He is NOT the enemy

In a beautiful example of sensationalizing something from not much, the WashPost has a great alarmist article on the Washington & Old Dominion Trail and how:

speeding cyclists, in-line skaters, walkers, joggers and others fight for a narrow slice of pavement, with increasingly dangerous results.

To support her tabloid take that cyclists are a dangerous menace to everyone on area trails, Candace Rondeaux cites such amazing statistics like:

• The W&OD Trail has had just five fatalities since its inception in 1974 and yet is used by more than 2 million people a year
• The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Towpath had only 34 accidents with 3 million visitors a year, without a fatality since 1961

And then tries to cover her self-admitted “anecdotal evidence” of bike crash victims with out-of-context statistics like:

• In 1990, about 6,600 people regularly biked to work in the Washington area, a decade later, its only increased to 7,500.
• Nationwide, there are 700 bike-related fatalities.

“What about vehicle-related fatalities?” you ask? Over 41,000 per year. Um, thanks for the hype Candace. As a regular cyclist and runner on area trails, I’ve logged more miles and have a better understanding of the dangers, and the dangerous, than your article portrays you to know.

The only decent paragraph in the article is this one:

On the increasingly hectic W&OD, everyone seems to be jockeying for pole position. Racers on expensive tour bikes blow by soccer moms pushing high-tech three-wheel strollers. Buff skaters with iPods strapped to their arms plunge through packs of not-so-buff pedestrians. Early-morning traffic is especially heavy with day laborers and white-collar commuters riding to work.

And if you join me after the jump, I’ll explain why, and who is the real danger on the Washington & Old Dominion Trail. Hint: It ain’t “racers on expensive tour bikes.”

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

Photo by DC Metroblogger

I am here to witness Jesus! I am preaching loud. I am bringing the Word to downtown.

People in the park, this is your saving with your salad. People in cars this is your deliverance while you’re driving.

God is here for you cuz he is sure here for me!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

This Sunday former DC Metblog author Robert Walton is having a release event for his self-published book, twelve dreams: a transcription which contains some short stories and dream transcriptions.

Robert was on his way out when I was on my way in so we’ve never had the chance to meet, but I’ve been getting his sporadic email updates on his artistic progress, including his Mount Pleasant Project. It’s something a number of you might be very interested in, given the amount of heat generated by a recent post on Mount Pleasant getting a Ruby Tuesday’s.

I don’t love all his work – the soft-focus of ‘morning bridge‘ grates on me, probably as a result of my own history as a photographer who was often criticized by my cohorts for images that seemed “so commercial.” But I love many of the shots in the Mount Pleasant project, particularly “Hanging out at the 7-Eleven” and this shot from inside the Raven. I’m hopeful that he’ll put prints from ‘red chair‘ up for sale so I can get one…

Sunday, Aug. 20
D.C. Arts Center (aka, DCAC)
2438 18th St. NW
Adams Morgan
5 p.m.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Every once in a blue moon, I see an idea that’s so beautifully derivative, you wonder why it’s never been done before. Today, I bring you Zombie Prom. It’s up in Baltimore, but the basic idea behind it is getting dressed up in a cheap tux/dress and making yourself out to be zombies. It’s put on but a bunch of indie filmmakers who are having a great time with the whole thing, as they make Roller Derby Zombies. Tickets are $12, and make sure to read the dress code section of the page, as Gardel’s Supper Club has a dress code.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

This is my cousin, Jose Manuel, or as I call him, “the Hottest man in Juarez” after we went bar hopping South of the Border a while back.

Now he’s no longer bar hopping, he’s couch-surfing with me. Arriving Monday for the start of his first year at GW Law he’s looking to find shared accommodation convenient to the law school at 21st and H Streets.

Before he goes from cool cousin to pain in my ass, I need to get him from couch-surfing cousin to rent paying housemate. From my apartment-hunting days, I’ve sent him to Craigslist, the excellent Housing Maps (a Craigslist/Google mash-up) and the Washington City Paper classifieds.

Anywhere else he should look for a room to rent?

Also, do us both a favor, ask around. I know you know someone who needs a housemate. A respectful, clean, serious housemate who needs to get off my couch asap. I need not lose my supermodels to my younger cousin!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Check out the email I received from the Marie Johns for Mayor, Deputy Field Director, Michael Crawford:

I am emailing you as some of the key bloggers in the District to see if you would be interested in attending a meeting between members of the blogging community and Marie Johns.

This will be a great chance for you to hear personally from Mrs. Johns and to ask questions about the issues that are important to you. A date and time have not yet been chosen for a meeting. I assessing interest in the idea to see if it will be something that you are interested in.

Might he be calling me a “key blogger in the District” because of my amazing post volume about DC or is the Marie Johns for Mayor campaign that desperate to claw its way out of the bottom tier of mayoral candidates?

If they’re thinking to include District bloggers into the mayoral race, the Johns camping may be in for a rude surprise. As a group, we rely on high-speed internet more than the usual voter and we are highly educated about the differences in pricing and services from the different cable operators and Verizon, which Mrs. Johns lead as President of Verizon, DC.

We may back Verzion in it’s defense against the RIAA’s subpoenas but we all have Verizon horror stories and would sue for deceptive practices if we could.

Don’t even get us started on John Thorne’s tiered pricing dreams that would make us pay for Internet service twice or thrice. We would only assume you’d charge us for police presence and fire protection on a per use, as well as income tax basis.

Its only too bad that Fenty’s campaign has gone all arrogant and not replied to my query about their own blog-centric campaigning. Still no word if they have a blogger meeting or care to make a real blog.

The corruption of blogging personified by the Adrian Fenty Blog, an endless pro-Fenty profusion without the ability to comment, is more useless propaganda than participatory democracy.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Hi DC. It’s Tom. Nice to see you again.

Sorry I had to call you in on such notice, but I think it’s time we had a talk. See, you seem to think that the stuff you get from Starbucks and Caribou is the best coffee in town. Starbucks isn’t a coffeshop. Coffeeshops have culture and community. When I go into a starbucks, it’s because I want one specific thing and then I want to get the fuck out of there before the nature of the place devours my soul.

When I want a real cup of coffee, made by artisan baristas, with real patrons that know each other and use the space as a space between home and office to get work done, then I’m not going to fucking Starbucks, mmkay? Alton Brown said it best when he talked about food recently: “Don’t trust food to people who don’t love you.”

Starbucks doesn’t love you. Murky loves you. Greenberry’s loves you. Misha’s loves you. Starbucks doesn’t.

Mmkay? Glad we had this little chat. Don’t fuck it up again.

By the way, you might want to take a peek at what Going Out Gurus chose. Sure, it’s not 100% what I’d have chosen, but it’s better than some of the crap you chose.

Thanks.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well, the weird often happens in August in DC, and this latest news certainly fits that category. The Nats have placed Soriano on waivers today, making it likely that he could be involved in a waiver-wire trade. The whole thing is a perfect example about how the Major League Baseball trading system is one of the most bizarre and complex systems known to humankind, and certainly makes for late summer drama in the cities involved.

Chris Needham at Capitol Punishment suggests that this might be part of a bigger deal with potentially Armas and Astacio involved as well:

Rosenthal buries the lede, though. Soriano gets the flashy name in lights, but it’s the idea that Bowden threw Astacio and Armas (or anyone else) on waivers at the same time. Claiming teams would have a choice. They realistically can’t claim all three because of the damage it could do to their active roster if the Nats just gave the players up. This could allow Bowden to slip those guys through, allowing Bowden to pull off a trade with another team with no strings attached.

Either way, the Nats are in rough shape, still well below .500 and not likely to make it to even keel this season. It’d be nice to see the Nats pull of a nice trade late in the season for heavy prospects, or perhaps get Soriano signed for another year of his contract. Time will tell, but something’s brewing.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well now, why would Amazon be telling me that rather than purchase that book I could go to one of the Loudoun library branches and check it out instead? If you’re at all nerd-tastic you might recognize the name of the program “greasemonkey,” a Firefox extension that allows little locally-installed scripts to massage the way things are presented in your web browser. Loudoun has posted a link right on their main page directing you to instructions on how to install greasemonkey and the script itself on your copy of Firefox. Once you do it’ll automagically check to see if the item you’re browsing is available to be checked out (or reserved, in the case of the book I was looking at above) rather than purchased.

If you’re a total cheapskate frugal like myself it’s a great thing to have installed. It both checks the viability of checking the item out of the library rather than purchasing it and serves as a reminder that I should be doing that rather than buying it anyway…

Aside: as a programmer m’self I have to say I think it would have been nice if they gave some sort of credit to Carrick Mundell, the original author of the script. He doesn’t require it – didn’t even put any comments or copyright in his script, which he originally posted for free here – but it seems like the right thing to do.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Fox 5 reports (shut up, the news was on after House) that there are high levels of nitrate in the water in Northeast, near Catholic University. It’s affecting large portions of the campus and surrounding homes around 8th and Varnum. So if you’re there, stock up on bottled water.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

A change in perspective is always a good thing, especially when it comes to photography. Sometimes all it takes to go from “the same old thing” to something spectacular is to shoot from a viewpoint that people aren’t used to seeing. Of course a wicked sky and a little bit of post processing never hurts anything either, as you can see in this photo by Flickr user dogbert8u:

As a tall person (6’4″), I have a tendancy to always look down on things. I have to force myself to remember this while I’m shooting because some of the most interesting shots come from simply looking up. Look up!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Do you spend hours looking for a parking space in DC neighborhoods? Say when you are driving home late at night and do not want the long, lonely walk back to your place?

Or when you are late for a date, and know she’s looking at her watch dismissively, counting every second of you tardiness?

Do you ever see moving boxes like these taking up valuable parking space? Are they there for days too? This set was on Mt Pleasant Avenue for a week straight.

If you were looking for a parking space late, did you ever think about torching these boxes? Or at least ramming them with your car?

I wanna know who is obnoxious enough to ask for these shipping boxes to be left on the street. How self-important do you have to be to take up this much parking space for a week? Do pray tell!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Let me see if I’ve got this right. The TSA is going to make everyone who flies in the US take their shoes off and have them X-rayed. Except, that it seems that the TSA knows the X-Rays won’t do a goddamn thing to detect explosives. So, the lines at National and BWI and Dulles all just got longer in the name of “safety,” but really it’s only safety theatre?

Gee, thanks TSA. I’m so very glad you’re around to “protect” me from all those mean terrorists by making me take off my shoes so that you can pretend to check them for explosives. That’s really awesome. Now, can we just find someone to weave explosives into cloth so we all have to fly naked, handcuffed and under gunpoint? Because that would really rock.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I’m always impressed at the confidence people show when they drive these classic cars around in regular traffic. Not in themselves – everyone thinks they’re a pretty good driver, even (particularly?) when they’re not. I mean confidence in the rest of you clowns. Personally I always expect my fellow drivers to do something stupid and I’m not often let down: weaving back and forth so they can get to the red light a whole 3 seconds before me, changing lanes without signaling, and, my personal favorite, honking at anyone who doesn’t turn right on red agressively enough to suit them.

I always enjoy the sight of these brave folk gambling their expensive – and safety-feature light – classic vehicles out on the open road. It’s nice to see that they enjoy using these vintage machines, not just peering at them in a garage, immobile, like some giant metal and rubber butterfly in a case. I know I enjoy seeing them.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Look what I won this weekend at the DC Tri Club Training Triathlon: a bright blue running shirt.

Were you there? Did you win too? I know everyone who came out won in their own special way. We all tri’ed. We all finished. We are all winners.

Some of us just won a little more.

Now its time for you to win with us. The summer is not gone, the season not ended. There is still time for you to upgrade, for you to tri with the DC Tri Club.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

This is Screen on the Green tonight. Rocky is gonna be starting in a bit and everyone already started drinking wine.

We, as a collective whole, only have one question for you: why aren’t you here with us?

It is a beautiful night and as you can see all of DC (except you) is enjoying it right.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I had to post this shot by Flickr user edwardaggie98 (yet another bizarro user name). The color, the composition, the exposure…when it comes to Flickrville, it just doesn’t get much better than this. I think most of us are used to seeing these buildings from the other side of the Capitol (i.e. looking east), so this is a refreshing view as I see things.

Last fall, my sister and I went on a house tour in the Capitol Hill area and one of the “homes” was a renovated school. We saw the price tag of well over a million dollars and thought, “Hmph.” Then we went upstairs to the private roof deck and the view, similar to this one, about knocked our socks off. I then realized what the price tag was all about.

Anyway, nice work, Ed. Keep shooting!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

This is it. This is your last chance. The last Party Scene of Screen on the Green, and they will be showing the original Rocky on the National Mall.

Will you be there? Will you join us? Will you make it a Pick Up Scene on the Green with the always uplifting Rocky in the background.

I know I sure will!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

While you were reading the WashPost article today about the slow creep of chains into Dupont Circle, my mind was a little farther east and north.

First, Dupont Circle is not the poster child for suburbanization of DC that would be Chinatown, or what’s left of it anyway. I said bye bye Chinatown a little late, when Hooters moved in, but right after the MCI Verizon Center opened, the signs were clear.

Fuddruckers, Legal Sea Foods, with just a sign in Chinese, shame the neighborhood’s name. These are chain restaurants that cater to the Center’s outside the Beltway crowds and killed the neighborhood’s character.

Oh and before you try, don’t even think of using the remaining Chinese restaurants as an example of Asian hold outs. Those are as authentic as McDonalds.

Photo by DC Metroblogger

So what’s the next neighbourhood to be sanitized? Well walking home last night I saw a sign, this sign, on the rebuilt Tivoli Theatre building: Ruby Tuesday’s.

This is the sign of the end. This sign of what I feared with the new Target, suburbia invading in 500,000 square foot stores.

Out goes color, out goes local ownership. In come the chains, in come standardization. In comes those who think Ruby Tuesday’s is a selling point. And out goes those who enjoy a little variety in their lives.

Variety that does not come in pieces of “flair”.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well, they got the deal done. The Nats and MASN are finally coming to the DC Comcast cable system, but at a significant price to not just those interested in the games, but to every subscriber in the DC area. That’s right, under the guise of paying to add MASN to the network, they’re upping their rates by $2 per customer per month. Statastic has all the details about how they’re robbing you blind for something they ought to carry for little or no extra cost to their subscribers.

Wayan’s awful fond of RCN, and I’ve always been a devotee of DirecTV, and if you’re in special parts of the DC area, there’s Verizon FIOS TV, so there are options out there for those of you who think you’re about to take it in the pooper from Comcast, and I heartily encourage you to explore them.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs