Okay, what the hell is this “District of Columbia-Maryland Reunion Act“? Some crazy way to give us Congressional voting representation through congressional authority by returning us back to Maryland? And why is Wade Henderson, Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights saying this to the House of Representatives:

As the committee is aware, the area west of the Potomac ceded to the Federal Government by Commonwealth of Virginia was returned to Virginia in 1846. The leadership conference agrees with the premise of H.R. 381, that defining a national capital service area that would be retained by the Federal Government as the District of Columbia, all Constitutional requirements for the District would be satisfied, leaving Congress free to return the remainder of Washington to the State of Maryland.

Is he trying to sell us back to Maryland? Did he ask my option or yours? Or better yet, did he ask Maryland? Guess not:

Unfortunately, there is no indication at this time that the State of Maryland or its citizens would accept the return of the District, not that I would propose it, as a District resident.

Don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be part of Maryland or Virginia. I want representation for DC as a District resident.

Or we can always be like Puerto Rico, no vote yet no Federal income tax, and everyone’s happy.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

When latency began to spike at Murky this afternoon, I chalked it up to someone bit torrenting the latest episode of Drive, or something along those lines. When DNS stopped working, I figured it was the modem in need of a restart and since it was just after 5, I packed up for home. Imagine my surprise when I came home to find those very same symptoms at my condo in Fairlington. And at my friend Lisa’s in Virginia Square. And at my friend Ben’s in Rockville. All over the DC area, there’s a good portion of the internet that’s inaccessible, if you’re a Comcast customer.

When I broke down and called support at 8:00pm, I spend a good half hour on hold, only to find out that since my cable modem and phone are on the same box, I had to be transferred again. After more time on hold, I got to talk to someone in their tech support group. Hooboy. That was an experience. Apparently, at 8:30 or so, they’re finally noticing that there’s been a networkwide issue for close to 4 hours. Glad to see pattern matching is alive and well at Comcast.

According to my friend in Rockville who’s got contacts in the business support area, it’s a major issue that’s affecting all of DC, they’ve known about it for a couple hours and have techs working on the issue. Here’s hoping you can go a whole night without half the internet. Go out. Have a good time.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Eleanor Holmes Norton Putting Her Foot Squarely Down:

This is a woman who firmly believes in the rights of the District.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Gandalf the Grey

Originally uploaded by Dunechaser.

Dreier: Will the gentlewoman yield?

Holmes Norton: I will not yield, sir. The District of Columbia has spent 206 years yielding to people who would deny them the vote. I yield you no ground. Not during my time. You have had your say, and your say has been that you think the people who live in your capital are not entitled to a vote in their House. Shame on you.

Good on ya, Eleanor! Tell ’em how it is.

The DC Voting Rights Act passed today, and you can see DCist’s blow by blow coverage of the entire debate from today. The conclusion? It passed, but it’s linked, oddly, to a budget bill. If both don’t pass, the DC remains voteless.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

From the Scottish Rite Web Site

I saw this on the Scottish Rite homepage:

“The Legend of Merv Conn,” a 50-minute documentary tribute to Conn’s remarkable life and work, debuted on February 18, 2007 at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring to a sold-out audience. Conn, a Silver Spring, Maryland resident and Scottish Rite Mason, has been teaching and performing the accordion in the D.C. area for over 75 years.

Merv Conn is an accordion legend–from the White House to your cousin’s Bar Mitzvah, he has spent years entertaining Washington, DC. “The Legend of Merv Conn” is a documentary tribute to his life and work. He has played and entertained in D.C. for many years, and if you haven’t heard him, now’s your chance!

On April 20th, in addition to the documentary, Conn will perform with two short silent films by George Merriken, one of Glen Echo Amusement Park circa 1940, and the other of the last days of D.C. streetcars in the early 1960s, will be shown.

Date: Friday, April 20, 2007
Time: 2 pm
Place: AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD
Tickets: $5. Unused tickets purchased for the February 25th screening will be honored.

For more information, contact the AFI Silver Theatre at (301) 495-6720 or (301) 495-6700.

According to comments on one blog, this show was not only sold out for the first showing, but they even had scalpers there. That’s the big time, you know! Director Jeff Krulik has made a number of films showing interesting tidbits of life and this one promises to be as good as his others.

Looks like fun to me. I hope to go if I can convince my lovely wife to come along. After all, it is her birthday weekend and nothing spells birthday fun like some good accordion music.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Are you moving? Do you want to use U-Haul, “your moving and storage resource” for a DC zip code change? Before you type in http://www.uhaul.com to make a moving truck reservation, go local.

Go Google Maps for UHaul.

Why? Because if you go to the main UHaul site, they will charge you a $5 service fee to tell the local U-Haul to call you back. Essentially $5 for the U-Haul website to give you a local telephone number.

I just realized this after I called the 1-800 number listed on the U-Hall website and tried to make a reservation for a moving van. They couldn’t guarantee me a reservation for my in-town move, saying they would have to call me back.

As I am in Egypt this week, gazing at pyramids on Giza Plateau, I asked for their number instead.

A $5 “nonrefundable reservation fee” later, they gave me the phone number of the U-Haul on U Street. Nice. Next time, if there is ever a next time with my half-million dollar mortgage, I’ll save the $5 and call the local U-Haul Company directly.

Before then, you can save $5 and have a better customer service experience. Just call your local U-Haul dealership directly and skip the scam website.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I’m a relative newcomer to DC, but never have I heard anyone say, “Boy, that Wrap Works was amazing! I’m sure going to miss it.” It was usually along the lines of, “Thank God Wrap Works is finally gone!” And lucky for us, it wasn’t replaced by some chain restaurant or coffee shop. Instead a new restaurant with much promise has: Circa at Dupont.

Located at Connecticut and Q, directly opposite the Dupont Circle Metro station, Circa is one of the best new neighborhood restaurants I’ve been to in quite some time. Some of my favorite restaurants in the area are Bistro du Coin, Hank’s Oyster Bar, and Urbana, but Circa may soon be added to that list. It has every quality that I look for in a restaurant: tasty food, a nice selection of wine (and other drinks), a beautiful decor, and a great location.

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

There’s been a major development in the investigation down in Blacksburg. Apparently, Cho Seung-Hui recorded a statement and sent it to NBC in the intervening two hours between the first pair of shootings and the rampage in Norris Hall. The statement has been turned over to the FBI by NBC, and I’m really, really hopeful it won’t ever end up seen by anyone except the investigators.

That said, it’ll be on YouTube or at the Smoking Gun in 5…4…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

If you’ve ever spent any time listening to the radio in DC, you know of Ronnie Mervis, his brothers Zed and Kenny, and the diamond mines of South Africa. His commercials are hysterical and absolutely ubiquitous. And now, of course, he’s entered the blogosphere, featuring some incredible content on his blog about his time in the mines, as well as some commercials and remixes:

Maybe it’s just the little boy in me that likes putting on a hardhat and riding roughshod in the humongous earth-moving trucks with wheels bigger than a politician’s ego. The elevator that descends two miles below the surface, “the cage,” is big enough to accommodate one of these behemoths. That gives you an idea of the scale of our mining operations.

While I will call bullshit on the 2 miles below the earth’s crust, I do enjoy the cinematic tone of his writings, and of course, what else do your call your blog, if you’re a diamond merchant, other than “King of Bling”. Check out one of their featured videos.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

We’ve just been sent a few emails coming from one of the families of the victims in the Blacksburg Tragedy, apparently the medical examiner is refusing families access to the bodies of their children pending a full confirmation of the identities of the victims:

John Doe (name changed to protect the innocent) has been calling asking, begging, for someone here to try to help him. The medical examiner at VT is holding onto all of the bodies pending final ID. They won’t let him see his boy

I can’t imagine the trauma that these families have been through and now having travelled from all over and not be allowed to mourn your loss in a very personal manner… it’s horrific. Worse still is the image that it’s been so difficult to identify your loved ones. This incident is truly an atrocity.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo originally by Alex Balan,
modified by me

The Washington Post today wrote about all the online outpourings of sorrow, however they haven’t really provided links to the postings of which they speak. College Candy has aggregated the (primarily Facebook) tribute pages and groups they know about and promised to keep adding to the list as they become aware of more.

Less personal but no less touching, WaPo’s gallery of the fallen and their profiles is here.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of Mick

Why should the regular buses have all the fun? I don’t know if the driver was ‘altered’ in some way or if the bus lost brake power, but on its way to hitting this Georgetown U satellite building the Circ supposedly took out a parking meter and hit a parked van.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Are you, like me, moving across town this spring? Did you want to submit a change of address form to the Post Office, online?

Yes, I too want to avoid the hassle of a post office visit to forward my mail, but guess what happens if you aim for convenience for both the post office and you: USPS charges you $1.00 for the time-save of a website transaction.

Don’t believe the “need to verify” bulls**t, plenty of companies verify without charging, or charge $0.03. This is just a way for the USPS, a cash-crunched company, to charge me to save them time and money. I find that more than a little egregious. Kinda like an ATM “convenience fee”.

I just hope this is the last move I make in a long while. That buck smarts and I already refuse to send those paper letter things anymore.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

As I drove into town this morning to start my workday, I had the “pleasure” of listening to Tony Kornheiser froth at the mouth over gun control and how we needed a lot more of it. His anger was a palpable thing, you could feel it streaming out of the speakers, a hate-filled haze that made it hard to see straight. His rage sparked my own. I was not alone in my frustration; our culture of rage has overtaken us. I could feel Tony’s haze affecting my own mental state and I reached up and pushed shut the dial and opened the windows to let the fresh air in.

We’ve gone past the disbelief of Monday’s intense tragedy. We’ve settled firmly into the rage that our media-driven culture engages in us. Our media does not inform as a primary purpose, nor does it seek to enlighten, but rather to polarize and stigmatize, to make us feel that same rage that talk radio does. Everyone want’s someone’s head today.

Stop it.

Stop the recriminations.

Stop the anger and the need for fire. Instead, grieve the victims. Grieve for Reema Samaha, who grew up in Chantilly. Grieve for Mary Read, who grew up in Annandale. Grieve for Leslie Sherman, who grew up in Springfield. They are the tragedy here. Do not focus on the gunman, or the weapons he used, or who he bought them from. Do not press blame where blame does not lay. Grieve.

For all of us.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Making Blackberry Jam

Originally uploaded by purplespace.

Some folks say I’m a blackberry addict. They might well be right, actually, as the damn thing has saved my ass a few times when I really needed to answer and send email in places I couldn’t normally do that. Anyhow, imagine my surprise to see that the North American Blackberry Network is down this morning, and no email is flowing to handheld devices all over town.

Woohoo!

This is like a vacation! Or something. I’m sure that all of Capitol Hill doesn’t see it that way, nor likely does most of the Crackberry-holding DC Business Community. How are you coping with your Blackberry’s temporary silence? Do you miss its little buzzing in its holster?

Update: Service has been restored for “most users” , according to RIM No word yet on the cause of the outage. Enjoy your crackberry hits this morning, I’m sure they’ll be sweet.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The Nationals tonight are sporting Virginia Tech maroon and burnt orange hats with the VT logo. Seriously, seriously classy tribute on behalf of the Nationals. Nicely done, guys. They’re interviewing the guy from the Sports Authority who brought the hats, they nearly didn’t get there, as the traffic today was apparently horrendous.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of Chris Owens

I started hearing the grumblings yesterday, but today the Monday morning quarterbacking is in full force, and covered here in this WaPo article. Putting aside the question of how we can expect to thoroughly examine a response this close to it, I’m not sure how I see I would have done anything differently if I’d made decisions for the U. Two people in a building are shot and there’s no indication of who did it or why. Lock down the building? Cancel classes? Evacuate the campus? Or just go on with life and assume it was an isolated violent incident – what I think I’d have opted for.

VT’s 26,000 students and a sizable number of employees makes them about 5% of the total population of Washington DC, spread out over 2,300 acres – about 6% of the District’s 39,040, meaning about the same overall density. We don’t typically make announcements and empty apartment buildings – much less several city blocks – when there’s a shooting like the initial one. I’m not sure why most people think it being a campus makes such a difference.

Perhaps my friend Jason is right. When I mentioned this reaction to him he said it seems too soon to know what the right action would have been, and added “I think too much of the reaction is ‘oh crap, this could’ve happened to me.'” Sudden random violence is scary stuff, and nobody wants to think they might face “death at any minute of the day.” If it could have been averted if someone else had just done something differently then that possible nutbag at the next table is a little less scary.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

All We Need Are Fans

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

Hold your horses folks. Take a deep breath and have a seat. This news is just amazing.

The Nats won last night. No really. They did. They beat the Braves 5-1 and rookie Matt Chico picked up his first victory. The really shocking part? It’s two in a row. I’ve heard a number of sportscasters and newspeople claim that this is a streak, but unless they can repeat the feat tonight, it’s not a streak. We all know streaks begin at 3. But Smoltz is on the mound for the Braves, and the Nats did get to him late in the game in his last start. So, it’s conceivable that they might end up with a real streak…

Game time is 7:05pm tonight, and the game will be on MASN.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Hello there crumpled panties, stripes of sexiness tossed aside. I see you here, discarded from the night before, and I wonder:

How did you find your way to a sidewalk downtown? 17th, just of K Street.

Was the night that good? That fun? That fast? And why are you still here, well past the dawn’s early light?

Are you now unloved, discarded like a Blackberry sled? Or are you just jealous of the love others had, without you?

Might a Hilton, a Simpson, or a Spears be looking for you now? A woman, commando.

Will you stay here long, situational sculpture on concrete? Who will disturb your rest? I sure will not.

A woman’s panties, striped or not, are not in my street scene.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Yesterday, while many of us were observing the aftermath of an atrocity, thousands of supporters of the DC vote marched on the Capitol despite lousy weather. It won’t be an easy fight, though. While the current bill is likely to pass the House with a significant majority, the Senate is a wholly separate matter. There’s also significant opposition from the White House, who sees the bill as unconstitutional. Minority Leader John Boehner’s spokesman said:

“House Republicans are not opposed to giving D.C. residents representation in Congress. But they are opposed to running roughshod over the Constitution.”

Which is fairly odd to see, especially when I have seen no attempt from House Republicans to make an alternate method of franchise for the District’s elected representatives. Funny how they can hide behind the Constitution for this measure, while violating it with other legislation.

Photo by Flickr user Crysb and shared under CC License.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs