dog_vampire
Originally uploaded by carlsoje

If you’re looking to get into the Halloween spirit a day early you could hie yourself over to the Georgetown Barnes & Noble tonight at 7:30pm. Eric Nuzum, Petworth resident and author of the enjoyable The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula will be doing a reading. The book is an entertaining survey of the obsession so many people have with vampires and it has no shortage of amusing bits that Nuzum might read from.

My personal favorite part of the book covers his tour jaunt to Transylvania where he discovers that, to paraphrase Dennis Miller, the worst thing about vampire tourism is the people you go on the tour with.

Smith
Originally uploaded by NCinDC

Being a tin foil hat-wearing type, I am delighted to see that my fellow cranks at Flex Your Rights have compiled their Citizen’s Guide to Refusing DC Metro Searches, complete with handy half-page PDF version for printing and handing out to your friends.

It’s a good read, though mostly review for those of us who have been screaming about this for, oh, 7 years now. It boils down to, be polite, be non-confrontational, and don’t do anything that might be perceived as a threat to the officers or others. You want to exercise your constitutional rights, not provide “probable cause.”

Windy City
Originally uploaded by maxedaperture

Boy is it windy out there! And it was far windier last night at the High Heel Race. So, I must admit something… as much as I love DC…I really strongly dislike DC weather. Actually, I’m going to be really honest…I HATE the weather. Yeah, I did it. I named something on a blog called We Love DC that I actually hate about DC. This place can’t be all warm fuzzies. So… here’s my rant.

First off, what the heck is up with all this crazy wind? Nobody warned me about this. We are not Chicago, I did not sign up for this! I can barely keep my scarf on these days. Plus, gloves are useless when the wind blows straight through them.

And what is up with going from summer to winter? Where is fall? My roommate was complaining the coat she bought for crisp fall days lasted her all of a week! It fast became cold enough for our long winter coats. There’s no “fall” – it goes straight from 70 degree days to 30 degrees nights!

It could be my thin southern blood, but boy do I miss summer… How are you faring out there? Are you like my co-worker Stephen who adores the chilly weather and loves winter-wear, or are you more like me, who longs for the yesteryear of summer?

Photo by Wayan

If you are thinking of voting early in DC at One Judiciary Square, be prepared to wait.

Lines average 90 minutes at off peak times and easily surpass two hours at lunch or the evenings.

And this photo? Thats the head of line 2 of 3 which stretches down and around the hallway.

ARPANET unveiled
Originally uploaded by sbisson

The box you see here, an Interface Message Processor from BBN in Boston, is one of the very first internet routers. 39 years ago today, ARPA (now better-known as DARPA, with their un-photographable office in Arlington) fired up the ARPANET for the very first time. It was a connection between just UCLA & Stanford, and it wasn’t a permanent connection, but a four-node network over leased phone lines would be active by mid-December of 1969. The famous RFC-1 would govern their initial communications, and eventually evolve into the TCP/IP we know and love today. ARPANET would eventually become the Internet.

A year before they fired up the ARPANET, J.C.R. Licklider wrote in Science & Technology, “What will on-line interactive communities be like? In most fields they will consist of geographically separated members, sometimes grouped in small clusters and sometimes working individually. They will be communities not of common location, but of common interest. In each field, the overall community of interest will be large enough to support a comprehensive system of field-oriented programs and data.”

Pretty darned prescient, don’t you think? Anyhow, raise a glass for the Internet tonight, and for all the people you know because of it.

Yesterday millions of people across the globe marked Diwali, a major Hindu, Sikh and Jain holiday celebrating the victory of the good in every human being over the evil.  To mark this triumph followers light lamps, candles and even fireworks.  The White House celebrated Diwali this past Friday, October 24, with a senior Bush administration official lighting the traditional diya and addressing the Indian American community.

desperate.prayer
Originally uploaded by impactmatt

DCist has the scoop on this one:

“This is one of the oldest, saddest dirty political tricks in the book. Given how crude the flier is, it seems certain it was made by a novice, but it’s still a pretty ridiculous thing to do. In fact, whomever is responsible could wind up facing a Class 1 misdemeanor charge in Virginia for knowingly communicating false information about an election.”

Sleazy. Really, really sleazy. Really, really, really sleazy. If the only way you can win, or even stand a chance to win, is to do it through limiting the legitimate voters and their votes? You’re doing it wrong.

And I think you suck.

CIMG1076
Originally uploaded by uscderrick

If you know anything about the Nats’ Presidents’ Race, you know that Teddy Roosevelt has never managed to win one. But, apparently, his training regimen has begun to expand. See, I hear tell that he ran the Marine Corps Marathon this weekend.

Check out the bib number in the photo above, it’s 28796. If you look up Teddy’s bib on the results, you see that he finished in 6:26:49. Looks pretty well paced, if you ask me, but that last 5K was a killer…

Nice job, Teddy!

Windy City, courtesy of maxedaperture

Take a good look at those pretty leaves while you have the chance; with a wind advisory warning that wind may gust as high as 50mph at times today you can be pretty sure that any of them that are still hanging on will be coming loose. If history is any guide, they’re all headed for my back yard.

American Indian
Originally uploaded by tbridge

I’m sitting just outside the press preview of the newest rotating gallery exhibit at the NMAI this morning. It’s called “Indian/Not Indian” and it’s comprised of the work of controversial artist Fritz Scholder. His depictions of American Indians, beginning in the 1960s and continuing his whole career, were provocative for their thematic matter. Showing alcoholism, and the decline of the Indian Society, as well as more aggressive and haunting figures, Scholder’s work is outside the “normal” purview of traditional Indian art.

The exhibition opens Saturday. We’ll have a gallery up later this week. This one’s not to be missed.

Bumpersticker
Originally uploaded by tbridge

I caught this bumpersticker in the Courthouse parking lot as I headed into the city tonight. It reads, “Pedestrians are never allowed to impede the flow of traffic, look it up!” It seems to be lovingly hand-scrawled onto a bumpersticker blank, then adhesed carefully to his or her sport ute. All I can say is, I hate drivers, pedestrians & cyclists who have chips on their shoulder, but at least this jackhole had the courage to display it for everyone.