For a month now, Zucchabar’s 80’s Rock N’ Roll Night was advertising a Kill the Keg- free beer from 9-10pm on Saturdays. While I am all about free beer and no cover, I wonder what this is doing to their bottom line.

Anyone make it to one of these nights and seen the crowd? I’m thinking if its Adams-Morgan on a Saturday night, it’ll be a wall-to-wall sausage party. An 80’s sausage party to boot. At least you can get a glow bracelets & other 80’s stuff.

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I can just see the smile on Tom’s face as he reads this, both the flax tax angle and the taxation without representation angle, and I know he’s gonna be commenting. So with a wiry smile I note that the New York Sun reports:

Senator Brownback, a Republican of Kansas, is looking to introduce legislation that would make Washington a “laboratory” for testing a flat tax’s merits, and will hold hearings early next year to explore the issue.”

I’m excited about it,” Mr. Brownback told The New York Sun in a phone interview earlier this week. Mr. Brownback said that making D.C. a test case would, with limited potential for negative impact, provide valuable data about the effects of a flat tax that would prove helpful in determining whether it should be applied nationwide

Here we go again, some crazy-ass Congressman is thinking DC is his personal sandbox. If he wants to mess with the tax structure, I say go with no Federal taxes. Not only would that be right – no taxation without representation – it would spur growth, investment, and a massive influx of Republicans like nuttin else would.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Match.com just delivered an interesting “match” to my inbox with its fun auto-matching logarithm. Seemingly less perfect than DC Domme, it thinks that Lisa_2004fun is the right one for me.

Hmm

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Nothing says the holiday season to me more than the ballet “The Nutcracker.” Tonight WETA is showing the 1977 American Ballet Theater version with Mikhail Baryshnikov – though it’s part of their pledge drive so I’m taking a break from childhood nostalgia to check out the local Nutcracker options. As a baby ballerina I was obsessed with the ABT version and tried to mimic Clara’s every move. But almost all ballet companies have their own take on the classic libretto, backed by Tchaikovsky’s memorable score. It’s about a girl who is given a special nutcracker as a Christmas present, and ends up on a magical journey towards womanhood. Corny? Sure, but also part of many a cherished girlhood dream.

Here in Washington, two top-notch companies will be performing their special spins on this tale – the venerable American Ballet Theater itself, and our own local Washington Ballet. ABT will be performing at the Kennedy Center from December 7 -11, and this will be the version familiar to most. The always creative Washington Ballet will be performing Artistic Director Septime Weber’s version (which debuted last year) with a distinctly Washingtonian flair at the Warner Theater all month, from tonight through December 24. I think this last is the one I want to see this year. They even promise Anacostian Indians!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

A good friend of mine just sent me this interesting Craigslist DC personals ad, asking me Did you post this???? Now why would she be thinking that?

Because I “prefer to meet up for coffee or a beer, as opposed to lengthy email exchanges” or even dinner? Or that I’m “a bit older, but looks younger and relates to all ages”? Or just “attractive, active, fit, fun and open minded”?

Alas, while I could stand in for the writer, it’s not I. No, I learned my cradle-robbing lesson long ago with this great “hands off, lecherous geezer” email from a friend’s much younger sister:

I am deeply flattered but I just cant face the ridicule, jokes, and other horrible comments that will come with me going out with one of my brother’s friends. If that isn’t reason enough, just think that when you were a freshmen in college and chasing sorority girls in skirts, I was in the fourth grade, learning about the reproductive system for the very first time.

Nice, eh? So good luck to the SWM, may he be luckier than I. May we all.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Jimmy Wales founder of Wikipedia spoke at the Institute for International Economics today on the topic of “Wikipedia and Global Development.” It was a packed room- all I could see was the top half of the projection screen over the heads of the taller people in front of me.

It was an interesting presentation- there was a good chunk of introductory material towards the beginning, an overview of what Wikipedia it is and how popular it is for the non-geeks in the room (probably 1/3 of the attendees said they have edited Wikipedia articles). But then he got into a particularly interesting topic to me- the regulation of content and community. Not being a Wikipedia editor myself, I hadn’t realized that the vote-for-deletion and discussion pages are things that had grown out of the community and aren’t software-driven at all.

I’m a recruiter- how did I get into such an interesting event? For free, even? Like anything else in DC, it’s about who you know. Or in this case, which professional associations’ listservs you join. I think I count three DC Metrobloggers on the 501techclub list these days… Alas, my partner and I had to get back to work, so we didn’t get to hang out for the Q&A session afterwards, but it was a pretty worthy way to spend an hour out of the office.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I’m reading an email from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield today, and just before I delete it, I notice Route 123 in the fine print. Route 123. That seemed odd so I stopped and read all the fine print, and what do you know, Route 123 is place checked in a national distributed email.

In Virginia: Anthem Health Plans of Virginia, Inc. Independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Serving residents and businesses in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Virginia (excluding the city of Fairfax, the town of Vienna and the area east of State Route 123).

I wonder why Route 123? Too many people die playing Fairfax Frogger? Or maybe its Unusual Candor capping too many home invaders? My bet, they’re scared of poker night holdup casualties.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

left view of lucky strike

Originally uploaded by sbma44.

Lucky Strike had their grand opening at their Gallery Place location, according to these awesome pictures from flickr user sbma44 who went out to the Grand Opening. I had an awesome time at the Hollywood location, which had great food and even better bowling. Have you been out to the new Lucky Strike? Let us know what you think!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs