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Two Down, Eight To Go February 4, 2009

Posted by wes285 in Uncategorized.
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I got rejected from a law school last week.  I got into a law school last week.  They are the first two schools I’ve heard back from.  Neither of them were my top choice.  Or my second or third or even fourth choice.  But it’s nice to know that I’ve gotten in somewhere.  Relieves some of the wondering.  Eight more schools to hear from.  I’ve been sitting around merely existing for the last year and a half or so since I finished college.  Lost touch with a bunch of friends from school.  Made a handful of new friends.  Had a string of first dates.  A few second dates.  And even a couple girls who put up with me for a month or two.  I’d even go as far as to say I actually liked them.  But in the back of my mind, knowing that I might be gone from D.C., I never let them go anywhere.

My dating life has pretty much been a microcosm of my time in D.C.  I haven’t let myself get attached to anyone or anything here because I don’t want to have to leave anything important behind.  Much of this is because I hope that I’ll be in law school in New York City.  Maybe Boston.  Just not D.C.  This makes me a little sad.  Maybe sad isn’t the right word.  Being sad in this case entails some sort of regret.  I don’t regret any of my time in D.C.  I’ve had a blast here living in a house with some of my closest friends and hanging out with others along the way.  Yet, for lack of a better word, I feel a bit sad.  What if I do end up back here in D.C.  Other than growing up in the area, I have no real connection to the place.  It’ll basically be like starting over with new.  A new place to live.  New people to meet.  Maybe I do have a regret or two.

Eight more schools to hear from.  Hopefully one of them will be my ticket out of here for a fresh and real new start.  To living rather than just existing.

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This has nothing to do with anything other than just being a pet peeve.  But for chrissakes, can people please learn to wear a proper undershirt?  I’m not talking about going out on the weekend wearing a collared shirt without an undershirt.  I certainly do this with polos in the summer when it’s way too hot to be wearing more than one shirt.  I’m talking about in the workplace.  I work in a law firm where the dress code is business casual.  Basically, slacks and a collared shirt and no tie.  Why do people insist on wearing a colored t-shirt under their button down?  The workplace isn’t about matching your undershirt to your dress shirt.  You look like an unprofessional fool who hasn’t mentally moved himself past college.  And the absolute worst is a t-shirt under a white dress shirt.  Everyone in the office can see that you went to MTV’s Cancun Spring Break at Señor Frog’s and took too many shots with some random girl from Wichita State.  I’m pretty sure your partner isn’t looking too kindly on that.  Go to Macy’s and buy yourself two threepacks of undershirts.  It’ll last you a week and a day.  It shouldn’t cost you more than $30.  Am I the only person who feels this way?

Sitting in Your Own Shit March 17, 2008

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On my way home from the barber shop I passed a bunch of black kids on a patch of grass right by Washington Hospital playing baseball.  They all had gloves and looked like they new the basics of throwing and fielding a baseball.  Black kids in the city playing baseball.  Fewer and fewer black kids are playing baseball these days.  Maybe this was just an anomaly and black kids, for the most part, still aren’t playing baseball.  But it made me smile.

In the bathroom at my office, there are three stalls.  When my bowels feel the need to move, I have a preferred stall.  There are 14 floors in my firm’s building.  All but three floors have the same floorplan.  So it’s safe to say, on all those floors, my stall preference is the same.  I like to use the handicap stall on the left.  I have a few reason for this.

First, I prefer the space the handicap stall has to offer.  In any bathroom you go into, the handicap stall just seems so much more spacious compared to the regular stalls.  It’s like getting a hotel suite instead of just a regular room.  It allows you to spread out a little more while being able to avoid an accidental Larry Craig incident.

Second, there seems to be an unwritten rule that the stall on the right is reserved for partners.  I have generally only seen partners come in and out of the first stall.  Never the middle (well, also no one wants to sit in the middle stall if they don’t have to.  In the off chance that all three stalls are occupied at once, no one wants to be caught in between a game of battleshits) or left stall.

One time, shortly after I started at the firm, my beloved handicap stall was clogged.  As shown above, the logical next choice was the stall on the right.  While I was doing my business, someone walked into the bathroom, but didn’t go to one of the urinals or one of the other stalls.  I thought it was a bit odd.  As I flushed and emerged from the stall, one of the partners was standing in front of the sinks reading a brief.  As I walked out of the bathroom, he walked into the stall I had just used, seat still warm (a warm seat is the worst feeling ever) like there was nothing awkward about this situation.  I have yet to set foot inside that stall since.

Third, my firm recently installed automatic flushing mechanisms onto all of the stalls and toilets in the firm in an effort to go green.  You know, the ones with the motion sensors.  The sensor in the handicap stall is positioned just right.  It only flushes when you stand up.  The sensors in the regular stalls are either too sensitive or positioned in the wrong place.  This results in unnecessary flushes.  One time, the middle stall flushed five times between the time that I sat down and stood up.  Its incredibly irritating because water splashes up and instead of the usual once over my butt cheeks before I stand up, this requires a twice over just to make sure I got all the water.  No one likes to get back to their desk and sit down on damp boxers.  Also, I’m pretty certain the five automatic flushes wastes more water than the one manual flush.  So really, I’m doing the environment a favor.

While I’m on the topic of poo, there’s one thing I don’t get.  What is with the marathon dumps people like to take?  One of my roommates who is of Italian and Jewish descent has been known to take 30 minutes.  I believe it should take no longer than ten minutes.  If it takes longer than that, there are three plausible scenarios that I can think of, and they all disgust me:

1.   The second you feel like you might need to go, you run to the bathroom.  What ends up happening is you sit there and read a Maxim for about ten minutes until your bowels are really ready to move.  What a waste of time, not to mention your ass cheeks are pressed firmly against one of the dirtiest places in the house/office/wherever for ten minutes longer than is necessary.  There’s just no need for that.

2.    You get to the bathroom just as you are ready to go.  The actual process of poo coming out of your anus happens in the allotted ten minute time period.  You decide you want to finish the article you just started so you stay for an additional 10-20 minutes.  I understand wanting to finish the article.  But, you do realize you are sitting in your own shit.  Guys are too lazy to stop reading, wipe and then pick up the magazine again.  So in between the time you finish pooping and you finish your article, the remnants around your sphincter have had a chance to dry and harden a bit.  No matter how much you wipe, this will probably result in a few dingleberries.  That’s just filthy.  You wouldn’t grab a magazine, run outside and look for the nearest pile of dog shit, drop trou and sit and read for 20 minutes would you?  That’s basically what you’re doing by not wiping right away.  You disgust me the most.

3.    If it really takes you 30 minutes to push a log or two out, you’re well on your way to giving yourself hemorrhoids.  Stop straining so much.  You need to rethink your diet and see a doctor.

You Bet Your Ass We Can February 11, 2008

Posted by wes285 in D.C., Politics, Sports.
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It turns out, I am actually registered to vote in D.C. Originally, I had only checked my registration status online. I figured, I should call into the Board of Elections and voice my displeasure at their complete incompetence. I would have, except the automated system that they use is an absolute clusterfuck. It runs you around in circles from recorded message to recorded message. Finally, I got a real person on the phone and as I proceeded to voice my complaint she told me that the database hadn’t been working for the past couple weeks and that I should try again. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to, I don’t know, put up some sort of message on the website saying that the database was broken? I mean, how many other people out there were in my position and didn’t bother to call in and were just resigned to being disenfranchised? At any rate, I checked online again and discovered I am indeed registered in the District of Columbia.

Driving on Connecticut Avenue through Cleveland Park and Van Ness this Saturday was basically like driving through Obamaland. It was great. Sign waves on every other block and Obama posters on every light pole. Gets me nostalgic for the times I spent on campaigns. Almost makes me want to go back and do it again. And then I remember the way too many miles I put on my car driving back and forth from Silver Spring to Baltimore and down to way down south Gorgeous Prince Georges County. Like I said, almost.

I’ve been pretty vocal in my support for Barack Obama on this blog. He’s the most used tag according to the tag cloud on the right. I”m sure you all have seen the video that Will.I.Am and Jesse Dylan put together with the help of many musicians, actors and actresses (if not go to www.dipdive.com). I admit, it slightly resembles a Gap commercial and to certain people can come off as a bit cheesy. But, can you imagine Hillary Clinton or John McCain having a video like this? No chance. Not since 9/11 have celebrities come together to create a song/video like this. Admittedly, the starpower for this video is not on the scale of the 9/11 “Tribute to Heroes” song. But that’s besides the point. This video is symbolic of Obama’s campaign in that it brings people together and inspires people. My roommate works in the news division of one of the major networks and works alongside many veterans in the industry, people you would recognize from TV. Many of them say that not since JFK has a candidate created such a buzz and gotten voters so excited about the candidate. These are people who were there in the thick of it and are now here in the thick of it. It isn’t just a fairy tale. It’s very real.

What irks me about this whole thing are the naysayers. I don’t mean the people who are simply supporting Hillary Clinton. In regards to the issues, Hillary and Barack are not that different. Certain small disagreements. But in general, on the issues as a whole, they are not that different. If you want to support Hillary go right ahead. It’s the people in my parent’s generation that looked at every election before this and shook their head at the apathy shown by people my age. But now, that we have come out in force (in some states the youth vote has as much as quadrupled pacing Obama to wins in a few states) in support of Barack Obama, these same people look at us and say that we’re caught up in the hype and we don’t know what we’re voting for. When you were our age, you voted for JFK because he inspired you. Now, we’re voting for Obama because he inspires us and a lot of people in your generation as well. But that hypocrisy isn’t my biggest gripe. What I take issue with most is that these people think we’re voting out of ignorance of the issues. I’m sorry, but many of my peers are far more educated than you about the issues. We are more plugged into the everyday goings on of the country if for no other reason than we are more technologically savvy in this 24 hour news cycle and that we have more free time on our hands.

Scold us for being young and thinking we are invincible. Look down at us for our rash and impulsive decision making. But do not, do not, call us ignorant. Finally there is a candidate who has been able to electrify not just the traditional voting base, but also the younger population. While that is not a good enough reason in and of itself to vote for someone, it is a quality that is seen so rarely from generation to generation. It is most certainly a quality that you would want a president to have.

I’m off to Colorado on Wednesday to get some skiing in. See you suckers when I get back. Breckenridge here I come.

Anne Hathaway Can Be My Hall Monitor Anytime January 24, 2008

Posted by wes285 in D.C., Stupid People.
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Apparently there’s an epidemic of children racing through Green Line Metro stations and slipping and falling. I’m not quite sure how else to explain the station attendant at the Archives/Navy Memorial stop constantly saying over the PA system “Please walk, do not run. We want you to get home safely, have a safe trip home.” In the six minutes that I waited for a train the attendant said this 9 times. I know this because the display said 6 minutes until the next train and I counted the number of times this mook of a woman repeated herself. I guess D.C. Metro riders are akin to 1st graders running from their classroom to recess at 12:30 pm. Oh, and I should note, I didn’t see a single person running through the station over the entire span of 6 minutes. Maybe she’s new and doesn’t understand that a station attendants job is to look as disinterested and aloof as possible.

I found out today that I’m not registered to vote. Not in D.C. Not in Maryland. When I switched my license and tags to D.C., I registered myself to vote in D.C. Today, I went online to figure out where I vote. Except, when I entered my information, it said that the voter database had no such person registered to vote. Okay, so maybe I’ll have to drive back to College Park, where I was last registered, and vote there. So I check the Maryland database to double check where I vote. I enter my information and a match is found. BUT, I have been unregistered and am no longer allowed to vote in that precinct. WHAT THE FUCK(please excuse the excessive interrobangs)?!?!?! So I’m guessing the moron at the DMV who processed my application unregistered me but, since her 2-hour lunch break was in one minute, put down the paperwork to go eat. On her return, she forgot about my registration and now I am registered to vote nowhere. Goddamn I hate this city sometimes.

And just because:

Mom, meet your future daughter-in-law. Anne this is my mom. Mom this is Anne.