One of my favorite shows to watch with Baby Boy Scribbler is PBS Kids' Peg + Cat. However, there are days when the show can be called Everybody Loves Ramone because the young brother is so helpful to everyone and always returns a thank you with "I do what I can". So as I'm watching the "I Do What I Can: The Musical!" episode, the parent in me watching an innocent celebration for an awesome kid with his son gives way to the 21-year-old "adult" in me beginning his "blunder years" (I explain that theory here in case you care to read a throwback) and loving really ignorant gangsta music. My twisted brain immediately goes to the "Out There Part 2" skit on Project Pat's Mista Don't Play - Everythangs Workin album where one of the dudes says, "F--k that, boys do what they can, men do what they want!" Instantly I thought, "Well, Ramone is a boy and not a man yet, so....I'm just sayin'." Hence, I have managed to ruin the reputation of the coolest character from one of my son's favorite TV program. Good job, Poppa Scribb...good job. Considering what social media has been doing to the cast of Arthur lately, I better get to the rest of my "RANDOM THOUGHT ALERTS!!!" before another fine PBS Kids cartoon get slaughtered...
Hello everyone...my name is Dirk Scribbler...and I'm a D.C. Metro geek. (Cue the other weirdos in the room screaming, "HI, DIRK!!!") Ever since seeing this commercial on TV that featured a toy bus and train that was never for sale--believe me, I researched it and asked my mom and dad about it to no avail--I have been fascinated by every and all things Metro since 1985. I know what the Flxible New Looks, the GMC "Fishbowls", the MAN SG310s or the God-forsaken Neoplan AN440s are. (If you rode a bus out of Southeast between the mid-1980s and the early-1990s that was supposed to be an upgrade from the older New Look models but got stuck on one that broke down, then you already know what a Neoplan AN440 is, too, and can understand my bittersweet disdain.) You didn't need to go all the way to Metro Center or call 637-7000 because I was the original Metro NextBus for the hood, literally possessing every bus schedule in circulation. Entire Saturdays and Sundays were blocked out to either build scale-model Metrobuses out of cardboard paper or ride bus routes and subway lines from one end to the other. Oh yeah, and it also doesn't help that at least four relatives on my dad's side of the family currently work for Metro; heck, I wanted to be a bus driver when I was eight years old and my first job at 22 was nearly with Metro if it weren't for a six-month waiting period to enter their training program. I guarantee that you probably won't find anybody in your six degrees of separation who is as obsessed with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) as I was and, to a certain degree, still am. However, amidst rising fares, safety hazards, an aging rolling stock of rail cars and a revolving door of general managers--they went ten months without one last year--the Metro that I grew up loving so much is just not the award-winning transit system that it used to be. As a youth, all I had to do was make sure that I had enough tokens or enough on my student farecard to get to and from school and just enjoy the ride. Now I have the thought of possibly not making it home in one piece sitting deep in my subconscious. So being inspired by frequent conversations that I have with Facebook friends as well as an actual page of the same name started by one of my high school friends, entertain me as I go through my own personal "WMATA Chronicles".
