By Tom Bridge
Cheverly Metro by brian.mosley
A man on the tracks at the Suitland Metro station was killed this morning in an apparent suicide. The station was shut down while the scene was processed for evidence. The station is open again now, but is still the cause of some systemic green line delays.
By brownpau
The Hill East and MPD-1D mailing lists are abuzz with the alarming news from Capitol Hill of a woman sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple times by a burglar late Monday night.
According to the account of a neighbor who came to help, the victim came home to an intruder in her house, and ran into a bathroom to call 911. He attempted to rape her, she fought back with punches, and he stabbed her 17 times before fleeing. The woman managed to crawl outside where neighbors helped her and called police. While all this was happening, the victim’s housemates were asleep upstairs. The intruder may have gotten in through an unlocked kitchen window.
According to MPD First District Commander David Kamperin, “the investigation is still ongoing, and the victim is recovering in a local hospital. The only lookout we have at this time is for a black male wearing light colored pants and a black hooded sweatshirt. Anyone who may have seen an individual fitting this description is encouraged to call our tip line 888-919-CRIME or text to 50-411.”
A friend tells me the victim suffered kidney damage and collapse of both lungs, but is recovering.
By Ben H. Rome
National Air and Space Museum, courtesy of Ryan
Tell us a little about you.
Right now, I live in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle and spend my days working in aerospace procurement. My nights and weekends are spent attending live shows and being outside trying to enjoy any good weather Seattle has to offer.
Why did you choose to visit DC?
Simple: I’d never been to DC before. I’m 32 years old and while DC has been in the forefront of my mind because of its historical importance and the constant references to it on the news and in pop culture, I didn’t have a real sense of what it was like. In many ways, it’s America’s most important city and I really wanted to experience it.
Was this your first visit to the area?
Yep.
By Katie
Fall, while not my favorite season, (fall does end in winter – you all know that, right?) does have some merits. Halloween, Thanksgiving, my birthday, and apples. Yummy, delicious apples. And where better to get crispy, fresh apples, but right from the source? So on a recent trip to Charlottesville, we headed to Carter Mountain Orchard to see what we could get.
High atop a mountain overlooking Charlottesville, Carter Mountain Orchard is apple heaven. As of today, you can expect to pick Stayman and Granny Smith, which began on October 4th and fresh Fuji, Braeburn, York, and Winesap which begin this weekend. When we went, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, and Jonagold were in season. Continue reading
By Tom Bridge
Chloe the kitten monster! by faeryboots
If you haven’t noticed, the City Paper’s in a bit of a bind. Their parent company has entered bankruptcy, staff cutbacks were threatened, and then rescinded, and now the City Paper’s cover story is in mortal danger.
How does the City Paper respond?
By dissing their readers in a 5,000 word cover story about why their reader-base is forcing them into the poor house. Or the pour-house. Their argument? People prefer blogs and new media to their extensive stories based on their crack investigative team. Shocking. Case in point, their Livingston-award winning story on the arsonist who terrorized neighborhoods in DC over a series of months getting just 5,000 pageviews while a story on Barack Obama’s spittle got them 13,000 pageviews.
No one knows this better than us. The Coffee Kerfuffle back in late July? 16,000 pageviews. Several of our great features? Under 3,000 pageviews. So, yeah, we understand how unpredictable the web is. That’s the joy of it all. Now, I recognize that the City Paper is a business, and it’s their job to make money. That’s our challenge, too. While we’re ad-free now, it’s not going to be that way forever. We just haven’t decided how to do it, yet.
I feel kinda bad for them. They seem to think that the internet came busting on into their office and crapped on their perfectly nice business model. To some extent, they’re absolutely right. But, this is the modern era, and when someone craps in your house, you have to clean it up. So, I suspect this is just the bitching phase from Wemple and his cadre of entitled journalists, upset that they’re being displaced a bit by new media that hasn’t figured out their own business models just yet.
What I can tell you? Four clickthrough pages of faux legalese blaming the readership? Yeah, that’s not going to play well. That’s a pretty shitty underhanded tactic to get you to click through several of their ads and pump their pageviews numbers up even higher. It’s not like the City Paper’s any different from all the other newspapers trying to figure out how to make money online.
Welcome to the club, guys. May the best publication win. And recognize that your competition isn’t who you think it is.
By Don
And they’re off
courtesy of afagen
Andy Wenzel, the Tropic Hunt TropicHunt.com guy, tells me that the Post Hunt will return for a second year in 2009, on May 17th. His stated source is Tom Shroder, a guy who knows a little something about the Hunt. It’s pretty exciting news – the Hunt was a good time this year, and I don’t say that just because the Post bought me a beer.
Not that I’m not amiable to drinking another one on your dime, fellas.
Jeez, reporting 2nd hand information. I’m gonna have to get me a fedora for my Drudge outfit.
Edited: Andy insists he’s the TropicHunt.com guy, not the Tropic Hunt guy. Jeez, I linked your site, whadda ya want? You should look at his site though – he’s got great information on every past Hunt, including this year’s first Post Hunt.
By Ben H. Rome
Warder_building, courtesy of Me
I get a lot of updates on programs from a certain set of buildings at 8th and F St, NW, mainly because I had the privilege to work there when I first moved to the area. Their programs are top-notch and always interesting; this month’s offerings are no exception. So because secrets seem to abound all over our fair city, here’s your chance to discover some on your own at one of the area’s more clandestine sites.
Oh, come on. Indulge me the super-secret spy stuff. This place is one of the things I love about DC (though I do have my own personal thoughts about their ticket prices), so it’s just natural I share it with all of you.
The rundown after the jump.
By Carl Weaver
Am I ever glad to have this kind of day. I just stepped outside and was surprised by how warm it is. The forecast looks good for another week of pretty decently warm weather, at least. I reckon around the end of the month it might get so cool that I will need to pull out my receptacle tip candy corn hat but for now I’m enjoying the mild weather.
How do you like the weather so far? Ready for winter or, like me, on the verge of dreading it?
By Tom Bridge
Clockwork Robot…
Originally uploaded by law_keven
I have a landline, but I rarely use it. Usually it’s for stuff like calling the Chinese delivery place a couple blocks over, and so I have something that really works well in my Condo. It’s not that I get calls on it. Except this morning when it rang about 10:15am. It was a robo-call, I could tell immediately, but I gave it a second to rattle off its spiel before deciding it wasn’t going to waste my time or try to sell me more credit than I need.
It asked five simple questions and the whole thing took 30 seconds:
– Who would you vote for if the election was today?
– Which party do you trust with the economy right now?
– What’s your gender?
– What’s your race?
– What’s your age group?
And away it went. But it was all automated. It wasn’t a real person making minimum wage in a call center, it was a robot doing the polling. I got a little sad. Are you telling me there’s no Josh Lyman standing over a group of midwestern transplants and telling them to spit out their gum?! Sigh. The price of progress.
By Katie
After a long day of work, you go out to happy hour and throw back one too many cocktails. You head home, thoughts of your ex swimming in your head, and you draft a little hate email. Ususally, embarassing things ensue the morning after.
But now, Gmail is here to save you from yourself! Mail Goggles, the newest feature from the friendly folks at Gmail, requires you do to a couple of math problems after you push send. If you can’t do the math in under a minute, your email won’t be sent.
The Gmail Blog says, “By default, Mail Goggles is only active late night on the weekend as that is the time you’re most likely to need it. Once enabled, you can adjust when it’s active in the General settings”
Great, for those of us who can do simple math problems sober.
By Jenn Larsen
O’Shucks is a quaint little tavern at the corner of Valley Meade and Meadow Lane, your go-to place for a fall respite, for drinking al fresco under the dappled sun, not too expensive, but certainly tending towards crowded when the weather is nice, attracting a diverse clientele ranging anywhere from families to minstrels, where all sorts of miscreants gather for libations before heading off to jousting and ogling blacksmiths and elephant rides and…
Wait a minute. Not only is that the longest run-on sentence I’ve yet to produce, it’s also not really about a DC neighborhood bar, is it? Yes indeed, it’s We Love Drinks Goes to the Maryland Renaissance Festival! Continue reading
By Wayan
Today is a good day for my favorite coffee and burrito maker, Carlos, who has a prime 17th and K Streets NW location.
Check how they built the sidewalk scaffolding around his cart, allowing him to vend DC’s best burritos during building renovation. Nice of them to do that.
Of course the construction workers benefit too. Great done from a great guy just steps away from the job site.
By brownpau
Judging by the graffiti on this Metro train ad for Global Impact, there’s an Orange Line rider somewhere out there who (1) hates African aid groups because of secret genocide conspiracies, (2) has a Sharpie, and (3) is unsure of the spelling of “holocaust.”
database schema
Originally uploaded by gnizr
While the foibles of technology users are good for a laugh when a doctor’s fat-fingered keystroke results in telling a 71-year-old man that he’s pregnant, the problem becomes considerably more disturbing when Maryland State Police label antiwar and anti-death penalty protesters “terrorists” just because they didn’t see a better selection in the drop-down box.
Note that the police fully admit that they have zero evidence that the protesters in question were actually engaged in any acts of violent crime. But they were labeled “terrorists” in cross-jurisdictional law enforcement databases because the developers of the software didn’t see fit to add any better options, and because the people responsible for the data entry didn’t see fit to choose a less loaded option.
Continue reading
By Katie
Wayan recently wrote about the last of his tomato crop. Wondering what to do with the last of the tomatoes from the farmer’s market? Ready to make one last red, juicy hurrah? This recipe from All Recipes.com is fabulous. I added in some ricotta cheese like one of the commenters suggested, and it turned out deliciously! Read more for the recipe…
white wings
Originally uploaded by philliefan99
Is it just me, or is everyone especially cranky and overworked this week? I have only anecdotal evidence to back it up, but it seems like everyone I know is knee-deep in assorted work-related ridiculousness, and I know I personally am developing strategic iPod playlists designed to keep me from biting the head off (you can take it literally or figuratively as you like) the next person who strolls into my cube with an emergency that I have to fix.
So this is your moment of relaxation. Stretch your arms, go for a walk, and while you’re out… head into a sporting goods store for an aluminum bat to keep near your desk.
I call mine “The Decider.”
After all of our CSA adventures this year, I guess you could consider me someone who prefers homegrown stuff. Green beans I picked myself at the farm. Herbs from Tom’s garden in our backyard. Socks from local sheep.
So I’m excited to tell you about Homegrown Comedy, a new monthly showcase in the DC Improv Lounge that debuts this week. It will feature 7 local comics, doing 8 minute sets. That’s FIFTY-SIX MINUTES OF LOCAL COMEDY! Plus the host’s set! For only $10! Clearly, this is a fine comedy bargain.
This week, the show is hosted by Hampton Yount, and features Eli Sairs, Will Hessler, Tyler Richardson, Jake Young, Nora Nolan, Adrian Rodney, and Tyler Sonnichsen. You may recognize Eli, Hampton, and the show’s producer, Jay Hastings, from our She-Ha Comment Brawl. (All of whom think Aparna is quite funny, thank you very much.) Hampton and Jake have also appeared on XMRadio, during re-broadcasts of the 2007 DC Improv competition finals.
Having been to several shows Jay has produced or co-produced, I will tell you that this will be one to watch- Jay has high standards, and always seems to put together a good group. You’d better get your tickets now– the Lounge only seats 60 and fills up quickly, especially on a Friday night when there’s overflow from the Improv’s mainstage show.
Your comedy, like your food, should be fresh and local.
By Wayan
Do you find yourself wondering if your luggage made that crazy-close connection to your IAD flight? Did the baggage handlers make the dash across LAX like you did?
Now, if you flew United Airlines you can use a handy Bag Check to see if you got lucky. I just made sure my work gear made made the red eye I ran for.
Of course it is best if you never check bags to begin with, or prepare if you must check.
By Krempasky
Bear with me for a little exercise.
If you answered, “easy! They’re moving violations” you would be correct, but uninteresting.
If you answered, “well, thanks to the nanny state anti-sprawl dirty hippie activists in the Commonwealth of Virginia, those are all moving violations with smaller (in some cases considerably so) fines than the first violation of the HOV rules because traffic is clearly an end-times apocalyptic crisis and the social engineering of how many passengers you have in your car is sacrosanct”, you would be absolutely on the mark.
@#*&${#@(*$
By Carl Weaver
Did you recently lose a hot pink iPod while getting on or off the bus? If so, I am pretty sure I found your little darling, still there in the street, waiting approximately where you left it. The only problem is that it must have been run over a few hundred times before I found it. It sure does look like it’s been run hard and put up wet.
I can’t tell if it still plays because the LCD and all the ports are smashed and unusable, but if you had a nice mix of Television, Gram Parsons, Elvis Costello and The New York Dolls, like on the CD I found, I am sorry for your loss. If it was anything like whatever it is that kids blast out their car stereos nowadays, I think it’s all for the best.
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