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Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
Things I'd Rather Forget
How To Avoid Jury Duty
There Is No Reason To Go Up The Empire State Building
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BookishLookish
02/14/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
Nice museums, but the lack of eye candy is what bums me out heavily about D.C. Y'all got some ugly people dwelling down there.
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lobstr
02/14/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
DC's Chinatown (much like Chicago) is laughable... it's one block bookended by those huge Chinese arches with a few joints with cooked ducks hanging upside down in the windows and a few lanterns here and there.

NY's Chinatown on the other hand makes me feel like I'm in a freakin' Jackie Chan movie.
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kimberlydebarge
02/14/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
Oh, really? "Your DC congressional staffer is typically a well-meaning (or formerly well-meaning) dork who dresses and drinks like he did in college. Or they're just fratty assholes."

See, I thought that was every single guy in New York under the age of 30. Only they pretend to be "indie" about it. NYC's pretension makes other cities' self-esteem look like child's play.

And don't you dare for a moment include Baltimore with the DC area-- it's a distinct city which rules. Maybe your perspective that population, not perspiration, makes a city great is another reason NYC is so yesterday.
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BookishLookish
02/14/09

@kimberlydebarge: Since you think New York is so yesterday, honey, please take off all the knocked-off clothes you wear that are copies of those designed by New Yorker-based designers in our garment district, stop going to all the restaurants you eat in that have basically copied the menus of New York's innovative chefs, and those cute pop art posters on your apartment wall? Warhol and Lichtenstein never lived in your beloved city, so give those back too. We're just pretentious like that. And as you said, so yesterday.
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dc garage shooter
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
Last year I accepted, finally, that in many ways DC is a cultural backwater and I hate that, despite the National Gallery, the Sackler, and other free and paid museums. I don't move back to New York because I'd have to go up to the attic to fetch the suitcase, into the second bedroom to pack my clothes, check on the rhododendron in the front yard, lock front and back doors . . . well you get the idea.

Damn, now am I not only uncool, I'm uncool with a suburban attitude.
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CherriSpryte
02/13/09

@dc garage shooter: But c'mon, don't you want to give up all of that so you can pay twice as much to live in an apartment the size of your bathroom, just so you can be in New York! Their subway runs all night, and all the boys wear skinny jeans!
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Wendy_Kroy
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
I used to live there... 90% of the DC population sucks ass. The only micro-sub-groups that are any fun are (1) self-loathing journalists and (2) World Bankers. Both cliques can drink the average Washingtonian under the table, but with the second category, you get bottle service.
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krismry
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
Argh!! Since the hell *when* did Peggy Nooner become a financially alert business reporter?? Totally irritating to read money stories written by people whose specialty before the Crash was sports scandals or muffin art. DC will never be cool in our lifetimes until the Air and Space Museum gives free passes to every kid in the USA America to go visit on Amtrak. So there.
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CherriSpryte
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
You really have to steal our moment in the sun, New York? We know we're 5-10 years behind you on most trends, and that our buildings are short. We know we get muggy in the summer, and that Georgetown sucks ass. We know you laugh at our Metro. But something like 90% of DC voted for Obama. So we're kinda pleased with ourselves these days. You have to take that one bit of happiness and squash it?

Well, of course you do. You're New York.
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tigolbitties
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
but d.c. also has jumbo slice!!! how else to end an evening in adams-morgan?? where overgrown frat dudes pretend they're still at their southern universities (no hate there - shout out to my alma mater vandy!) where they ruled the roost, and somehow successfully, despite the fact they look like they've been hit with a sack of nickles in the face, hook up with chicks much hotter than they are...

**in all fairness, my bestie lives in d.c. and she's greeeattt!
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pleppy
02/13/09

@tigolbitties: all those overgrown frat dudes in AdMo on the weekends ARE FROM THE SUBURBS. They're our bridge and tunnel, peeps. Please don't judge us for it.
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tigolbitties
02/13/09

@pleppy: i don't know i feel like a bunch of them live around u-street now that it's been gentrified...
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CherriSpryte
02/13/09

@tigolbitties: Nah. They live in Courthouse and Clarendon. I know this, because my friends down here insist on dating them.

Also, now that U St's been destroyed by the southern fratboys (and that cab that drove into Solly's), where's a girl go to drink?
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allyzay
02/13/09

@CherriSpryte: dude, 90% of dc votes democratic every election.
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allyzay
02/13/09

@tigolbitties: omfg jumbo slice is the grossest thing in the entire world. and those douchebags fight over it! like, dudes throw bricks at each other to get ahead in the line -- what the hell? that whole thing seriously mystified me my entire two years there.
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MincnglyWhrdL'mer
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
I've heard french diplomats used to get hazardous service pay if stationed in DC, cause the summers are so nasty (this is from someone who was there in the 50's)

I'll take a pass on that kind of humidity, thanks.
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krismry
02/13/09

@Monsigor Xtravagante D'ouchestache: No one can stand DC in August because it is a swamp, but in archaic times no one could stand NY in August because all the shrinks went on vacation.
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fileunder
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
I've long admired your disdain for that city, Pareene.
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El Matardillo
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
If you live west of the Mississippi, DC and NYC both suck the big banana.
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Iceland Spar
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
Also:

1.) No tall buildings makes it feel like a suburb.

2.) Its even hotter and muggier than NY in the summer.

3.) Rehobth isn't the Hamptons.

4.) Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks, Nets and Rangers are better than the Nationals, the Sabers and the Bullets (I mean Wizards).
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freedc
02/13/09

@Iceland Spar: Nope, the CAPITALS are ahead of all three of your NY-area teams.
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Iceland Spar
02/13/09

@freedc: @dortmunder4: Oh, I forgot the most important factor:

5.) Iceland Spar has abandoned D.C. for NY!
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Trixie from Toronto
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
I hate when cities fight. It's so adolescent.
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D2theMatthews
02/13/09

@Trixie from Toronto: The twin cities are the worst.
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Lizawithazee
02/13/09

@GiuseppeRoloson: Oh yah, now I get to tell one of my Twin Cities jokes.

What's the difference between Minneapolis and St. Paul?

In Minneapolis, people bowl for fun.

In St. Paul, people bowl for culture.
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Mediokra
02/13/09

@GiuseppeRoloson: I always thought St. Paul was pretty humble about it ... he knows Minneapolis is all tough and he'd rather not start anything. He's just over there chilling with the capitol, the science museum and the more affordable apartments, but he knows he's lame because of his apparent 7 p.m. curfew. He's keeping his mouth shut.
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BadUncle
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
BTW, I'm disturbed by the idea that moving banking to DC strips New York of "cool."
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Lymed
02/13/09

In reply to Cheer Up, DC Will Never Be Cool
I love NY and DC for being what they are, and would be happier to be in either one of those cities, where I wouldn't need to commute home and then drive to dinner.
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freedc
02/13/09

@Lymed: Both great places, just different I always say. Pareen, if you're not meeting cool people or going to cool places when you're in DC, you're not doing it right, plenty of both. You are right about the poverty problems, though. I feel like the city has made strides in the past couple of years, too bad some programs will probably get cut in this recession.
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