It’s Raining Now Go Storm The Court

I’m trying not to let all the rainy weather we had this weekend and this morning get my spirits down as I am trying to make this week a positive and productive one (especially with the NCAA tournament starting on Thursday and productivity going out the window). And even with all the rain, I got a lot done and I’m flying pretty high right now.

The rain this Monday morning however brings back some of my favorite pet peeves during the morning commute, my fellow commuters and their umbrellas of choice. There are as varied a selection of rain protection on a handle as there are NCAA teams left out of the tournament. My personal choice is the standard, compact collapsible model. However some of you opt for the larger “golf” style. Good for you....stay dry and keep your bags dry as well. I applaud your choice of more coverage then you really need. That said, have some FRICKIN idea of where you are walking and those walking around you. I get that your umbrella takes up half a city block...again...good for you. But that also means you should not try to walk past me on the escalator or try to beat me to the last curb space at an intersection. I can see from a distance that you’re nice and dry. I can also see the rain just bead up and roll off the sides keeping all your belongings from feeling the effects of the rain. Now I want you to see me having the same protection, until you bounce off of me and toss your rain water on to my bag and pants. Just stay on your side of the street and I’ll stay on my side. Deal? If you're still not convinced...go check out Ichabod Crane's take on your brazen attempt at bodily injury.

Speaking of the NCAA tournament (and by connection the NIT, or “Loser’s Bracket”), March Madness has officially set in with yesterdays announcement of the top 65 teams in Men’s college basketball. It’s a time of year when work grinds to a halt and employees monopolize the photocopier and the printers making spare brackets for their various pools. Unfortunately that also means that any home court advantages essentially go out the window as teams play on (fairly) neutral courts. This also means that there is no more storming the court by drunken underclassmen when their nationally ranked team beats another nationally ranked team. Or when the court is rushed following a teams 1st win of the season. Thankfully Rick Reilly is here to lay down the laws for “Storming”.

I am proud to say that I have personally observed most of these rules during my four to six years in college and in fact only rushed once...1999: Final game of the season. Shawnta Rodgers hits a game winning 3 pointer at the buzzer to beat Xavier. The win also gave GW the regular season A-10 title. I think the video speaks to the excitement.

Final notes. Thank you to Debbie for the heads up on the rick Reilly Story. Also I will no longer issue mea culpas for lack of current posts. I’m just gonna get back to the business of posting.

The Hippo Truth, The Mayor Ain’t That Fast, and South Park’s GOP Following

The subtitle to this posting is “Everything I Need to Know I Learned Reading Yeas & Nays in the DC Examiner. Several items in today’s paper are screaming for my attention and I just can’t decide which comes first so I’ll go in the order which I read them.

The Hippo Truth
Former George Washington University president, Steven Joel Trachtenberg finally came clean on the giant bronze hippo sitting at the corner of 20th and G streets, NW in DC. The gist of it was that he was drunk and his wife wasn’t there to supervise so he bought this thing and had it shipped back to DC where he wasted the time and money of a major university (Bloggerman’s alma matter) fabricating a lie about how George and Martha Washington used to sit on the porch at Mt. Vernon and watch these “noble creatures” wallowing in the mud of the Potomac River.

Finally! We’ve been saying this ever since the late 1990’s when this “thing” was plopped down on campus along with an all out media blitz to try to convince us that it belonged. Nobody bought this crap but as we matriculated out of the university, the incoming classes were inducted and went around believing that if you rubbed the hippo’s nose it would bring you good luck. The only luck it would have brought you in an exam is if it fell on you so you couldn’t fail.

What I want to know is how much money was ultimately spent by the university to promote this damn thing? And furthermore will Trachtenberg pay that tab? This guy should rightly get the credit for turning around the school in the late 80’s and making it a top flight school heading into the 21st century but this is the kind of schemer that should permanently be on his record. Somewhere the Washington’s are rolling in their graves.

The Mayor Ain’t That Fast
So the honorable, Adrian Fenty, DC Mayor is running (along with your’s truly) the 33rd Marine Corps Marathon this Sunday. This year he also shared the pavement with me at the National Marathon in April and he ran a 3 hour and 40 minute race. I was behind him by a little over 20 min (4 hour 7 minutes). But since then I’ve shaved 7 min off of that time (Frederick Marathon) and I think I’m ready to get even closer. So your Honor, watch your back cause Bloggerman and his “Run, Beer, Repeat” team will be on your heels.

SP and the GOP
“You bastards, you killed Palin....err...Kenny!” That’s the cry coming from hard core conservative Republican’s per the latest Nielson study. Yep the great GOP goes gaga for Cartman, Kyle, Mr. Hankey and the rest of the South Park crew. Some people are surprised about this because of the show’s controversial content but I’m not in that group. Why would you be surprised that a bunch of bible-thumping, gun-toting, bigoted rednecks like a show that star a cast of bible-thumping, gun-toting, bigoted rednecks (albeit animated ones)? Sure they cross the line and kill little Kenny each episode (at least I think they still do, I haven’t watched in a while) but they also have tried to stop stem cell research, abortion clinics, and constantly bash gays. These are the planks of the GOP platform and those doing the elephant walk can be proud that they can see themselves in small cartoon children. It sure sounds like NAMBLA’s registration numbers and the names on Megan’s List are going to be increasing as of November 5.

Grandma...Don’t Vote for That Guy!

In case the 2000 “hanging chad” debacle in Florida didn’t worry you enough about our echm...older citizens voting then you either don’t have a pulse or are so blindly in GW’s pocket that your name is Katherine Harris (what...too soon?)!

To avoid such “senior moments” during this upcoming presidential election, a group of concerned Jewish children and grandchildren are heading down en mass to the sunshine state to work with those fogies (Bloggerman’s parents not included...they’re older then dirt but still able to figure out parts of the world wide interweb. Therefore they are excluded from needing help).

The bulk of the story can be found in this LA Times article.

The Jewish Council for Education and Research (a pro-Obama group) is organizing the “Great Schlep” to get informed whipper-snappers down to Florida and help convince, cajole, or even trick those disillusioned retirees that just because Hillary isn’t in the race they don’t have to sink so low as to vote Republican (this is their words...not mine).

On its face the “schlep” provides for interesting fodder. We saw what 2000’s election brought and how different would it have been had there been younger helpers to show the older Floridians how to use the chad ballots so that Pat Buchanan didn’t walk away with most of the southern part of the state. Even though this group is vocally in support of Obama, is it so bad to see young people getting involved? I think they should expand this outreach beyond just Florida. Take it to the farms of Iowa where, sure they believe that gays shouldn’t be allowed to walk down the street much less marry, and that if you don’t own a gun you are a terrorist loving, commie bastard, but deep down they don’t’ have to vote for the old guy and his next mistress. They could vote for the black guy and the other guy who’s white but still acts like a dope. Or they could take the show on the road and send thousands of Jews to Alaska (perhaps even by way of cruise ship) to convince the Eskimos that their Governor really isn’t all that and the bag of sour cream and onion chips she says she is.

And let’s not stop there. Why don’t the GOP faithful take it in reverse and send their old warhorses down to speak to those high schoolers and tell them that GOP is the way to be or that sure you’re 20 and already have 5 kids but you don’t need that tax cut. Instead support our guy who’ll give it to the CEO of a company the gov’t just bailed out.

Ok now I need to go and lie down for a nap. Mrs. Bloggerman has obviously been getting to me!

Assorted Friday Ramblings

I have an assortment of things to discuss this morning. So here we go; please keep your hands and feet in the car at all times and keep the restraining harness on.

1) St. Louis Billikens Set a New Low

Last night the George Washington University Colonials helped the St. Louis University Billikens set a new record in men’s college basketball. SLU scored a new low in points during the “shot-clock” era with 20. That’s not 20 in a half, that’s 20 in the game. The final was 49-20 in favor of GW. The bulk of the story is here on ESPN, but what I want to point out is not that the Billikens couldn’t shoot or that GW’s defense was that strong (although they did record 11 blocked shots); rather that GW only scored 49 points. St. Louis had to be getting discouraged by their lack of production and I have to think that GW could have taken better advantage of that on their offensive end. Yet they only scored 49 points. Perhaps GW’s coach, Karl Hobbs, told his guys “to take it easy” on offense, but that doesn’t sound like Hobbs, who could power a small city when running up and down the sidelines. GW is having a really poor season and while they are on the good side of history here, they should have more to show then just 49 measly points.

2) The Meeting Room is Locked

Today I tried something new. I’m trying to get back to running with the group from Pacers that I’ve been with since they started a few years back. Since going on the diet I’ve been weighing in on Saturday morning and thus couldn’t join them for their runs. It’s something I’ve missed terribly and want to start again. So today I figured I go to a weigh in here in DC in the morning before work. The meeting I was supposed to go to started at 730am and should run until 830am, anytime in between I should be able to weigh in. However when I showed up today at 820am the doors were closed and locked and there was a sign on the door saying that this was “an Express Meeting” and ended promptly at 8am. I knocked when I heard voices on the other side of the door and the woman said, “Sorry we’ve locked everything up.” This sucks, I just want to get on a freaking scale and see if I had as good of a week as I think I did. I’m awaiting a call from the company’s customer service department and I want nothing less then one month free for my “mental suffering.”

3) Metro is Considering New Hi-Tech Cars for the Rail System

Of course they a) can’t get the cars for another 5 years and b) the ones they have now can’t run in any semblance of an on-time schedule. But this is not the most disturbing part of the article I read today in the Washington Post. Our friend councilman Jim Graham (see the previous rant on this bow-tie wearing, wussy-dog holding, sissy boy), actually had this to say regarding making a suggested small change to the Metro logo, "…that's weeks of discussion…" Wait a minute; you want weeks of discussion for a simple logo change? Maybe that’s why we needed such a large rate increase (that just went into effect), all the energy that is used during these meetings of Graham talking about the Logo change. Maybe (and this is only a suggestion) we could discuss how to better improve the trains and busses and to teach our employees how to properly interact with the customers they encounter daily. But then again a logo is really important too.

4) A quick note to Washington Capital Fans

Be very thankful for your owner, Ted Leonsis, and his genuine care for the team and the community. Yesterday he signed a 13-year agreement with star forward Alex Ovechkin. Ovechkin is a 22-year old Russian superstar and is even more remarkable because he negotiated the contract with the team by himself. Yes, he DIDN’T use an agent and not only saved commission but also cut out all the BS that comes along with tense negotiating talks those agents usually cause to occur. Leonsis didn’t try to screw him and Ovechkin didn’t try to screw the team. His deal is worth $9M per year for the first 6 years of the deal and $10M per year for the remaining 7 years. This means that even now he represents a smaller portion of the teams salary cap then the 20% maximum allowed for one player by the NHL. This gives the team the money to be flexible in free agency and sign strong players around Ovechkin. This is the kind of move that a savvy veteran makes to help his team win championships, not a 22-year old kid. Kudos to you Alex and you will always have a fan on this blog. PS: Can I get a loan?