photo courtesy of GadgetGirl

If you, like me, are working on a year-long streak of Pentagon Row leisure abstinence then you might consider instead going to the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. If the cost and difficulty of getting a beer at either location turns you off then the Millennium stage is for sure what you want – the performances are streamable so you can sit at your desk and never even go outside. Presuming, of course, that Peapod will deliver you some beer.

The real pizzaz starts next week. From the 14th through the 18th we’ll have a whole five days of the World Accordion Championships.

No, I didn’t know there was such a thing either.

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photo courtesy of Pentagon Row

My darling girlfriend called it depressing but in the face of this heat I find it a little reassuring. Around this time of year we start to see the signs that summer’s close is around the corner: the early-changing trees’ leaves start to change and the various summer freebie events start to dry up. Just as I managed to go all winter without any ice skating there, I so far have completely failed to go to any of the Pentagon Row concert events this summer. Somewhat shocking, as my darling girlfriend would probably drag us off to North Hades if Gonzo’s Nose was playing there.

The last two of the season are this Thursday, the 9th with The Reflex, another 80s cover band and the 16th with Taylor Carson, who I have never heard of. If you’re going, hope the heat will have broken a bit before Thursday at 7p when the set starts – there’s not much in the way of shade in that plaza.

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We can always count on family, right? Well, just to keep it family-style, my niece did not come here after all. After all that hard work you, our loyal, beautiful fans went through to suggest places I could take her, she didn’t show.

I suspected the plans would change because they always do. We had not heard from my brother-in-law for a couple weeks and he neglected to return calls and emails, so I knew something was up. When we finally tracked him down a couple days ago, he said matter-of-factly that our darling niece was going to Montreal instead of DC.

Thank goodness we somehow got him to pick up the phone. It would have sucked to wait at the airport only to find that we were guestless. But that’s all par for the course with my wife’s family. I suppose my family does stuff that sticks in her craw her too. It’s part of marriage to try to live with the crap so you can enjoy the sweetness, love and tenderness.

What do your relatives and in-laws do that drives you nuts?

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Wayan’s DC Photos

While I may dislike Home Depot Line Automation, and CVS sometimes puts up barriers to products, I’m a fan of the automated checkout systems at the 20th and M Street NW store.

These machines are quick to scan, faster to transact, and you don’t have to deal with the sometimes surly staff. But what’s more amazing was my dealings with the pharmacy last night.

Needing a prescription filled, I dropped by the CVS pharmacy in the 20th and M Street store around 5pm, totally expecting that my pills wouldn’t be ready till this morning.

Imagine my shock when the pharmacists whipped out the pills, and had me happily drugged up by 5:05pm! Now that quick, efficient, humanizing service is even better than a automated check out.

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photo courtesy of Speshul Ted

What can I say to that other than “holy hell!” Hunker down, stay in the AC when you can, shade when you can’t. My XM weather report on the drive to work advised wearing light-colored loose-fitting clothing but I don’t know how much payoff you’re going to get from the loose fit – with the current dewpoint at 75 degrees and humidity at 70% I think the chances that you get any real relief from sweat evaporation are slim.

Don’t die, we need the readership.

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Wayan’s DC Photos

Have you ever been ID’ed at Fox and Hounds? Maybe because I’m an international lush, they’ve known I’m old enough to consume. But not poor Carl.

The Fox and Hounds hostess tagged him quick for his government issued drinking ID, doing an age check on a man my senior.

Now should Carl take this as a need for a training glass – his booze watered down. Or did they know his hooch brewing background and didn’t want him downgrading the patio party time?

I think its his ever-youthful appearance that warrants an inclusion in the Beautiful DC People contest.

Regardless, fess up if you’ve been tagged for an ID at Fox and Hounds too. There can’t be many…

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Yes, for you gluttons of premiere food in DC, Restaurant Week 2007 is upon us. Although the gimmick is getting old, IMHO, here’s a chance to try from “prix-fixe” menus for lunch ($20.07) and dinner ($30.07) from many a “fu-fu shi-shi” dive in DC. I’m not sure I’m up for having twenty dollar lunches, but for the well heeled Capitalista’s now on summer break from Congress, this could be something to bide your time for a week.

Granted, I’m left asking myself, from inspiration from a recent TV show, what is your “Death Row Meal“, and can you find it on their menus?!

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WaPo ran a follow-up to the man-on-car violence perpetrated last month and I think the vandals “eco-terrorists” are going to have to chalk this up as a total bust. Here’s the money quotes from the article, I’d say.

Groves also heard from members of a Hummer drivers network. They wanted to show support through holding a barbecue on his block.

then later

Christopher and Kristina Benson said they had driven their H1 six hours from North Carolina.

I don’t think trashing that Hummer resulted in the reduction of gas consumption the vandals “eco-terrorists” intended…

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image courtesy of Jonathan Padget

The Blue Lagoon: A Musical exists as a perfect counter-point to the suck-fest what was Carrie Potter and the Half-blood Prom. I feel somewhat guilty talking about the two in the same sentence but I just want to underscore what a difference talent, attitude, talent, effort, and talent can make when creating a fun but light-hearted show. Everything else that Carrie Potter had was also in The Blue Lagoon, only used to positive effect rather than lazily.

Writer Jonathan Padget created this little bit of fun based on the book that the movie was based on (who knew?) and staged it in a little room that seated less than fifty.The few props included a hose, kiddie pool, – the lagoon itself, don’t you know – a few suitcases and the inevitable baby. When Kathleen Mason as Emmeline breaks the fourth wall she does it by singing about how she is stranded with her cousin, her first cousin, and she’s only repeating that because it’s going to be significant. Cousin Richard is played by Matthew McGloin as a wonderfully earnest and horny teenage boy who’s happily keeping Emmeline safe… and providing some ‘swimming lessons’ in the lagoon. The point being made about first cousins is pretty well underscored by the arrival of a baby that seems to have 50% more eyesight than its parents. But hey, that just make the baby extra special. And look – Emmeline isn’t fat anymore! How about another swim, cuz?

Hopefully creator Jonathan Padget will find a way to bring The Blue Lagoon around again so some more people can see it, either in stage or some other format. Personally I think it would make a great multi-part youtube feature.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Yelling out ‘freebird’ in a wildly inappropriate venue was really funny the first thousand times. Unfortunately that was time 823,083,369,743. So STFU.

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photo courtesy of The Opus

While I’m off listening to Negativland, my darling girlfriend and a buddy will be seeing Hairspray. While I’m fond of musicals I draw the line at spending money to see whacko John Travolta offend my sense of irony. Trying to avoid indirectly supporting cults isn’t the only reason to avoid our area theaters either – there’s the whole insane level of copyright enforcement that’s come to our area as well.

In fairness to the MPAA, I normally believe that harassing us legit customers – by doing things like demonizing my cell phone because it has a camera in it – is pretty pointless, given that someone who would watch a crappy hand-held camera capture with bad sound isn’t ever going to spend $9 to see your movie in the theater anyway. However in this case we’re talking about the Transformers movie, which even in full quality is an aural assault with jerky video that’s hard to make out, so perhaps Jhannet could actually have sold that video clip. Plus, if anything would cost the industry money it’s letting people who might have spent cash to go see that in the theater know what they’d be paying to see while they can still get away.

Or maybe we should just all avoid the Ballston mall theater from now on and go somewhere that is spending more time trying to make the experience positive for us and less looking for non-existant boogeymen. Max and some of our commenters have suggestions of other possible places to see movies in the area.

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Wayan’s Washington DC Photos

If you are wandering around downtown today, hungry for a snack, may I suggest looking for this food vendor.

While I can’t remember her exact location, I do remember her different approach to fast food. Right next to the usual fare of chips and dogs was mangos.

Sweet juicy ripe mangos that dripped juice down my chin as I ate mine mid-walk. No better way to eat and run than with mango.

Get yours before the seasons change. Frozen mango in winter ain’t so nice.

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Trogdor

Originally uploaded by tiffany bridge.

As seen at the Harris Teeter in Ballston… A little piece of geek culture.

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Wayan’s Washington DC Photos

Might this be you this weekend? Setting up for a catering event in Rock Creek Park?

Yes, it was a swank event, and it better be. These kids were setting up for the Susuan Gage Catering staff BBQ. And they were Susan Gage employees too.

Word is that the company though of hiring other caterers to cater their own office BBQ party, but then thought better of it. They claimed costs, but I say there’s no better way to believe in your own catering than to cater your own parties.

In technology circles it’s called “eating your own dog food” but I doubt Susan Gage would use that analogy.

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image snippet courtesy of The Atlantic

Rinaldo Nicholson from VDOT thinks you should. “I know that our bridges are safe,” he is quoted as saying in this WTOP article. Perhaps, or perhaps just not too unsafe. I spent some time yesterday digging through the federal highway system’s online information on deficient bridges but it didn’t have good breakout data on WHICH bridges those were in that chart. There’s more specific info here but I lost interest at the point where I’d have to write perl script and a google maps mashup to parse out specific locations.

Fate, thy name is Andrew Sullivan, who linked to this 1994 Atlantic article about deficient bridges. The article is a little dated but it points out that in the coming decade – ie, between now and then – a lot of WW2 era bridges would need major repairs. I’d say the odds of there being a notably positive improvement in those stats are slim.

To give you an idea what you’re looking at (click the image or view the article for a proper key) the map section I’ve cut out here shows mostly green all around us, indicating that between 5 and 18.9% of the bridges in that area are ‘structurally deficient.’ SD is a grouping that could mean something very serious or might just indicate there’s a weight restriction on a span. However the salient point, I think, is that as many as 1 in 5 of Virginia’s bridges have been flagged as worthy of concern and potential upgrade. Not sure what Nicholson’s position is on that.

Another way of looking at it is fracture-critical steel truss bridges, which FHWA yesterday called upon all the states to examine. DC doesn’t have any, Virginia has 13 and Maryland 19. I’ll save you the googling – fracture critical indicates that there’s a span which, if it fails, does not have other spans capable of supporting that span’s weight, likely resulting in collapse. Presumably a fracture critical bridge is one which has one or more such spans.

Anyone who comes across some data more clearly identifying where the SD or FCST bridges in our area are, by all means post a comment.

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photo courtesy of One/Million

I had to dash out the door to completely put the top up on the convertible (no, I don’t know why after 10 years of rag-top ownership that I still haven’t learned to check the weather report, so SHUT UP) and on the way back in… stopped. It’s easy to forget how good the cool rain feels on your face on a hot day, even if you’d been sitting in the climate-controlled office up till thirty seconds prior.

I feel bad for people who can’t let themselves enjoy being rained on a little.

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Thanks, Fairfax County, for
this disturbing picture.

Neat stuff going on in Fairfax this Saturday and Sunday from the Fairfax County web site:

Find old-fashioned country fun at Frying Pan Farm Park with games, rides and exhibits from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Watch the Fairfax County 4-H exhibitors prepare their project animals for the show. See antique equipment in fields and the barn. Get involved by trying your hand at milking a cow or goat, shelling corn or other farm chores. The fair is free for all. For information, call 703-437-9101.

Just remember – if you are milking anything, be sure it’s an animal with more than one udder. Otherwise it’s not milking; it’s a hand job. Seriously, get on out this weekend, cross the river into VA and get all Eddie Albert in Fairfax County.

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Wayan’s Washington DC Photos

Have you been to the aptly titled “Greek Deli” on M Street NW? The one with a perpetual line outside?

I’ve found it to be my perfect go-to for a filling lunch, gyros being my preference. Cheap, with good and sizeable portions, you will be happy and full for around $6.

Happier still if you let the secretary keep the change from a $10-spot to stand in that line for you. Maybe that’s why she’s now permanently out to lunch.

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Speaking of lining up in Trader Joe’s, I’m really wondering what’s up with this laminated printout stapled to their “Artisan Breads” sign, where people in line can read it as they shuffle down the queue. It’s the full text of a New York Times article entitled A Long Line for a Shorter Wait at the Supermarket, praising Whole Foods stores in Manhattan for their single-queue system, and at the same time disparaging Trader Joe’s.

Now, here in DC we know that the Foggy Bottom TJ’s uses the single-queue system, and last I checked, the Whole Foods stores in Tenleytown and Clarendon do not, so why post this competition-lauding story for TJ’s customers to read? Is it there to prove the author Michael Barbaro wrong? Or just to prove that the single queue system is superior regardless of what store it’s applied in? Or to highlight some kind of contrast between Trader Joe’s stores in DC and NYC? Or did some disgruntled shopper pin it to the back of the sign where the cashiers wouldn’t notice it?

Someone ask the cashiers at TJ’s about that, because I forgot to yesterday.

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Wayan’s DC Photos

Hoping to head a stop west on the Orange Line right now I ran into this chaos at Farragut West.

On the left is the line just to get onto the platform towards Vienna. On the right, people coming from NoVA moaning about the craziness there.

Not shown is me headed back up to street level. I would rather sweat and walk than wait in WMATA chaos.

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