It depends on how deeply in arrears you go - I don’t know where the cutoff is exactly, but I have definitely had to add fare to my SmarTrip (or exit the system via the gate, add value at the card-reading terminals, re-enter the system, and tap out under the watchful eye of a Metro employee) in order to exit.

This is the way it works in most European systems (both tram and subways). I always liked it because it meant if you buy a long-term pass you can just waltz on and off transport without any extra effort or waiting at barriers, but I know it confuses a lot of people who haven’t experienced it before. Hell, when I was…

I once went to a station manager to complain about a car running in August with no a/c. I had remembered the car number and everything. He said, in that stupid/angry voice that a lot of low-level government employees have in DC, that I should “call Metro.” I actually pulled out some quip that I got from some movie or…

In DC, generally, you either explain to the station manager if you can find him, or just go through the (unalarmed) emergency gate next to the barriers. If you have your card but not enough fare on it to exit, there should be machines inside the barrier to add fare (although they only take cash, which can be a problem)

Someone tried to get clever with me talking about how I can be in development when I wear a diamond ring (that my mother gave me!), and when I pointed out that I had papers certifying that the diamond was from a Kimberley Process state, they didn’t even know what that was! Like, it’s super-cute that you saw Blood…

For my 22nd birthday, my mother the jewelry nut got me a 1/4 carat olive-green diamond, and let me pick out the band I wanted it set in. I could’ve put it in something elaborate with lots of flanking stones or whatever, but I wound up putting it in a white-gold solitaire setting.

Nobody on earth can come off looking even halfway decent if they are legitimate millionaires who make public statements that seem to look forward to or relish abusing people who actually work for a living who “try” them (try them how? Flight attendants are in a service profession, if they’re denying you something or…

Wuv u 2.

Secret societies usually have standards for who can join, so I just don’t think it’s believable that Kimmy Dearest would be in one.

If that letter isn’t a stark argument for why you should lock down your social media and be circumspect with what you share online, I don’t know what it is. If your future husband can choose you out of the mass of friends-of-friends online, and then carry that over into knowing where you’ll be and showing up there in…

My question isn’t about whether there’s a guarantee or not (I read the Q&A paperwork when they handed it out) but whether it’s emphasized as much in the office as it was in the shop. In essence, do you go into the layoff feeling fairly secure that you’ll get paid eventually, or do you go into it quaking in your boots,…

You bathe in the tears of, for example, the custodial staff who clean the government’s buildings? Or the security staff? I’m sure that’s not what you meant, but remember that there are more people involved here than whoever was at the center of your last breakroom spat.

Interesting. I was very much a government employee, not a contractor - I had the health insurance and, eventually, the savings plan to prove it. And yet every time this was threatened, they came out with the speech about how maybe we wouldn’t get paid, who could be sure?

I think people honestly take politics more seriously now than they did in the 90’s - I mean, people may have really believed politics was life and death before, but now everything’s ramped up to a higher gear (some of the commentary about Jon Stewart’s legacy touches on this - pre 9/11, he was playing a game, but…

It’s been threatened to happen every year for at least the last 4.

Right? If that was in a comment, I’d be flagging as hard as possible, ESPECIALLY given that the intent of the (original) poster of the image was not to draw attention to the victims, but to demonize Islam. We’ve all seen these images (I know I’ve seen worse) but I wish I hadn’t been surprised by it.

You can’t defame the dead.

You know, I just finally twigged on what he was trying to say - this guy comes off as so ignorant and dense that I honestly believed he was confused about how many Justices there are! If he wants to be President, he’s going to have to make his points a little more clearly, since I don’t think it’s weird to read that…

Under the cloak of internet anonymity, I am 100% willing to start the rumor that she simulated a sex act with a dead pig, as it seems that’s the only kind of thing that really hurts people’s images anymore.

Also, five? Last I checked, that’s not how many Supreme Court Justices there are, and I’m pretty sure they were all lawyers before they were Justices.