Saturday morning roundup and ramble

What the hell is wrong with people?

What the hell is wrong with the criminal justice system?

What the hell is wrong with parents who saddle their kids with ridiculous names?

Dollar's deceptive practices surprise me not at all. I think I've had similar experiences over similar options--said no to a pre-paid tank but they did it anyway, and I didn't notice until afterward (but it was a lesser expense than the unneeded insurance coverage that they screwed over those folks with).

German scientists have found a way to link renewable sources of energy.

Still curious about black holes? Here are a couple more-or-less plain-English explanations. I highly recommend both, even though (if you're like me) some of the second one will be lost on you.

Gail Collins is dismayed at how pathetic New York state corruption has gotten.

Jezebel is coming under fire (from its own commenters and from Slate) for hating on women. Meanwhile, XX Factor takes on "hot messes" and the Mansplainer takes on commenting on a woman's looks in public:

What's wrong with stating a basic fact, out loud, in public, so everyone can agree? Because it's rude, you idiots. Because what you're saying is: Let's stop thinking about her and start looking at her—everybody here in this room, have a look, check her out.

I'm sorry, second letter-writer, but there is no excuse for flakiness. No matter what is going on in your life, you owe it to the people with whom you have plans to let them know of changes or cancellations. It's called common courtesy. You don't owe them excuses or explanations, but it's just plain rude to cancel at the last minute when you've known all day or all week that you would be unable to make it.

Guys, you don't need a high-priced trainer to get "the butt of a 22-year old stripper." Just get on a bike. Don't make me have someone take a picture-in-profile of my bedonkedonk to prove it.

***
"The Mountaintop" did not live up to its hype.  Last week I talked about mediocre plays that subsist on provocative discourse; I thought "The Mountaintop" was a bad play that subsists on shock in general and irreverence. Shock and irreverence have a place in the theater, but they cannot in and of themselves stand in for quality.

The first twenty minutes or so of "The Mountaintop" were just bad. Slow, irrelevant, amateurish--just shitty dialogue. Then, about half an hour in, things got interesting, and I really wanted the play to work. But it didn't.

As with those other plays I mentioned in Sundays post, "The Mountaintop" raised interesting ideas and questions, but raising ideas and questions does not in and of itself a play make. Anyone can say "think about this." A playwright has to package it in a unique way that has people thinking differently. A play that is already pushing the limits of voluntary suspension of disbelief has to be impeccable in structure and plot. "The Mountaintop" was so disjointed--so all over the place and gimmicky--that it just failed to come together. Which is too bad, because it was an interesting concept. But the concept did not save the play.

***
You've heard me say this a lot and I'll say it again: it was also too long. It was almost two hours, with no intermission. Which is too long to sit and pay attention, period, but there was also a lot of clutter in the play.

There were also a lot of people in my row who did not understand the concept of getting up and leaving once the play was over. I don't know what the f* they were doing. To be clear: I don't expect people to run out the minute the curtain falls, but these people were really taking their sweet f*ing time. Which is an issue when the trains run every twenty minutes, and you need to wait for one train just to go one stop to then wait for another one. But the metro was good for me: five-minute waits at both stops. It's always good when the waiting is half the actual travel time, rather than twice as long.