Pouring Syrup On Shit Don't Make It Pancakes

It's dawned on me that I just don't post as often as I should anymore. The problem is that I rarely feel the rage and anxiety I used to feel. Don't get me wrong, I still get pissed sometimes. And I'll have a well-publicized breakdown from time to time. But the general "I'm not gonna pay a lot for this muffler!" mentality has waned lately.

It's back today.

I had a meeting this morning at our client site, and I needed to read up a bit first. So I left home early, and I made my way to the site. I arrived even earlier than I had planned, so I decided to sit down outside and do my reading there, because it was early enough in the morning that it was still kinda nice outside.

As an aside, my client site is near the DC courthouse. I find it equal parts hilarious and sad what I see coming in and out of there each time I pass by. Inside, rich old white people are deciding what happens to poor, young black people. Of course, I'm generalizing, but not to a ridiculous extent. Unfortunately, this is the way our justice system is set up. So everyday these young kids go to appear before the court, where a series of important decisions are going to be made. Call me crazy, but if I was in these kids' shoes, I might pull my pants up. Or not wear a Deion Sanders jersey or a gigantic, plain white T-shirt. I appreciate freedom of expression, and I hate getting dressed up as much as the next guy. But for fuck's sakes, there are people in there who can send you to jail! Tuck something in already. Play along. If I could figure out a way to take the pictures without getting my ass kicked, I could run a blog called "You Wore That To Court?" and make a million dollars. Anyway.

I'm sitting outside and I get a call that the meeting is canceled. Awesome. I didn't bring my lunch today because I had a meeting first thing, and I skipped breakfast to get there early. So now I have nothing to eat all day. Even better, I have no cash on me so I can't afford cab fare. I have no choice but to walk all the way back across the mall to my office. When I get there, work just starts piling up and I keep getting more and more grumpy. Finally, I manage to get a break for lunch and head to Subway.

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat: Subway is not good. No one ever thinks, "Yum! Subway!" You eat it because it's there. It's across the street from your office, or it's open late, or you're on a diet, or some other combination of sub-optimal conditions. This isn't up for debate, right? They don't charge four dollars for a sandwich because they care about helping you save money. They charge four bucks because if they charged five, you'd probably go somewhere else.

So why, why God why, is there always someone in line who treats ordering their sandwich like picking out the coffin they want to be buried in, and why must I always be standing behind them?

I'm hungry, and I want to eat, and so does everyone standing behind us. We have the common sense to understand that no matter much thoughtful customization we apply to our six inch turkey sub, it's still going to taste pretty much the same. If you put five different vegetables on your sandwich, can you really tell the difference between them? Does it even matter? Just fucking eat it already! Or are you so completely lacking in self-awareness that you don't hear the line groaning behind you? Have you noticed us shifting our feet impatiently, as you grow ever more frustrated with the minimum-wage earning poor bastard in charge of creating the World's Most Important Tuna Wrap? When you finally stop yelling at him for making mistakes, and you turn to us with that "Can you believe how incompetent the service is here?" look, can you feel our group, as a whole, desperately, silently, wishing you and everyone you care about was dead? We're not nodding our heads in silent approval. We're trying different head angles in hopes of killing you with our minds.

$80?! You Have Got To Be (Blanking) Kidding Me!

Andray Blatche is a young kid who plays for the Wizards. He's long on potential, but apparently short on judgment. In the summer before his rookie season, when he was drafted right out of high school, he was shot in a carjack attempt gone wrong. You'd think he was the victim there, except it happened at 6am in Alexandria. I'm no detective, but something tells me that if you're getting carjacked at 6am in Alexandria, you're up to no good.

Now he is 20 years old, and he's a free agent. He's entertaining offers from teams, trying to convince them to give him millions of dollars. Last week, the Wizards offered him about $12 million but he's reportedly holding out for something better. Well, he was... until he made a trip to my neighborhood Thursday, where he was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover cop.

I was out of town all weekend, so I missed this when it first happened. Forgive me for being a few days late. But I find the whole thing fascinating for a million reasons. For starters, it happened close to my house. And by close, I mean next. Literally. Mapquest puts the distance from the arrest to my house at "<.1 miles." Had we been home, we would have heard the sirens.

Here is a rundown of the episode as quoted in the Washington Post blog written by Ivan Carter, the beat writer for the Wizards:

According to the document titled: "United States vs. Andray Blatche (sic), the event occured on 8/2/07 at approximately 12:11 at 10 Thomas Circle NW in Washington DC. Blatche and Palmer were both accused of solicting an undercover officer working in the prostitution unit.

From the document, here is how it went down: Blatche and Palmer were in a vehicle when they pulled up at Thomas Circle.

Defendant 1 (identified by police as Blatche) : "Hey, what's up with you?"
Undercover cop: "You tell me."
AB: I'm trying to see what you're doing."
UC: "Do you want (Blank) or (Blank)?"
AB: "Well, I want both."
UC: "And what about you?"
D-2 (identified as Palmer) : "I want the same."
UC: "I charge $80 but I do two at the same time."
AB: "Yeah, I'm good with it."
UC to Palmer: "And what about you?"
GP: "Yeah, $80 is good."
UC: Aight, you want to pull right?"
AB: "Naw."
UC: "I have a room right here."
AB: "Uh, ok?"

I want to get one thing out of the way right now: the hookers in Thomas Circle are banged up. So banged up, in fact, that you wouldn't let them pay you $80 to blank you. But that's neither here nor there.

What I want to know is, what is she talking about? I'm gonna assume that "blank" and "blank" mean oral and regular, if you know what I mean. Seems logical, right?

But what does "UC: "I charge $80 but I do two at the same time."" mean? She does two dudes at once? Or both blanks at once? Is she gonna finish one guy then move on to the next? I just gotta know.

And how that hell can that only cost $80? I honestly had no idea the hookers in my neighborhood charged that little. And I have no clever way to introduce this, but it's funny enough to include. I sent the link above to Baby, asking a question along the lines of "Did you know you can get all this for $80 in our neighborhood?!" Her response: "Why the fuck am I giving it to you for free?"