DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> DC Viking: April 2006

Friday, April 28, 2006

Congress will save us...**GAK**


I’m sure this has been mentioned somewhere else on teh internets by someone better informed and more erudite than I, but our elected representatives suck it. Gas prices are increasing and oil company profits are way up, and the Senate responds with calls for a 60-day suspension of the gas tax, price fixing probes, and 100 dollar consumer rebates. Way to take the long view guys, this doesn’t reek of election year C.Y.A. at all. It’s not like we need major revision of our national energy policy or anything. No really, this isn’t the time to have that conversation.

This plan of suspending the gas tax while giving out free money has the dual selling points of increasing the deficit while doing absolutely nothing for prices at the pump. One minor drawback; I’m not so sure that the public is going to fall for it this time. Create a bazillion dollar Medicare boondoggle and we’ll look the other way, because we don’t really care that much about our sick and aged. Give the Executive Brach carte blanche to invade anyone that it wants and we’ll happily acquiesce, just as long as you provide us the most basic illusion of security. But if you let gas prices rise too much we’re going to have you drawn and quartered in the town square. We’re never going to make the connection between some of the previous policy decisions we ignored and the current state of affairs, but we’re going to be spitting mad regardless.

We’re addicted to our cheap fuel, or so the President tells me, and if we don’t get our fix we’re going to come after someone with the pitchforks and torches. We can’t get at the oil companies, what with the lack of real choice and the inability to vote with our pocketbooks, so I have a feeling that the angry villagers are going to head down a door and pay a visit to congress. It’s going to be a bad election cycle to for incumbents of every stripe, but I think that the GOP is going to wind up holding the short straw in the end. Right or not, people associate Republicans with Big Oil. And even though the Dems have been afraid to stand up to the GOP for the last 6 years, they’re probably going to benefit from all this. Americans can tolerate cowardice a lot easier than they can tolerate 4 bucks a gallon.

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posted by DC Viking at 12:17 PM 7 people of discerning taste are saying

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Previously on Lost...


Is there any concept in the entertainment industry lazier than The Flashback Episode? Other than reality TV, I mean. TV producers get together and decide to wring another week of new episode ratings from material that viewers have already seen. Some people may have even seen the shows twice, if they watched the reruns during the breaks in scheduling designed to put all the new stuff on the air during sweeps. Granted, these are sad and lonely people that have neither access to the myriad of quality programming on digital cable nor the capacity to make friends and influence people.

But my point here is not to make fun of pathetic shut-ins being forced to choose between Alias re-runs and The Daytime Emmy’s, easy as that may be. I want to know how the networks get away with this. There’s no other area in life that tolerates such an egregious display of chutzpah and lack of originality. We wouldn’t stand for a novelist cutting and pasting the best parts of his previous books together and slapping a new title on it. Even the lowliest-of-the-low recording industry will deign to include one or two crappy new tracks when it inevitably puts out the oxymoron that is the Best of Coldplay album.

I know that big media corporations rely on the fact that the intelligence level of the American Public is on par with a bag of Cheetos, but this is one step too far. Do you know what would happen if I tried this at work? I’d get fired. You don’t want me to get fired, do you McFly? Do you!?!

In addition to pissing me off, the networks are treading a dangerous line with copyright infringement on this one. Pulling crap that would never be accepted in the real world is the exclusive territory of the U.S. Congress. The Senate won’t take this lying down, either. As soon as Trent Lott finishes crafting a bill calling for the construction of the world’s largest outdoor ice skating rink in downtown Jackson, he’s going to be coming after them. And if there’s one thing that big media doesn’t need, it’s a cantankerous southern senator who’s still pissed that Matlock was cancelled.

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posted by DC Viking at 1:42 PM 0 people of discerning taste are saying

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Reading Balzac, Knocking back Prozac

There are times when you need to get out of the city, when the overwhelming crush of sharing a small piece of swampland with so many human beings grinds down your sense of perspective. Bear in mind, I’m a city boy and an urban dweller by nature. Walking through a crowd of pedestrians on their way to work, the dubious smell of vendor hotdogs, the noise a city makes during lunch hour; these are all things that make me glad I live in a place that allows me to rub elbows with people I don’t know.

But there are times I find myself wishing that all these idiots would just go away. I’ve come to the conclusion that sitting in traffic triggers these feelings. I’ll be rotting in a traffic jam, and I realize that I’ve spent the last 5 minutes devising suitable and horrific punishments for minor traffic infractions. Rubber-necking? That’ll get you thrown in the stocks, naked, on the corner of U Street and 14th. Tail-gating? Your car now has a governor prohibiting you from traveling at more than 15 miles per hour. And if you don’t get out of the left lane when I come speeding up behind you on the beltway? I’m sorry sir; you’re going to be serving as the District’s ‘special’ Sunday parking officer in Logan Circle. Just remember, Jesus wants people to double park.

When my Zen abandons me, and I start harboring images of large women from Kansas getting chewed alive by serrated metal stairs while standing on the left side of the escalator, I realize that it’s probably time to get out of the city for a weekend. Luckily, Miss Viking lives in Southwest VA for grad school right now, in the mountains around Blacksburg.

The whole distance relationship thing has numerous drawbacks; wear on my car, weeks between amorous contact, high gas prices, not being able to share events that occur during between Sunday and Friday, weeks between amorous contact, traveling west on I-66 on a Friday night, and I go weeks between amorous contact. Did I mention I sometimes go 14 to 21 days without getting any? It’s true. But the upshot of Miss Viking living 4 hours away is that it provides the opportunity to get away from humanity for a couple of days.

I could feel it starting to happen last week. Maybe it was all the extra people on the Mall for the Cherry Blossoms a few weeks ago. Or it could have been the spring cold that curtailed my stress relief at the gym. Whatever the cause, I could feel a minor case of misanthropic dystopia coming on. Time to get out of dodge.

A weekend at a very big house in the country was just what the doctor ordered. A heavy dose of margaritas followed by a series of Jack Daniels taken orally. Mix in an afternoon spent outside reading Umberto Eco’s new book while watching the neighbor kids fly kites, and I forgot all about those silly fantasies involving a two-thousand pound ACME cartoon weight and the BMW Mini-Cooper that took two parking spaces last week.

I feel much better now; ready to be a productive member of urban society again. I owe it all to the majesty and wonder of the Blue Ridge Mountains and copious amounts of alcohol. Seeing my girlfriend for the first time in 11 days, 5 hours and 13 minutes might have something to do with it too, but I’m not sure if it’s a correlation or causation kinda thing.

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posted by DC Viking at 12:09 PM 3 people of discerning taste are saying

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

The password is "Gilby's"

Some poor misguided wanderer found my blog with the following search string: "drunker sex party".

By clicking my link on the results page they proved themselves to be thoroughly confused. Or someone that I went to college with.

In either case it’s nice to know that I rank number two on MSN's list of good ideas when a gin soaked orgy is what you're in the mood for. It's like "Eyes Wide Shut" at my place on a Saturday night; only not as good looking, way drunker, and with better dialogue.

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posted by DC Viking at 2:30 PM 0 people of discerning taste are saying

Monday, April 17, 2006

Lessons from the weekend; Easter Edition


- Don't try to travel on I-95 on a holiday weekend. I have already learned this lesson at various times, but it has been reinforced yet again. Distance from my house to Woodbridge; 35 miles. Hours of my life that I spent traveling this distance on Friday night that I will never get back; 2.

- You can encounter some scary, backwards-ass, yokels if you travel a few hours south of Washington, DC. Seen on the front of a car in Fredericksburg; a very prominent Confederate flag. Seen on the back bumper; a sticker reading "Jesus Loves You". Heritage, not hate.

- A storm hit on Saturday evening just as the Viking Family had finished striping and sanding all the wood on the boat. Being in a sailboat while dime sized hail smacks against the hull is like being inside of a giant popcorn popper.

- Not many people frequent Arby's on Easter Sunday.

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posted by DC Viking at 2:54 PM 0 people of discerning taste are saying

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Thought I should check in

Work has been incredibly busy the last two weeks, so my lunch hour has been spent working instead of updating my blog or reading Bill Simmons. Things look to be calming down and hopefully I'll be able to post a little more regularly. Although I'm sure that the two readers (Thanks Nato!) that still check in semi-regularly love my publication pattern of nothing for two weeks, followed by three straight posts, followed by nothing for two weeks. I'm going with the tried and true formula Lost has been employing with its new episodes. It doesn't seem to be working as well for me.

One quick note, because I couldn't say it any better with a longer post. Neko Case as the 9:30 Club on Sunday was amazing. She is insanely talented, and it comes across two-fold during her live performance. She was surprisingly funny and unsurprisingly sexy. I think I may be in love with her. I would be in trouble, but I think Miss Viking is too.

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posted by DC Viking at 4:41 PM 4 people of discerning taste are saying