My neighbor crapped his snow into the street
Originally uploaded by carlweaver

My neighbor decided that the snow-clearing job at his house was not good enough, so he crapped some into the street for good measure. Because that’s where it belongs or something, I guess. I don’t know why. It’s just plain annoying.

People, if you need to do a bit more shoveling to clean things up a little, throw the snow somewhere it makes sense, like into a yard or onto another snow pile. Heck – I’d even pile it by one of the many cars that still has not been extricated from its parking spot.

Don’t throw it in the street. That’s just dumb. We want it to be out of the street, remember?

‘Auntie Anne’s pretzels’
courtesy of ‘roboppy’

JUST IN, FREE FOOD ALERT via the lovely and adorable Missy Frederick from the Washington Business Journal, Auntie Anne’s everywhere will be giving away free pretzels tomorrow.

“Between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. you can get a free regular or cinnamon sugar pretzel at any Auntie Anne’s location. There’s a limit of one per customer. More details here.”

I have a weak spot for Auntie Anne’s greasy delicious pretzels as my favorite shopping and airport snack. I’m going to make it a point to hunt one down tomorrow.

‘Det findes stadig!’
courtesy of ‘Kofoed’

Just a quick moment to thank LivingSocial.com, our sponsor for the month of February.  They’re offering a single deal every day, so sign up and get the best deals that DC has to offer. Click through the ad on the right to sign up and get emails with the best deals in DC.

Interested in sponsoring We Love DC? Please check out our offerings.

‘lunar freedom’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

Seems there’s a new entry in Georgetown.edu’s website redesign…and that left side looks kinda familiar. Apparently, this new entry is considered “cutting edge,” “innovative,” and “aggressive.” Um, well duh. Considering we pretty much set that look when we launched almost two years ago…

So. Honest mistake? Homage to our glorious site? Or simply because we’re Just That Awesome, so everyone wants to be like us?

The concept behind Ignite DC is a simple one: 5 minutes, 20 slides, tell us a good story.  The realities of the presentation are vastly more complicated.  Stories can be about the revolutionary nature of motherhood, or about building an iPhone app that takes pictures and puts them on Twitter. As serious as exotic animal trade or the future of education, or as whimsical as the need for Recess in our daily lives, or how the fonts you use gets you judged.  The packed house at Town Danceboutique on a Thursday night wasn’t for clubbing, but rather for a set of great lectures from 15 different area speakers.

Ignite’s concept is interesting, but it may begin to suffer from the same problem that Merlin Mann pointed out about Lifehacker and other productivity sites: are we cultivating experts, or are we cultivating something else?  It’s hard to tell, and Ignite’s a bit too young to tell for sure, but the gimmick might be eclipsing what could be an excellent conversation about Expertise and Skill and Modernity.  What will it become?  Time shall tell.

A frontloader clears snow at the Rhode Island Ave - Brentwood Metro station (courtesy Larry Levine/WMATA)

Metro is reporting that the huge February snowfall has cost them almost $18 million dollars. The bulk of that, $9.7 million, is due to reduced ridership because the system was barely operational and only underground during the double blast of snow.

Metro is working with area governments to try and recoup the costs through federal disaster aid, said Carol Kissal, Metro’s Chief Financial Officer.

In addition to the almost $10 million in lost revenue, snow removal and overtime cost the agency $8 million. And revenue losses continue to mount from unusable parking spaces that are still unplowed.

The December snow storm cost Metro $2.7 million, and had already pushed the system beyond it’s annual snow removal budget of $2.5 million.

‘9:30 Cupcake’
courtesy of ‘Kevin H.’

“When we come into the market, people are going to realize what a real cupcake is all about,” said Crumbs bakery owner Jason Bauer.  See, they’re coming down here from Noo Yawk to tell us just how the kids in the big city eat their cupcakes.

The outrage is pretty palpable right now:

David Hagedorn: “Hey, you Crumbs, nothin’ DCers like more than ferners comin’ here to show us rubes what’s what. Keep your cupcakes & hire some (local) PR.”

Jenna Huntsberger: “”We weren’t impressed w/ anybody’s product” in ANY DC cupcake stores? So arrogant. Nice way 2 introduce yrself 2 DC community”

Nichole : “[A]nd with that, they can be sure I’ll never know. Is being an ass the new way to get people to buy your stuff?”

We could give a rat’s ass how you make cupcakes up north.  Here in DC, we practically invented the rebirth of the Cupcake.  Cake Love, Hello Cupcake, Georgetown Cupcake, Red Velvet, Baked & Wired, and that’s just what I can think of without working very hard.

Does New York have its own cupcake bakery reality show? I don’t think so.  So, really, I know you think you’re going to come in an own the market, but I know one place that I’d rather go hungry than visit: Crumbs.  Take your cupcake and shove it in your Yankee piehole, Bauer, we don’t need your filthy third-rate foreign cupcakes.

Besides, I’m betting they’re crumby.