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Daily / dogs / Washington DC

Ingrid the Rat Hunter

September 13, 2018

Ingrid the Labradoodle hunting rats in Judiciary Square, Washington D.C.

Ingrid, the labradoodle, is on high-alert during our evening dog walks now. She’s not worried about potential muggers or prowlers, but instead focused on hunting rats.

One unexpected challenge of walking the dogs in Chinatown is the massive rat population in our neighborhood. The parks are filled with rat burrows and the prancing creatures are a big distraction for Ingrid.

I first realized that D.C. has a rat problem one night when we decided to take a shortcut through an alleyway behind several restaurants near Logan Circle. The alleyway was crawling with rodents that were completely unfazed by our presence. The rats darted from corners and swung from trashcans.

It was the wrong type of party to be at.

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Daily / Museums and Monuments

A soggy weekend in Washington D.C.

September 10, 2018

The Washington monument during a rainstorm.

The wet weekend started Friday night.

I got out of the office around 10 p.m. after an all-day meeting to find a tempest outside. I was completely soaked by the time that I got home — so much so that our front desk attendant refused to give me a package until I went upstairs and put on some dry clothes.

The rain continued throughout the weekend, but that did not stop us from going outside. We took an extended walk along the National Mall, wherein we and the dogs got drenched.

Afterward there was a meandering journey to find a lunch, where we got drenched again.

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Daily / Dallas Morning News

Germany attacks, Walmart drama

December 20, 2016

Berlin Attacks

Here’s what I’m talking about today:

1. German terror attacks: A terror attack killed 12 people in Berlin yesterday. I was able to find a German newspaper’s livestream coverage of the event, which is why The Dallas Morning News had the most up-to-date English-language coverage yesterday and today. (German is my first language.)

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Daily

Trolls, weight loss, and digital revenue

December 16, 2016

Laptop photo by Jay Wennington via Unsplash

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. “Fake news” trolling: There’s been a lot of hand-wringing over the age-old problem of fake news. A relatively new phenomenon is that people are starting troll legitimate news sources by calling real stories fake.

We get that all of the time at the newspaper, and I’ve even started to see it on this blog.

I’ve found that most of the negative comments come from people who fall into one of four categories:

Those who genuinely disagree with the author.
Readers who assume that the author is exaggerating or misrepresenting facts due to ulterior motives.
Non-readers who are just reacting to a headline, tweet, or social-share image without fully reading a post.
Pure-trolls who solely want to write negative comments to harass or bully the author.

You can work with people in category #1, but #2-4 are lost causes.

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Daily

That Fall Feeling

December 15, 2016

Gunter the Chiweenie in the fall

Here’s what I’m talking about today.

1. That fall feeling: Christmas may be next week, but it really feels like fall in Dallas.

The leaves finally turned color, but it’s still warm enough to comfortably do long dog walks before and after work. Although that may change – we are going from a high of 75° on Saturday to a high of 32° on Sunday.

Looks like brunch won’t be on a patio.

2. Dropbox: They had an unfortunate Twitter incident yesterday. On the positive side, their annual “diversity in the workplace” report probably got way more views than last year’s.

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Daily

Jesper Jenset, Aleppo, Argentine hackers

December 14, 2016

Jesper Jenset

Here’s what I’m talking about today.

1. Jesper Jenset: I came across this artist on Soundcloud and I just assumed that everyone knew who he was. (Apparently not!)

His name is Jesper Jenset, he’s from Norway, and this song is straight 🔥🔥🔥

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Daily / LGBT / Oak Lawn

Crap and crime in the gayborhood

December 13, 2016

ilume park small dog park

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. The shit field: The small dog park in my apartment building has become a chaotic biohazard. It’s generally too filthy to use, and we can hear dogs barking long into the night.

The number of dogs some tenants have contributes to the problem. You have to be paying really close attention when you have four dogs running around.

2. Bank of America: The bank by my apartment keeps getting robbed. It happened earlier this year, and apparently again yesterday. I wonder what the security situation over there is.

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Daily / LGBT

Racism in Oak Lawn gay bars, winter in Dallas, Women Who Draw

December 12, 2016

Man at club by Soren Astrup Jorgenson via Unsplash.

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. Why some gay bars refuse to play hip-hop music: It’s usually because of racism.

We had an unfortunate situation in the gayborhood recently. The short story: A DJ at one of the bars allegedly complained about black customers requesting hip-hop music. Variants of the n-word were used to refer to the customers.

Of course this conversation happened via text, and screenshots were widely circulated on Facebook. Now people are outraged and some are boycotting that bar.

This is part of a broader tendency of gay bars to shy away from playing hip-hop music. The perception among some bars is that hip-hop music attracts an unsavory crowd that doesn’t spend much money and tends to get into fights.

The problem is that “we don’t play hip-hop because of the crowd” is often a veiled way of saying “we don’t want black people here.”

The result is that hip-hop (other than the stray Beyonce song) gets relegated to the bars with the worst standards, and stereotypes just reinforce themselves.

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Daily / Law

Magazines & Lawsuits

December 9, 2016

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. Magazines! We subscribe to a lot of them.

Many of the magazines, especially Bloomberg Businessweek, are like little works of art. The impressive design allows our magazines to double as temporary table decorations. (Or pretty clutter.)

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Notes from Austin, Twitter’s relevance, Project Runway: Junior

December 8, 2016

Westin Downtown Austin Texas

Here’s what I’m talking about today.

1. Lessons from Austin: I recently went to Austin for a social media conference hosted by the Engaging News Project and UT Austin’s journalism school.

Some observations:

Experimentation: Social media evolves quickly and journalists are still experimenting with the best ways of using various platforms. It was however shocking to see journalists discussing tactics that marketers and advertisers have been using for years.
Is Twitter worth it? Many people observed that Twitter doesn’t drive a lot of traffic to our websites (compared Facebook.) However, Twitter is a vastly more effective tool for reaching influencers and finding real-time breaking news. Facebook’s algorithm is also fickle, so investing too much time in Facebook-exclusive content may be a mistake.
Goals: The most glaring problem that many newsrooms seem to have is failing to create a solid strategy for social media efforts. Concrete goals are essential to using a platform productively. Do you want to drive traffic to your site? Nurture sources? Reach a particular audience? Sell native ads?

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Daily

$10 Starbucks, Reddit trolls, The Weather Channel smackdown

December 7, 2016

Starbucks on a Delta flight

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning:

1. Expensive coffee: Starbucks recently opened a high-end version of its stores in an attempt to attract “millennials.” Apparently, millennials are really into $10 cups of coffee.

I’m at the tail-end of the millennial group and a $10 cup of coffee doesn’t appeal to me at all. Maybe the younger kids have expensive tastes?

2. Trump is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: And it was well-earned.

Remember that this is an award for the most influential person, not the best. Hitler and Stalin also earned the title.

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Daily

Predatory schools, status queens, Lizzo

December 6, 2016

Office Building

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. Education fraud: Bloomberg has an interesting article about how Silicon Valley coding bootcamps attract students using false / misleading employment and salary statistics, and fail to prepare students for the job market.

Sounds a lot like law school…

Although many of my former classmates are still practicing law, a huge chunk also fell off the face of the earth after graduation (presumably because they didn’t get jobs.)

These students are conveniently never mentioned on school websites or forums, and are forgotten by everyone except for the student loan companies.

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Daily

iLume SWAT raid, Oakland warehouse fire, Black Ink: Chicago

December 5, 2016

iLume Park at night

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. Police drama: Apparently a Dallas Police SWAT team raided the iLume apartment building yesterday evening.

A Facebook screenshot of one of my neighbor's posts.

A Facebook screenshot of one of my neighbor’s posts about the iLume SWAT raid.

Some of my neighbors on Facebook said that there was a domestic violence dispute involving a weapon, but I haven’t been able to find any DPD information to verify this.

The management company hasn’t sent us an email about the incident, so everyone is left speculating.

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Daily

Off-leash dogs, Ghost in the Shell, Donald Trump

December 2, 2016

Top Pot Coffee Dallas

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. Privilege: A woman walked into the coffee shop yesterday morning. She had blonde hair, chunky heels, and a large dog with a bedazzled collar. It wasn’t leashed.

The dog walked up to all of the café guests and eventually settled on a salt-and-pepper guy who wanted to pet it. The owner was completely unaware of what her dog was doing.

This happens all of the time. There are even a few dogs in my building that I have never seen on a leash.

The off-leash approach only seems to work for a certain type of person. (Typically, a young blonde woman.) I tried to carry my leashed Chihuahua into Starbucks once when I first moved to Dallas. And I was promptly greeted by a barista screaming about health code.

I see dogs in that Starbucks often now. Maybe you need a certain type of swagger to pull it off?

2. White people: On a semi-related note, I watched a documentary called White People that you should check out.

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Daily

Bills, Bills, Bills

December 1, 2016

Coffee picture by Mikesh Kaos via Unsplash

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. Dallas has some bills: Last week, The New York Times had a horrifying article about Dallas’ Fire and Police Pension fund.

The rundown:

The pension fund was set up with the unrealistic expectation that it would make a 9 percent annual return.
The fund has unorthodox withdrawal rules which have made some retirees millionaires.
And now Dallas has a hidden pension debt of about $7 billion, which it can’t pay. Cue bankruptcy.

The latest: Dallas Mayor Rawlings is pissed, so he sent a CYA letter to the fund on Tuesday, asking it to stop some of the most ridiculous withdrawal policies. TBD on how Dallas is going to avoid bankruptcy.

2. YouTube stars: Last night, we went to the Windmill Bar near the Dallas Medical District. Our twinkish bartender told us that he was getting his degree in communications so he could be a YouTube star.

This reminded me of an article from Fusion about the sad economics behind being a mid-level YouTube star. Basically, it’s a “winner-take-all” system where some vloggers are rich and “mid-level” vloggers (with 50k-200k followers) have to wait tables to pay rent.

The Verge has a fascinating article about a specific YouTube vlogger called Connor Manning, who is trying to make it in Hollywood. I think that’s our bartender in two years.

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