‘Booted beetle’
courtesy of ‘°Florian’

I know, it seems like once someone attaches something to your car without your permission that you should be free to remove it however you like. The government doesn’t agree, however, at least not when it’s them doing to attaching. A man over in the Crystal City area discovered this the hard way.

DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY-ARREST 08/20/09, 1500 block of S. Fern Street. On August 20 at 11 am, a man attempted to remove a county boot from his vehicle by cutting it with a saw blade. Donnie Eason, 53, of Arlington, was charged with Destruction of Property. He was held on a $2,500 bond.

I’d wager that he was on the hook for less money before. If you’re going to try these kind of shenanigans you should at least spend 9 seconds on the internet – I found a half-dozen quicker and less obvious ways to remove a parking boot than the highly visible and slow handsaw method.

from the Eric Carle museum of picture-book art

Thanks to a post from the Prince of Petworth I now know one thing I’ll be doing this week: checking out an exhibit of art from Eric Carle, the man who brought us  The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It packs up on September 1 so this is the last few days before it’s gone.

I’ll confess I’d be more excited about Richard Scary but we can’t always have our favorites, can we now?

Show’s at the Stanford in Washington Gallery over by the zoo. WaPo has the details and hours.

”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Guy cheats on Wife. Wife finds out. But Wife doesn’t dump Guy, oh no. Wife makes guy stand out on Route 7 during rush hour, declaring his indiscretion to the world. (With video! Clicky-clicky! I’ll wait!)

All things considered, the guy got off lightly. I believe the traditional “I screwed someone else” gift involves precious stones, but you can get a piece of posterboard for what, 79 cents?

‘TTC PCC Streetcar’
courtesy of ‘Commodore Gandalf Cunningham’

The Washington Post and Express are reporting that there are a couple of intersections along H St NE that will be closed during the day this week so city workers can install tracks for those crazy new streetcars.

Today, it’s the intersection of 4th and H, and Friday the intersection of 7th and H will be closed. This does make it seem like the streetcar thing is actually happening, despite planning problems and delays in the early stages. Greater Greater Washington has a great post with more details on the project (and a map!).

‘norma jean loves chipotle’
courtesy of ‘NCinDC’

Okay, so this isn’t technically DC-specific, but the number of you all who Twitter about getting Chipotle for lunch leads me to think you might be interested anyway.  Chipotle’s launching an iPhone app that will let you build, order, and pay for your Chipotle burrito at your preferred local Chipotle location. You can save the burrito independently of the location so that you can easily order the same burrito at a different Chipotle.

This is simultaneously the best AND the worst thing that has ever happened to me, I think. I just hope California Tortilla doesn’t get any similar ideas…

Happy Customers by Max Cook

We love free things.  We also love cupcakes.  When you combine those two things together you get a glorious thing: free cupcakes.  It just rolls off the tongue nicely doesn’t it?  But what would you put yourself through to get a free cupcake vs actually paying for one?  Would you wait in line for 15+ minutes?  Apparently so.

Continue reading →

‘Bang!’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’

Arlington County police are on the lookout for a man who has made at least one failed robbery attempt and possibly another; it’s unclear what happened when he went into a bank and seemed to start to write a note but then left. It’s completely clear what happened at the check cashing joint he went to later: he demanded money from a clerk and discharged a firearm. Nobody was hurt but this sure reads like a desperate person getting more erratic. Based on the look of the wig he chose to disguise himself with this fellow is already past reason and has taken leave of his senses.

Kidding aside, if you recognize the picture on the linked news release don’t deal with the guy yourself; call the number and let the cops deal with him. Armed and panicked is scarier than garden-variety criminal.

‘A New Trail’
courtesy of ‘M.V. Jantzen’

Thanks for sticking with us through a few weeks of sluggish site performance. We’ve moved We Love DC over to some new digs and you should find things to be a lot peppier than they had been.

‘Mural Jam No. 12 (In Technicolor)’
courtesy of ‘Kevin H.’

My love of graffiti as an art form goes way back to my high school senior paper on the subject, and now DC is getting on board. As the Post wrote about last week, city officials are encouraging graffiti artists to leave their art on approved mural walls (like a 1,000 foot wall in Edgewood) instead of illegal tagging.

Today, come celebrate the completion of the Edgewood mural at 4:30 pm at 540 Rhode Island Ave, behind the shopping center. Rumor is that Fenty will make an appearance, plus other fun activities will abound.

‘Hello, Prima Donna! (94/365)’
courtesy of ‘kimberlyfaye’

Newsflash: My personal favorite cupcakery, Hello Cupcake is turning 1 tomorrow, and celebrating by giving out free cupcakes. Get yours on Tuesday, August 25th at the Dupont Circle shop. One free cupcake per customer. My favorite ‘cake at Hello is You Tart! – a lemon cake with lemon cream cheese frosting. NOMZ. Hello Cupcake is located right off of Dupont Circle on Connecticut Ave across from Krispy Kreme.

‘Capitalism’
courtesy of ‘Lorri37’

When Ben commented on Maryland’s loss of 19,000 EZ-Pass customers he included mention of the most stunning number in the article: the claim that the state actually still loses money because the accounts supposedly cost the state $2.25 per month. In the comments we hashed this out a bit. I expressed disbelief that the Examiner got this right because that figure, across all of Maryland’s half-million EZ-Pass customers, would total up at over 13 Million a year, about one-third of what the state pays for all transit salary and engineering expenses.

Apparently I under-estimated the ability for the state to ink a bad deal with a contractor. The Washington Post covered this issue on Sunday and had a more complete description of how Maryland manages to spend $2.25 per account per month.

The fee was announced in January as part of a revenue initiative spurred by the struggling economy, skyrocketing material prices, and declining traffic and income. It is intended to help offset the $2.25 per month per account that the agency pays Affiliated Computer Services, the contractor that oversees E-ZPass, for maintenance.

This may still represent an over-simplification, or represent all the costs of running electronic tolls divided by the number of customers. My faith in the WaPo article plunged somewhat when it made the rather large error of claiming that Virginia customers don’t have to pay a deposit for their electronic pass if they choose “to have the account automatically replenished each month.”

If Maryland’s deal requires them to pay on a non-sliding scale for pass-holders that’s a pretty awful deal; the cost of installing and maintaining the sensors at the toll booths doesn’t increase every time a new customer comes on board. Collecting on and tracking 500,000 accounts costs about the same as doing it for 500,900 accounts. If this number is simply a shorthand for communicating the total costs of the program then that’s just misleading: it doesn’t credit the books with the saved money on salaries for toll collectors required for drivers who pay cash.

Perhaps Ben assessed it best. “It’s Maryland.”