Ah the humor in it all… After having their previous Texas Hold’em Tournament robbed at gun point, this past week, the same and ever popular NoVA Texas Hold’em Tournament was robbed again.

How could the same game get robbed again, you ask? Oh maybe because of its advertising. Seems they invited the wrong people, or at least too many. To quote the WashPost:

Before the [first] Fairfax robbery, those on the e-mail list, from across Northern Virginia, numbered about 500, the host said. After the robbery, he and others slimmed down the list to the 170 people they most trusted [for this game].

Slimmed down to 170 people. Do you know 170 you would trust to come to your home? Do you even know 170 people?! And if you were robbed the last time you had a poker party, wouldn’t you think twice about having one again?

Or having one at all, as gambling is illegal in NoVA, right? You wouldn’t know it by this great quote:

“We used to have a place where we could play comfortably seven days a week, and that’s been narrowed to two to three times,” said the host

Playing Texas Hold’em seven nights a week? What are you – The Great Zucchini of poker parties?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

A number of people may not be aware of this, but just as a right on red is legal in the District of Columbia, so is a left, provided that you are on a one-way street and turning onto another one-way street. It’s hard to verify, since for no reason I can discern you can’t get the DC driver’s handbook online – there’s only the practice test

What is easy to verify, however, is that if you want me to turn on red there is no way other than patience for you to make it happen. What you can make happen is me waiting through the entire red light, which is accomplished by leaning on your horn. See, here’s the thing, Sparky. I can turn on red, but I don’t have to turn on red. So when someone is rude to me and I have nowhere to be, I’m gonna take my sweet time. So you got to wait out the light. Oops. I know you didn’t appreciate it based on your subsequent behavior, but here’s hoping you took a lesson from the experience.

Not all States allow right or left on red, by the way, so if you will be traveling anytime soon you can consult this excellent list of links to driving manuals in all the States.

Image from the VA complete driver’s manual.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Seems kids in Northeast, forgetting that guns are banned in DC, played a modified game of Russian Roulette to the death last week. Instead of putting a revolver with a single round to their own own head, they pointed the gun at each other during turns. Inventive, yes, smart, no, as now another kid is dead with a hole in his head, allowing a DC politico to pipe up with a great comment after the fact.

In the WashPost, D.C. Council member Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7) “said the slaying and game of roulette also highlighted problems with the ‘adult supervision in the lives of these kids’ and others who are the victims of gun violence.”

Adult supervision eh? Say the kind of adult supervision found in Maryland? There 7 year-olds bring Dad’s gun to school and tag little girls.

Or maybe he meant the kind of adult supervision of firearms in Virginia, where even legislators let shots fly. Apparently, Henrico County Legislator Jack Reid (R)is so Dirty Harry, he’s willing to pop a cap into pretty much anything, including his own bullet proof vest when it got uppity yesterday.

Ah, but its not the handgun’s, fault, right? To quote the brilliant Virginia House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem :

In the DailyPress: “The truth is you’re more likely to get hurt in a car accident than by a gun, so why restrict people’s freedoms,” Griffith said. “What if we restricted cars because people die in wrecks?”

And the Roanoke Times“We’ve got six elevators” in the General Assembly Building, Griffith said. “If one of them crashes, that’s a problem. It doesn’t mean we ban elevators.”

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Remember those early mornings in High School when Honors Physics only ever met at 7:45am? Or swim practice at 6am? They could soon be a thing of the past in DC if a local group gets their way. Of course, those of us who lived to tell about the 7:45am classes get to be a little bitter if some whiny crybaby students somehow manage to convince a school board to make their classes later so they could party more…

Wait, that’s college, isn’t it?

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Some of the most amazing visuals to come out of local agency NASA in the last decade have been from the Mars rover project. Now there’s a movie coming up, in IMAX no less, all about the project. Directed by George Butler who brought us “Pumping Iron,” of all things, the film looks to be fantastic. Those rover pictures were amazing on the small screen; I can only imagine what IMAX will do for them.

It’ll opens at the Air & Space museum at 6th and Constitution on Friday the 27th. Unlike the museum itself, admission to the IMAX shows isn’t free – expect to pay $8.50.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

So DC has a parking problem. That isn’t news to anyone who lives here. And now Mayor Williams says he’s gonna help alleviate the parking woes by capping the number of cars allotted per household at three and raising residential parking permit fees for one permit from $15 to $25. A permit for a second car would cost $50 and the third would be $100.

Now we’re hearing all the usual bitching, most saying that the parking problem isn’t local DC residents, but out-of-area cars on the streets at night – permanent residents not registering in DC, temporary District visitors just in for the weekend, and evening commuters (bar/restaruant staff) . While that is somewhat true, you have to change local DC resident’s actions as much as those driving in.

How to do that? By getting real. Charging $25 for a parking permit is stupid cheap. If you want to effect change, you have to make it hurt to continue the current activity and feel good by changing the activity. I say charge $100 per year for an on-street permit or get a $100 tax credit if you do not have an on-street parking permit but have a DC driver’s license and $50 if you have both a license and a car, but no on-street registration. Then graduate the second and third permit prices higher – say $250 and $500. Last but not least, make most residential streets permit zoned 100% of the time.

This would have two effects:
1) People going car free DC would be rewarded the most. People with cars, but with off-street parking would be rewarded slightly. Those with on-street parking, using the most limited/expensive to the city resource would pay the most. People would change their habits accordingly.

2) People driving in on nights and weekends, if they live here or not, would be punished if they didn’t use a parking garage and tried use the limited street parking. As one who had a Florida-registered car in DC for three years before giving it to Mom the day I lost my off-street parking, I can attest to how fast unregistered cars belonging to residents would be registered or disappear. For those that come in from other areas (in the District or outside) who don’t like to pay for parking, two words: Metro, Taxi

Now if we only had a Mayor and Council members with the balls to try that…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I experienced lunch from the best burrito cart in the city the other day. My coworker insisted that we walk to the burrito guy at 15th and K instead of the one at 17th and K, closer to our office. This wasn’t a problem for me, since I had never been all that impressed by the burritos at 17th and K anyway.

Mmm, best street-burrito I’ve ever had. 15th & K Burrito Man has a broad range of tortilla options, two kinds of beans, three sizes of burrito, choice of regular or lite cheese, and an impressive hot sauce collection, complete with available tortilla chips for taste-testing.

Payment is done by honor system, with each burrito-fan making his or her own change. There’s a burrito loyalty-card program, and the burrito guy will make sure you remember to take your free peppermint patty on your way back to the office with your tasty lunch.

The story goes that a guy who had his burrito street-cart license from the city for 20 years wanted to retire and find someone to pass on his permit to. Very Willy Wonka, no? So he held a burrito cookoff, and awarded the permit to the maker of the best burrito. The winner, so the legend goes, is the guy who owns Pedro and Vinny’s now.

Of course, I didn’t get a chance to ask him about this, since I heard the story after we walked away with our burritos. (With guacamole. Mmm.)

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Puerto Rico, Guam, The US Virgin Islands, they all get their own Olympic Delegation for Torino. They all have just one non voting representative in the House, just like us, here in DC. So, why not a DC Olympic Team? Sounds good by me. They’ve assembled a Curling Team to represent the District at Torino, assuming they can convince the IOC to let them in. From the FAQ comes this gem:

If someone wins a medal, what song will be played at the podium?

Good question. Since we are Americans, it would still be the “Star Spangled Banner” just like the U.S. Olympic teams do. Hoewever, we’d love to get a a go-go version of the song made by Chuck Brown.

We fully back the DCOC for IOC recognition in Torino.

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The Virginia Senate today passed a bill to place on a general statewide ballot in November a ban on same sex marriage, just days after the House of Delegates did the same. The ban would come in the form of an addition to the Virginia Bill of Rights, authored by George Mason in 1776, which has not been altered in a decade. Naturally, expect a major battle in the coming months between gay rights advocates (most of whom will not be able to vote in the election, as they would be coming from out of state), and conservatives in Virginia. I fully expect there to be fireworks. This one should be interesting, indeed.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I just got my first Valentines Day party announcement in my inbox – this one from Café Luna & skewers, which means it’s high time I get my butt in gear to leave the country.

See, I’ve found the most sure-fire way to be free of the Hallmark Holiday that Valentines has become is to flee the USA. Only overseas, without your nagging beautiful lover along, can you truly escape the stupidity of the manufactured “holiday”. My underlying bone: I’m a great guy 364 days out of the week to all my supermodels. Why should I have to prove it on the 365th?

So in the spirit of getting out of town to places exotic and Hallmark-free, I present to you the ultimate in escape airfare idea websites for Washington DC airports:

For your basic “I need to get outta town NOW!” cheap-o flight, try Yahoo! Best Fares Website, where you’ll have a no-frill list of flights, cheapest to most expensive.

Then, for the visual folks, we have the very cool Kayak.com, a site that shows you every destination and related price, airline, and dates on a Google map.

Now get your travel grove on while the getting is still good. Me, I’m headed to Puerto Rico!

Travel Tip: WAS is the airport code to search flights from all area airports: National (DCA), Dulles (IAD) and B’More (BWI).

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well, okay, it’s not an official holiday, though it may seem like one here at DC Metblogs. Tom mentioned the exhibit at the Spy Museum and a little earlier mentioned the permit kerfuffle over at Walter Reed. Today we have students at Georgetown speaking out during a Alberto Gonzales appearance and expressing their concern over recent NSA spying news.

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It’s not that I don’t appreciate your upgrading my coffee options, darlings, but we geeks need our toys first and coffee second. After all, there’s lots of other caffeine delivery systems out there to pick from. Our very own Fairfax-based nerd-toy seller Think Geek has a suite of stuff ranging from caffeinated mints and gums to sodas and effervescent tablets, a la Alka-Seltzer, so I can manage that part myself.

No, what I need more than that is bandwidth and you’ve scorned me for other cities. C’mon, Long Beach and JFK get it but we don’t? JFK I get, given the number of flights you run out of there. But Long Beach? We’ve got almost as many flights! Pony up the bits, Blue!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Slashfood has an article today on what it’s like to set the menu at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and it’s got some amazing limitations for chefs:

Flambés are banned, after a woman leaning over her dessert caused her fox-fur scarf to catch fire in 2001. Foods that smell very strongly and might be offensive to some guests, like pungent fish or garlic-heavy dishes, are kept at a distance. Gravies and sauces are kept to a minimum as well to decrease the likelihood of drips ruining formal attire.

While formal attire may limit the menu a bit, Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford has been cooking up some amazing events, including the state dinner with Charles and Camilla last November. Look at those hors d’oeuvre!

Technorati Tags: DC, food, White House

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

What would you do if you woke up last Saturday morning and checked your Virginia Lottery Mega Millions numbers from Friday’s drawing in Saturday’s Washington Post and your numbers matched the $31,000,000 (that’s $31 million, folks) grand prize?

Right after you checked the numbers a second time, had a mild heart attack and then hurt yourself shouting and showing the loved ones, would you call your boss? Would you tell his voice mail that you weren’t coming in on Monday because he was an unprintable string of obscenities to you at work? Would you get right good and old skol & play the song “Take this job and shove it” in the background while you did that?

Then, the real question becomes: what would you do when you read this little correction in the Wash Post on Sunday? The one that means you were one of the two that matched 5 numbers for $250,000 but not the Mega Millions for $31 million? That after tax, you were looking at $150,000, a tidy sum yes, but not Mega Millions. Would you call that boss back and beg or stay at home for a year or two?

And would you ever, ever read the Post again?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

There’s going to be a live discussion on WashingtonPost.com about the post.blog comment shutdown from last week and the technical and ethical issues around it. It’s going to start at 1pm this afternoon so if you want to watch it and/or ask questions, you can go here. If you’re late for the party you can still read it after the fact.

One thing we supposedly know already is that comments will return. Dan Gillmor heard from WaPo-online editor Jim Brady and supposedly they’ll return sooner rather than later. I find the facts as they were told to Dan a little questionable, though. The implication of what was told to Dan seems to be that it’s about accountability and identifying a poster, but over on his live chat from Friday Brady implies it’s a content issue. Proof will be in the pudding, I suppose. Anyone want to start a pool on how long till comments return?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

We’ve talked about Arlington Beer Bar Dr. Dremo on numerous occasions here, as their location saga has gone on and on while the County Council discusses the zoning of the land, and such. The latest in the saga is that the buyer of the land on which Dremo and the Taco Bell sit has requested a 9 month delay in the final closing of the sale, so the earliest that the land would be sold would be September of ’06 instead of this month. Looks like another hot summer with no air conditioning at Dremo!

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We’re lucky enough in this town to have some incredible events at some of the amazing museums. This week’s highlight is a session at the Spy Museum called The FBI and the Weather Underground. The talk will cover the history of an American counter culture group called Weather Underground, which were an offshoot of the SDS movement in the 1970s. They blew up a statue or two in Chicago, caused riots, and leveled a house in an explosion that was meant for a noncommissioned officer’s ball. The talk is unique because not only will they have the FBI agent assigned to part of the case, but one of the founders of the Weather Undeground as well:

In the late 1960s and early 1970s long-simmering public unrest over the Vietnam War, social reform, and civil rights erupted into violent radical protest. When the Weather Underground began a series of bombings — including strikes on the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon – as acts of war against the United States, its young members became the target of one of the largest FBI manhunts in history. Bill Ayers, a founding member of the militant political organization and author of Fugitive Days, will recount the origins of the WUO, its purpose, as well as his own evolving feelings about its actions and legacy. Don Strickland, a former FBI agent assigned to the WUO case, will discuss the Bureau’s wide-ranging efforts to deal with the WUO’s violent acts and track down Underground fugitives, many of whom had become skillful in adopting aliases, forging identification, and selecting hideouts. Join these two former adversaries for an evening of reflection and revelation about an incendiary time in American history.

If you’re big on Spy stuff, or just want a scintillating lecture on the history of the 1970s FBI, $20 buys you a ticket to this event.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

There’s a Brainjam in DC on Monday at the DC Improv.

What’s a Brainjam, I hear you ask? I haven’t been to one either, but judging by the description on the website, it’s like speed-networking mashed with free-form conversations about hot topics of interest to the attendees- blogging, digital identity and trust, managing information overload through social bookmarking tools, etc.

Because I have the kind of job for which networking is a requirement, I actually get to take time out of my workday to go to this. Will I see you there?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

A more cynical person might say that’s almost the Washington Capitals’ tagline, but I think even the most optimistic of us has to look at the line from this article with some dark humor.

The loss snapped the Capitals’ four-game winning streak, their longest in three years. They had been looking to win five in a row for the first time since March 2001.

Maybe someone who paid better attention in statistics can back me up on this one, but even if you’re winning only 1/2 the time (like when flipping a coin) you’ve got a 6% chance to hit 4 in a row in any given sequence. To not pull that off in an 82 game season is sad.

On the other hand, I think the writing is a little sad too. Talking about hockey statistics over the last three years is a little… odd. Shouldn’t you talk about the last three seasons played? After all, I don’t remember any standout performances in the NHL for the 2004-2005 season…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Since March, the corner opposite the entrance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center has been occupied by protest groups including Code Pink, who use the corner to display protest messages against the war in Iraq toward the hospital where troops are recuperating after war injuries. Apparently, they forgot to renew their permit. The countering group Protest Warrior has bought them instead and now reside on all four corners of the entrance to Walter Reed.

Oops. Lesson to all: keep your protest permits current if you want to do something controversial on a regular basis, or someone else will snatch them up when you forget.

Technorati Tags: DC, protests

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs