But Does Clay Aiken Cycle?

Metro’s front-page infographic today — “that stupid box of totally uncontextualized stats,” a co-worker just called it — has a big ol’ typo in it. Eh, whatevs: Fortunately for the paper, today’s The Word promo draws attention away from it, because it is about Clay Aiken. But what amount of busy-ness will Anthony Federov and Justin Guarini (note: both names possibly spelled wrong) be getting to this holiday season?

Metro Cover: WTF?

Gee, cutting out heads and putting them on historical figures or paintings or whatever. THANKS FOR STEALING MY SHTICK, METRO.

Sincerely,
Dan McQuade
Inventor of Photoshop

P.S. Nice serious, straightforward headline, too, to go along with that cover illustration.

The Metro is Into Mature Asians

From the front cover of today’s Metro:



What?

Statistics: Fast is Good [Metro]

Don’t Listen To Him, Vince!

Look! Everyone’s favorite City Paper columnist-turned-Johnny Doc PR man, Brian Hickey, has a new column in Metro! His first column is about how Vince Fumo should cut a deal to avoid going to trial.

What? That’s, like, the one staunch opinion I actually have: Fumo should go to trial because it would bring Mayor Milton Street-level hilarity. I don’t care if the trial costs a billion dollars. For the amount of money the government wastes, Fumo’s trial would be the best entertainment money can buy. Please, oh please, let there be a trial.

Correction: Aw, it’s just a freelance piece, and not a regular column. But he had a whole giant photo and all!

Voices: Fumo can save us all [Metro]

Metro Now Selling Wacky T-Shirt

Of all the promotions done by any company for any product, the strangest might be the ad that appeared in Wednesday’s Metro.

Yes, Metro is selling a t-shirt with different city neighborhoods — and, oddly enough, Delaware County — written in wacky fonts for a whopping $16. I can’t imagine anyone besides Chrissmari and me even considering purchasing this t-shirt, and (as she noted to me in IM earlier today), we’re far too cheap to spend $16 on one.

I can only imagine the Metro one-liner novelty t-shirt shop on South Street isn’t far behind.

Metro Philly Store

Cabbies Show Their Feelings On Passengers

Yes, here’s one that would be impossible to make up: Metro reports today the new president of the new taxi workers’ union is Ron Blount, who faces simple assault and false imprisonment charges next month.

As anyone who has ridden a cab in the last year or so has already guessed, Blount is alleged to have struck a rider after she wanted to pay with a credit card.

Blount says he’s innocent of the assault charges. One driver told Metro the following: “We fully believe he’s innocent and will beat the charges.” Pun intended, I assume.

United cabbies have elected driver accused of assault [Metro]
Photo by kiteflier, Creative Commons license

‘Metro’ Readers Outraged, As Usual

Daniel Holloway and the always-excellent Dorothy Robinson did a humor piece on “25 reasons to love America” right before Independence Day. Ha ha, they even crammed both of their heads into one byline thingy.

Since it’s a humor column in a newspaper, people get angry. Yay for America! Anyway, apparently you can’t call Ben Franklin a pimp without people getting all up in arms. (After the jump.)

More »

Giving The People What They Want

A bikini photo (above) is on the cover of Metro today. Well played, gentlemen.

Metro [Thanks RJ]

No Privately Owned Cars By 2030?

Hey, look: The executive director of PenTrans (Pennsylvanians for Transportation Solutions. Why only one ‘n’?) says we might not have privately owned cars by 2030.

How well do you think some of these “alternative” modes of travel are doing in Philadelphia?

You have PhillyCarShare where it’s working out so well that you have a private provider coming to Philly to compete with them. You have many market-based solutions to do these kinds of things and conserve energy. It may come a point where in 2030, people aren’t using privately owned cars.

Far out, man. I don’t know; I feel like most of my friends would have a car if (a) there was a place to park it and (b) they could afford one. And some people don’t even drive? Trust me: If they give me a license to drive, they can give anyone a license to drive. Don’t worry: Chances are, you won’t even hit anybody. I’m a bad driver, and even I only hit one person, and it was just with my side mirror.

Working on a new transit age? [Metro]

Wireless Philly Costs You Almost $2

Crack Metro reporter Josh Cornfeld continues on the Wireless Philadelphia beat today, which is way more interesting than whatever beat I used to poke fun at him for being on. (I’ve done too many posts — this is post No. 7,338 — to remember what that was.)

He has quite the scoop: Apparently, this whole free wi-fi thing wasn’t all that free for the city. (Shocking.) Ha ha, whoops, it actually has cost the city $2.6 million so far, including lots and lots of consultant fees so Dianah Neff could answer questions on Philly Future. Or something like that. Two-point-six mil would equal somewhere close to $2 a person in this city. (I don’t understand finances.)

Aside from the loan, the city has also paid technology consulting company Strategic Staffing Solutions $571,279 since 2004 and $463,000 to Civitium. Civitium has since hired Dianah Neff, who proposed the network as Street’s Chief Information Officer.

While Earthlink apparently wants to pull out, Wireless Philadelphia is going to go kicking and screaming to the grave, it seems, or possibly rise again like the Phoenix.