

Now, I am brought to the absolute worst of the worst of the celebrity scum pile. This is the so called 'media element.' Included in this category is anyone who runs a gossip report, celebrity mag/blog/website and the TV show Entertainment tonight (which BTW had a total coke head for a host). Its not that they make a living out of stalking and harassing people. Its not even that they are amoral douche bags who couldn't get respectable jobs in journalism. You know what bothers me the most about these people? Its that they are basically just as self important as the assholes they follow around, but bring even less to the table and to society. Basically all they care about is being close to rich spoiled smug fools. I mean they get off on associating with celebrities.

I seriously can't think of anything worse than someone who spends all of thier time trying to get close to rich morons.

Until next time.

KMS

Have you ever had a 3 day hangover?

I have.

In fact I just recovered yesterday. I do think, however, that this particular hangover was exacerbated by the negative 20 degree weather in Chicago and the crushing heartbreak that is Rex Grossman.

Don't worry, that's the last time I'll mention HIS name in this post. God he sucks.

Superbowl Sunday is to blame for not only horrible disappointment, but the most awful and terrible hangover of my young life.

It began innocently enough, Saturday night, grabbing some Sushi with friends at a local place. I thought that it was going to be a nice dinner, with a few Kirin Ichibans and some delicious spider rolls. And it was, my buddy even graciously picked up the check at the end.

If you are like me, and I'm assuming that you aren't because I'm pretty bitter, you realize at some point of your Superbowl/reuniting with friends weekend getaway that you face a choice. You can A) Enjoy the weekend, have a few drinks, socialize, eat some good food, watch the Superbowl and get up fresh on Monday for your flight back to DC, and even make it to work or you can B) send yourself throttling down an alcohol infused bobsled ride of self destruction that is probably illegal in Utah.

Wanna guess which choice I took?

It started when we ordered that first Sake carafe. By the end of dinner, we were all in agreement that 1) the food was delicious and 2) we were drunk.

But it didn't stop there, we bounced from bar to bar that Saturday night, gleefully downing shots of tequila and grand marnier, and washing 'em down with an assortment of beers.

Funniest gambling moment of the evening:
We were watching the end of the Bulls Blazers game at a bar on Clark Street, when we noticed that two Asian fellows were cheering particularly hard. We enquired to what is this voracious applause due? They responded that they had a grand on the game, the and took the Bulls plus 3.5. There were 4 seconds left and Ben Gordon had just hit two free throws to put the Bulls up by 4. "Rejoice!" they exclaimed, for truly the game was over. The Blazers had no chance of winning, and that G of winnings was gonna be buying us some shots.

They may of not had a chance of winning, but they did have a chance to make a meaningless shot, which they did, a two pointer, right as the red light went on. Sorry Asians.

Needless to say, we were hung over the next day. But the BEARS were in the Superbowl and this is Chicago dammit! We did what any self respecting person would do, and began the next day with delicious Bloody Mary's and keg beer.

Needless to say this continued all day long, with a few Beam and Cokes tossed in for good measure, and into the night.

And then, the buzzkill that was the Superbowl happened. The party cleared out fast after that. I was not to be deterred though, because this was Chicago dammit, and...well...it was really fucking cold!

What can I tell you? I ended up out till 4 am, all my friends abandoned me at the bar. As I was trying to leave, I noticed that my jacket was missing, I was loaded so I gave up after a brief search and decided that my Jim Flannigan jersey would be all the cold protection I needed.

As I was leaving the bar, some guy came up and asked me for a smoke. Since I don't smoke, I told him I couldn't help him. There was something strange about this guy though, couldn't put my finger on it....
Wait! He was wearing my hat! And my gloves and my coat!

"Hey! Give me those you son of a bitch" I cried.

The man, dejected and caught red handed complied and skulked away.
What the fuck?!?!

Anyway, I took a cab home, drunkenly wondering how the hell I was gonna catch my flight at 9am the next day.

I caught the flight, but I seriously thought I was going to soil myself in one way or another the entire cab ride/flight home/metro ride/walk to my apartment.

And that day wasn't the end of it, the next two days were fraught with headaches, abdominal pain, the runs, sluggishness, lethargy, 20min sessions in the bathroom. I won't bore you with details. But lets just say that it was like taking two sledgehammers and smashing them against your head, while having the sound of fingernails on a blackboard in your ears and drinking an entire bottle of ex lax.

That's what I felt like for three days.

I guess there's always next year.

GO CUBS!

Things that piss me off: People who pass out stuff

I abhor these people.*

What part of leave me the fuck alone do you not understand?! All I am trying to do is walk from the office to the metro, then from the metro to my apartment. Is it too much to ask to be able to do that without some fuckwad sticking a Hare Krishna booklet in my face?

Being in DC makes this so much worse because here all the crazies come out of the woodwork and try to hand you anything from Chinese New Year flyers to free rainbow prophylactics.

The last time this happened to me I nearly lost it...
I was walking home from work and some nut job asked me if I wanted some information about LaRouche and his plan to impeach Dick Cheney. Normally, I would have thought, "impeach Cheney, not a bad idea, where were these people when he shot some poor fucker's face off." But alas, it was the LaRouche people.

In case you didn't know this, Lyndon LaRouche is a Jew-hating, ex-con politico fascist nut job who claims to be a patriot but is actually a total fraud who runs his own spy service and brainwashes people much in the same fashion as Scientologists. He spent 15 years in jail for fraud and is one of the worst diarrhea mouths of all time (read: Ralph Nader). He also has run in every election since the dawn of time (read: Strom Thurmond). Somehow, his people convince young people to hand out his garbage flyers at metro stops and say things like, "let's save the crippled economy."

So long story short, I tried to ignore the guy but he insisted on pestering me, and said, "Oh I guess you are one of those Cheney-ites, you love Cheney don't you?"

I could no longer resist. I responded, "Well actually, I'm not crazy about Cheney, but something pisses me off more than him. YOU. How does it feel to spend your days working as a newsboy for a lying 80 year old ex-con? Seriously, if LaRouche asked you to dress up in a sailor suit and walk around with a giant lolli-pop, would you do it? And by the way, the economy is actually doing really well right now. So leave me the fuck alone."

Bottom line, stop handing out this useless, brainless tripe in public so I can attempt to live a normal existence. Otherwise I might spend the rest of my natural life on a crusade to rid the city of these paper-pushing assholes.


*Metro Express paper and City Paper people you are exempt because your handouts are actually useful

Why DC Sucks

Dear reader:

Today is yet another in which I have become frustrated, no infuriated, by the elements of society around me. For this reason, I have decided to give a list of reasons why Washington DC is a terrible place.

Please keep in mind that I am aware that there is already a blog called "why I hate DC", this entry has nothing to do whatsoever with that blog. Rather, it is a much overdue expression of how I have felt about this butthole of a city since I moved here in 2004. The list is in order of annoyance from least annoying to most annoying.


Reasons Washington DC SUCKS

Homeless people/vagrants
First off, let me say that I have come to accept the swath of homeless that cuts through DC. They always have been and always will be part of this city. As a second disclaimer, I understand fully that many of these people are mentally ill or one or two bad choices away from having a better life. HOWEVER...There are those amongst the Washington DC homeless population (which is high) who probably live a better life than many of DC's hard working Mexicans/El Salvadorans/Guatemalans. They are the ones that I don't like. These are the guys who stand outside the metro station each day with new shoes on, a cig in the mouth, a cup of Joe in one hand and a 'please help' or charity cup outstretched in the other hand. These people disgust me.

Money enough for cigarettes, coffee and often new clothes but not enough motivation to get off your ass and get a job? I call these assholes the 'professional homeless' the only thing they are missing is health insurance and a 401k (which for all I know they already have).

I saw a guy yesterday who was having the time of his life being homeless (and by the looks of him he was eating well too). In one hand he had a small makeshift fishing pole with a bucket attached to the end. In the other hand he had made a cardboard arrow with the word 'money' on the side. He was singing some nonsensical song about how everyone should give him money and loving every minute of it. I couldn't help but let out an, "are you kidding me" as I walked by.

Still, even the professional homeless are one of the least annoying things about DC. There's also...

Crime
It is well known that Washington DC is a crime-ridden rat-infested drug cesspool. Although in the past several years it has relinquished its title of 'US Murder Capital' and has seen Marion Barry and his crack smoking prostitute-banging ass out of office; it remains one of the most criminal cities in America. No area is safe from malcontents in DC.

Just the other night, at around 10pm, I received a visitor at my buzzer. When I asked what this person wanted, he proceeded to feed me some bullshit about how he was a student at Howard University Law School trying to work his way through school by selling Thin Mints. THIN MINTS! Doesn't everyone in America know that these are sold by girlscouts and not law students! In my old apartment, there was a heroin den a few doors down. And both these places are supposedly in a 'nice' neighborhood in NW DC.

Routinely beatings and muggings occur in the Adams Morgan neighborhood (which is a strip of bars and clubs along 18th street in NW DC). Many of the crimes are committed by children as young as 14 years old. A month ago, the Washington Post published an article on this trend, called 'unking' where boys as young as 12 were talking about how they jumped drunk pedestrians in Adams Morgan and knocked them out for their money. 12 YEARS OLD! And that's not even including the countless murders, rapes and drug deals that go on here. Even the preppies at Georgetown aren't safe from robberies, throat slitting and shootouts.

Still, when I moved out here, I knew that high crime was a given. As long as you are careful and alert, the crime can be a lot less aggravating than....

Overpopulation
This city is too fucking small and there are too many people living in and around it. Forget traveling on the beltway or driving on any major street in the city from 3:30 until 7pm or on a nice weekend. People are coming and going from Maryland and Virginia, some even commuting from as far as Baltimore and Annapolis everyday. There simply isn't enough space for all these people.

Problems also arise on the weekends when every single decent bar and restaurant is packed past capacity, thereby making enjoying yourself completely impossible. This is what happens when you have the French build your city. Yet, still not as horrid as...

Politicians
Scum, absolute and total scum. I truly believe that if constituents knew what their elected representatives really were like, they not only would have not elected them, but would they would have tarred and feathered them. People from small American towns don't realize that for politicians, DC is like Vegas. You get elected, go to DC for a few years, have torrid affairs, break as many laws as possible, embezzle, take bribes, do drugs and throw a party in honor of themselves. Then when you go back home to Cedar Rapids Iowa, it’s like it never happened. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?

I'm not going to waste time writing about the obvious failings and scandals of the last two presidential administrations that would be a cop out. But those problems are stark reminders of what all politicians are like: camera-whore-bribe-hungry-souless degenerates.

As unbelievable as it may seem, the politicians still aren't as bad as...

People who work in politics/lobbyists
Self-righteous pieces of shit. I simply cannot stand these people. The politicians are at least expected to be dirty and full of themselves, they have people tell them all day long how great they are. With these people, it’s like they have a constant competition between each other to decide who is more important. The reality is that none of them is really that important at all.

They dress poorly; have bad haircuts and terrible manners. No, your job as a congressional aide does not make you better than me. It doesn't make you any different from any other working stiff with a shit job other that you are forced to not only your bosses ass, but the asses of just about anybody who your boss decides you should kiss.

I hope you get giardia from the fecal matter on your lips and die of dehydration.

Also lobbyists think that because they are legally allowed to bribe government officials that this somehow makes them part of the government or essential to its function. Look people, if you weren't doing it, some other kiss ass state college grad would be OK? So quit acting like the world fucking revolves around you, because it doesn't.

Horrid, I know, but even these dickheads aren't as bad as...

Yuppies
Douchebags with a capital D. I mean what can you say about yuppies other than they just really suck and that they are idolized by Georgetown students? I am really at a loss for words, but I think on the whole, they should all move back to Connecticut or Delaware or wherever the fuck they immigrated from and stay there until their dying day. If I never saw one of these people again for the rest of my life I could die a happy man.

Yes, yuppies are bad, but not quite as bad as...

Liberals
This town is literally swimming with smarmy liberal Bill Maher wanna-bes. These people cheer when election results come in; they make placards and hold them up to the TV during a presidential debate. They do so many things that should be punishable by death. This category includes people who support Ralph Nadar and the incredible moron LaRouche. I mean these people might as well just start a DC chapter of the Branch Davidians. That's how fucking crazy they are.

But hey, liberals go with the territory, they can be found in almost any major city/capital city. Almost equal, but slightly worse than liberals are...

Conservatives
Liars. Filthy deceiving agenda-having slandering liars. I don't think hate is a strong enough word. I'm gonna go with loathe. Yep. I absolutely loathe these cockholes. They fight dirty and they are always fighting. I guess that makes them always dirty. The thing that bothers me the most about conservatives is that they present lies as the truth, then defend them with more lies and ad homonym outbursts.

The worst part of this is that it often works. Made all the more sickening by...

The weather
The weather in DC can be surmised by one word. Atrocious. Although the winters are relatively mild compared to say Minneapolis or Chicago, the weather is still quite bad. The summer, for example, is the absolute worst time of year to be in DC. Again, credit the French for brilliantly building this city on top of a festering swamp. Merci beaucoup, assholes. The sweltering heat and near 100% daily humidity literally melt you dead in your tracks. Sweat stains of all shapes and sizes appear on even the skinniest congressional pages. It’s the kind of heat that drains you mentally and physically and makes you feel like you should live somewhere colder.

Let's not forget about the winter though. Although this year is unusually warm, most winters are pretty awful here. For one, the public works here is almost non-existent. When it snows over a quarter of an inch, the streets are covered (sometimes 2 or 3 days too late) with sand instead of salt. By then the damage is done already.

Additionally, the people here have a hard time dealing with the cold weather and panic when they see a snowflake or feel a chill in the air. Usually, the snow melts pretty fast after it falls, causing dirty slush water to creep into every last crevice of the city. Then, people panic over the water.

Hard to take, I know. But now nearly as bad as...

"Well connected" people
Oh really? You know Colin Powell's cousin's roomate? Seriously, I give a fuck. Again, this does not make you important. DC is filled with well known political figures from all over the globe. The fact that you know them or hung out with them one time at Cafe Milano really does nothing to improve your awful personality.

Please fee free to cross reference these people with any of the others referenced in this list. Often you meet people who work for a liberal or conservative that think that they are well connected.

Wow! You worked for Tommy Thompson when you were at the University of Wisconsin? You wanna know something; you are still a fat cow from Wisconsin. And the people that actually do have connections, and some power, they are just as bad because they are usually corrupt and influential and won't let you forget what happens to you if you mess with them.

Yes, and often they work for that monstrosity known as...

The Government
Colossal waste of money, colossal waste of time, colossal waste of everything. How anything ever gets done is amazing to me. There are people who do nothing but sit around and read, or simply sleep away the day. Nothing like collecting taxpayer's money for a daily siesta. No wonder people don't want to pay taxes.

A friend of mine told me a story once about a colleague of theirs that got caught stealing money from the government to by crack rock and wasn't fired! And this wasn't a first offense either.

The longer I live here, the more I work in a government agency and meet people who do the same, the more jaded and bitter I become. Thanks a lot US Government!

It doesn't end there, there's still...

Foreigners/Eurotrash
Look Ricardo, this isn't Rio or Chile or whatever. This is fucking America, so stop being such a chach. Please, please, please. I don't think I can take another low class pub being turned into a 'dance party' with no dance floor. These people think every bar/restaurant that is open late is a 'disco.'

Newsflash, disco is dead. The term is used on foreign soil because most foreign countries (read: France) are stuck in the '70's/'80s/Middle Ages. I will say though, that the shwarma and falafel is absolutely delicious.

Oh Eurotrash, there is only one other Washington phenomenon that I despise more than you, and that is...

Interns
Interns, or 'locusts' as they are known locally, are hands down the worst part of Washington. It’s not just that they are young, drunk and stupid. Oh no. They have the uncanny ability to mix with the other terrible traits of DC in just the wrong way as to make it completely unbearable. Allow me to extrapolate: Interns generally arrive in the summer, a time of stifling heat and humidity. The city, as previously mentioned, is already packed to capacity with vagrants and criminals of all sizes. The interns come in and make every crowded bar four times as crowded and ten times as hot. You might as well just stay home and have a pina colada in front a window AC unit.

In turn, interns often are spotted supporting the professional homeless or encouraging them in some terrible way like bumfights.com.

Third, interns usually arrive at some unimportant internship with an over inflated sense of self-importance/political slant/connection to an 'important' figure. Thus, they can again be grouped with the other groups that make DC the disaster that it is. Look guy, the internship at that you found on Idealist.org is not going to make a goddamn lick of a difference in the world, so please fucking get over it and get over your horrible self.

For those that may be thinking of doing a summer internship here, don't.




And that, my friends, is what makes DC so unbearable.*


*Note on Resident Crazies
Seriously, it wouldn't be Washington without that guy who camps out in front of the White House with placards that say, "the CIA created Catholic Church pedophiles" would it? I mean cut these people some slack, OK. It is real the flavor of the city for Godssakes