The Scales Tip Southward
For six weeks at the end of this past year, I had the gross misfortune of living and working in Yuma, Arizona, my apartment less than five miles from the US-Mexico border (in case you’re wondering, yes, there IS a fence). I won’t delve into all the specifics of why I found this particular town to be awful – the climate, unemployment numbers, and density of cockroaches speak for themselves – but the thing I found...
Frankenstein’s Subway
Last week, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system workers went on strike, shutting down the trains, crippling the area’s commuters, and making me slightly annoyed when I was trying to go to a baseball game. Besides the obvious – wishing the BART was up and running again – the strike got me thinking of how I would improve on this particular subway, from things as basic as service hours to as detailed as car interior decor. While...
Crowd Sourced: Dodgers at Giants
When the subject of sports rivalries comes up in conversation, rarely is the ensuing discussion one that produces a consensus of opinions. Rather than a cordial debate of the merits of a specific team or pairing of cities, a more typical course of this type of interaction is a downward spiral of bickering, debasing, and the inevitable exclamation of “[insert team name here] sucks!” I grew up well within the borders of the storied New...
Dear America
As we’ve made pretty clear here on Rookerville we all have our unique takes on holidays. So in the growing tradition of this fair town known as Rookerville we wanted to share our anecdotes on America. Enjoy. And Happy 4th. Andrew Rose: Choosing a favorite “America” moment is both abstract and daunting. How could I, a twentysomething, possibly select a singular event in history that has any sort of meaning when...
Fun With Spam
My family’s first new computer arrived at our home sometime early in my high school career, and with it came the modern luxuries of internet connectivity and email access. Truth be told, we did own a computer before then, an archaic IBM PC that boasted an exceptional platform for playing Frogger, a serviceable word processor, and not much else. My parents’ hand was forced in terms of acquiring an upgrade as my siblings’ and my own...
#tbt: Transatlanticism
The first time I heard Transatlanticism, it awoke me from a deep sleep. This sounds poetic, and perhaps it was. But truth be told, I was, in fact, asleep when the compact disc started spinning in my bedside alarm clock (this is a throwback article, after all). It had been given to me by a friend the previous night, and as I turned to look at the time and hit the snooze button, that same friend rolled over in bed to prevent the track...