Photo by DC Metroblogger

Do you think you’re brave? Do you scoff at fear? Can you tell really bad racist jokes too? Then this is your twin.

This crazy homeless guy was straddling a lane divider in Friday morning 16th Street NW rush hour traffic, screaming racist jokes at oncoming cars as he professed his fearlessness.

Oh and don’t think it was a momentary loss of insanity, he was going all bravado long enough for me to make an entire Flicker set of his antics.

Later, after he successfully navigated his way, Frogger style, to the curb, he reaffirmed his invincibility to me several times before, overwhelmed by his spittle, I dove into a waiting supermodel’s car for a ride to work.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Here’s visual proof that we live in a diverse city. Or at least have an enlightened WMATA: the reader poetry up on Metrobuses – its in Spanish as much as English.

This little ditty came from Kiara Garcia. She’s in 4th grade at Key Elementary School, and already a poet.

While my Spanish is crap, it seems like she’s writing about the good things in life: family and food. No argument there.

But I can hear the chorus warming up to speak out against her, with many voices from Herndon. About how this is yet another erosion of “American” life. How WMATA should only have English poetry.

To quote another: can’t we all just get along?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Woohoo! DC it is snowing! Winter is here and that means only one thing (besides bad cell phone photos that fail to capture snow): Ben’s Chili Bowl to heat you up!

You know you want it right about now, late, cold, and tipsy on a Thursday night.

That is if you are brave enough to challenge tonight’s snow flurries.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The Tree 3

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

Look at that lovely tree. It’s the National Christmas Tree as part of the Annual Pageant of Peace, featuring 56 smaller trees representing the 50 states and 6 associated territories (including our own District of Columbia). The tree was lit tonight as part of an incredibly shlocky 90 minute program featuring John Conlee, Cathy Rigby, Eartha Kitt, and B.J. Thomas. If you’ve only heard of one of those performers, you’re doing about as well as I am.

Eartha Kitt was the only name I recognized, and her rendition of “Santa Baby” was pretty darn impressive. Her “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” though, wasn’t so good. What John Conlee did to “O Holy Night” is actually a crime in six southern states. And can someone please tell me why Cathy Rigby sang something from Peter Pan on stage?

The whole thing is certainly an American Tradition, but I can’t decide if it’s one that needs some quality time being reformed.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I went to the DC Media Makers group at Biddy Mulligan’s on Tuesday night. Great turnout – about double the number of people I had expected.

A little background on the group: DC Media Makers is a group of local videobloggers who want to get together to learn from each other and enjoy each others’ company and friendship. Andy Carvin, Jonny Goldstein and I all moved here over the summer within a few weeks of each other and had known each other from a larger videoblogging community online. Why not start a local group, we figured.

We will meet on Tuesday evenings from 7-9 every other week. Anyone interested in joining us, please check out the site and subscribe to the RSS feed. We are not restricting this to videobloggers but are open to anyone interested in blogging at all or even just likeminded folks who are interested in video.

Come one, come all.

We are also in search of a meeting space. What we want is a place where we can talk, share our projects, plug in laptops and get onto a WiFi connection. We prefer a place where we could eat or have sodas or something. Any ideas? Please let me know!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I know it’s cold tonight, and I know you’re the leader of the free world, but would it have killed you to walk from the White House to the Ellipse for the Christmas Tree Lighting instead of taking your whole motorcade the sum total of one block?

I know, I know, you’re hiding behind the Secret Service. I respect that, I suppose, they’re just doing their job, but there’s got to be a way to avoid this kind of stuff, no? It’s silly that you can’t walk one block, from the White House (one of the most heavily guarded fortresses in the world), to the Ellipse, one of the most heavily surveilled places in this city. The President is supposed to be a man of the people, not a hidden figured shushed away by private car.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

There’s something to be said for consistency. Consistency shows that a business has a model for its operations and that the employees do things the same way every time. Unfortunately, the whole concept breaks down when it is all done badly. That’s the problem with Chesapeake Bagel Bakery on Harrison Ave. in Arlington.

Everything I have had there is terrible. About once a month I trick myself into thinking maybe it wasn’t really that bad. After all, how can you screw up a bagel that bad? I must be misremembering, I tell myself.

Then my memory is refreshed by a new experience. Yes, it really was that bad. The food, customer service, even the coffee.

I really wish I had a more positive posting about this place. The line gets amazingly long there and I wonder if it’s just my bad luck or if everyone is in the same boat as I am, figuring they misremembered how bad it was? I don’t have high standards or a very discriminating palate and I am not a bagel snob at all. I have tried many times and have finally decided that the food there sucks.

So where are the good bagels in Arlington?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Only in DC, with its f~*ked taxi zone system would I have a taxi day like today.

First it was training day on a drive to NoVA. The driver could not find 1100 Wilson and ignored my clear directions.

He then refused to use the mileage method required of interstate drives, asking for a flat $20. Only at $10 did I agree.

On my way to a second meeting at Dupont Circle, I asked the driver to change destinations from the Circle itself to 19th and Connecticut, in the middle of the ride.

This taxi driver demanded that I pay double, as if for two trips. When I quoted the taxi rules to him, that its not additional unless we actually arrive at the first stop and I make him wait, he got all pissy. Rather than argue more with him, I got out.

Now tell me. Would I have either of those fare arguements if DC taxis had meters?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I love my Moleskine notebooks. I use one for client notes, one for class notes, and hell, even one for pubquiz. The hardbound cover, the ribbon for keeping your place, the eminently touchable page, it’s a paper-fanatic’s dream. What’s this got to do with DC? Well, Moleskine has announced City Notebooks, featuring maps and metro directions, they’ll be available in the Spring. Want to start a restaurant guide to keep around the house for when friends visit? Perfect. Want to give your tourist freeloader friends a good guide to town in your own hand? Perfect.

At $24, it’s not an instant buy, but when you think of the possibilities….oh, sign me up for five or six!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

An art party on Dupont isn’t a good art party until the first bad cross-dresser* shows up.

Truth.

Sorry guys, no pictures. Don’t want to embarrass anyone. But it was a pretty good party.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs Continue reading →

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Yep, Christmas is here. You might count it at Black Friday, or even December 1st. But not I.

I count Christmas when the tree goes up in my office building lobby. When I am faced with tinsel and lights way too early in the morning.

And this morning, this is what I saw, the tree going up. Christmas. here.

Merry Christmas folks. Now get out there and shop.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Do you feel like a drone some days? The buzz gone from your work? The hive too busy to for joy?

Then stop and be soothed by smoke, nip a bit of pollen, and check out the skills of a local production crew this evening. Check out bee porn.

Yep, you read that wiggle right. Bee porn.

Tweak your antennae to the National Geographic Channel for the debut of “Explorer: Killer Bees” – with the bee porn filmed in DC and animated by a supermodel I know.

Best yet, here’s a little tease, her “honey shot”

Now that’s a fun way to make nectar!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of Santarchy 2006

The yuletide is high and Santa probably will be too. Yep, it’s time for Santarchy yet again. After running across them every year since I’ve moved here, I’m finally going to join the festivities. And it sure looks festive from the outside, let me tell you. So suit up and be at the meeting place at 1pm this Saturday, prepared to sing along with such gems as “Let it Flow,” “Away on a Bender,” “Police Navidad” and “A Santa’s Life for Me.”

Ho Ho, Ho Ho, a Santa’s life for me.
We pillage and plunder, we rifle and loot.
Drink up me Santas, Ho Ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot.
Drink up me Santas, Ho Ho.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Do not think the DC baseball stadium is fiction. Do not believe there is wait. Do not dream of altering its course.

The stadium is here, rising up from Southwest DC, just south of the Navy Yard Metro Station. Rising up slowly but inexorably towards completion.

The stands are growing up, out every day. The field, still a pit, gives a berth for cranes and workers. Yet, you can feel the view.

It will be grand, it will face north, you will see the Capitol. Or you may not. Tickets will not be free, food, drink will not be cheap. Money, much of it, you will need.

Me, I’ll just enjoy the view, the construction view as the stadium rises up.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of Ho Wai

You find people with an interest in sex at any old happy hour. Hell, pretty much everyone you meet has an interest in sex – just maybe not in having it with you. If your taste is a little more leather than it is vanilla, however, you might want to join the Dark Odyssey Happy Hour on Thursdays in Dupont.

The Dark Odyssey folks are the ones who run the Summer Camp around September and the Winter Fire event in (wait for it) winter. They decided they wanted “to give people a way to meet and have fun the other 50 weeks of the year” so they started having this happy hour. This isn’t a trolling event – at least not any more so than any other time a group of people get together for a drink – it’s a place for sex-positive folks to talk to others who share their somewhat alternative tastes.

So if you’re in that scene or interested in it you might want to stop by. I’m not sure there’s anything you could be into that would be more abnormal than $3 drink specials in Dupont, however.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I remember visiting London a few years back, and being amazed at the quality of the musicians that played in the Underground. Here in DC, the best I could get was the guy who played the Chinese violin on a cheap tinny amp at the top of the escalator at Metro Center. The guy was just awful. Well, perhaps things are going to get better in the not distant future.

WMATA is considered allowing artists approved, and paid, by local arts councils at what is likely to be 25 of Metro’s 86 stations, from the months of April through October, and generally during lunch and evening commutes.

I welcome the idea of good music in the Metro, I just hope they’re ready to cope with the acoustical nightmare that is most Metro stations.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Wow, if this isn’t a postcard shot of DC, I don’t know what is. Mr. Eye Captain has done himself proud with this surreal shot of the Capitol Building. It almost makes you forget what happens behind those closed doors. It’s as if the structure is floating in a sea of fruity sherbert, or sorbet, depending on how fancy you want to get. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! I wish I would have been there with my camera gear in tow.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Frederick native ‘jeddywq’ has a unique marketing methodology – “Please bid. If I have to list this again I’m moving the PS3 box in the photo,” his auction says. He’ll even come to your home. “For an additional fee, I will deliver the PS3 in a full Santa suit with appropriately dyed beard and hair to anywhere in the continental US between December 19th and 23rd. I suppose if the fee is high enough, I would be willing to deliver the PS3 as pictured.” Being in convenient driving range, we DCites have an advantage in making this affordable.

Then again, if you’re worried about affordable, why are you spending over $1000 on something with a list price of $600 anyway?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Gannett Newspapers have begun to hire “Mobile Journalists” that they have nicknamed “mojos” are part of their desire to have an ever increasing number of “hyper-local” stories for their websites and print mediums. These mojos are covering local events and doing local human interest stories with their laptops, digital cameras and audio recorders.

Now. Let’s replace some words with their synonyms and see how this reads.

Metroblogging has begun to recruit writers that they have nicknamed “bloggers” as part of their desire to have an ever increasing number of “hyper-local” stories for their websites. These bloggers are covering local events and doing local human interest stories with their laptops, digital cameras and audio recorders.

Reads pretty much the same, don’t you think? Gannett is using bloggers, essentially, to write their local news, which is fairly sweet. They’re also using community involvement to “crowdsource” their investigative reporting, which is fairly standard for modern online media, but certainly something new for the print media. Perhaps Wayan’s elegy for Marc Fisher is far more true than ever we imagined?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

When Bebo Trattoria opened in October, they were short the kitchen gear and staff to run their amazing panini machines, and so the famous Roberto Donna sandwiches were not available. This morning, in my email box, my wishes for a pork shoulder sandwich were answered:

“Chef Roberto Donna’s Popular Panini Sandwiches Are Back!

Panini Sandwiches and more will be available for carry out or dine at the bar

Monday-Friday from 11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. at Bebo Trattoria starting Today!”

Yeah, it means schlepping to Crystal City, but pork shoulder sandwiches for $6.25? Beats Subway every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs