Borf, graffiti artist extraordinaire, plead guilty yesterday to felony destruction of property. Part of his deal was that he would turn over all his stencils and art supplies, even though he’s an art student at the Corcoran. He’s also not allowed to come into DC except for court and for class, and under no circumstances can he carry art supplies in the District, except at the Corcoran. That’s going to make being an art student awfully tricky, but I suppose he should’ve though about it before he covered the District in Borf…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Out in the ‘burbs where I live, a pool is a hot commodity for those three summer months they’re open. A friend of mine in Fairfax gets a pass for one in a neighboring apartment complex… for over $100.
If he was a DC resident he could just go swim for free, and year round to boot. One of the better kept secrets in the District is that admission to the William H Rumsey Aquatic Center is FREE for District residents. Non-residents can use the facilities for $5 but it’s those of you who live in those 68.25 square miles that get the great deal.
If you remember paying $4, you’re not insane. Fees were lifted in late August this year and will continue to be waived till Sept. 30, 2006, thanks to a donation from Kaiser Permanente. Rumsey isn’t the only indoor pool – the District’s Emergency Management Agency webpage (don’t ask me – I just report this stuff) lists several indoor pools which should also be fee-free.
I’d advise calling ahead for the hours. When I looked at the sign at WHR a few weeks ago it indicated 6:30a-10a, 12p-5p and 6:30p-9p for weekday hours and 10a-5p Saturday and Sunday which is notably difference from the webpage above.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It’s no secret that DC’s got its fair share of haters and posers, I just didn’t think it was such a big deal until DC Bachelor’s Miss Metropolis got in on the action:

They are good at pretending they’re smart. They act the way they think smart people act (but you can see their clumsiness if you watch closely). They give a false appearance that they understand what you are saying, but, when it comes right down to it, they’re as dumb as door knobs. (Funny thing, how a tailored shirt and a pair of high-end glasses can make someone look smart … from a distance.)

All I got left after that screed is a “Daaaaamn, Gina.”

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I grew up in a bike friendly city in Northern California, so I know that DC isn’t particularly kind to its cyclists: narrow streets, odd parking lanes, and no room to maneuver a cycle. However, they’re permitted to use the wide sidewalks as a riding lane, provided they do so with deference to the pedestrians. Apparently this does not, however, extend to bike messengers, who largely piss me off with unsafe riding and acting like worthless cretins. This evening as Tiff and I walked down L St toward the garage, a cyclist used the sidewalk as his personal obstacle course, at speed, of course. He nearly collided with a woman walking down the street, after which he proceeded to call her a “fuckin’ bitch” and used some other colorful language that even I won’t print here.

When called on it, he was inches away from being violent with me as I told him to watch where he was going.

Folks, this is why people don’t get upset when bike messengers are hit by cars.

A little courtesy to the pedestrians on the sidewalk would go a long way to getting treated like human beings, instead of the derelicts on wheels that you are.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It’s hard to find a quiet spot this time of year. Everyone is so harried, running from party to get-together to mall to post office to airport. Not to mention entertaining out-of-town guests. Craziness usually ensues.

So it was a great pleasure to come across Bistro D’Oc Friday night. It’s a little French oasis downtown, located on the usually dead-but-for-school-groups block opposite Ford’s Theatre. Specializing in the regional food of the Languedoc of southern France, it’s the sort of place that lists daily specials on a blackboard, decorated in an eclectic homey style with orange smeared walls and a tin-pressed ceiling.

We wandered in around 9:30pm, on the off-chance that it would have desserts yummy enough to please a visiting friend from Rome (where do you take a guy who lives in a culinary nirvana??). It was the perfect nightcap – I had an almond brioche bread pudding, not too dense with just the right amount of almonds. My husband had a delicate fruit claufoutis, and the look of sublime contentment on the face of another friend digging into his triple chocolate ecstasy whatever-you-call-it was priceless. Of course our Roman visitor had tasted better crepes suzette in his day, but you can’t win all the time.

Perusing the dinner menu we kicked ourselves for not coming earlier. I think it’s just the ticket for a romantic winter date…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Last Wednesday at 4pm I was in a meeting with the VP of Field Operations and the CFO of my company. We’re talking about this new Geekcorps program we just won in Lebanon – Access to International Markets through Information Technology (AIM-IT), and how the VP is going to Beirut to start the program today.

I’m excited, for not only does this project mean Geekcorps doubles again in size, but that I get to go to Lebanon in January to start the programmatic cycle of the project. Or so I thought. My boss, talking about the size of the program and the need to get things going says to the CFO “Right, it is more work than I can do in two weeks. Wayan, can you go to Lebanon with me on Monday for two weeks?” Ha! Me? Lebanon? Two weeks? Monday? There is only one answer:

“Hell Yes!”

So sees ya DC Metblogs, I’m off to Beirut today for two weeks. Nice eh? Merry early Xmas to me!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

My girlfriends and I love tea. Especially the accompanying scones with clotted cream and jam, little pastries, and savory sandwiches. There’s nothing like getting a sugar rush and a caffeine high at one sitting! As opposed to the sometimes harried pace of holiday reservations at restaurants, tea is designed to let you linger. It’s the perfect relaxed get-together. For that reason it’s also wildly popular this time of year – we couldn’t even get reservations this month at the venerable Four Seasons in Georgetown. But luckily we decided to take the plunge and try a new spot this past Saturday, the Jefferson Hotel, which turned out to be perfect.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs Continue reading →

Traffic is one of those things that local DC people talk about when they need something to bitch about. It’s always on the agenda for the morning coffee run here, how bad South Capitol Street was, how bad 395 or the Suitland Parkway was, how godawful 66 was inside the Beltway. It’s become something of a joke how lengthy my commute can be in its worst situation. I live roughly six miles from downtown DC in Heathen Arlington, and the march up 395 can take up to an hour on really bad days.

One of the ideas that’s floating around is the High-Occupancy Toll Lanes that seems to be the cause du jour of the local DOT groups. The idea is that people will pay not to have to deal with traffic. Ideally, though, it seems that people may have to pay through the nose for it, according to a new WaPo article in today’s paper. A trip from Fredericksburg along the new HOT lanes could run you $30 for a “traffic free” experience. While tolls are scalable dependent upon how full the lanes are, can you really guarantee a dearth of traffic?

I’m not sure you can, especially in this town. Besides, how does this solve traffic for everyone? Just because some have the means to pay $30/direction for traffic, doesn’t mean the traffic will suddenly lighten on the inside. We need solutions that work for everyone, not just the cash rich.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The DC Council has finished negotiating the new baseball stadium lease – it has to be approved now, and for the policy wonks of the world, Councilmember David Catania has posted yesterday’s Stadium Lease Agreement and Amendments in PDF file versions, links below.
Lease Agreement (108 pages)
Amendments (22 pages)

The Wash Times gives a good synopsis of the lease highlights:

The commission appears to have been a tough negotiator on several aspects of the lease. If the Nationals’ owners were to move the team out of the District, they would have to pay the city the full $535 million used to pay for the ballpark, plus interest, and also pay for any potential revenue loss resulting from the team’s move.

Negotiators also secured $20 million from MLB to pay for a contingency toward stadium costs, an agreement for the city to receive two-thirds of the revenue from parking when the team is not playing, and use of the stadium for 18 events on nongame days — an unusually high amount for a baseball stadium. The commission also avoided giving up any development rights on or around the stadium site and will require the Nationals to offer 250,000 tickets each year at a 25 percent discount and distribute 8,000 free tickets to underprivileged youth.

Under the lease, the Nationals will pay $3.5 million in rent for the first year, with rent gradually increasing to $5.5 million by the sixth season. After that, the team will pay $10,000 less than 102 percent of the previous year’s rent. The team’s rent could rise if more tickets are sold, but also could remain flat if attendance is in the lower half of the league. The lease allows the team to play as many as three exhibition games in the ballpark and play one regular-season home game at an alternative site.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The Spy Lounge at Felix is set to re-open, and they will be celebrating with a very special fundraiser to help Executive Chef, Vincent Bradberry cover medical costs to treat an acute bone disease that insurance will not cover.

While others will be at the December 10th fundraiser, I’m gonna skip it, thank you very much. I can’t think of a cheaper, more kiniving owner than Alan Popsky, and I wouldn’t trust him to throw a fundraiser for taxi fare. If Vincent really is looking at high bills, think of giving to him directly.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

How’s this for email spam from your local ANC commissioner:

From: Thomas Smith, commissioner_1b09@yahoo.com:
Hey! Check out this great promotion. If you sign up we can both get a $100 Target gift card and save a bunch of money! Talk to you soon!
http://funcdeals.com/?r=EQETU1gRVQMlEVUBDSsD&i=yh&p=1002&z=1
Commissioner Thomas Kwesi Danda Smith
Single Member District 1B09
http://WWW.CommissionerSmith.Org

Seems there was a quick and swift uproar, for moments later we got this:

From: Thomas Smith, commissioner_1b09@yahoo.com:
I would like to apologize for any inconvenience this posting has caused. I attempted to send this email to a few individuals and some how it was sent to everyone in my address book. Again, I offer my apologies. And just for the record, this is not what public service has come to.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

According to the USPS website (and their worthless and frustrating 800 number), the phone number for the Ben Franklin Post Office at 1200 Penn Ave NW is 202.635.5300. Good luck getting through, though, as all that number leads to is a Verizon message that says the phone isn’t in service.

So, did the USPS forget to pay their latest bill? Because that would explain a lot about why my USPS packages haven’t gotten here, apparently the contents have been sold to pay the phone bills.

I hope my mom’s Christmas cookies got top dollar.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It’s funny, really, the way that snow works in this town. For two days before any winter weather event, Topper Shutt and other members of the Weather Fearmongering Horde (local 404) gather together and predict gloom and doom for the DC area, always predicting somewhere between 3 and 6″ for any storm, no matter how much precip it may actually drop on the area. See, that’s the magic number that causes everyone in the greater Metro area to think that perhaps the weatherman might be right this time, and head to the store in search of bread, milk, and other necessities. Including shovels, icepicks, giant sacks of snow-melt and other items that chances are they don’t really need but will buy like Duct Tape on the government’s recommendations. Schools will cancel classes 48 hours in advance or so, citing the “Think of the CHILDREN” logic and send every parent into a “holy crap, where-ever will I find a sitter?” mode.

Instead, what happens is that the Metro area gets either an inch or two of fluffy snow, or an inch or less of compacted slush (like last night), and everyone looks around, does a collective WTF shrug and goes about their lives.

Last night was no exception, as Bobby Ryan was saying 2-4″ or so through the night and a terribly messy commute. When we left the midnight screening of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, there was a light dusting of snow on the car and the parking lot over at Hoffman Center, but Alexandria and Arlington both had their road crews out in force and the drive back to the hacienda.

More insidious, though, is the two hour delay, which is what we’re experiencing this morning. Not a full day off, not enough additional sleep to count for anything worthwhile. Just enough to piss us all off.

Thanks, Weather Gods. Can we please get some blizzard love? I think this town needs a snow day something fierce.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Mmm cake

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

If you haven’t heard of Cake Love, and you live around here, please come out of the cave and into the sweet, buttery light. Baker Warren Brown’s been all over the media scene in the last few years, after ditching his legal briefs in exchange for delicious dense cake with buttercream frosting that will cause your arteries to harden just by its mere presence in the same room.

Warren’s opening up a second shop in Silver Spring (935 Ellsworth Drive) in the coming weeks, and has just announced in an online chat that Northern Virginia will get its own Cake Love!

Warren Brown: Yes, CakeLove plans on opening in the Clarendon area in 2006. We’re excited about it and know that we have a lot of loyal customers in NoVA. We’re with ya and want to be there quickly, too!

I love seeing local businesses beat out the chains, and one place that this works best is in niche markets like bakeries and clothiers. Way to go Warren!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Brad Wilkerson was sent to the Texas Rangers last night, along with Terrmel Sledge and a minor leaguer in exchange for Alfonso Soriano. You may remember Sledge from such appearances as “In which I’m invited to model the uniforms, only to have the event cancelled by Evil Commish Selig in a power play” and “Hey look, I ripped my hamstring clear of the bone!”, so that’s no giant loss, but it appears that Chevy Chase Bank is going to need a new spokesman for their baseball-themed ads. And, according to Chris Needham we now have nine second basemen:

Just for mierda and giggles, the comprehensive list of Nationals currently under the club’s control who could play second base next year: Jose Vidro, Alfonso Soriano, Jamey Carroll, Junior Spivey, Damian Jackson, Marlon Anderson, Bernie Castro [edit:Brendan Harris, too!], and Rick Short.

So, good news is that we’re deeper than the Marianis at that position. Hey Jimmy Bo, how are we doing, y’know, with pitching? Loaiza signed with the A’s. That’s one fewer starter…and none of ours are, say, terribly good… Whatcha got for us, Jimmy Bo? They say that Soriano’s going to play Left, but we already had about 6.02 x 10^23 outfielders, so what happens there? Church had a good run, but does this mean he’s sitting bench in favor of Marlon?

Too many questions, not enough answers.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Heads up, Metro, this one sounds like something you’d definitely want to get working on right now:

Today, we are happy and proud to tell you that their efforts have resulted in a new Google Labs experiment: Google Transit Trip Planner. With it, commuters will be able to easily access public transit schedules, routes, and plan trips using their local public transportation options. This first release covers only the Portland, Oregon metro area, but we are working to expand our coverage very soon. (If you’re from a local transit agency interested in being included in Google Transit, we would love to speak with you. Just write to us.)

I’d love to see The Ride Guide replaced with some sweet Google lovin’, if you know what I mean. C’mon Metro, step up, this would be awesome!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I just have to ask… who the FUCK designed Columbia, MD? I’m not talking about the residential portion of one of America’s first planned communities (but the wisdom of creating an entire community with no reliable landmarks that aren’t duplicated 4 blocks later is questionable). I’m talking about whoever the mental giant was that designed the business district.

My business partner and I had to drive from downtown DC to Columbia, MD today to deliver our company’s annual holiday gift to a client there. Keep in mind, this is typically a 5 minute visit, and we’re driving 33 miles to do it. Why? Because someone three levels up from us decided that every one of our active clients had to get this gift. In person.

So we get off 95 at Columbia to discover that there are no damn street signs, rendering our Google directions useless. We stumble our way to the business district on Dobbins Rd, looking for #6440. Approximately where 6440 should be is a shopping center. It contains 6435, 6445, 6450, but no 6440, and no one has any idea where it is. So we go across the street and find a 6440, but it’s an auto-parts store. Great.

Another quarter-mile down the road, in yet another complex, we find what? A SECOND 6440!!! WTF? How can there be so many buildings labeled 6440? Does that not confuse the mail carrier?!

Having completed our 5 minute errand after an hour and a half of driving around, we decide we need some hot chocolate for the ride home and decide to go to the nearby Starbucks. But you can’t get to that Starbucks from the same thoroughfare we were on. There was no driveway into the (yet another) complex it was situated in. Just grass and landscaping.

We had to turn down an unmarked side street to find what was apparently the only driveway into the center. It took us to the loading docks area, where we had to then take a hairpin turn back toward the Starbucks and wind our way around to the front of the building.

Who the hell designs a shopping center this way? Why would you send your shoppers to the loading docks first? That’s like… like joining a dating site and using a photo of your armpit in your profile! Sure, it’s you, but it’s not exactly the best first impression.

I don’t know who designed the Columbia business district, but they did a shitty, shitty job.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Last night’s outing is today’s hoarse throat. Was it due to the issue du jour, a smoky bar? Well, yes and no. I did go to a bar where people were smoking, but they were also singing, and after a few pints to celebrate my husband’s birthday, so was I…

The flyer for “Twisted Karaoke Tuesdays – the Best of 80’s, Punk, and Glam,” could hardly be resisted. So it was back to The Reef for an evening of fun. I remembered reading that Wayan had visited the event back in the summer and found it lacking, but at that point it was billed as a strictly metal event, and since then they’ve expanded the genres. So we decided to give it another shot. What better way to celebrate a birthday than good-humored humiliation in front of your dearest friends?

At first we panicked when the DJ/Emcee started off with 80’s of the Paula Abdul variety instead of say, The Clash variety. But after a brave couple did a duet to David Bowie, we relaxed. There would be some glam after all, and though we never did get any punk, someone did do a head-banging Slayer rendition that even included some dead-on air guitar.

The crowd was great – from the self-deprecating howlers bravely giving it their all to some truly brilliant divas with the moves. It was a really good mixture – no haters, everyone applauding and having fun. By the end of the night I’d been talked into a duet with my birthday boy, yodeling to the B-52’s. Crazy. No wonder my throat hurts today. But it was worth it.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

… Looks like Chicago is banning smoking as well! Though, they appear to be phasing it in over 2 1/2 years, instead of the one year phase in that the proposed ban here would allow.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Bagpipe murderer

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

Have you seen this guy violating his bagpipe in front of Farragut North? He’s horrible. Like “Please pay him to shut up” horrible. Isn’t the idea of being a street musician being good at what you do?

I love good bagpipes. They’re a wonderful thing. When played by good pipers.

In the hands of this charlatan, it sounds like he’s violating a cat.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs