July 26, 2006 - Seen on the Street

P Street at Logan Circle - Umm, isn't the flatbed for the disabled vehicle?!

Today I witnessed an oddity that inspired me to start a new version of "on the Street." I was returning to work after lunching at home, and I saw a flatbed tow truck come down the street. On the bed of the truck was not a vehicle, as one might expect, but 12-15 people in business casual attire. People!! A few were standing, and the rest were sitting. I couldn't help but think, "That looks phenomenally dangerous!" (Seriously, those exact words.) Funny, I always thought those flatbeds were to put the broken down car (or bus as it may have been in this case) on, not the people who wind up stranded. You learn something new everyday!

July 23, 2007 - Heard on the Street

"I got women on lay away, on will call..."
-Logan Circle

July 20, 2007 - Heard on the Street

"You ever ridden the bus? Mood's not gonna get much better."
-Reagan National Airport, Gate 35A

[If you've ever flown US Airways Express out of DC, you know exactly what this means.]

Newsflash: Minority Does Not Equal Poor

For work today, I spent the day at a forum held by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services, on marketing and childhood obesity. It's been well established that there are higher rates of childhood obesity in minority communities such as Hispanics and African Americans. Toward the end of the forum, during a question and answer session, and audience member asked what will be done to address this disparity. Great question. So one panelist (from a somewhat radical organization that I tend to disagree with, which shall remain nameless) in her response immediately started to talk about "blacks and low income communities." What? The question didn't ask about low income communities. It asked about minorities. Why did she feel it was OK to make that leap, or to equate the two? This is not new...I've heard it done, unfortunately, many times before in political debates and talks of policy. It's really sad, in my opinion. Since when are all minorities poor, and all poor people minorities?

Crispy Cones

The sponsored links at the top of Gmail continue to send me to odd things that I never thought existed. Today I discovered Crispy Cones. It's regular food, put into a cone. Very odd. Here are some examples:

The Geekiest Thing Ever?

I came across this website today - http://www.madewithmolecules.com/. They make jewelry, cards, and shirts using the graphic representation of molecules such as serotonin and dopamine. For example, this is caffeine:

The concept is interesting, but can you think of anything more geeky?

Never a Dull Moment

We had some excitement around the corner yesterday evening. A tourist trolley started on fire and was engulfed in flames. The streets were blocked off and there were three firetrucks and who knows how many police cars. Fortunately, only the driver was on the trolley, and he got off safely. The trolley was totally destroyed - it looked like there was nothing left inside. Here's a picture from the news:














And another from Isaac's iPhone:
Ironically, Isaac's brother Marc was parked not 20 minutes earlier in the very spot where the trolley pulled over to burn. I saw his car there as I walked home, and told him that he should move it because that side of the street has no parking for rush hour, and he could get towed. Even more ironically, it appears that our car was also parked there earlier, but had in fact been towed to a spot two streets over. We discovered it this morning when we realized that we hadn't seen the car in a while. Phew! Two car fires averted!