This has not been an ideal Olympic run for Team USA's Gabby Douglas, the darling gymnast extraordinaire of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Douglas was arguably robbed of defending her title in the individual all-around since each country can only send through two representatives in the final. A costly mistake on a handstand along with other deductions not only kept her from getting a medal in the final on the uneven bars, disappointingly coming in seventh place. Her only part in any medal was when the team notched gold in the team all-around, but during the medal ceremony, she was excoriated for not putting her hand over her heart during "The Star Spangled Banner" despite Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump doing the exact same thing and receiving little to no flack about it. However, among Black women in particular, the constant ridicule since 2012 has been about her hair--which has been called "crunchy" and having dandruff while her edges have been criticized for being "straight disrespectful". Of course, there have been a lot of folks running to her defense, saying things along the lines of "she's competing at the Olympics, while you're at home".
I know...this series should be renamed "The WMATA Chronicles" instead of "RANDOM THOUGHT ALERTS!!!" as often as I refer to D.C. Metro, but bear with me for a moment as I elevate my geekdom a smidge. Although I have been fascinated with Metro since 1985, I have never really been as obsessed over Metrorail as I have been with Metrobus...until now. Between the AM General buses of the 1970s and the New Flyer XDE40 (aka the "sexy boosas"), Metrorail's shiny new rolling stock manufactured by Kawasaki Heavy Industries is proof that you must have swagger to be part of any WMATA 7000 series. One day when taking a drive, I saw an eight-car configuration leaving Takoma in the direction of Silver Spring and was actually mad that I was in my car. (As abysmal as Metrorail has been as of late, that shouldn't ever be the case.) Lo and behold, my wish was granted a few days later when I was on my way to work and this thing of beauty came rolling into Silver Spring. So what does the resident H.M.G.I.C. (Head Metro Geek In Charge) like me do when this happens? Why, snap a 15-second video and convert it into a GIF, of course! What else would you expect from your ninth favorite blogger?!?! Come on, the trains just sound like an intergalactic spaceship of epic proportions, slim...and the rest of y'all D.C. folks know y'all feel the same way, too; I'm just dorky enough to admit it. Now that I've cemented my nerdiness and perhaps put some of you to sleep, I have four more pinches...
Ever since the NBA Playoffs were nearing their end and people realized that they would have to suffer through a summer with just baseball, my timeline has been flooded with "wake me up when it's football season" posts. Now that NFL training camps are open and preseason is here, everybody's posting all of this news about how this receiver is torching that high-profile cornerback or how some former No. 2 overall draft pick is back in impressive form...in practice. Although football has been my favorite sport since taking the reins from basketball in the late 90s and hasn't been unseated by any other sport since, I won't be as interested in football as I am with the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio until the Olympics are over. Are you looking at your computer screen or smart phone with heat in your eyes and bewilderment in your brain? Good...now allow me to explain...
