Sane Baltimore

Last year my wife had to go to Delaware for work. I joined, because going to Delaware sounded exotic. Anyway, Delaware is as boring as its 55 MPH speed limit. It's isolated within its own despair. It doesn't make sense. To me. And then we drove back to Baltimore, and as soon as the Welcome sign greeted us, things started to make sense again.

Last week we went to New Jersey and the same thing happened. Now that sigh of relief as we headed south wasn't something I could ignore anymore. And sure, Baltimore has its many many problems, and sure, I still think I will one day enjoy living in a warmer, weather-free state, but I have to admit that Baltimore is not THAT insane!

To me, it means I'll be lying if I continue writing on a blog called Insane Baltimore. I started this blog a while ago, thinking I lived on the borderline between quirky and sad. Baltimore is still quirky and sad, but it's also a lot of other things. Drugs on the corner, punks outside Red Emma's, misguided tourists in Cafe Hon, foreign students in the Charles Street Chipotle, bored cops in the harbor, winners and losers . . . This city is happening. It's a living organism of good and bad and ugly. What it's not, though, is insane.

I will continue giving my unsolicited 2 cents on Twitter (as _Baltimored_), but this blog will end.

Thanks to everyone who commented here. I enjoyed reading your angry comments and your supporting comments. I enjoyed arguing with you and I enjoyed admitting my mistakes.

Thank you Thank you Thank you!

Sorry for being a smartypants, but is the Baltimore City Fire Department trying to make me throw away my smoke detector?

James Taylor Somehow Made It Into This Post

• I have to say, although I didn't go to any of the Grand Prix stuff this year, I'm not a hater. In fact, judging by my Facebook/Twitter feeds, looks like as soon as the first day's crazy traffic jam ended, Baltimore has embraced this thing. Good.
• I'm listening to Sirius, and James Taylor's "Your Smiling Face" comes up. I'm not turning it off. Actually it's kind of fun, at least until the "La la, yea yea" part at the end. Just PLEASE don't tell my 20-Something rebellious self. He would be very disappointed.
• Apparently there are some kind of elections here soon. Just tell me how it ends.
• And like every year, I get depressed around this time. Which might explain the James Taylor thing. I mean, wasn't the only reason we didn't choose to live in a warmer place the fact that California had earthquakes? I love Baltimore, and I even love the fall here, but winter... I know it's coming... The other day I got in the car and started the AC, and the AC just said, "Oh, you're good." It's coming... Last year wasn't even that bad, but I still have PTSD from the 2009/10 snow mountains.

Just a Bunch of Clouds

How is it that when I went to Giant a couple of days before the storm, I couldn't even find water, but now people look at their sandbags and complain this was all a scam. Politicians--from Obama to local government spokespeople--hyped this thing to make themselves look better! I knew it!

How dared O'Malley go on TV and harass us by asking us to stay indoors? And Obama, who controls the media, made meteorologists across the nation pretend this was a big deal, just to show people he was a strong leader! But we all knew, didn't we? We all knew this Texas-sized cloud was going to drop a little bit of rain and then move on up.

Now look, I'm not saying you should't complain about the dumb news channels sending the lowest on the totem pole outside to tell us it's raining. These people deserve to be mocked. But please stop with the HYPE talk. This storm could have flooded our city. Tornadoes could have sent Grand Prix stands flying around downtown Baltimore. Irene could have killed a lot of people. It could have cost billions to repair. It could have been disastrous.

The people who now pretend they knew all along this was nothing, the people who show their disappointment, and the people who use the word hype to describe this potential monster: You're not fooling anyone. I saw you at the supermarket. Enjoy your water.

Dear Maryland Zoo, No More Giving Viagra to Your Animals!

And it's not the first time! I'm beginning to think I'm an animal-aphrodisiac! What is it about me that makes animals so horny?

Angry Birds: Baltimore

Being the band-wagoner that I am, of course I had to try Angry Birds, and now I'm sold. Maybe it's a hatred of pigs or maybe it's a love of suicidal birds. Maybe it's the dumb challenge of getting the dumb stars. Maybe it's the need to destroy, which is something I knew I had while playing Rampage for the first time, about 70 years ago.

This bird game is slowly taking over my other gaming obsession, titled, "Create Words You Don't Know and Yell At the Phone For Not Accepting Common Words."

So here I am, walking around, looking at buildings and thinking about their soft spots. A lot of points to be had at the MICA building, for example. All this broken glass, you know, 500 points for each window...

The big loser here are the magazines I've subscribed to and the books I've started. And Western Civilization in general, I guess.

Baltimore Magazine's Best Of Baltimore

Baltimore Magazine has published a Top 10 best-of list. I have a blog and I have a keyboard, so I get to have my take.

Best of Baltimore 2011 | Baltimore magazine

Adam Meister
Love him or hate him, at least you've got to admit you either love him or hate him, which is a pretty good place to be if you see yourself as a crusading citizen journalist. I've criticized him before when he wrote a pretty hateful column about Hampden and about the people who go to the public pool there. The column seemed under researched and disrespectful. Doesn't matter. Whether you think he's an amateur hack or the savior of journalistic integrity, you must respect the fact that his rabble-rouser status is justified.

Top Ten Blogs
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Never mind. I put the blame squarely on alien evil forces and the fact that I'm sure a Top 11 List would have included this blog.

Now, I've read some of the blogs that did get into the list. The Comics Curmudgeon is smart and funny, but it's a smart and funny blog written by a Baltimorean, rather than being specifically about Baltimore. The same is true for other blogs on the list. One of my favorites, though, The City That Breeds, did make the list, so all is forgiven. Actually, whether this is a reader's poll or an editorial decision, having only a Top 10 list of Baltimore blogs is not enough. There are many great bloggers around, writing about diverse subjects, with diverse voices and opinions. And yet I appreciate the magazine giving The Sun's David Zurawik a place on the Top 10 Blogs for his TV column. Zurawik's achievement gives hope to ant-human hybrids everywhere.

There are other lists on the site, and rumor has it there are even more in the print version, whatever that is, but that's probably enough for now. Just worth mentioning that Denise Whiting gets a couple of semi-positive paragraphs. She will probably end up gluing those to the windows of her HON businesses to show the suckers who give her their money that she's not THAT evil. Really.

And Luke Scott gets a mention. Someone do him a favor and either read him the article or give him a set of these: