Jon – Page 14 – Complaint Hub

Why don’t I listen to many female artists?

Not good enough, Esquire. So what are you really saying with this list? Either, that women aren’t making much of anything you deem essential, or that men can’t handle music written and/or performed by women.

Sarah totally ripped off my Facebook comment for that sentence. This got me thinking. I don’t listen to a lot of female artists, and I’m not sure why. I like Garbage a lot, and any music collection should contain Version 2.0. The wife is a big fan of Alanis Morissette’s Under Rug Swept. I had only heard her one big hit record, and if that’s all you’ve heard, try this one, it’s like it’s by someone else. You know, someone talented. And there are some other female artists who are pretty good, but I just don’t listen to them. It’s partly because I feel like a traitor to my beliefs every time I think about giving money to a record company. I haven’t bought a cd outside of Nine Inch Nails in at least two years. I thought about buying a Jill Sobule cd because of how awesome what she did with her last cd was, but I’ve never knowingly heard a song by her, so I didn’t buy the cd. Anyway, if you know a female artist that I absolutely have to hear, let me know in the comments. Whichever sales pitch is best, I will buy that cd. Unless the wife owns it. Bonus points if I can legally obtain the music for free while paying money from something that I can’t copy instantly and perfectly. Update to add: I downloaded the four songs Jill Sobule is currently sharing and will listen to them tomorrow at work. Update again to add: Meh to Jill Sobule. I didn’t like the songs. I still think she’s cool for her business model, though.

Street cleaning resumes March 23, 2009

For whatever reason, it’s never easy to find this information, so maybe I got lucky. I have no idea if this link will work beyond today, but the Washington DC DPW says street cleaning will resume on March 23, 2009. So get ready to start moving your car once a week again.

This is why I live close to work, Part 2

A friend once told me that, when considering two more or less equal candidates for a job opening, you should choose the one with a better commute. Wait, where was I? Oh, right. Today my commute involved tiptoeing past my daughter’s room, hoping not to wake her, and sitting down at the table to get to work. There’s, like, a blizzard, or something, going on out there. I have no meetings, and no one is really expecting me in the office, so I’m staying put. Daycare is opening three hours late, and since the snow is still coming down hard, they may not open at all. So I may have to watch her this afternoon anyway. If you’re going in to work today, or going out anywhere, be careful.

The system is down. Er, was down.

Usually reliable Dreamhost had a file server go down on them, knocking this site offline pretty much all day today. Good thing the only people reading here on Sunday are crazy Vector Security haters and people unhappy with their credit card.

Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be fixing?

Metro Use A Rarity For Half Of Board | WashingtonPost.com

[Ward One Councilman Jim] Graham said frequent night meetings make mass transit inconvenient.

Taking transit is not convenient for their jobs, [Metro board members who don’t actually use Metro] said.

So, what they’re saying here is, “We’re so grossly incompetent that we can’t even make Metro work for ourselves. Good luck to all you poor schlubs!” What kind of schedule do these people keep that Metro isn’t convenient? I don’t believe that they have Metro board meetings at 4AM on Sundays. Seriously, this is like the CEO of Bank of America keeping his life savings under his mattress because the branches are too inconvenient. Maybe the reason that Metro has a $29 million deficit is because it’s not serving the residents of the DC Metro area. And maybe the people responsible for fixing it could actually use it and see for themselves what the problems are. Instead, they’ll probably just raise fares again, making it less convenient for everyone. Next year we’ll have a $40 million deficit, and more people who don’t use it will make more bad decisions.

I can always tell when Wikimetro sends out a new batch of spam

Whenever I see the traffic to this page and this page quadruple, I know that Wikimetro has sent out another batch of spam to various bloggers, pitching their scam. If Wikimetro contacts you, ignore them. Or, better yet, file a complaint. I was thinking of complaining here, but never got around to it. I don’t think the FBI appreciates online scams very much.

It annoys the you-know-what out of me, too, Bud

Bud Selig is a dirty, dirty liar.

“I don’t want to hear the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn’t care about it,” Selig told Newsday in a Monday phone interview. “That annoys the you-know-what out of me. You bet I’m sensitive to the criticism. “The reason I’m so frustrated is, if you look at our whole body of work, I think we’ve come farther than anyone ever dreamed possible,” he said, adding, “I honestly don’t know how anyone could have done more than we’ve already done.”

“It’s like this morning,” he continued. “I pushed this old lady down some stairs. I suppose you’re going to blame me for that, too? How was I supposed to know about gravity?” It’s too bad that every statistic for every player between about 1990 and whenever they manage to institute a real drug policy will always have a cloud over it.

Please stop bunching the 16th Street bus, WMATA

I just missed the bus this morning. As usual, I was waiting for the interminable light to cross 16th at Harvard NW when the bus went by. Then another, and another. Three buses, bumper to bumper, and all gone by the time the light changed. So I waited. Not too long, six or seven minutes, but then three more came. From Harvard to Euclid there were 12 people on my bus, then 11 until we got to M. After I got off at H, I think there might have been one person left. No one got on while I was riding. There was another bus right in front of us that picked up all the passengers. And I got on the bus at about 7:20AM, not peak rush hour, but plenty of people are on their way to work at that time. It’s frustrating that, had the buses been spaced out just a little bit, I would have gotten one of the first bunch that went through. And WMATA would have saved some cash. Eleven fares probably don’t even cover costs on the bus.

Finally someone on the home team to cheer for

The Nationals signed Adam Dunn! I’m so excited that there will actually be a player on the home team that I want to see. Usually I go to games to see the visiting team, but this year will be different. I mean, I’m still mostly looking forward to finally seeing Albert Pujols and maybe getting tickets when the Orioles come to town. But watching Dunn will be pretty cool.

Let me raise the level of discourse here

more animals

I don’t know about you, but LOLCats are one of my guilty pleasures. I don’t know why I still find them funny, but I do. I can stop any time, really. This one is particularly funny because of my irrational loathing for Wolf Blitzer. If you replaced Wolf with a cat, it might be the first time in recorded history that replacing anything with a cat resulted in a decrease in smug self-centered-ness.