Why I hate this area

Every place has its moments, I'm sure. Those mind-bendingly stupid times when you just want to slap yourself silly for ever thinking it would be a good idea to live here. Unfortunately, the Washington DC metro area is the grand champion of these moments.

If it's not then-mayor Marion ("the bitch set me up") Barry getting busted for doing crack with a hooker in a hotel room, then we get Lorena Bobbit right down the road. You can still get t-shirts that proclaim: "Manassas, VA. Where we separate the men from the weenies".

Of course, my personal favorite was this event, when stupidity and ambition overcame common sense. You never hear about Mr. Howard anymore, so either he's been laying low or he moved on - quietly.

I won't even mention the previous residents of the White House.

I don't really hate this next one, but it is getting kind of ridiculous and therefore annoying. Virginia offers 'vanity' license plates, like every other state (I assume). But Virginia has the greatest number of custom plates in the US. In fact, the state of Virginia offers over 40 different choices for your car, including college medalions (yep, I saw a Virginia plate bearing the logo of the University of Alabama - "roll tide"), and plates honoring home-schooling, greyhounds, recreational boating, veterans (each service has their own plate), 'remember 9/11', and any and all fringe groups that can scrape up 350 requests for a separate plate. This makes it almost impossible to easily identify a Virginia plate until you get close enough to read it. And unlike some states that charge big bucks for vanity plates, Virginia charges a one-time $10.00 fee for the custom plate, and an extra $10.00 a year for a personalized letter/number combination. So cheap that everyone can afford it, and I guess it raises a lot of money for the state.

Sometimes it's too embarassing to even admit where I live.