I Am Very Tall

I lived in Cambridge, MA for four years. This does not really give me the authority to comment on how retarded Boston is, but just for the sake of this post, I'm going to pretend that it does.

In all seriousness, Boston is severely retarded in many ways. It is one of the most heavily college-populated towns in the country and yet it restricts people from purchasing alcohol after eleven (it previously stopped people from doing it on Sunday). That may actually be smart, but from the point of view of the college student, it is very stupid.

It has a subway system where you can buy the equivalent of a Metrocard on one of the lines, only to discover that that Metrocard is not accepted at other subway stops, requiring you to purchase tokens to get back to where you cam from. Yeah. Tokens.

Its major, major architectural project, The Big Dig, was originally estimated to cost $2.8BN and end in 1985. As of now, it has cost $14.6BN and only "finished" in January 2006. And by "finished," I mean, got to the point where people could start driving in it, only to notice the thousands of leaks, usage of substandard materials, and collapsing ceilings.

So yeah, Boston is retarded.

Here is the latest manifestation of its retardation: It got freaked out by 40 glowing Mooninite boards that were posted around the city. It was so freaked out, it had bomb squads come in and shut down half the city. Turner Broadcasting had to pay fines of $2MN for being so crazy as to put up advertisements.

In this post-9/11 era, I can vaguely understand why people would respond the way that they did. The one part that doesn't click with me is - why would terrorists decide to make their bombs glow? More importantly, why would they make their bombs look like little block-shaped cartoon characters giving us all the finger? Isn't that a little too much pop-culture for people that hate us because of our godless, commercial excesses/on-going support of Israel?

Anyway, I digress. To read more about it, check out this article.

[Link via Thomas Bechtold]