Steven Thrasher

No. 13: There are actually LINES to PAWN YOUR SHIT

The Voice just returned from a trip to Las Vegas. While we enjoyed the UNITY 2012 and NLGJA conferences, we were disturbed by the "city" itself. Here are 37 reasons why we hated it, presented in no particular order, except that No. 37 is the most insidious.

1. The architecture of confusion reigns supreme, so that you never have any sense of direction, time, or space

2. Carrot Top

3. There is more than one Hard Rock Cafe

4. There's a pyramid with THREE different Starbucks inside of it

5. There is little difference between the strip and the airport, but the airport is better. (While both have slot machines and trap people inside a closed system, the airport has better, cheaper and healthier food options.)

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Yesterday, we ran a little item by this blogger defending American Apparel. Today, Gawker's Hamilton Nolan [and Voice boxing correspondent] responded with a retort entitled "A Brief Defense of Writing Things." Ah, but Hamilton! I never argued against your "writing things." I argued against running a maybe-once-interesting-but-now-tired story over, and over, and over again. Or rather, for different things!

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Chicago Tribune

Get this: Chicago has adopted (ripped off!) New York's trademark subway car style -- you know, center-facing seats, overhanging straps, and the need to avoid obvious eye contact -- and, it seems, people are suddenly being a lot more polite to each other.

The Chicago Tribune chronicles the new development with regard to the eight newly designed cars on the CTA Red Line, and found that people are taking out their earbuds and talking to each other, offering each other seats, and actually saying "excuse me." Oh gawd.

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Back in March, a blog post we published regarding a potential media acquisition by Cablevision, MSG Entertainment, and Rainbow Media owner James Dolan -- compounded by a vaguely worded, ominous legal threat from Dolan's corporate office, which was ignored and then published in a naive showing of cliched blogger belligerence -- cost The Village Voice an advertising deal worth upwards of $20,000/year in revenue. And if you're a blogger three weeks into your new job (or the editor who -- now, possibly regretfully -- hired him), you can only laugh. And we did. And that was that.

Or so we thought. We've now learned the following:

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Good in McDonald's. Bad in war.

No, this is not Runnin' Scared's second entry into Mayor Bloomberg's "Poetweet" contest. It's actually a thing. For real. Mission: Readiness, a nonprofit group of retired military leaders, is very concerned about kids becoming "too fat to fight." So concerned that they issued a 16-page report calling for Congress to get involved in legislation to counter the fatpidemic. (They didn't say "fatpidemic.")

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Even as the rest of the world begins to hate us a bit less, we still aren't happy. According to a new Pew Research Center survey, by and large, Americans are bitter, angry, cranky, bitchy, distrustful, and cantankerous. And then there's the acid reflux.

According to the report, we've found ourselves in a veritable "perfect storm" of government-hating conditions, what with "a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials."

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So, you're in the corporate communications department of a very big company whose chairman has a reputation for being so aggressive with the press as to invoke comparisons to swatting flies with hammers. Something not nice is written about your boss in a very concise, if generally cheeky and/or obscene, manner. There are three ways to handle this situation:

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It's snowing, you're trapped at home or office or somewhere in between, but you still have the Web, so check out these 20 selected stories on New York City's billionaire mayor, Mike Bloomberg, by two relentless reporters, Tom Robbins and Wayne Barrett:

Meet the New NYC Fire Commish, Salvatore Cassano, Barrett, 2/9/10

Quinn-Bloomberg Aide Makes Illegal Campaign Calls, Wins New Six-Figure Job, Robbins, 2/2/10

Ex-Bloomberg Campaign Aides 'Incent' City Workers, Robbins, 1/27/10

Another Million-Plus Bloomy Bucks to Indy Party Pals, Robbins, 1/26/10

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Maybe I was just oblivious to it all the other years, but for some reason, it seemed like whenever booth announcers were short on talking points, they defaulted to the current Wild Card playoff system. Everyone had an idea on how to best construct the postseason process so as to best preserve fairness for all parties involved.

I've touched on the subject before, but to be clear, I hate the Wild Card. I liken it to studying for weeks for a test, only to have someone who crammed the night before ace it and screw up the curve. They're not breaking the rules, but somehow it dwarfs the blood, sweat, and tears you've put into your efforts for a more extensive stretch of time.

What's worse, people who cram often just nail it. They got all this addrenaline from pulling an all nighter, all the information is right in the forefront of their minds, and they just carry that right into the exam room. Similarly, 3 Wild Cards have won the World Series in the last 7 years, and the logic behind that isn't too complicated.

Ah, but not this year. Colorado just lost the NLDS to the defending champion Phillies (the only division series that wasn't a sweep), and with the Sux being punted into the offseason on Sunday, the playoffs belong to the Official Best Teams in Baseball.

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That was my favorite Facebook status update that I came across last night. Well played, well played...

So I go for a walk this morning, and the streets of the Upper East Side really felt like that Avis commercial. Every where I went, people--taking note of the everpresent Yankee cap--were tripping over themselves to rehash the dramatic win that went down 16 hours ago.

"YANKEES, baby!"

"How 'bout my boy A-Rod, eh?"

"What a game last night!! You see it? Unbelievable."

And then, there were the people less than ecstatic about everything...

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