‘Two Dollar #4’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

The charging documents for Jack and Leslie Johnson are out, and among the more colorful allegations in them is that Mr. Johnson asked Mrs. Johnson to hide $79,000 in her bra.

This was immediately met on Twitter with conjecture as to the impossibility of such a feat. The speculators were almost all men who have never had to stash anything in their bras, so I consider them ill-equipped to speculate.

Much as it pains my sense of blog-propriety to do this, I am forced to explain:

It is really not that impossible to secret that quantity of cash in one’s foundation garments, even for the lady of more modest endowment.

The largest bill the Treasury prints is the $100. Of course, you need just 790 of these to have $79k.

A stack of 100 bills is .43 inches thick. You need 7.9 stacks of a hundred Benjamins. .43 * 7.9 = 3.397, so 79 G’s measures less than 3.5 inches. Or, if you split it in half for easier hiding, you end up with two stacks 1.75 inches thick.

If you’re wearing a high-necked shirt, you can probably hide this effectively in your cleavage, as long as you’re not getting frisked. If you need a more secure hiding place, you can stash half in each cup as sort of a push-up bra effect.

Edited to Add: Comments about Leslie Johnson’s breasts, demands for photos to back up the math, etc. will be deleted. No one would be making those comments if the money had been found in Jack Johnson’s boxers.

‘pic 9198’
courtesy of ‘VirtualErn’
Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and it’s about this time when everyone gets a little stressed out about what they’re cooking, where they’re cooking it, and how they’ll do it. Well Master Chef, are you tired of almost setting your house on fire every year when you drop your bird in the deep fryer? Good news for you (and any neighbors in adjoining structures), because BGR will deep fry your Thanksgiving turkey…for free.

Bring your fully-thawed turkey to the Bethesda location of BGR (4827 Fairmont Ave.) from 11am-1:30pm on Thanksgiving Day and burger maestro Mark Bucher will fry that bad boy up for you at no cost. Deep fried turkey? Free. No risk of fire damage? Priceless.

‘Medics in the Spotlight’
courtesy of ‘ep_jhu’

There’s a curious investigation going on internally at DC Fire & EMS after an ambulance took 16 minutes to arrive at a call that was only a few blocks from the firehouse.

The dispatcher sent first responders from Fire House 11 in Columbia Heights to a house on Oak St. NW. The ambulance arrived 10 full minutes after the firetruck did. The GPS tracker in the ambulance indicated that it hadn’t been anywhere near Fire House 11, where it was assigned, but was three miles away, leading to allegations that the EMTs had lied about their location.

The woman the EMTs were to rescue later died of her injuries.

I am probably just insufficiently familiar with the workings of firehouses, but it seems to me like if an entire ambulance is missing from the house it’s assigned to, people might notice.

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courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Being a George Washington University alumna who still lives in DC, I appreciate being able to occasionally duck into Gelman library to do research or have a quiet workspace.

As of November 15th, The GW Hatchet reports, new “GWorld 2.0” cards will be required to continue to access campus facilities. Alumni are instructed to head down to the GWorld office to trade in their old cards.

Good news, though, is that a new ID requires a new photo – which, in my case at least, should make the card much more plausible for trying to get the student rate admission at museums.

‘Fry Captain truck’
courtesy of ‘ulalume’
Well someone on K St. has obviously bribed the food truck gods again because they are the lucky ones today. Enjoy your stupid salad from the cafeteria, rest of D.C.!

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‘At Crumbs NYC – acres o’ cupcakes’
courtesy of ‘BrentOzar’
New York mega-church cupcake factory Crumbs Bakery opens their first D.C. location tomorrow at 604 11th St. NW. Crumbs already has a cult following in New York and L.A. only rivaled by the Sex & The City endorsed Magnolia Bakery, which no doubt gets an advantage from the SATC bus tours dropping lady-tourists at their doorstep every half hour.

D.C. may already have a bit of a saturated cupcake market, but Crumbs has cooked up a genius scheme to bring Washingtonians to their side. In honor of their grand opening, they will be giving out 1,000 free cupcakes at the new location on Friday, November 19th. No official word on the long-awaited other locations in Union Station and Clarendon (though the Crumbs Facebook page says they’ll be open “by the end of the year”) but if they’re going to be giving out free cupcakes too, I say open those babies up!

‘Sunset over the Smithsonian Castle’
courtesy of ‘specimenlife’

Making news the last few days has been the debt commission lead by Erskine Bowles and former Senator Alan Simpson, two men who see a problem and who have no problem marching the sacred cows off to the butcher at the end of their career.  This morning, PJ Orvetti from NBC Washington has unearthed one of their proposals that may prove controversial: a $7.50 admission fee for the museums.

Details aren’t too clear right now if that’s $7.50 for all of the museums, or $7.50, but you could see how a trip to DC for a family of four from the midwest could increase in cost by $120 pretty quickly.  Part of the attractiveness of the DC region as a tourist destination is that so much of it is free from charge.  The fortunes of the region are already looking in flux with the wave of deficit-averse politicians coming to legislate, do we really want to shoot a giant hole in our tourist draws?

No, the Smithsonian is our collected treasure.  It is our trophy case.  Those trophies were built with the heart and money of the American Public and to charge for them would be a travesty.

Photo by Matt Dunn

If you love photography and street art as much as I do, you’re not going to want to miss the show that opens tonight at Honfleur Gallery.  Likeness, an idea developed by local photographer Josh Yospyn of Worn Magazine, pairs work from ten photographers and ten street artists.  Each portrait from the photographers has been interpreted by their corresponding street artist, contrasting images created by a camera with work created by hand.  I love the idea of juxtaposing something as concrete as a photograph with something as fluid as a painting, and can’t wait to see what each creative duo has produced.

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courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

If you spend any time on the Internet, and I suspect that because this is a blog that most of you do, you probably heard about the Cooks Source Kerfuffle last week.  What happened? Well, a publication took, word for word, an article they found on the Internet, and they published it without talking with the author.  That means that the author didn’t get paid and more importantly, didn’t give permission for their content to be published without their knowledge.  That wasn’t the big deal. The big deal was the editor’s response when asked about the situation.  The editor said something to the effect “Oh, we do this all the time. The web is public domain! Think of all the exposure you’re getting!”

It’s not.  And the response from the Internet amounted to a pitchfork-wielding, torch-carrying mob.  Why? Because really, we all work hard at this, and having our stuff taken without our knowledge isn’t called “Exposure,” it’s called “Misappropriation without Permission.”  And it’s generally something that I get a little ticked about.

Ross Karchner, who works hard at DC Tech Events to keep a good calendar of what’s happening in DC’s amazing and burgeoning tech community, found out that another site was just stripping his stuff and republishing it as part of their content at Awesome DC.  He had a few words with one of their founders on Facebook (Update: The post has been removed), and it seems that their response is to say “Think of all the exposure you’re getting!”

More frustrating is that it seems that several other articles at Awesome DC seem to be lifted from other sources with minor rewrites.  Now, the facts aren’t under copyright, and the story rarely has a lawyer to back it up, but is taking wholesale content without the author’s permission really a good idea?  We’re hoping that Awesome DC will give some credit where credit’s due.

Update: Awesome DC has removed a few of the entries that were causing some of the issues, but that also deleted the conversation between their staff and Ross, which we’ve archived with Ross’ help below the cut.

Awesome DC has yet to respond to our request for comment. Continue reading →

‘Tim and the Sweetflow Mobile!’
courtesy of ‘Carly & Art’
Are you so annoyed that all your government worker friends got the day off and you have to sit at your desk like a chump? Well, drown your sorrows in a lobster roll or a cupcake. Or in a Dangerously Delicious Pie, which has inexplicably chosen to visit Capitol Hill on this federal holiday.

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It’s a controversial subject: can you take great shots with your cellphone camera?  We have people on both sides of that line, wondering if the tool is capable enough that it will give you a quality image.  There are people on both sides of the debate, and there’s a lot to discuss.  How about going to check out what ten area artists have done using “tools of the moment,” like iPhone cameras, to take some great photography.  Opening night at Instant DC will run you just $5, and comes with free beer, and souvenirs.  Give it a try.

‘ZooLights Preview’
courtesy of ‘macmoov’

In what they’re calling a “holiday gift to the city,” FONZ announced today that their annual ZooLights celebration will be free this year. I personally think this is a wonderful gift, as it combines three of the greatest concepts the world has ever known: free things, Christmas and adorable animals.

ZooLights will take place from 6 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from Dec. 3 – 12, and every night from Dec. 17 – Jan. 1 (excluding Dec. 24, 25 and Jan. 1). Each week will highlight a different area of the zoo, and will feature animal demos, keeper talks and nightly visits from Panda Claws. Panda Claws will also be out and about in the city to promote ZooLights; be the first to post a photo of him to the zoo’s Facebook page, and you could win two tickets to ZooFari, the zoo’s annual culinary gala.

‘for poorer and for richer’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

Tired of surveys yet? Me neither. Today’s Survey of the Day is brought to you by the American Human Development Project, which ranked DC number one out of the country’s 10 largest cities in terms of well-being. Rankings were based on education, health and income. While at first glance this seems like better news than yesterday’s declaration of our hideousness, it’s actually quite depressing.

As The Washington Post points out, the numbers showcase some glaring disparities between the haves and have-nots. For instance, white Washingtonians live an average of 12 years longer than black Washingtonians. We have some of the highest incomes in the country, but also the highest infant mortality rate. And though our job sectors attract the best-educated, DC schools claim dismal drop-out rates.

I liked it better when we were just ugly.