Author: Jon

Sorry for the downtime

The main site, complainthub.com, and the site to submit your complaints, submissions.complainthub.com, have been down since this weekend.  Sorry about that.  My hosting company upgraded from Rails 1.1.6 to 1.2.3 and forgot to tell me.  Thanks to Mo for pointing it out.  No thanks to Dreamhost for not telling me.  Actually, they’re a pretty decent hosting company.  If anyone is looking for hosting, let me know, if I refer you I get money.

And the submission site is still down.  I don’t know why.  I’ll try and get that fixed ASAP.  And by ASAP, I mean when I get around to it.

Shootings on Girard Street

Columbia Heights Shootings Cause Alarm – washingtonpost.com

“I’ve been living around here since I was in diapers,” said Chinata Nesbit, 21, who lived in an apartment across the hall from Terry. “It’s never been this bad.”

Well, I suppose it’s of some small comfort that this is the worst it’s been in 20 years – that suggests that we’re just going through a rough patch and it should get better. Or, maybe not. I don’t really know what I’d like to see done about it. I don’t know the best way to reduce violence. I don’t think that banning guns is the answer. There must be studies done on levels of violence before and after gun bans go into effect, and I’ll bet the change is not as drastic as people would like to think it is.

I’d like to see more police around.  I think foot patrols would be great.  I was talking to friends in Mount Pleasant, just a few blocks away, and they have police officers who are always around.  I think having a few cops who actually know residents on the street because they’re around all the time would have a much higher impact on the amount of violence.  It’s less flashy and more costly than banning guns, though.

My thoughts on the Democratic debate

Mike Gravel is an angry, angry man. I like that he’s passionate about what he believes in, but he needs to take a look at what happened to Howard Dean and tone it down a bit. He doesn’t have even Dean’s charisma – people aren’t going to forget his little outbursts. And he maybe needs to learn that not every issue is so black and white. There are subtleties to issues that he didn’t acknowledge. Not that it matters. He has no chance of winning, as evidenced by his seating position. He was off-camera in even most of the wide shots.

Also not going to win is Dennis Kucinich. His repeated insistence that his fellow debators could stop the Iraq war right now if they’d change political tactics was annoying. I am adamantly opposed to cutting off war funding. I know that something politically drastic has to be done to get Bush to listen to reason on the war, but cutting off funding is a really good way to get a lot of people, both American and Iraqi, killed. Like it or not, we stirred things up over there pretty badly, and I think we have a responsibility to the Iraqi people to stick around until it’s cleaned up.

Hillary Clinton was not as bad as I expected. She did spend too much time bashing Bush, though. We already know she doesn’t agree with Bush. It’s not like she was one of his advisors and needs to distance herself. Instead of rallying support, her bashing is going to look like cheap shots. I’m pretty tired of Bush-bashing. It’s not getting us anywhere. I mean, he’s a terrible President. He’s done some really awful things to the country. But I’m not really interested in hearing about it anymore. I want to hear how you’re going to fix it.

And that’s where Barack Obama comes in. Man, that guy sounded good up there. I keep saying that I need to do some research on him, because a friend insists he’s basically a socialist. I really want to support Obama, and I really need to find out if I can. He said all the right things. He’s got a really nice talent for complimenting someone at the same time he’s disagreeing with them.

I agreed with a lot of the things that were said on the debate. But then a few of them started talking about how we need to crack down on insurance company profits and oil company profits, and then they lost me. What better way to lose the socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative voters who really want to vote for a Democrat in 2008?

I also really hated the format of the debate. If Wolf Blitzer had asked them to raise their hands if they agreed with point X one more time, I would have lost it. I think the number of issues and the number of people were both much too high for a two hour debate. There were a few times where the question was specifically about semantics rather than real discussion of the issues.

Right now, I’d like to see Obama/Edwards for ’08. I think the two of them were passing notes behind Hillary’s back, so maybe that’s what they’re planning on. I may change my mind as I learn more, but if the election were today, that’s who I would want on my ballot.

The perils of a transitional neighborhood

I was in Maryland today visiting some good friends, and got home around 11:30PM to find the street one block over closed by police cars and crime scene tape. I’m not feeling terribly inclined to go investigate, but I’m curious what it is. I suppose I’ll have to find out in the morning.

Update: I hear from a Columbia Heights message board that our councilmember, Jim Graham, sent an email out. There was a shooting, one dead, one wounded.

805 words

It’s a little harder to rack up the word count when you’re writing a screenplay instead of a novel.  But I’ve got 805 words in my inaugural Script Frenzy effort, which is 138 more than my daily goal.  I still plan to do more writing tonight, because I expect to be busy all weekend, and I don’t want to go into Monday too far behind.

I kind of like the screenplay format.  I’m using Celtx, which I really like.  I don’t have anything to compare it to, so maybe it’s really a piece of crap, but I like it.  I’d recommend it.  It’s free, and it makes formatting a screenplay pretty easy.

I’m debating whether or not I want to share the screenplay here as I go.  Part of me wants to do it, and part of me is scared that people will read it and think that I’m crazy or something.

So I leave it to you, my loyal readers.  If I get three real, compelling reasons to post the screenplay as I write it, I’ll do it.  One reason per reader.

More housing?

CJUF/Lowe Acquire Dupont Hilton for $290M

The company is also set to announce another DC deal in the coming weeks, CJUF managing partner Bobby Turner reveals: a $70-million mixed-use project in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. The residential component will have a significant affordable housing component and there will be retail on the ground floor.

Unfortunately, that’s all the information the article has about what’s going on in Columbia Heights. The rest of it is about the Dupont Hilton, which is of less interest to me.

Anyway, just what Columbia Heights needs – more housing! I like that they’re including affordable housing, although they probably had to, so it’s unlikely that we should give them credit for caring about the community. But as far as I know, the unfinished projects at the Metro – Kenyon Square and whatever the other one is called – are having trouble selling all the units, and it’s the same with Allegro further north. And I know some of the row-house-to-condo conversions that we looked at before we bought back in January are still on the market.

All of this suggests that a new housing development is not in anyone’s best interests. Now, CJUF undoubtedly knows something that I don’t, because they didn’t get to be a large investment fund by making dumb decisions. But I can’t imagine what they could know that goes against the indications that housing in Columbia Heights either is outpacing demand, or is stubbornly overpriced. Neither of these options make for a really profitable new housing development.

Beautiful spam poetry

I was searching through my Gmail spam folder, looking for names for the characters in my Script Frenzy screenplay, and I came across this surreal piece of art. I’m pretty sure that the sender, Rosanna RODGERS, didn’t intend for me to see the beauty in this piece (Which I reproduce nearly as she sent it, just with some line breaks to really give it some pop). She probably wanted me to buy generic Cialis or Tramadol or go see naked Russian teens or something.

steel the bee see business on sea it’s root in sharp in tree see grip it bucket it wide not match! stage but card see complete! moon but money it breath the left! sharp! thought be jump or person in warm it purpose but shock a liquid

approval see feeble be open may join on married in pencil some rub it’s pin be attention it kiss it’s credit! hope be thumb and behavior try harbour may door but straight error or glove in healthy not town on chief try design on medical be tray the angry the

bulb see heat on bath it’s leather be tired and hammer be pleasure some hammer be pot it jump some material! selection or complex , laugh try cough! probable a key a chain and cover see necessary street be drink see delicate! approval try train, knot it’s

I’m not a big fan of poetry, but in my book, this is right up there with Poe’s “The Raven”.

Support the American Heart Association by running

LHH – Lawyers Have Heart

By participating in this event, you will not only help to strengthen your own heart through exercise, you will also help raise funds vital to the education programs and research of the AHA

On June 9th, I’m doing my second 10K.  The first one was a success.  This one is going to be hotter, and I’m going to the DC Improv the night before, so I should be all ready to run at 8 AM.  Then we have our flag football end-of-season barbeque.  Should be a good weekend.  I may sleep all day Sunday, though.

I have to wonder how much this race actually helps the American Heart Association.  It costs $30 to sign up.  I get a t-shirt.  They have to pay some people to run the event.  I can’t believe that any more than $5 per person actually goes to help the cause.

On the other hand, I’m really running this race for me.  If I want to help a charity, I’d rather just give them money.

I just realized why I like this site

Sabermetric Research: The large supply of tall people

But there’s a short supply of humans who are in the right tail of any and every normal distribution. Again, why should height be different? I see three ways height is different, and both of them work against Berri’s argument.

I’ve been reading the above blog ever since I came across it on the Numbers Guy blog at the WSJ.  This morning, I realized why I like it so much.  This guy takes two things I love, justice and files . . . I mean, statistics and complaining, and sticks them together.  He reads something, like a person blaming the competitive imbalance in basketball on the small supply of tall people, and he not only says, “Hey, you’re wrong” (Which I love to do), but then he goes on to give statistical analysis on WHY (Which I would do if I were a little more educated and motivated).

His analysis is pretty accessible, and it’s usually (Almost always, I guess) sports-related.

Anyway, I recommend the blog.  If you’ve ever listened to an argument and thought, “Hey, you’re wrong, but I can’t show you why”, you’ll enjoy reading.

A really long walk

DSC_5755On Saturday, the wife wanted to go to Dumbarton Oaks to see the gardens. It was a nice day, so we hopped on the 42 bus down to Dupont Circle. The park is at 31st and R NW, so we figured we’d just walk down R, only about ten blocks.

Well, it appears we misread the map or something, because R doesn’t go all the way through. We hit Mass and headed north, past all the embassies, around the Naval Observatory, and finally into Georgetown. By this time we were hot, tired, and hungry, so we stopped for lunch at The Bean Counter on Wisconsin. I don’t know if it was just that the restaurant was air conditioned and we were starving, but that sandwich was delicious.  The service was good, too.

Then, we finally made it to the garden.  It’s a nice self-tour.  There’s a map, so the wife was happy.  They have a ton of roses, including the one up and to the right.

When we finally made it home, we determined (using Map My Run) that we’d walked about 5 and a half miles.  I think maybe next time we’ll take the bus a little closer to 31st and R.