By Don
‘King Street Metro’
courtesy of ‘brianmka’
Well I guess there are weirder places to get your news. The on-again off-again rail to Dulles romance seems to have entered a more serious phase of the relationship, and hopefully this will make it harder for these crazy kids to call it off again: Mark Warner just twittered* “At Dept. of Transportation w/ Sec. LaHood and Gov. Kaine for signing of Dulles rail funding agreement – finally!”
* I refuse to say ‘tweeted’
By Max
Pinup by flipperman75
One of the things I love about photography is the choice you have when it comes to the tools of the trade. I personally shoot only digital, but many others enjoy shooting film and while I have no desire to do it myself, I admire them for that. In the digital world there are many different cameras to choose from, ranging from camera phones to point and shoot cameras to fancy DSLRs. Once you have your image, you can modify it with your choice of many different software packages (e.g. Adobe CS4) in your “digital darkroom”. Photographers who shoot film employ more organic, hands on practices in their own darkroom such as dodging and burning and various other processing techniques. Even the choice of film dictates how the final image will appear.
The above image combines both worlds in a way, in that it looks like it was shot using a film camera (a Polaroid to be exact), but it was actually achieved using a free piece of software called Poladroid. The software allows you to import a digital photo and then manipulate it by giving it that familiar border, nostalgic coloring, and even a thumbprint. Note that there are several applications for the iPhone that do roughly the same thing, one being CameraBag.
Nuts and bolts aside, I really love this photo for its composition and color and because it’s not a typical DC shot even if it was taken on U Street. I’m becoming more and more fascinated by dark and creepy photos, and this fits the bill perfectly. The mannequin is sitting there stripped to her bare essentials, enjoying a nice day out on a bench, almost inviting you to come site beside her. For $50, she’s all yours.
By Don
Jack Defends LoC
courtesy of tbridge
Since it’s just me this week I’m gonna eschew the CoverItLive software and kick it old school, like we did back in the old days of… two weeks ago. Hopefully we’ll spend more than 3 minutes of the episode out of the White House set so I’ll actually have something to snark about.
9:06 8:06 and we’re still in a series of twisty rooms, all alike. I could mock the silliness of a supposed internet video feed that can’t be blocked – tell it to Verizon, who manages to block my feeds all by themselves – but what fun would that be?
9:09 8:09 oops, Bill just cost the taxpayers a whole lot of stimulus money. The White House is gonna need some screen doors and a whole lot of paint.
Whoops! Jerked up the time. Fixed now. My desperate prayers for some actual DC or supposed-DC scenery continues after the jump. Continue reading
By Wayan
Could the recent parking meter hike be reducing the number of parked cars in downtown DC? Looking for a spot today, it seems that spaces are plenty. More than I have ever seen on New Hampshire Avenue before.
Maybe it is a combo of beautiful afternoon perfect for walking and an increase in Metro ridership. Or just a random Monday fluke.
By Wayan
Snow blower drag racing
One week ago today, I was at IAD after a half-day flight snow delay. On a people mover, we stopped mid-trip to let a funny convoy pass – runway snowblowers coming back from the March morning task. In the middle of the orderly progression, a race was on! Two snowblowers were going for the gold in the last winter blast.
Anyone else miss the snow yet?
By jasmine
‘Game on’
courtesy of ‘cruffo’
As it starts to get warmer, I know I’m not the only one thinking that I should be getting outside more. I know about the prolific kickball leagues in the area, but are there any regular pickup games that you guys know about and could share? And not just baseball, folks–anyone know where a girl can get her cricket on?
By Ben H. Rome
Flags at the monument, courtesy of Gogonaş
Less than a week after “snowpocalypse 2009” we welcomed with wide open arms the first taste of spring. That, and suffering the loss of a precious hour of rest.
While we’re still looking at a chilly week ahead, it’ll be a snap compared to the cold we dealt with last week. Only a little bit longer, DC, before the cherry blossoms appear and spring takes a firm hold on the area.
Meantimes, here’s a smattering of what all of you were up to over this glorious weekend… Continue reading
By Donna C.
‘IMG_0566’
courtesy of ‘staypuftman’
Yep, it once again sounds like spring on the trails around DC.
Let me say first off that as a runner, I’m a looong way from setting any land-speed records. But I do run outside all winter, and every year during the first warm weeks I notice the same thing. As the birds begin to sing and the frogs to croak, the runners migrating back to the trails make their own special springtime sounds, louder than any I’ve heard for months: whoof, choof, hee, haw, gasp, huff, gaaaaah.
While I sure do sympathize, I admit to getting a little kick out of this. Go, runners! It’ll ease up soon.
Moving right along in the Omnivore 100, I was delighted for any excuse to make Huevos Rancheros. Huevos Rancheros combines two of my great comfort food loves: Breakfast food and food accompanied by tortillas and salsa. Can there be anything better than a dish that consists of breakfast food on tortillas with salsa? No, of course not.
Traditionally, it’s corn tortillas and tomato-chili sauce, though to get hung up on what’s “traditional” versus what’s “Americanized” seems to me to miss the point. You don’t make huevos rancheros when you’re feeling snobby about food. You make huevos rancheros when you don’t want to spend a lot of time on dinner, you want something a little more interesting than fried eggs and toast, and you had tacos for dinner recently. Continue reading
By Wayan
Check out the bbq action in Petworth. Over at a friends house we are getting all pro on the grill. We got apples with cloves coming up on the charcoal. Next are plantains and kabobs. Desert is gluten free brownies.
This is the only way to enjoy a 70 degree Sunday in March.
By AcaciaO
‘Three years of correspondence’
courtesy of ‘L. Marie’
So, not surprisingly, President Obama has been getting a letter or two. What else do you expect to happen when you ask for everyone’s input in how you do your job? Its that whole, you know, open government business.
How can you help? By reading and responding to President Obama’s mail. I don’t know about you, but this sounds fascinating. There’s got to be a whole spectrum of reasons people have for writing to their president at this moment in time and so many stories they want to tell. Mail reading will be going on from 6-9 on Thursday nights. You can sign up here if you’re interested.
By Tom Bridge
Seeds 2 by tbridge
Starting your garden can happen many ways. You can get seedlings, or full-blown adult plants from the many DC nurseries, and most of the time, this is a pretty good way to go, but if you really want a good place to start for not a lot of dough, then starting from seed packets is the way to begin.
What kind of seeds should I buy?
Well, I guess that depends on what you want to grow. Assuming you’ve figured out what you’re going to be growing, and you just want to look at seeds, you’ve got a number of choices. You can hit up any garden store or garden section of a hardware store and find seeds, but what about trying something a little more local, and a little more unique? Here are two places we recommend:
Continue reading
By Donna C.
Had enough American Idol and The Bachelor drama this week? Let’s give reality movies a whirl instead.
The Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital starts with a special event next Tuesday and runs through March 22. It stars 136 films, with oceans and sea life as this year’s theme.
Local faces and places on the big screen include Restaurant Nora’s owner, Chesapeake Bay oysters, a toxic dumping site under Northwest D.C. (who knew?), and a plan for ick-free area rivers (hear, hear). Just the break we need.
By AcaciaO
‘Clocks’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’
You’ve begun to feel it — spring is looming. No longer is it dark both when I enter work and when I leave it. This Sunday marks Daylight Savings time so put your clocks forward an hour (remember: Spring ahead, Fall back). I know will gladly loose an hour of sleep to give me another hour of sunlight daily.
Maximizing the amount of daylight has very practical purposes: more sun later means less lights turned on and less energy used. Time was standardized with the advent of the American railroad system at the onset of the twentieth century. Before then, telling time was somewhat arbitrary — a fact that gives daylight savings and time-keeping more of a romantic feel than one might expect in our very punctual day and age. Continue reading
By Rebecca
courtesy of the New York City Ballet
This weekend the Kennedy Center is hosting a very special guest: The New York City Ballet. The group will be performing three mixed programs choreographed by their founder George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp. There are 5 shows this weekend, including Saturday and Sunday matinees. If you have never been to the ballet before, this would definitely be a fantastic and memorable first time experience.
By Katie
‘National Gallery – Mirror Burst – 9-1-08’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’
Did you feel it this morning, DC? The underlying warmth sneaking through the morning? It’s coming, I tell you, and no one is more thrilled than I am for this weekend’s 68 and 70 degree temperatures. They’re lurking right there, I could feel them walking to work this morning.
So what is a girl to do this weekend? Well, I’m itching to try out a new park. Iwo Jima is a staple in my household, we regularly head there when the weather gets warm, but I think it’s time to break out of the bubble and head somewhere new. I’ve admittedly never been to East Potomac Park – I’d love to go out along the water this weekend, and I hear the biking out that way is great!The second place I’ve never been is Meridian Hill Park (which Tom JUST wrote about!), with water features and plenty of monuments and statues, it seems like the perfect city oasis.
Thirdly, my back-up option is the Georgetown Waterfront which holds good memories for me from last summer – there you can grab an ice cream cone and sit along the water and watch the kayakers and boats go by. But hey, I’m open to reader suggestions – what is YOUR favorite DC park that I must visit?
By Tom Bridge
Longitude is probably one of the most important scientific solutions of the modern era. It was easy to work off a set of common star charts and figure out how far north or south of the equator you were. Take a couple readings at sunrise, midday and sunset, chart a few stars, and wham there you are. We’ve been measuring that for millenia now. But Longitude was a lot harder. By the early 18th century, it had become such a problem for sea-faring nations that the King of England set forth a prize to determine the best way of calculating it. Enter John Harrison and his clocks. If you can keep accurate enough time, you can determine your longitude. It took decades of engineering, and the promise of riches (in some cases denied, read Dava Sobel’s Longitude, which is a fascinating historiography of the events surrounding the prize.)
The thing about Longitude that is most interesting is that there’s no clear and obvious choice for a prime meridian, the way there is with latitude and the Equator. Thus, common standards of practice evolved, with prime meridians, and associated maps, appearing at Greenwich, Paris, Rome, and various other European centers. Each set of charts was keyed to use with a specific set of longitudes, with no common standard. Thus it was that Thomas Jefferson set the first American Meridian through the center of the Executive Mansion in 1793. This meridian would stay in place through 1850 when it was moved west 8 blocks to 24th Street at the site of the Naval Observatory (now the grounds of the US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery at 24th and D Streets) where it remained the American line of demarcation and measurement until 1884 when we moved to the Greenwich Standard by International Treaty.
But why have an American Meridian when Greenwich’s would do? The only good way to measure longitude was to take a clock, synchronized from Greenwich’s observatory master clock, and sail it across the Atlantic. Sure, that sounds pretty straight forward, but clocks, even as late as the early 19th century were not anything we’d considerate accurate to the second, not to mention had all kinds of mechanical issues even if you sailed them across the sea. Not to mention the fact that two journeys could come up with two totally different longitudes for the final result. Thus, setting a local point of demarcation allowed for a better continuity of result. Continue reading
By Max
When Dinosaurs Attack by M.V. Jantzen
If you’re a night owl and have no plans tonight or tomorrow night, why not go see a classic flick at the E Street Cinema? By far my favorite theater in town, their midnight movies are back and they’ve got a nerdy lineup for the next two months:
Jurassic Park • Mar 6 & 7
The Rocky Horror Picture Show • Mar 13 & 14
Fight Club • Mar 20 & 21
Ghostbusters • Mar 27 & 28
Star Trek: The Motion Picture • Apr 3 & 4
The Rocky Horror Picture Show • Apr 10 & 11
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan • Apr 17 & 18
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock • Apr 24 & 25
All shows start at, of course, midnight.
By AcaciaO
‘Day 119/365 – The Winter’s Tale’
courtesy of ‘Kevin H.’
Shakespeare’s assertion that “a sad tale’s best for winter” seems certainly to be ringing true this year: the deepening recession, the recent dreary snowpocolypse, Blago’s book deal; all these are enough to depress even the heartiest optimist. The play The Winter’s Tale, as performed by the Folger Theater company at the Folger Shakespeare Library, however, is a bright spot as winter wanes and not to be missed in this, its last weekend.
I saw the play on the early end of its run. It was an evening of firsts — the first time I had seen a play in the adorably authentic Globe-like theater as well as the first time I had seen The Winter’s Tale performed. I left feeling giddy and strangely uplifted, despite the fact that the first few acts are practically scarring. Though the play is a comedy, it hinges upon the extreme shift from dark to light, despair to hope. Continue reading
By Rebecca
courtesy of philliefan99
It seems to me that the first two months of 2009 have been a commuting nightmare. The morning traffic report on NPR is always citing a series of major delays on the metrorail, metrobus or the DC Metro area roadways. In recent days it’s been an Orange/Blue line derailment and traffic ridden lane closures on Route 50, not to mention the havoc caused by Monday’s Snowpocalypse. Even for those of us on foot, the congestion and hecticness of navigating the DC streets seems to have multiplied in 2009. Pedestrians and drivers are more irritable, hasty and almost reckless with their decision making. Yesterday, I saw a jaywalker hastily cross the “Vortex of Doom” (aka the Farragut North junction) without looking both ways and he quite nearly got creamed by a double decker bus. Could the state of the economy and the accompanying angst be trickling down into the state of our daily commutes?
By 