Yearly Archives: 2009

News, The Daily Feed
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Marion Barry Faces the Cameras

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcwashington.com/video.

Marion Barry will be facing the media regarding his weekend arrest shortly. We’ll have the conference liveblogged for your entertainment. Keep tuned in here.

Update 4 [11:04am]

And we lost our feed. We tried to get an updated feed, but managed to get back just in time for the end. Councilman Barry did not comment at all. Mr. Cooke is attempting to discredit Donna Watts, the complainant as listed below, suggesting that her account is not credible. The Park Police have made their complaint to the US Attorney’s office, who will decide if Councilman Barry is charged with misdemeanor stalking. All the details are below.

Continue reading →

All Politics is Local, Life in the Capital, The Daily Feed
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DC Goes a Little Gayer

Photo courtesy of
‘I DO support GAY marriage!’
courtesy of ‘galifa85’

Despite referendums and protests, today DC became the 10th jurisdiction in the US to recognize gay marriage.  In May, the City Council passed legislation amending DC code to recognize legal same-sex marriages performed outside of the District.  This legislation passed the requisite 30 day review by Congress and today, officially became law.  This marks a major victory for gay-rights advocates and sets the city well on the path to full same sex marriage legalization .

The Daily Feed, The Mall
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Have You Seen This Bird?

Parakeet Staring

This here is Pickles, a green and very talkative rose-ringed parakeet last seen in a tree in the Haupt Garden behind the Smithsonian Castle. Pickles’ owner Scott likes to take the bird on his shoulder, pirate-style, for walks around the National Mall on weekends, and on nice days, perch Pickles on tree branches in the Gardens to let him get some nature.

Yesterday, Pickles disappeared. Continue reading →

The Daily Feed, The District
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Photo Contest: Fireworks

Photo courtesy of
‘Fireworks over the Mall – 2nd Edition’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

There are a TON of amazing fireworks photographs in the We Love DC Flickr Pool this morning, so we’ve decided to fire up a contest for all our photographers. Add your best fireworks-in-DC photo to the pool, slap this tag on it: WLDCFireworks, and you’ll be entered to win a pair of passes to the Corcoran’s screening of William Eggleston in the Real World, a documentary about the invention of color photography, showing this Thursday at 7pm. Enter up to three photos per person by noon on Tuesday, and we’ll announce the winner Wednesday at noon!

Downtown, Entertainment, Food and Drink, Life in the Capital, Night Life, Penn Quarter, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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Only The Best

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘Hoffmann’

Where and when are you going to be able to get Sweetgreen’s Sweet Flow, wine from Asia Nine, sushi from Kaz, a dish from The Source and Pete’s Apizza all in the same room? Duh, at Washingtonian’s Best Of Washington Party, of course!

Washington’s top restaurants (as voted by readers and editors of Washingtonian) and wine and beer purveyors will be serving up their best at the National Building Museum on July 15. See the list of participating restaurants and purveyors here. Editor- and reader-favorites including Central Michel Richard, Citronelle, Blacksalt, Hook, Charlie Parker Steak and the Oval Room will participate in the annual event which attracts more than 1,200 people and shares a portion of the profits with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Dessert lovers will find cool treats from Dolcezza Gelato, sweets from Georgetown Cupcake and Baked & Wired, and delicious offerings from other top-rated bakeries and creameries.

Tickets, $95 to $125, are available on washingtonian.com.

The Features, Weekend Flashback
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Weekend Flashback: 7/3 – 7/5/09

Photo courtesy of
‘Fireworks in DC – the aftermath’ courtesy of ‘spiggycat’

Aaaaand welcome back to the workweek! Hope you enjoyed your very special three-day holiday weekend. We know it’ll take a bit to get into the swing of things on a Monday, so we’ve slipped in some extra photos for you to ogle while the caffeine drip gets started.

And if you’re hankering for even more fireworks photos, check out our Flickr pool for some great area photographer contributions. (We couldn’t possibly fit them all in here.)

Meantimes, we’ll get our crew up and awake so we can stock your week full of great articles. We’re a year old now, you know. Time for us to be professional… eh, who are we kidding? We know you love us just the way we are!

Continue reading →

Life in the Capital, The Daily Feed
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Faded Fourth

 

"Smashed Egg" by nicasaurusrex, on Flickr

"Smashed Egg" by nicasaurusrex, on Flickr

It had been a while since I walked down the stretch of R Street between 15th and 14th. But on a leisurely stroll home last night with some friends, we really weren’t thinking about watching our backs. I mean, it was the Fourth of July! Everyone’s in a good mood, right? No need for anyone to be jerks, let alone hostile and violent jerks. 

In hindsight, it shouldn’t have surprised us when the first egg hit the sidewalk in front of us. I’ve avoided that block for years at night precisely because of incidents like that. There were probably some thirty people hanging out on the opposite side of the street, all just glaring at us like a gauntlet. The fact that we had a dog didn’t deter them from throwing about four eggs at us. At least they weren’t rocks.

The glow of “we’re all Washingtonians together in a new beginning” has obviously faded, or they never felt it to begin with. 

It breaks my heart.

Crime & Punishment, News, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Marion Barry Arrested in Domestic Dispute

Photo courtesy of
‘IMG_8619’
courtesy of ‘dbking’

NBC 4 is reporting tonight that Marion Barry was arrested today in a domestic dispute. The Twitter Buzz is that the charge was for stalking, but as the commenter on NBCWashington.com wrote, “the only thing it seemed that he was capable of stalking might be a stuffed animal or a warm glass of milk”.

Hopefully Hizzoner will be available for comment in the morning.

Special Events, The Features
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Happy Anniversary, WeLoveDC!!!

Photo courtesy of
‘The We <3 DC Crew’ courtesy of ‘marc.benton’

With apologies to a certain escapist ’80s TV show…

“In 2008 a crack blogging team was bound by restrictions of a blogging organization they didn’t build. A select group of men and women promptly escaped from the shackles of the oppression to the freedom of WordPress. Today they survive as a radical bloggers in the nation’s capital. If all you see is the politics, if no one else can give you the real scoop on DC, and if you love your metro region, then maybe you can read: WeLoveDC.”

It was one year ago today we stepped out on our own into the brave new blogging world. I’ve been extremely blessed to have been included in this endeavor from the start and want to take a moment to especially thank Don, Tom, Tiff, Carl, Paulo, Wayan, Jenn, BenS and John for inviting me into the fold. I’ve felt like a modern version of the Founding Fathers and am humbled and amazed that we’re still around after a year and that all of you – our wonderful readers – continue to support us. So, on this first anniversary and on our nation’s celebration of Independence, this humble resident thanks you all.

Here’s to 233 more!

Entertainment, The Features
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We Love Independence Day Movies

Photo courtesy of
‘Tchotchke the Freedom Bulldog’
courtesy of ‘staceyviera’
With one day to go until July 4th, it’s time to marinate the chicken, clean the grill, set out the checkered table cloths, raise Old Glory and get pumped to celebrate the birth of our country.  And what better way to do that, than watch a kick ass, chest thumping USA! USA! movie tonight that will make you jump out of your recliner, scream “God Bless America!” and parade around your living room waving a small US flag.
Not surprisingly some of these movies were filmed in or are based in DC, which makes them all the more badass to watch for us DC lovers.  Of note:  this is only my personal shortlist of movies to get me in the Independance Day mood.  I’m sure there are a lot more out there that spark the same sense of pride, so leave a comment on what you’d add to the list.

  • In The Line Of Fire: Clint Eastwood as a secret service agent, nuff said. Oh, and the plot is awesome and John Malkovich is creepy (what’s new.)  A large portion of the movie takes place in DC, with the Lincoln Steps prominently featured.
  • Top Gun:The Kenny Loggins featured soundtrack to this movie alone will get you pumped up, but the F-14s,  shirtless volleyball, Tom Cruise/Val Kilmer tension and a good old fashion love story don’t hurt as well.
  • The Great Escape: If you’ve got time for this one watch it! Yeah, I know I’m recommending a movie with the Yanks working with the Limeys on Independence Day, but it’s a classic. Continue reading →
The Daily Feed
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CHEESE LINCOLN IS REAL!


Cheese Lincoln
Originally uploaded by tiffany bridge

Yes, that’s a 6’8 statue of Abraham Lincoln carved out of mild cheddar on Constitution in front of the American Pharmacists Association building. You are not hallucinating.

For each of the past three years, CHEEZ-IT has sponsored a massive cheese carving of some patriotic theme in honor of Independence Day. Cheese sculptor Troy Landwehr has been their go-to-cheesehead, creating a Mount Rushmore and a Signing of the Declaration of Independence in the last two years. The choice to carve Lincoln in pasteurized dairy product is to honor the 14th president’s bicentennial year.

The sculpture took about 40 hours in a near-freezing room to complete, says Landwehr. It started as a 1000-pound round, and the completed sculpture weighs about 700 pounds. Landwehr prefers to work in mild cheddar over other cheeses because it has the right texture and consistency for carving. Even sharp cheddar is too crumbly. (I swear to God I’m not making this up.)

CHEEZ-IT staff assisted passerby with taking photos with Cheese Lincoln, and passed out single-serving bags of CHEEZ-ITs. Unfortunately, American Pharmacists Association staff did NOT pass out leaflets on cholesterol management.

View even more photos of Cheese Lincoln on Flickr.

Dupont Circle, The Features, Where We Live
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Where We Live: Dupont Circle

Photo courtesy of
‘a hug on Riggs’
courtesy of ‘NCinDC’

Welcome to Where We Live: Dupont! Dupont Circle is one of the District’s best-known neighborhoods, and there’s so much history and beautiful architecture to love here.  Dupont is home to everyone from recent grads in group houses to young professionals in condos to well-off diplomats with kids, and yes, even some new stars.  I know I’m probably supposed to be unbiased in my descriptions of all these neighborhoods, but to be honest, Dupont’s my favorite.  Read on to find out why.

History: Not much was really going on in the Dupont area until the Civil War.  Up until then it was a rural backwater, but a massive modernization program built streets and sewers in the 1870s, making the area a fashionable new residential district.  In 1871, the circle itself (then known as Pacific Circle) was constructed, and in 1882 Congress decided to use the circle to honor Civil War admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont.  A statue of Du Pont was erected in 1884, and replaced in 1921 with the fountain that we all know and love today.  The traffic signals in the circle were added in 1948 to make it easier for pedestrians to cross, and in 1949 the Connecticut Avenue tunnel was built to separate thru traffic and build a streetcar station.

By the 1870s and 1880s, impressive mansions were built along Massachusetts Avenue, and Connecticut Avenue had more shops and offices.  Much of the area was developed with rowhouses, many of which remain today.  The neighborhood began to decline after the 1968 riots, but in the 1970s some urban pioneersmoved in.  Dupont Circle took on more of a Bohemian character, and the area became a gay enclave.   It is considered the historic center of the gay communityin DC, though many of those original urban pioneers later moved on to Logan Circle or Shaw.  The 1980s and 1990s saw more reinvestment in the neighborhood, and today Dupont Circle is again one of DC’s most desired neighborhoods.

Continue reading →

Talkin' Transit
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Sensors and indicators in plain English: WMATA’s WEE-Z issue

Photo courtesy of
‘Rails’
courtesy of ‘mescon’

One of the most troubling things about the information emerging about this faulty sensor is the ways in which Metro indicates they might have expected to detect it. John Catoe’s press release from July 1 described the situation somewhat vaguely. “This is not an issue that would have been easily detectable to controllers in our operations control center. What the analytical profile showed was that the track circuit would fail to detect a train only for a few seconds and then it appeared to be working again.” Why it wouldn’t be easily detectable isn’t clear from his statement, but a Washington Post piece from July 2 credited the following information to Metro’s rail chief, Dave Kubicek.

Instead of completely failing, the track circuit “fluttered” on and off so quickly that, Kubicek said, the failure would not have been obvious in Metro’s downtown operations center, where controllers monitor real-time movement of trains by watching an illuminated graphic depiction of the 106-mile railroad.

“It was happening so fast, you would just blink and miss it,” he said. “Realistically, you had to be looking at the exact area at the exact place” at the exact time.

A controller would have to be staring at something the size of “a button on a BlackBerry.”

A fair number of engineers are going to read this section of text and grind their teeth, but the underlying problem isn’t intuitive to most people. If you eavesdropped on a conversation between two grad students considering writing about this situation for a paper you might hear them say something like this:

Metro’s problem here revolves around the challenge in displaying a digital result in an analog method and inability to detecting a problem using insufficiently granular data.

That’s a complicated phrase which you can explain with a $5 table lamp. Continue reading →

Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle, Entertainment, Life in the Capital, Media, Night Life, People, Special Events, The Daily Feed
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What They Look Like: Real World DC Cast

Photo courtesy of
‘Workers’
courtesy of ‘squidpants’
So I’ve been avoiding the Real World beat for as long as possible  (our authorship tends to trade off reporting duties, so none of us actually has to “own” the beat) so I’m going to take my turn and fill you in on the latest. Kirk told you that they’re here, and now I’m going to show you what they look like.

First off, we have a pair DCist commenters dubbed Angela and Ricky (God, I loved that show!) – a “redhead” and a guy with curly black hair. Check them out here and here.  The Anti-Real World DC has a shot of the required blonde girl here (cute shoes, though!). A group shot shows more cast: the obligatory black guy, what some are calling “the hottie” and some blonde dude I’m going to personally dub the douchebag. This shot shows what I’m guessing is the 7th cast member, a girl with long brown hair.

Reports from RealWorldDCNEWZ on Twitter had them shopping at the Super Secret Safeway, grilling (scroll down for pics), mandatory hot tubbing, and then heading to Bucca Di Beppo for dinner. Other reports have DC residents shouting “GO HOME!” at them. (Tee hee hee.) (I’m mean.) False rumors spotted them at Town, the latest have them coming out of Chi Cha Lounge, and I suppose we’ll just have to wait for confirmation and pictures. Welcome to DC, kids. Try not to throw up on my shoes.

Life in the Capital, The District, The Features, WMATA
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Why I Love DC

Photo courtesy of
‘All quiet on the western front…’
courtesy of ‘kimberlyfaye’

I first moved to the United States from a suburb of Toronto, Ontario, Canada in the summer of 1997. My first foray into the country brought me to Los Angeles/Beverly Hills, which was a culture shock and half. After only a year, I moved to Boston, where I, Liam Michael Patrick Darmody, fit in quite nicely for 3 years. In 2001, upon graduating high school, I was deciding between UMass Amherst and American University and decided to go with the latter almost entirely BECAUSE of the DC location. To me, going to school in a world class city, even one with a crime rate higher than any other place I’d ever lived, appealed to me. And so in August 2001, I made my way to the District and have called it “home” ever since. Continue reading →

Technology, The Daily Feed
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The Post & The Nats Want Your Tweets

Photo courtesy of
‘here’s a question for you two…’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

The Post’s Nationals Journal and the Nationals are trying to put together a Twitter Mashup for Tweets at Nats Park. So, if you go to any of the games this weekend, they could use your help getting things tested out. If you see something Tweetworthy, like a great catch in your section, or maybe the tastiest half-smoke in the concessions, tweet about it with #natswp and a hashtag with your section number (#319, or #125 if you’re spending the beaucoup bucks) and they will be doing some magic with it.

Entertainment, Food and Drink, Night Life, The Features, We Love Drinks
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We Love Drinks: Champagne

Bubbles Glow

"Bubbles Glow" by Jenn Larsen, on Flickr

Why so tired, people? A little worn out from partying with us last night(hmm… maybe it’s just me)? Well, it’s time to celebrate again! I hope most of you have a three-day weekend to look forward to, with fireworks and grilling and sun-soaking. My advice? Add some bubbles.

A lot of people think champagne is just for snobs. Those people are wrong. WRONG. But I understand. The whole “blow it all on table service and a bottle of Cristal” movement killed simple enjoyment of champagne for many people. Just forget about those excess junkies. Champagne isn’t so very different from beer. I mean, they both have bubbles, right? Ok, perhaps I’m pushing it here but I firmly believe that champagne should be enjoyed all the time, and especially in the summer. There’s something about a chill glass of the fizz that reminds me to slow down, relax and smile.

You can enjoy the bubbly all over town. But I have a few spots that pop to mind when I want to pop the cork. And I’m happy to share a little tour of where I would go right now to inbibe. Tops on the list currently? Belga Cafe and its divine basil champagne cocktail.

Wait, basil? Continue reading →

News, The Daily Feed
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200-year old Presidential Cipher Broken

Photo courtesy of
‘rosetta pillar’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

Secure Communication has long been a pillar of diplomatic and internal communications. You want to make sure that only your intended recipients can read and understand your messages, not some man in the middle who’s particularly clever. In the days before digital computers, working with solid encryption meant a lot of mathematics by hand, using agreed upon methodology for encoding and decoding the message. If your method was solid enough, it would be pretty much improbable for anyone to decode it. So thought President Jefferson and his mathematician friend, Dr. Robert Patterson. Together, they devised a code so secure that it was given to the State Department to encrypt diplomatic communications. It remained uncracked for 200 years, when Dr. Lawren Smithline cracked Jefferson’s secret code.

Working for a few years using modern cryptographic techniques, Dr. Smithline was able to crack the sample of Jefferson’s code given to him by Dr. Patterson. What was in the message? Those words we’ll all think of come Saturday: “In Congress, July Fourth, one thousand seven hundred and seventy six. A declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. When in the course of human events…”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to go re-read Stephen Levy’s Crypto…

Dupont Circle, Entertainment, People, The Daily Feed
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Real World Move In Pt. 2

Photo courtesy of
‘Dispersing the luggage’
courtesy of ‘Michael_Lehet’

Considering the false alarm from earlier this week, you can take this report for what it’s worth: @Realworlddcnewz says that RW cast members are moving in right.  Supposedly, a pair of good looking, 20 somethings was seen bringing bags into the house at 2000 S St.  I’ll be heading down that way in a few hours to confirm, but for now you’ll have to rely on twitter or go down and see for yourself.

The Features
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We Love Weekends: July 4-5

Photo courtesy of
’09-4-11 – Cherry Blossoms Fireworks – Spring Lights’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’

Katie: Since this weekend starts on Thursday, my friends and I decided to celebrate with a fancy girl’s night out to one of the bars I wrote about in my Rooftop Bar Guide post a while back. It’ll be fantastic to get all of us together since we’re usually so busy! Then for the 4th I’m headed to a backyard barbecue at Jasmine’s, where I’m whipping up one of my signature party dishes, Roasted Tomato, Basil and Goat Cheese spread with basil that I’ve victoriously growing myself. (And have somehow managed to not kill yet!) Add in some quality pool time, a visit to my neighborhood farmer’s market and some quality relaxation, and I’ve got myself the absolute perfect 4th of July weekend.

Tiff: With my employer having recently moved back in to our newly-renovated headquarters on the Mall, we’ll actually be attending the company Fourth of July party. Usually I prefer to do my weekend and holiday socializing with friends and family rather than coworkers, but any time I can watch the fireworks on the Mall in a location with a 6th floor balcony, air conditioning, clean bathrooms, and parking, I feel obliged to check that out. Lots of the government agencies in the immediate Mall area take advantage of their prime fireworks-watching location to throw parties like this; if you or any of your nearest and dearest have access to one of these events, they’re worth attending.
Continue reading →