When early voting for the District primary election starts on Monday voters will primarily be using new electronic voting machines. The new systems will provide a solution for a major problem that has followed electronic voting: allowing voters to verify and validate their choices.

In other local districts, including Virginia, voting machines capture voter choices but provide no way for the voter to be sure that their selection is what was stored in the system. The new machines in use in the District provide a visible paper trail that a voter can see and verify that their selection is recorded properly.

It remains to be seen whether other issues have been addressed. A 2008 report authored in part by the University of Maryland stated simply “Recent history is clear: the election problem most likely to tilt a close race is not security, but the inability of voters to cast their ballots the way they intended” and blamed ballot layout and design – both on touch-screens and paper – for voter difficulty.

If you’d like to determine for yourself how usable these machines are before you vote you can come to one of the two demos happening before Monday – one is tonight at the Josephine Butler Center (2437 15th Street, NW, 20009) from 6:30 to 8 – or one of several happening after early voting begins.

‘Blood Drive at work today’
courtesy of ‘Michael_Lehet’

There’s a quick and easy way to combine a day at the ballpark with a good cause this weekend at Nationals Park. The Washington Nationals will host their second and final blood drive of the season this Saturday, August 28 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. as part of their partnership with Inova Blood Donor Services.

Appointments to donate blood are still available and interested donors can call 1-866-BLOODSAVES (256-6372) or visit their website to schedule an appointment. If visiting the site, simply click ‘Schedule an Appointment’ and enter sponsor code 7665.

All blood donations will directly benefit the lives of cancer patients, trauma patients, newborns suffering from complications, as well as those undergoing surgery or receiving an organ transplant. Blood donors will receive two tickets to a future Nationals game, a limited edition Build-A-Bear Workshop bloodhound and the opportunity to meet Nationals Pitcher Tyler Clippard*.

If you take the time to help another life and add your name to the appointments list, then you can treat yourself to a night game at Nats Park starting at 7:05 p.m. the same day against the St. Louis Cardinals. It’s Pudge bobblehead night, so that’s a pretty good reward besides the good deed itself.

*Player appearance is subject to change.

I love love love the above image from El Jefe Designs. I only love loved it till I found their description on Facebook.

This is our ode to riding the metro home after shows. Based on the lyrics from “Fight to Live” – “I’m on the train and I got my ‘phones, people all around but I am good all alone, I don’t worry ’bout where I need to be, wherever I am that’s the place to be!”

Perfect, and I think that’s what grabbed me about it – it seems to really capture that feeling of being alone on the train, surrounded by other people.

It’ll be for sale in El Jefe’s webstore come the 13th. Me first.

‘Zola on the Go’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’
It’s still summer vacation for many of the trucks out there, but Curbside Cupcake has hatched a sort of insane plan to keep their disciples fed.

Continue reading →

‘Columbia Heights Day 2009’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’

Depending on what corner of the DMV you call home, your local neighborhood likely has a good festival staged to bring people together. If you’re in to that sort of thing, here’s two upcoming Neighborhood Days to add to your calendar.

First, coming up this weekend is Columbia Heights Day. The fourth annual event will take place at Harriet Tubman Elementary Field and the area throughout this Saturday. Starting at 10 a.m., you can take in two stages of live music and dance performances, as well as plenty of things for the kids (petting zoo, for example) and for foodies. No need for a tracker: the food trucks will be there, too. Finally, it’ll also be the host for the first-ever, delicately-named D.C. State Fair, highlighting local flair in the standard exhibit hall style. Full details for this weekend’s events are available at the Columbia Heights Day Initiative.

Out of town over the next few days? Resident of the Commonwealth? Clarendon’s annual festival doesn’t take place for another month, so you’ll get another chance to block party it up closer to home. Presented by the Clarendon Alliance and going on its 13th iteration, Clarendon Day is actually a worthy trek out the orange line for even District residents to take in some of the flavors of Wilson Boulevard. Coming up on September 25th, there will be plenty of food, music and entertainment for the whole family.

Photo by Cheryl Nichols / Nationals News Network

Ask anyone who’s watched the Washington Nationals this season and they’ll tell you that Mr. Game Changer, Jason Marquis, has not had a good first season with his new team.

Marquis, who was acquired during the off-season as a free agent, has tested Washington’s patience with six miserable losses, a horrific ERA, and a lengthy stint on the disabled list to remove bone chips from his pitching elbow. Wednesday night was Washington’s first glimpse into what kind of pitcher Marquis can be if healthier than when he arrived.

Marquis took a scoreless game into the eighth against the Chicago Cubs during an unlikely pitching duel in the final game of a three-game series. Both Cubs starter Ryan Dempster and Marquis dominated the respective opposing lineup, but in the end the Cubs scored runs, the Nationals didn’t, and the reason is the bullpen. Continue reading →

‘Autopsy’
courtesy of ‘ Jomo’

So if you’re not reading this in your RSS reader, you can see the prominent LivingSocial ads on our site. We Love DC has an affiliate relationship with LivingSocial, which is why I happen to know that if you buy today’s deal for the National Crime & Punishment Museum with your Visa card, you’ll get two of them, so you can give one to a friend. And since the deal includes “a free pair of handcuffs,” it may be appropriate for a very special friend indeed.

As I said, we’re a LivingSocial affiliate, so I freely admit that we make money when you click the ad and buy the deal. So think of it as an opportunity to not only send a friend a pair of handcuffs, but to also buy a beer for your favorite WLDC writer. And if this blatantly commercial conflict of interest skeeves you out but you still want the handcuffs, I question your skeeve-priorities but welcome you to go directly to LivingSocial.com and avoid sending us any filthy lucre.

‘McNabb jersey’
courtesy of ‘squidpants’

Redskins stories not involving Albert Haynesworth? Sign me up. Unfortunately, it isn’t great news for those hoping that Donovan McNabb would be able to survive camp unscathed. After suffering a minor ankle injury during last Saturday’s game against Baltimore, Mike Shanahan will hold the new Redskins quarterback out of Friday’s preseason game against the Jets in the New Meadowlands. The only concern here is that the third preseason game, as the Post‘s Barry Svrluga noted, is often the most important tune-up:

Starters traditionally receive the most time in the third preseason game and then largely rest in the fourth, allowing players who are on the fringes of the roster to compete for the final few jobs.

Hopefully McNabb’s ankle is good to go by the opener against Dallas on the 12th. The regular season is coming; soon enough, we’ll actually be reporting about something that counts.

‘Juxtiposition’
courtesy of ‘bhrome’

Perspective is an important thing, and even though we’ve been spending an awful lot of time focused on how weather has impacted the District this past year, few of us know what it’s like for it to be really shaken by a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina.

Can you believe that it has been five years since Louisiana and the Gulf Coast faced one of most overwhelming tropical storms of American history? It’s almost surprising because the region is still very much recovering five years later – something exhibited by the joy of the city when the New Orleans Saints won last January’s Super Bowl.

The news caught many of us off guard, especially because it happened late in August when many were still wrapping up the summer, working to forget about the busy fall that lay ahead. However, the media was still entrenched, documenting an incredible amount of what was happening in the Gulf, and five years later, the Newseum is featuring those stories and headlines from the days when the disaster was unfurling. An archive of newspaper front pages from the time when the storm came ashore is only one part of the exhibit. Perhaps the most interesting will be vignettes from main reporters discussing their experiences, including Brian Williams, Shepard Smith and Robin Roberts, and a 30-minute documentary on the scene within the refuge center that became of the New Orleans Superdome.

The exhibit will open on Friday, two days ahead of the August 29th anniversary of Katrina, and run through September 2011.

”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’
Get ’em while they’re parked!

Continue reading →

Photo by Cheryl Nichols / Nationals News Network

The Washington Nationals had a chance to prove themselves after falling flat in their Monday night 9-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday at Nationals Park.The team came together for a fundamentals touch up session before game time to refresh their defensive reflexes, but staying sharp in the field proved no match for Cubs right-hander Carlos Zambrano.

The often passionate Zambrano maintained control of his emotions and his pitches, allowing just one run on five hits while striking out eight of Riggleman’s Nats. He worked fast, pitched effectively, had some quick innings, and got ground balls. “We really didn’t have a lot going against him,” Riggleman said. Continue reading →