Step one of the smoking ban in the District starts today. Any restaurant or enclosed public space that isn’t a bar or nightclub no longer is legally permitted to allow smoking. The DC Health Department has said that they won’t be out en masse to enforce the new law, but I would bet that many establishments won’t want to risk being the example.

This puts us one step closer to a no-smoking lamp being lit in the District’s bars and nightclubs as well, which makes my clothes just explode with joy. No more coming home from a night out smelling like an ashtray, thank god!

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There’s a fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association’s Tour De Cure tonight at the Arlington Cinema N Drafthouse. The movie starts at 7:15, and tonight it’s the perennial favorite, The Blues Brothers. The cost? A mere $7. It’s not often that you can go to a kickin’ fundraiser in this town without sacrificing your first born or selling your car. $7 is what you’d pay for a bloody matinee at any of the theatres here in town. And you can’t even drink beer at them! So show up tonight, and show up early for the raffles and the social hour. Tell them Metblogs sent you.

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new tech at the post office

Check this out: there is now automated self-serve at the post office. Spotted at the 14th and L streets branch, this little kiosk will weigh your mail and take debit or credit for payment.

Before you get too excited, results are mixed. Several people defected from the shorter kiosk line to the longer normal line claiming that the self-serve line was too slow.

Thats nice to know. What do you know?

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And now it begins

If you were just outside, even for a moment, I hope you have a towel and dry clothes. For those indoors, I hope you were near a window. The rain, wind, and light show from that front passing are quite a sight.

From my apartment window, the clouds rolled through in a wave, the rain came instantly, and now the night is punctuated with flashes of lightening.

Thanks for the fun, Mother Nature.

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The National Weather Service has issued a Tornado Watch for the Greater DC area, including much of Virginia and Maryland until Midnight tonight. What’s that mean? Well, it could mean tornadoes, hail, heavy wind (up to 80mph), and some seriously severe weather. Is it a guarantee? No, it is not. Things will get more serious if a funnel shaped cloud forms, which means we switch to a Tornado Warning, which means open the cellar doors and move the kids down.

While there’s no update yet on Capital Weather, they’re usually right on top of things like this, and would be an excellent source of information in the coming hours. The cold front coming through is pretty large, and we’ll probably only be in the 50s on Tuesday and Wednesday. Don’t pack away those sweaters just yet.

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Well, it’s all over up at Shea Stadium and the Nats will start the season 0-1. Livan Hernandez pitched very well today, and the Nats hit the ball well, but still managed to lose 3-2. It did not help, of course, to see two terribly made calls in the 8th and 9th innings against Alfonso Soriano and Jose Vidro, both of whom were absolutely robbed. But hey, new season, new players, and one loss isn’t the end of the world in baseball.

The offense today wasn’t explosive, but Jose Vidro went 3 for 5 with an RBI, Soriano was 2 for 3 with a walk, though we’ll have to work on Brandon Watson in the leadoff slot, who went only 1 for 4.

Welcome to the new season! Tomorrow the Nats are off, but they play again Wednesday in New York.

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kobe bryant of boggle

Sunday nights at Wonderland Ballroom always draw an eclectic crew and last night was no exception.

While holding court with my own UNO championships, I met the self-proclaimed “Kobe Bryant of Boggle”. That would be the woman on the right. On the left is her heavy husband. No word on if she had to bribe him to stay on with a $4 mill rock.

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Azalea

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

While everyone is focusing on the cherry trees around the Mall, there’s another great floral sight all throughout the DC area: Azaleas. I saw a few good purple ones in Falls Church this weekend, but over the coming week or two, we’ll see magenta, purple, pink, white and every manner of color in between. I love driving up Military Trail in North Arlington this time of year, as the owners of the houses there put on a floral fireworks show with all their azaleas.

This azalea is my newest one, planted this weekend. Should be peak long about Thursday or so.

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It’s entirely possible that this story is the exact opposite of the MetroBlogging sole guideline: stories about your locale. However I think it’s (ahem) supremely interesting…

SCOTUSBlog has reported on a bill introduced that would compel the Supreme Court to televise all open proceedings unless there is a compelling reason not to, and further spells out the only reason the court would be free to restrict that televising – a violation of a participant’s due process rights.

I say this may be relevant to everyone except us because we locals are the only ones who can try to see the court in operation without a lot of potentially expensive travel. If we want to watch oral arguments the instructions on the website are pretty simple: show up and get in line at least 30 minutes before and you may or may not get in. Pretty trivial for me to come into the city and make a possibly failed attempt, but a whole other thing if you’re in Wisconsin or Georgia.

Is Congress interested in letting everyone see the big wheels of justice grind or are they just pissed they missed their chance to watch Anna Nicole?

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As WFY reminded us, today is Opening Day for the Nationals. After two and a half innings at freezing cold Shea Stadium, the score is tied at 0, and Livan Hernandez has the only hit for the Nats. Livan has a couple of Ks, as well, putting pretty much the entire team on his admittedly weakened shoulders….

Go Nats!

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WTOP is reporting that the Capitol has been evacuated following a loss of power. No word on the return of utilities at this point. Got a tip for us? Drop a comment.

Update

Well, Power’s back on now, after 90 minutes of work:

Mary-Beth Hutchinson, a spokeswoman for Potomac Electric Power Co., said the electricity was shut off automatically after there was “a momentary drop in voltage due to customer operations up the lines” away from the Capitol.

“The protective equipment sensed the significant change in voltage and tripped,” she said.

Whoever it was that decided to fire up that new supercomputer cluster….oops.

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After Tom posted about the Scott ‘Count’ Bakula chat that was going to happen on the Post WashingtonPost.com (since we know they’re not the same entity, no-sir-e, unless it’s good for us, in which case they are) I went and added my own question. I finally got around to going back and reading the whole thing and was happy to see they used my overly-compound query.

Sterling, Va.: The promo for this chat lists Quantum Leap, a show you did 10 years ago, before Enterprise or the Oscar winning American Beauty. How do you feel about how strongly you’re associated with that show? Do you think it’s helped or hurt you in making your career go where you wanted it to? If it’s a positive thing for you, what’s your fondest memory about working on that show?

Scott Bakula: It’s definitely a positive element to my career. It put me on the map in a very good light in terms of critics, in terms of fans and in terms of how I am perceived within the industry so I am grateful that I had that experience and it remains a positive.

My fondest memory and it would be hard for me to pick one but I really enjoyed moving from episode to episode and the many, many challenges that were presented to me as an actor from roping cattle to flying on the trapeze to heavyweight boxing to playing a pregnant woman. The show allowed me to think outside the box in terms of my acting and helped me expand in all areas of my life.

It’s a good interview and certainly does nothing to refute his rep as a just unbelievably nice guy. Someday we’re going to hear that he has been burying nuns in his backyard since 1974. Go check it out.

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Got a sack of money for travel at your disposal? Try Maxjet from Dulles to London. Sure, it might only be $1000 plus taxes to go, but you’ll be flying business class into Stansted. I just can’t get excited about $1000 airfares to Europe, really. But, if that floats your boat, by all means…

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Millions and still a bad dresser?

Now isn’t this interesting. Jeseca12, a 24 year old Washingtonian woman, is looking for a “very responssible man that is going to be there for me. a very nice, hombe, caring, honest, truthful, respectful” and just happens to have a life story startlingly similar to Nigerian 419 scams.

We have tragedy:

i loss my dad and my mom wen i was 4years of age my dad am mom live house on about to travel to there company in spain den. it was bad news hearing to me that dad and mom. they where have a hearpleine crach

We have wealth:

because my dad has about. 8.6millionusd. in is account…the lawyer make me to know that even if i can be with a man any where time now. he his going to transfer the money in my dad account to the man who i call my husband account

And we have the way you can help:

so i will like to fined my true lovely match here and i will be happy to fined my happy reasponssible lover here that we care alot for my life

Now if we only had spelling, grammar, and a hint of plausibility. But no matter, I am sure there will be a sucker (or a dozen) even here in smarty-pants DC that will fall for Jeseca12‘s scam.

I hope it will not be you.

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On Thursday of last week, I wrote: “With disparate and disjointed emergency response systems across eight counties and the District, you’d think that we’d have enough people to make sure that there was a plan.

You’d Be Wrong.”

Today, on the WashingtonPost.com: “You might think 55 months would be enough to produce an anti-terrorism plan. You’d be wrong.”

Didn’t you guys just sack someone for plagiarism recently?

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now this was a weekend!

Now how was that for a weekend? Stunning, eh? Worthy of memories and marigolds? What did you get up to?

The DC Metroblogging single set started it off right with a Patio Party Time on Friday, went for a Wonderland Beergarden on Saturday, and finished with Dupont Circle people watching on Sunday.

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Washington & the Cherries

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

With the weather nearly perfect, and the cherries at their peak, we walked from Downtown to the World War II Memorial, sat and had a nice lunch from the Farmer’s Market in Courthouse (where things are picking up, I expect two weeks and we’ll be up to par.), enjoying the throngs around us.

From there, it was to the Tidal Basin, and the stone lantern and the stone pagoda, as well as 100,000 of our closest tourist friends.

We wandered through the FDR memorial, for Jeff hadn’t seen it yet, enjoyed the words of they who’ve gone before us, and the artisans who were painting on the Mall.

The Jefferson Memorial was packed to the gills with folks watching the bands on the stage there, though many were reading the words of the Declaration of Independence, or walking between the columns that surround the memorial.

It was a lovely day yesterday, and a more beautiful one yet today, as I planted my spring garden, including a new azalea. Welcome to the lovely season, DC.

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Movin’ up!

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

On the way back from the garden store today, I ran across this sign in my neighborhood. How the hell does Fairlington rate a Sotheby’s client? Is my neighborhood really that far up the scale in the greater DC area that it requires a prestigious British auction house for realty?

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healthy people

Congratulations to the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler finishers. You just ran 10 miles through DC on a beautiful spring morning and are now flooding area brunch spots with your triumphant and sweaty bodies.

I salute you, from my warm, soft bed. I, unlike you, think 10 miles is way to far to run and 8am (7am pre-time change) too early to rise on a Sunday.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Signalized?!

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

Tiff and I did go hang out with Wayan down at the Fox & Hounds on 17th tonight, partaking in their incredibly crowded patio and deliciously cheap beer, but it came time for us to scurry back across the Potomac before the night watch looked upon us Northern Virginians with significant disdain and clapped us in irons.

We headed to Listrani’s in Courthouse and dealt with the incredible mess that is parking on Friday a night. The pizza, as usual, was excellent (clearly these are a people that understand the proper proportion of cheese.), but as we were headed back to our car, we ran across this new sign on Wilson Blvd just west of Veitch.

A signalized pedestrian crossing?! Are we making up words now?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs