If you missed seeing mention of it on the twitter account (before it was deleted/renamed) or in City Paper, you could hear Kevin Naff confirm on the Kojo show: the new venture that he and other former Blade staffers are starting up will be called the DC Agenda. They’ll put out what they call a “modest” first issue this Friday which could very well be little more than a slim zine to let people know they exist.

For the five of you who don’t get it, the name is a sly joke on the epithet “the gay agenda,” which has also been riffed on in a fair amount of humor. My favorite is above but plenty are out there. Good luck to Naff and the other former Bladers!

‘Disturbingly powerful hand dryer’
courtesy of ‘harrysaxon23’

After WLDC’s first photo walk a few weeks ago we adjourned to RFD, a place I’ve long loved for its great selection of beers on tap. However there’s a somewhat off-color but highly accurate truism: you don’t buy beer, you just rent it for a while.

Unfortunately RFD has done some renovation on the room their product sends you to repeatedly, and their race to the bottom continues. Last time I was in they’d painted over the somewhat hackneyed but part-of-their-character beer-themed quotes on the wall. Now they’ve removed the paper towel dispenser and put in one of those Dysan jet-engine-powered hand dryers. Unfortunately the science says that these things are notably inferior to paper towels in getting germs off your hands. Ditch this thing, RFD, and bring back the plain and simple towel.

Yes, I read a publication named BarfBlog. So sue me.

‘Untitled (Big Man)’
courtesy of ‘M.V. Jantzen’

The Arlington crime report is usually a pretty dry and uninteresting read. The usual mishmash of property crime, petty theft, some assault and maybe an indecent exposure or two. When it’s more interesting it’s usually sadly so – sexual assault or a shooting.

But once in a while, you get a gem like this one.

GRAND LARCENY AUTO, POSSESSION, ASSAULT ON POLICE-ARREST 11/16/09, 300 block of N. Kensington Street. On November 16 at 7:45 pm police responded for a suspicious person. The suspect was found in a stolen vehicle. The suspect was under the influence of narcotics and unclothed. He assaulted officers at the scene before being arrested. Duy Nguyen, 32, was charged with Grand Larceny of an Automobile, Driving Under the Influence of Drugs, Driving While Revoked, Indecent Exposure, Possession of a Controlled Substance, and Assault and Battery on Law Enforcement. He was held without bond.

It’s pretty easy to imbibe enough such that you can no longer make a sound judgment about whether you’ve had too much to drive – your judgment is impaired, after all. But here’s a tip: if you’re butt-ass naked and in the car you probably shouldn’t be driving.

‘The Washington Blade’
courtesy of ‘dbking’

The erstwhile staff of the dearly departed Washington Blade is resolute in their commitment to continuing to serve DC’s GLBT community and will be releasing the first issue of their new publication, even if they have to photocopy it themselves. They’re having a Tweetup tonight at the Hard Rock Cafe near Chinatown from 6-8 if you want to go high-five them.

The staff will be working on a volunteer basis for the time being, and any money that comes in from donations or other sources will be going to distribution costs. As fellow members of the volunteer DC media, we salute them and wish them the best.

IMG_4627
Originally uploaded by tbridge

The Post has the news this morning that Council Chair Vincent Gray may have committed a major faux pas by asking for Comcast to donate $20,000 to the council to support the council’s efforts at the DNC last summer as part of their home rule efforts. Slight problem. By District law, no one person or corporation can donate more than $5,000 per year to a political action committee like the D.C. Democratic State Committee, which received the check from Comcast.

There’s a couple issues here:

1) Council Chair Gray solicited a political donation on City Council stationery, which is against the rules.

2) The donation he solicited is larger than the law allows

3) The party itself did catch the issue, but then didn’t do anything about it.

This should be fun to watch. Expect it not to make a difference in whether the Council Chair announces for Mayor in February.

‘DSC_5175’
courtesy of ‘photopete’

I was very glad to see that Alex Ovechkin was back on the ice last night against the Rangers, and that his late goal was part of the difference over the Rangers. From On Frozen Blog comes this description of his return:

The scoresheet shows Ovi with just a single shot on goal (a successful one at that), but you’d have to label it a fantastic return performance. He had 7 hits that seemed like 70 ferocious ones against skaters in blue shirts. In fact, when the Rags were seriously pressing in the Caps’ end midway through the final frame Ovi went up the ice at last with the puck and made like the proverbial bull in a china shop, stalking Lundqvist with his powerful drive wide strides, swirling back again dangerously behind the cage, and then going on a one-man missile mission of hitting Rangers who’d taken the puck away from him. They were like bowling pins falling down. The shift reversed the game’s momentum.

Congrats also to Coach Bruce Boudreau on his 100th win with the Caps!