I got an email today (god knows who sold my email address) advertising Betty’s Bridal Bash, which is essentially a small-scale bridal expo without the cattle-call feeling of something held at the Convention Center. It’s at the City Club of Washington at Franklin Square on May 31.

I considered going just for the swank location and chair massages, but then I noticed that it’s $25 per person. With our wedding a mere 11 days later and the details finally settled, I can’t justify paying $25 for the privilege of letting a bunch of people try to sell me stuff I don’t need. But maybe some of you are still in the early stages of wedding planning when it’s still fun? Check it out…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

With all the track work and construction projects that Metro has going on this summer, wouldn’t it be nice to have that information all in one place? Well, Metro’s listening and they’ve posted a work calendar for their summer maintenance, as well as various other Metro happenings including all of the public hearings and Rider Advisory Board meetings. Better still, Metro’s released a brand new site for your phone. Program your phone to work with Metro, and you can dial up a route from anywhere you’ve got cell signal. While you’re at it, add us to your mobile phone, so you can read all the latest posts while riding home!

Of course, unless you’re using a Verizon phone, you can’t get signal in the Metro, so if you’ve already started on your adventure, you’re a bit screwed. Hey Metro, thanks for the cool tools, now how about making my cellphone work in your tunnels?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I had one of the weirdest feelings of my adult life last night.

So there I was, standing in the checkout line at the ‘Teeter on Glebe, picking up the one thing Tom hadn’t gotten when he was out buying groceries that day. And I realized….

I’m standing in the checkout line by myself. And all I’m holding is 9 cans of cat food.

Dammit.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Warning

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

With the church parking situation moving no closer to a resolution than in previous weeks, this sign made me chuckle to think what would happen if neighbors went the guerrila route in the battle for parking spaces. If you haven’t been keeping up with the Logan Circle Parking Problems blog, they’ve been doing a great job tracking all of the issues with neighborhood parking, double parking, church parking, and Monopoly Free Parking in the Logan Circle neighborhood.

Me, I find this sign to be one of the most hilarious things I’ve seen in weeks.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Jumping their own start by at least an hour, 2006 Marine Corps Marathon registration is now open.

If you are hankering for a summer of blisters and boring-ass long runs, just to compete in “The People’s Marathon” be sure to be quick with your decision. Last year the registration filled up in ~60 hours, or less than three days. This year should be the same.

Now be quick about it! Register here.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Are you bored & looking for a funny interlude to your day? Maybe you’re even a lawyer (in DC, shocking!) and this is a Sad Wednesday. Regardless, Metroblogging DC has a dish-o-humor for you, from our very own Terms of Service.

With gems like

If your feel that any of the content on Metroblogging.com is hurtful, Metroblogging.com recommends that you get a hobby and quit taking things so seriously.

or

There are millions of Web Sites on the internet and if you think we are responsible for what goes on any other Web Site you must be smoking crack.

or my favorite

No persons under the age of 13 or I.Q. of 100 should post any information without their parents or handlers approval and guidance.

With that last rule, there may even be a few new openings in the Metroblogging writer ranks, starting with me when I drunk post.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Tag

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

Though Don Whiteside is the platemeister around here, this was one that I couldn’t pass up. I was walking back from a client’s office, when I came across two women gawking at the license plate.

I didn’t get it right away. It was just another temporary tag on another car.

Then I saw the rest of the car it was on.

The three of us laughed until the oncoming traffic honked at us to move. Why would you buy a brand new car that looked like that?!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

JetBlue is out at Union station all day today, tomorrow, and Thursday looking for people who want to talk about their experience flying JetBlue, to be recorded and used for advertising purposes.

Participants will not be paid, so what’s in it for you? The opportunity for Google to forever associate your name with a low-cost airline… and Exposure.

(hat tip: WaPo)

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I don’t have much of an opinion about whether the Metro extension to Dulles Airport should involve a tunnel under Tyson’s or not, but I do have one question:

In what universe does Fairfax County think it’s possible to turn Tyson’s Corner into a “walkable, quasi-urban hub?”

Have the County Board members actually been to Tyson’s? I don’t see how years of unchecked suburban sprawl are going to be turned into a place our car-free neighbors would enjoy strolling in…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Theodore, Cardinal McCarrick has had his resignation accepted by Pope Benedict and will be stepping down in late June. His successor is Archbishop Donald Wuerl, currently the Bishop of Pittsburgh, where he has served for the last 18 years. Cardinal McCarrick has been a great influence on the DC Community these last few years, and he will be sorely missed in his retirement. The official transition date is currently scheduled for June 22nd, 2006.

Interestingly enough, Bishop Wuerl will be no stranger to the media, as he’s had his own nationally syndicated television program. Welcome, Bishop Wuerl!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

If you are one of those fools who like to run 26.2 miles at a stretch, where feet blister, backs ache, and even men put Band-Aids on their nipples so they don’t bleed, then this is the time to rejoice.

Registration for the 2006 Marine Corps Marathon begins today!

If you want to be one of the first 1,000 idiots runners to register, then head over to Pentagon Row today and join DC101 in a early registration runner’s orgy from 11:00-13:00.

If you enjoy the convenience of online registration, you can register here starting tomorrow at noon. Better hurry though, last year the registration closed in less than three days – so commit by Friday or watch from the sidelines yet another year.

The sidelines are where I’ll be, that’s for sure. 26.2 miles is way too far to run. After 10K, I’m taking a taxi. Us Olympic triathletes are like that.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It’s all over but the crying for the DC Commuter Tax. The Supreme Court today refused to hear the appeal of the group trying to tax the ever-living bejesus out of workers who live in Virginia or Maryland. Of course, all of this comes at an inopportune time for the District, who are hamstrung by large capital investments in the new Stadium, and discussion of the construction of a new major hospital.

This is probably the most telling quote from the entire piece though:

“We’re clearly at the limits of taxation,” said Alice M. Rivlin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the former chairman of the D.C. financial control board. “We tax everything we possibly can.”

With DC’s taxation at the limit, with a 10% Restaurant Tax, with an Income Tax that is 35% higher than the surrounding areas (Maryland is around 6.5%, DC is around 5%), what’s the District to do?

The answer seems to be: Ask Congress For More Money. With 15 schools to be closed, and budgetary issues looming, Special Envoy To The US Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton is requesting $800 Million for the District. That kind of money would solve a lot of problems for the City Government, and might let some of this all stand. The reason that people come into this city, day after day, is to work on behalf of the government, for its organs, for those who work as contractors, and all manner of other ways in which they make a living.

Why punish the workers when it’s the Federal Government that has so crippled the District?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Let’s say it was a long day, maybe one where you were playing kickball on the National Mall and then flip-cupping Grandma, and needed a good bubble bath to relax. Now say it’s already 9pm and you’re in Mt. Pleasant.

Where might you find bubble bath for your long ache-ending soak at this late hour?

You could think CVS, but why deal with that extra annoyance? Better yet, pop into the nearby Super Save Market on Mt. Pleasant Avenue, where the staff, speaking English, Spanish, & Korean, can assist you in your quest.

After a short explanation of what you’re looking for, they will magically produce the perfect product for you: Mr. Bubble Original Bubble Bath.

Super Save Market to the rescue again!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Now you would think that with over $1 million in revenues, several years’ practice, and now two other leagues breathing down their neck, the World Adult Kickball Association (WAKA) would have its act together.

That they would, in their home city of Washington DC, get all the right permits to play kickball on the National Mall.

You would be wrong.

This week, the WAKA Independence League was informed by the Park Police that the league can no longer play at the base of the Washington Monument because WAKA didn’t secure the proper permits.

We are now exiled to 7th and Independence on the Mall and

“..since we’re having to change field locations we’re going to have to compete with softball, soccer, frisbee, and hippie drum circles for space on the mall.”

Way to go WAKA! I can’t tell you how much I enjoy us losing a picture-perfect field, one right next to bathrooms and in soft grass, for a crowded spot in the midst of gawking tourists and errant softballs.

You sure are earning my $65 in dues this season!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

7 years and countless episodes, The West Wing comes to an end tonight. When I moved to DC in 2000, this show was in its second season. I was working a job that only someone fresh out of college would take, after I’d watched the dot-conomy destruct and take my stock options with it. Living here was a chore. I only saw the city in dribs and drabs between my long commutes and endless herculean tasks. I’d get a bleary glimpse of that which makes this city like no other and be sent back home, my wallet empty and my feet dragging. Once a week I’d get a picture that would allow me to go back into the city for another week, my sanity retrieved from the gutter.

Though I cannot quote it verbatim, and I have seen it just the once, there is a moment on the show that I come back to mentally. Toby, Josh and Sam are standing in the Oval Office, and after a long and taxing day, they relate to each other and say “I serve at the pleasure of the President.” Which is a reminder both that all our lives are infinitely less interesting than those who work in certain circles, but also that their lives are just as fragile.

So we bid a fond farewell to the Bartlet White House tonight, and with it the show that made life in this town look cool, wonderful, and always interesting. It’s nice to believe that all the people making policies and working in government in this town are as good as that show made them out to be.

We’ll miss you, Jed, Charlie, CJ, Toby, Josh, Donna, Will, Leo, Mrs. Landingham, Zoe and all the others whose names scrolled by far too quickly on the credits tonight.

Seal courtesy of Wikipedia’s article on the Seal of the President.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

DC peta protest 02

Originally uploaded by DrBrian.

Thanks to Flickr User DrBrian for this great shot of four topless women and one guy in a speedo. PETA was out protesting at the Australian Embassy this weekend, protesting an Australian Sheep Shearing Practice called Mulesing.

I’m not entirely convinced that five mostly naked people and two posters are what it’s going to take to do anything except attract perverts to future PETA protests.

But hey, there’s always the People for the Eating of Tasty Animals…

Of course I didn’t bother to read the EXIF data on the flickr photo, this protest actually happened last September, causing me to feel like a giant jackass for just noticing them in the DC tagstream on Flickr. Nothing to see here, move along, move along…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

With the track work continuing between Stadium Armory and Addison Road/Seat Pleasant, forcing trains down to one track for that section of the Blue Line, and the earlier Red Line tragedy that claimed a life of a maintenance worker, Metro is a shambles of its normal self today

Currently, Dupont Circle and Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan are closed as part of that tragedy and Metro is running a shuttle between Farragut North and Cleveland Park to keep the system intact. The worker who was killed was found beneath the last car of the train, and the DC Fire Department was working to recover the body. This is the second such issue in 9 months, when another track worker was killed in an accident at Braddock Road Station.

I was very sorry to hear about this tragedy and my thoughts are with the worker’s family today.

Metro has not given an ETA for the reopening of Dupont or Woodley Park, but it is expected they’ll be returned to service before the end of the day.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

dc metblog beats channel 4

Here is Mike Flinn of Channel 4 interviewing Mr. Britton, the British tourist who saw the actual train accident.

Yours truly already got the scoop from Mr. Britton (his real name) and your reading this way before the 6 o’clock news.

Channel 4 did stick around to learn the worker died in the accident.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

metro worker hit

The Red Line Southbound is closed at Dupont Circle.

Fire truck radio and British tourists say a worker was hit just as the train was leaving the station.

Metro has closed the turnstiles but gawkers can still take the escalators down to look.

Update: Channel 4 reports the worker was killed in the accident. Condolences to his friends and family.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Santiago Caporales 2

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

It’s Neighborhood Day in Arlington, today, featuring a parade through Clarendon and Courthouse and showing off all manner of community achievements. The theme for this year’s event was “Many Neighbors, One Community,” and the parade featured all the diversity of the DC area, from Drum and Fife Corps, to political candidates for local office, to Caporales Groups, to the Fire Department, to a Jug Band, and even some neighbors dressed as giant pandas.

Despite some rain, the crowd was happy to see pretty much everyone, applauding the various groups as they walked down Wilson Boulevard toward Courthouse.

All five Arlington Republicans walked the parade route, and so did a teeming mass of Arlington Democrats, it was a bi-partisan affair. Various groups advocating defeat of the Virginia Constitutional Amendment barring gay marriage marched. It’s amazing how local affirmation often turns into a chance for politicians to run around gladhanding each other, and secretly knifing their opponents in the back.

The highlight of the parade were the various Caporales groups that marched in the parade, dancing, despite the rain, with a fervor that was contageous. Many of the audience clapped along in rhythm with the music, and the dancing.

Check out more photos here.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs