Monthly Archives: October 2009

We Love Weekends
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We Love Weekends, October 31-November 1

Photo courtesy of
‘Chicken Canine: Petworth Dog Walk Halloween 2009’
courtesy of ‘Wayan Vota’

Jenn: One thing’s for sure – whatever I end up doing for Halloween will be a last-minute choice. It’s crept up on my like a mummy’s cold dead fingers and caught me unawares. Ok, maybe not, maybe I’m just lazy this year. Will I relive my undead goth years at Spooky’s crazy dance party at Town Thursday night? Will I go twisted Bollywood-style at Black Cat’s Bhangraween Saturday? Will I scare myself silly at Little Miss Whiskey’s Night of the Living Dead Friday? Or maybe join the bloodsuckers at Synetic’s Vampire Ball? Or… or… or… are too many choices making me go as mad as Dr. Frankenstein?

Ben: Friday’s our usual celebration of all things hockey, not the least of which is the visiting Islanders versus the Capitals at 7 p.m.  Not a big Halloween celebrator here; during the day we’ll be roaming Potomac Mills down in Woodbridge while at night we’ll be ignoring the door in favor of Penguins hockey. Sunday’s our designated “photography” day, so we’ll be heading down to Prince William Forest Park to catch the last vestiges of brilliant fall foliage and probably do some hiking, if the rain lets up. Continue reading →

Arlington, Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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The Fries Verdict…

Photo courtesy of
‘Mountain of deep fried goodness’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

Yesterday, we reported that Rays Hell Burger is now serving fries with their hamburgers. Upon inspection of a picture of said fries, there was some question as to their freshness.  They appeared to be the generic, bagged and frozen variety, which stands in direct contrast to Ray’s mantra of fresh meat and fresh ingredients.  Well, I believe that I can lay your fears to rest.  After some hard hitting investigation, during which I subjected the fries to my discerning palate, I’ll say unequivocally that these fries are not frozen (maybe).

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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15th and Vermont Ave Closed This Morning

15th and Vermont closed

A suspicious package is under investigation at 15th and Vermont, Northwest. K Street is closed between 14th and 15th streets, with traffic being diverted elsewhere. It’s a mess already, so avoid if you can.

Update (8:45 a.m.): Streets are now reopened, though the traffic snarl’s pretty bad; you may want to find an alternate route for the time being.

The Daily Feed
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Be A Part Time Superhero

beextra-loc.png

Via my friend Jane McGonigal today came this sweet little web app/iPhone app that allows you to help your favorite plugged-in online organization without having to set aside hours at a time to go down to their offices. The Library of Congress is looking for help with tagging their immense photo collection for faster and better search, and Smithsonian is doing the same with parts of their museum collection. Now, while you sit in (the passenger seat while in) traffic you can help out LOC or Smithsonian with some valuable taxonomical work. I suspect there will be more work in the near future from other deserving DC-area and worldwide non-profits who need a hand with translation, evidence gathering or other features.

Check it out As an iPhone App or go there from your mobile browser and you can give it a whirl. Make your commute something good.

The Daily Feed
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WaPo lies, we had way more gay haters than that!

Photo courtesy of
‘cuddle up’
courtesy of ‘staceyviera’

It’s not a protest without an argument over how many people showed up. The level of inanity being shown by Bishop Harry “I’m from Beltsville and should butt out of D.C.’s affairs” Jackson isn’t quite in the same league as the crazy 2M numbers the Freedomworks people were throwing around but it’s still a bit disconnected from reality. WaPo’s D.C. Wire Blog has an entry stating that he claimed there were over 2,000 people there rather than the 150 that the Monday article cites. Unfortunately for the Bishop there’s a picture accompanying the article, shot from above, and that cluster of carpetbaggers would be lucky to be able to add up to 2,000 toes much less people.

Essential DC, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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New Tradition for National Tree Lighting Tickets

Photo courtesy of
‘National Christmas Tree’
courtesy of ‘Murmurmel’

Getting ready to stand in line for tickets for the National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony next week?

Don’t bother. The National Park Service is changing the process, much like they did for the White House Easter Egg Roll, to “open the ticketing process up to more Americans across the country.”

The new procedure? You have to enter an online lottery between November 4-6 (log in here at that time to register), between 12:01 a.m. EST on the 4th and 11:59 p.m. EST on the 6th. The lottery will include 2,800 ticketed seats and 7,000 standing room tickets. (If you don’t have a computer, you can call 877-444-6777 between the same time period to put your name in the lottery.)

Beginning November 9, ticket seekers can check the status of their request online; tickets will be mailed by November 15.

NPS is handing out more tickets this year, hence the change of tradition. The December 3 event will open its gates at 3:30 p.m. for all ticket holders.

All Politics is Local
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Meet Your Local Government… on the Internet

Photo courtesy of
‘A packed ANC 4C meeting in DC tonight’
courtesy of ‘Wayan Vota’

Doing what I do here at We Love DC, I am constantly looking for a way to keep track of what the heck is going on in the city. Don remarked once how grateful he is that he’s the one who actually likes reading the DC Register, since it’s basically a never-ending source of article ideas. Well, he’s welcome to it, because I don’t see myself developing that particular habit anytime soon. But I have run across three handy Internet/database projects of the DC government that help me dig up context on all the various bits of info constantly hurled my way.  Being a total nerd, this stuff makes me giddy:

DC Guide, which I prefer to refer to by the name referenced in its URL: Citizen Atlas. This database gathers all the random little bits of information you’d need to know as a District resident- what Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) do you belong to? Who is your specific representative to that ANC? What’s your voting precinct? You can see on their sample report that it also shows you a map of the address in relation to certain points of interest, like Metro stations. Handy also if you’re looking to buy a house in the District. Other methods of search will show you things like maps of neighborhood clusters, maps of zip codes and which ANCs and voting precincts serve them, etc. Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Fries! At Hellburger!

hellburgerfries
Hellburger Fries photo courtesy Samer Farha

I love Ray’s Hellburger, guys. It’s to the point where I don’t even bother ordering the burger at most other restaurants because it will just disappoint me. But every time I take someone there who hasn’t been before, they wrinkle up their nose in annoyance. “What, no fries? Who serves a burger without fries?” Someone who is spending all his efforts on making the best damn burger I’ve ever had, that’s who. I don’t even notice the lack of fries, that burger is so tasty.

It seems that Michael Landrum has heard the pleas of the masses- according to WLDC reader Samer Farha, french fries are now on the menu at Ray’s Hellburger (edited to add: Samer tells me the small order of fries is priced in the $2-$3 range). But I’m looking at this photo, and they look like your general foodservice, frozen-in-an-enormous-sack, shoestring-cut fries. I could be wrong, I have not eaten them myself, and I welcome correction from anyone in the know.

But look. I once walked into Hellburger and saw Michael Landrum standing next to a side of beef and a meat grinder with a cleaver in his hand. That burger was recently steak. Steak that was aged by the Ray’s staff. Frozen food service fries do not deserve to be on the same table as that burger. But for all of you who just can’t fathom eating even the finest burger without a basket of mass-produced, thawed-out french fries… here you go.

The Daily Feed
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Love Of The Pretty

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

Sometimes, when I’m feeling overwhelmed and aggravated by my day, I go in our Flickr Finder (this cool tool that the WLDC author list uses to find the pictures we use for posts, thanks Don!) and I just look at pretty pictures of DC. Our flickr contributors are awesome, and it’s a nice break. I don’t care that this is cheesy, it’s my thing. It makes me feel better. It puts me in my zen place.

Today is particularly hellish, and I didn’t get to go to the high heel race yesterday, stupid rain, and it’s all wet and gross outside, and I miss the weekend. So between you and me? I’m cranks. I took a little time with our flickr finder (ommmmmm) and I had a nice little moment of transcendence. And then I thought that maybe you guys could use a little pick me up of pretty too. So, if you’ve got the doldrums, here are a few of my favorites, just randomly, just for you, just today. Cause even when the day is going to hell in a handbasket, we still live in the best city, EVAR. So, without further ado, here is DC in all her glory: Katie’s-day-sucks style. Continue reading →

Five Favorites, The District, The Features, WMATA
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Five Favorites: Metro Stations

Photo courtesy of
‘Woodley Station’
courtesy of ‘Tyrannous’

Hi, and welcome to a new feature called Five Favorites.  Our reader Jay suggested ranking favorite places in DC, and I’m going to start with five favorite Metro stations.  These are stations that are the best examples of vibrant, walkable, urban, mixed-use places in the District.  These are the Metro stations that you could emerge from at any time, and there’d always be plenty of people around.  This list is a mix of subjective factors and measurable data, so feel free to disagree and tell me which of your favorites I missed.

Number 5: Woodley Park/Adams Morgan. Ok, we all know that it’s annoying to have to walk across the bridge to get from the Metro station to the heart of Adams Morgan, but still– this Metro station is always full of people emerging from the ridiculously long escalators.  The Connecticut Avenue strip where you emerge from the Metro station is full of some great restaurants, and the 10-minute walk across the bridge to 18th Street puts you in the middle of it all.

The Adams Morgan neighborhood itself is a diverse, multi-cultural neighborhood with restaurants, bars, shops, and corner stores, and cute rowhouses and apartments mixed in.  While this stop just barely made it into the top five because of the distance to Adams Morgan itself, the vibrant, constantly-moving atmosphere of the area and the busy-ness of the Metro itself (residents and commuters in the mornings, people out on dates in the evenings, college students in the late evenings) make it one of the best mixed-use Metro stations in the city.  Walk Score: 95.  The Woodley Park Metro station has an average daily ridership of 8,000.
Continue reading →

All Politics is Local, Downtown, News, People, The Daily Feed
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DC Voting Rights Provision Unlikely

Photo courtesy of
‘Capitol up close’
courtesy of ‘brianmka’

Last week we reported that voting rights proponents were looking to add a provision in an upcoming defense appropriations bill that would grant DC representation in the House.  Well, it’s looking like that probably won’t happen, after all.  The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Dan Inouye, a Democrat from Hawaii, has stated his intention to block the provision.  Senate Democrats fear that controversial additions to the spending bill could bog it down, or perhaps, kill the current iteration all together.  Rep. Holmes-Norton seems to be holding out hope that the provision will still make it into the bill, but many voting rights advocates are already looking for other means.

The Daily Feed, WMATA, WTF?!
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Metro Scares Adults, Small Children

Photo courtesy of
‘Ghost Train’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Metro will be scaring the crap out of kids and adults alike tomorrow. Well, more than they usually do. And not by hurting or potentially hurting anyone, for once. They’re going to be out with their Boo Bus at Anacostia Metro tomorrow between 12p and 2p to provide a safe and fun scare (wait, are those things consistent?) for those who want to see a Halloween-decked-out Metrobus.

The Daily Feed
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Continuing Redskin Insanity?

Photo courtesy of
‘Hear no evil see no evil speak no evil’
courtesy of ‘Clar@bell’

Dan Steinberg over at WaPo mentioned briefly this morning that now apparently, the media is no longer allowed to interview fans who’re tailgating on FedEx Field property.

Apparently, WUSA-9’s anchor Derek McGinty said last night that the team “told our sports director Brett Haber that this has always been team policy, but when he [Haber] pointed out that we and other stations, including their very own broadcast partners, have in fact always talked openly to tailgaters, there was, well let’s just say, no further explanation.”

A further update by Steinberg has a statement from one Redskin blogger, who confirms that it’s always been team policy mainly so that TV trucks won’t obstruct traffic flow. “This should not affect bloggers or print reporters who want to walk around and talk to tailgaters.”

This is becoming the best soap opera in town!

Fun & Games, News, The Daily Feed
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Wizards Win Season Opener, 102-91

Photo courtesy of
‘Caron Butler at the line’
courtesy of ‘afagen’

Don’t look now, but the Wizards won their season opener against the Dallas Mavericks last night.  For a team that won fewer than 20 games last season, it’s an impressive feat.  Gilbert Arenas announced that he was healthy by putting back 29 points with six assists.  The Wizards moved like a well oiled, respectable team and led the Mavs for almost the entire night, winning the game 102-91.  Is this a prelude of things to come?  Will the DC field a decent basketball team this year?  It looks hopeful, right now.  What are your thoughts from last night?

Talkin' Transit, The Features
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Talkin’ Transit: Future of P-G County Transportation

traffic flow

Stop-and-go traffic may become a thing of the past for Prince George’s County commuters. That is, if county planners have their way.

The county recently released its 171-page transportation master plan, which covers such ideas as extending WMATA’s Metrorail Purple and Green lines, High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes on heavily-trafficked roadways and other suggestions to get commuters out of their cars and onto public transit.

The plan, in the works for nearly two years, is directly in line with P-G’s overall growth policy, focusing less on residential development and delving more into mixed-use. The county wants its residents to be able to live, work and play in a more pedestrian-friendly environment.

Continue reading →

News, The Daily Feed
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Chinatown Coffee Releases Statement

Photo courtesy of
‘Chinatown Coffee’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’

This evening we received a statement from Chinatown Coffee’s owner Max Brown, printed in full below the break. It appears that the Browns were unaware of Cho’s previous situation with Murky (something I find a little dubious) and that while he was to have stayed on as an employee manager of staff, that role will instead go to Travis Edwards, who will become the GM on Sunday. Read on for the full statement.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed, WMATA, WTF?!
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WMATA silently edits news release

Photo courtesy of
‘Pravda’
courtesy of ‘aquateamhungryfort’

Earlier I linked to a WMATA news release on the changes to how SmarTrip SmartBenefits would be handled and disbursed. When reader Nate commented that he disagreed with me about the significant part of the story I went back to look at the release again… and was surprised that I had misremembered there being a section about how unused benefit deposits were refunded

When I checked another window, however, I discovered I hadn’t misremembered – WMATA had just edited the release and made no note of the change. Both releases state they were issued at 11:52am today. The original section that explains what Nate is talking about was the last bit of the second paragraph and reads as follows:

Any unused benefits will be credited back to the employer at the end of each month. Employees who currently contribute a portion of their pre-taxed salary to through the SmartBenefits® program should contact their employers to determine how that employer will handle any unused portion of their pre-tax contribution.

The new edited release makes some mention of “pre-tax benefits” but excises the word “contribution” entirely. Kinda sleazy.

The other changed sections are after the jump.

Continue reading →

News, The Daily Feed
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Coffee Maven Cho Faces 40 Years in Prison

Photo courtesy of
‘razor’
courtesy of ‘Skelekitten’

Nick Cho, famous for his work as a barista and coffee-shop owner, today surrendered himself to arrest and booking on 82 counts of tax fraud related to the tax debt that shuttered Capitol Hill’s Murky Coffee in 2008. According to the release from the OCFO, posted in full below the cut, he’s facing 180 days in jail for each count, if convicted, along with a $5k fine, and full restitution if convicted. That would be $410,000 in fines, plus restitution for the amounts not filed with the District in 2006 and 2007, as well as 41 years in jail.

The amount specified by the OCFO for delinquent taxes is over $100,000, which would be compounded with penalties, interest and additional fines.

Chinatown Coffee Company, where Cho currently consults on the coffee operation, did not have a comment this afternoon when reached by telephone. Cho was released this afternoon following the booking. City Paper’s Jason Cherkis has a bit of the backstory here as well. Cherkis has now also spoken with the owners at Chinatown Coffee.

Continue reading →

Entertainment, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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CityDance: Latitude

City Dance Ensemble, photo credit Paul Gordon Emerson

City Dance Ensemble, photo credit Paul Gordon Emerson

CityDance Ensemble has just returned to their DC homebase from tours in the Middle East and Chile, and are settling into the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theatre for two performances this Thursday and Friday at 7:30pm. “Latitude” features contemporary works by Artistic Director Paul Gordon Emerson, Choreographer-in-Residence Christopher K. Morgan, and others from Brazil, Chile, and Israel.

This year they were awarded the DC Mayor’s Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline, no small feat. They even run an early arts outreach program teaching dance to kids across DC. Dancer Magazine calls them “breathlessly innovative.” Go see why.

The Daily Feed
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New Ballston Building Uses Old Bob Peck Style

bobpeck

The work of mid-century American architect Anthony Musolino was at its finest in the Ballston dealership of Bob Peck. Built in 1964, very possibly at the height of Chevrolet as a company, the modern angles and shapes of the dealer were iconic. It was demolished in 2003 as part of the revitalization at the confluence of Wilson and Glebe in the heart of Arlington. While I never came to love those angles like some did, I certainly understand how iconic they were.

Interestingly enough, those same diamond patterns of the showroom’s roof will now be part of the Cooper Carey designed building at the same site. The towering glass office building will carry the same diamond pattern at the entrance. Beautiful appropriation of an iconic design.