Wednesday, August 14, 2013

A rebuttal: DC is better than Baltimore

The Baltimore Sun has quite the array of dumb informative slideshows on their site, from "Rating Baltimore Strip Club Food" to "Ravens Making Funny Faces."

Jordan Bartel and Meekah Hopkins of the Baltimore Sun added to the list of dumb informative slideshows today with a cute "100 reasons why Baltimore is better than DC" list. Now it's my turn to make my own list. Because I've got work to do, I only had time to get 50 reasons. Don't worry, I'll be adding more. Please feel free to leave comments with other reasons below. Enjoy!

1) Our newspaper doesn't run Bleacher Report-esque slideshows.

2) You don't start conversations by asking, 'What do you do?' or 'Who do you work for?' because your unemployment rate is 1% higher than DC's.


3) Our rowhouses cost $100k more because people actually want to live here. You can buy rowhouses in Detroit for about $5, but does that make Detroit better than Baltimore and DC?

4) DC didn't kill Abraham Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth did. Lincoln just lived here. And if he lived in Baltimore, he would have gotten shot within half an hour.

5) I can't hear you talking trash about food, I have Ben's Chili Bowl clogging my arteries.

6) Natty Boh is terrible. Old-school beer does not mean good beer. And it's not even brewed in Baltimore (rather, NC and GA). If you want to be proud of a Baltimore beer, Heavy Seas is good for you. DC Brau is good for us. You people (yes, I went there) embarrass me by reaching for Natty Bohs over Heavy Seas. If you're proud of Natty Boh, you shouldn't be. And Flying Dog is from Frederick, which last I checked is not in Baltimore.

7) You added a list of films and shows with DC settings that were filmed in Baltimore ('House of Cards' and 'Veep'), but their setting is DC...meaning people actually want to watch shows based on DC, not Baltimore.

8) "HAVE YOU SEEN THE WIRE?!? IT'S BASED IN BALTIMORE!" Oh, congratulations. We've had shows based in our city since the prehistoric ages.

9) Why are you proud of The Wire being based in Baltimore, anyways? I guess when you live in a terrible city that nobody cares about, you have to take joy in the small things like drug dealing and violence.

10) You're proud of Barack Obama enjoying The Wire. He lives here. You've probably always wanted to see his house. Which, just to remind you, is in Washington, DC. Because he lives here, and not in Baltimore.

11) DC has all 4 major sports here. Baltimore has 2. Another thing nobody cares about: Lacrosse, brah!

12) "78. We don't have to pick a fight with another city to make ourselves feel better." I don't know who from DC picked the original fight that you reference in your header (without a link, of course), but I wake up every day thanking God that I don't live in Baltimore. It's not picking a fight. It's just honesty.

13) Congrats on being the nation's capital before us! You're like the guy who comments in all of the message boards "FIRST!!!" You know why they moved the nation's capital out of Baltimore and Philly? BECAUSE THEY ARE SHITHOLE CITIES.

14) You certainly do have bros wearing salmon-colored pants. I saw them last time I was in your craptastic city. We eat salmon, too. You're stupid.

15) We don't value someone based on how much they spent on a suit. If you really believe that about DC, then you're stupid. But that's an already established fact.

16) Yes, you're the birthplace of the Star Spangled Banner. You know why it was written in Baltimore? Because during the war of 1812, the British were just chillin in the water minding their own business and then they were like "OMG THIS IS CITY IS A BLOODY SHITHOLE. KILL IT WITH FIRE KILL IT WITH FIRE KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!!!!!" Major George Armistead is the one who ordered "a flag so large that the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a distance" (Source: WIKIPEDIA). He was a Virginian, not a Baltimoron.

17) Baltimoron.

18) We can get reservations at our restaurants, too. Your list is stupid. You're stupid, Baltimorons.

19) On the slideshow page, the top two stories:
The best costumes of Otakon 2013 in Baltimore
followed by
Otakon to move to DC, citing aging convention center
LOL JUST LIKE THE NATION'S CAPITAL WE'RE STEALING YOUR ANIME CONVENTION

20) Regular bowling. Better than duckpin bowling. If duckpin bowling was better, maybe it would be on ESPN. SUNDAYS ARE FOR REGULAR BOWLING!

21) You weren't built on a swamp, true. You were built in the armpit of America.

22) You have a tumblr dedicated to guys on heroin in your city. Cute.

23)  "57. You rarely meet someone who has lived in D.C. for five years. We can walk down our streets and meet someone who has lived here for 50 years." In our newspapers, we report facts rather than assumptions. My grandfather lived in DC for 50 years and he'll kick your grandfather's ass.

24) You had BronyCon in your city. Point: DC.

25) YOU'RE SERIOUSLY PROUD OF HAVING BRONYCON IN YOUR CITY?!?!?

26) Food trucks: DC > Baltimore. 

27) Congratulations, Cal Ripken showed up for work 2,632 consecutive times. He was a good baseball player, but let's not be ridicious and say that he's any bit better than the best DC sports figure. Walter Johnson, bro (I feel like I can call you that since you're from Baltimore. Or is it BRAH?). Slingin' Sammy Baugh. Not Cal Ripken.

28) How is having your bars close an hour earlier better? You're stupid.

29) Don't hate on the Cherry Blossom festival. Sorry we have something in our city that looks nice. Maybe you should try.

30) Edgar Allen Poe married his 13 year old cousin. Your list calls this "sassy." I call this "pedophilia" and "incest."

31) YOU DO NOT TALK SHIT ABOUT BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY. HE'LL KICK YOUR ASS.

32) "40. Oh, D.C. has the Ruby Slippers? We have the following museums: Baltimore Tattoo, American Visionary Arts, National Dentistry, National Great Blacks in Wax ... shall we go on?" List of museums in Washington DC. Boom, roasted.

33) Tupac lived in Baltimore for 2-3 years. Baltimore is well behind the NYC and San Francisco areas in terms of being raised. Tupac is better than Wale, but Tupac is not from Baltimore. Wale was actually born and raised in DC.

34) You made a Chris Christie fat joke in a slideshow hating on DC? Baltimore's obesity rate is 28%, about 4% over the national average. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, Baltimore.

35) We "stole" the Bullets from you because you couldn't get people to come and watch them play. Kyle Weidie of Truth About It sums it up well: "They weren’t packing houses in Landover, MD, but it clearly provided more opportunity than Baltimore, MD." Definitely click this link for his in-depth story on the flight of the Bullets from Baltimore to Landover.

36) "32. The first lady has a vegetable garden? Cute. We've been turning vacant lots into community gardens and parks. On a regular basis." We don't have many vacant lots to turn into community gardens and parks because people actually want to live here. But there are still plenty of parks in DC.

37) And the US Botanic Garden is eons better than your little community gardens.

38) You're actually proud of "Step Up" being based in Baltimore? Stupid.

39) NATTY BOH IS STILL CRAPPY BEER

40) "28. Our hookers don't hide in high-priced hotels." WHY IS THIS SOMETHING YOU'RE PROUD OF?!? I'M SO CONFUSED, LAX BRAHS!

41) Your homeboy Sisqo recently performed on a Thursday night at a small bar in Clarendon. That's like being proud of Vanilla Ice.

42) I'm not even going to bother with your F. Scott Fitgerald quote from 70 or so years ago. Baltimore might have been great then. It's not now.

43) "24. A town overflowing with sweaty, insolent interns whining all day about walking from the Capitol to other Congressional buildings? Sounds rough." YES, THERE ARE SOOOOOO MANY INTERNS ALL OVER THE PLACE WHAT WILL I DO??!?!? Good job with "insolent," though. It appears that there is at least one thesaurus in Baltimore.

44) Ray Lewis killed 2 dudes.

45) Your chance of seeing Michael Phelps out with his bros getting a DUI on any given night? 1 in 4.

46) "17. Mo'Nique can single-handedly kick D.C.'s collective a--." Nope. I'm not scared of some C-lister.

47) "15. The statue of Divine in the American Visionary Art Museum can beat up the statue of Andrew Jackson (and his horse) in Lafayette Square." Are you for serious? 48) "13. "Going to live at Baltimore laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity." -- Frederick Douglass" And then he left Baltimore. And moved to DC. Where his National Historic Site is.

48) The Ravens have 2 Super Bowls. The Redskins have 3.

49) John Elway demanded a trade away from the Baltimore Colts just so he wouldn't have to be in your city.

50) You made a 100 list about being the superior city that was full of stupid fillers and somehow couldn't fit in the fact that Babe Ruth was born in Baltimore.