Oh blah blah President, blah blah NSA, blah blah State of the Union. Who cares? The real political intrigue in this town revolves around two things: Blackberries and kickball.

Just as residents in what is now Arlington went to bed in DC one night in 1847 and woke up in Virginia, many who once would have registered with WAKA will now have to play NAKID. My kickballin buddy who passed me this information said exact reasons why the split-off occurred are hard to come by. This upshot seems to be that WAKA, faced with a bunch of DCites who wanted to play kickball this spring… declared the local division as “fall only.”

I can’t imagine exactly why they didn’t want to take the hard-earned $60 of so many aspiring drunkards athletes, but if all you care about is a chance to kick a ball and hoist a drink, this probably works in your favor. Dues, if you step up before mid-month, will be $42 as compared to WAKA’s past $60.

Photo courtesy of EXB-WDC.

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“Cocktails. Stat.”

That was the dire need last night. Unfortunately when you’re in a state where you really need cocktails, you rarely are able to focus on where to go to get them. At least when you have your head in the clouds like I do. So wandering into an extremely brightly lit and painfully antiseptic smelling bar/restaurant in Dupont was perhaps not the best idea. Getting up and leaving after two minutes certainly was an improvement.

“Beer. Stat.”

So the parameters changed, and noting my complete inability to make a decision, we stumbled into the dark womb of The Childe Harold’s lower level bar and settled for lager instead of vodka. Ah, but would Lord Byron approve of this snuggery? Undoubtedly.

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…Western Union stopped sending them on Friday. I know there used to be a Western Union office in the basement of the Capitol, does this mean they’re closed for telegram business henceforth? How cushy would that job be, now that you’d only have to deal with the (likely very rare among hill staffers) money order, or other message. Anyone out there been down to the Capitol Western Union lately?

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winter 2006 bet

Originally uploaded by DCMetbloger.

Here we go kids-the day before ground hog day and i am throwing down my winter prediction now: i say we don’t need no stinking snow emergency route signs. The end of winter is nigh! Or at least that is my bet. So keep driving those suv’s, next feb i wanna be tanning on my rooftop.

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While Tom is condoning Capitol Police censorship, it seems the Wikipedia is locking out Congressional staffers for their unfettered revisionist history and poor manners. To quote Wikipedia:

This RFC is being opened in order to further a centralized discussion concerning actions to be taken against US Congressional staffers and possibly other federal employees who have engaged in unethical and possibly libelous behavior in violation of Wikipedia policies (WP:NPOV, WP:CIV). The editors from these IP ranges have been rude, abrasive, immature, and show disregard for Wikipedia policy. The editors have frequently tried to censor the history of elected officials, often replacing community articles with censored biographies despite other users’ attempts to dispute these violations. They also violate Wikipedia:Verifiability, by deleting verified reports, while adding flattering things about members of Congress that are unverified.

The offending editors have been blocked. This RFC is needed to gather community comments. It is proposed that a one week block is not enough.

So just to be clear Hill Staffers: the Iraq war is really causing kids to die and is a disgrace. Global warming is really happening. This administration is bought off by Big Oil, and yes, DeLay is guilty of being a jerk and worse.

Now here’s a news flash for you too – Geek are smart. They can track you down to the computer level. Oh and you’re on government time, using taxpayer funded equipment. Can we say getting sacked? Just look at what happened to Washingtonette. Oh and you will not get a book deal out of this either. Only laughter. At you.

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Generally, it’s a bad idea to unfold a protest banner in the middle of the State of the Union, especially if you’re a guest in the Capitol. Generally, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get arrested for trying to interrupt the speech. The Capitol Police do not take kindly to people disturbing the business of government. What were you thinking?

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what is wrong with the metro

Originally uploaded by DCMetbloger.

Could someone please explain to me why i should be waiting 7 minutes for a train at 7pm on a tuesday? Instead of watching lights flicker, shouldn’t i be well on my way to my destination? Wouldn’t more trains per hour _and_ more cars per train speed things up?

Could metro then come something close to the amazing efficiency of the ancient moscow metropolitain or the reliability of the creaky nyc subway? We can only hope.

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A DC inmate was killed while trying to escape today. He managed to escape the bus he was being transported on…but got run over when he fell from the undercarriage into traffic in the third street and was killed. So, if you were stuck in traffic, that’s why.

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When your birthday week is a stressful mess and your mood is swinging violently from abject misery to manic panic, it isn’t time for Fantasy Shopping. It’s time for actual Spend Money Like There’s No Tomorrow Shopping. So off I went for a long lunch and in the course of helping the economy out, discovered the new American Apparel store downtown, on F Street between 11th and 10th.

The store opened last month, and is so unlike the usual downtown shopping experience that I was caught like a newbie supermodel in paparazzi flashlights upon entering – cement floors, bright lighting, loud music – and perfectly ordered racks upon racks of lightweight cotton clothing in a rainbow of delicious colors. This is “LA style” (so they say, I’ll have to take their word for it) – causal yet sexy. I went mad for the scoop back tees. They even have tees for baby and poochy. Bikinis, capris, skirts, hoodies – all cotton and all in the $15-35 range.

I’m not sure about the quality or the longevity, but with that kind of selection I don’t think I care. There’s nothing like soft gentle sexy cotton to improve my mood tremendously.

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Once upon a time amtrak was different. Unlike airlines, who discouraged last minute tickets and one way trips, amtrak charged the same if you bought one month or one day ahead. Well that is about to change: Amtrak is introducing “Revenue Management”

What does that mean you ask? Starting next week, if you plan ahead, or travel in off-peak times, you can get a discount up to 15%. But if you buy a walk-up ticket and/or travel during peak times, say Friday or Sunday afternoon, you may pay 15% more.

Thanks Amtrak! Now I have another reason to love me some of the ever popular and dirt cheap chinatown buses. Hey, they’re leaving from more than just Chinatown these days – Vamoose leaves from my office door!

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The bar-restaurant Champps seems to be all over the metro area, what with one close to my girl’s home at Pentagon Row and one near my workplace over in Reston. In reality there are only five of them, but it seems like more since I can feel the eyecancer growing every time I look upon that sign. Why? What purpose does that serve? It just looks wrong in every way. It bugs me so much that I almost wrote a little poem about it. A haiku to annoyance. A free-verse rant about your spurious P and Mazda’s Millenia’s missing N and the tumor that grows behind my eyelid every time I gaze upon this wrong-ness.

Instead I will just grit my teeth and mock you here. Mock mock mock.

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You fancy yourself a MC? You think you can be a real-life VJ? How about one who can handle a crowd? A drunk, trivia-demanding crowd? A Commander Microphone if you will? Is that you?

If so, you need to find your calling. A calling that will get you free drinks, dinner, and $25. That would be the MC spot at Wonderland Ballroom‘s Monday Night Trivia Fight. If last night was any indication, you better really be able to fight too. Like fight for your right to be right. Fisticuffs almost broke out when the winning answer to “The islands named after dogs” was revealed to be the Canary Islands.

Apparently a tangential link to the Latin word for “dog” was decreed as proof of Canary Islands as a correct answer – against the much more logical Labrador or Aleutian Islands. Okay, so maybe I was so drunk as to confuse the Aleutians with the Afghan hound, but so what – I was still closer than the Canaries, which are named after the bird, not the dog!

Even the Wikipedia backs me up! Note is says: “The name derives probably from a north African tribe (the Canarii) or possibly the Latin term Insularia Canaria meaning Island of the Dogs,” There is at least a beer’s difference between “probably” and “possibly”.

No matter, you too can be the center of controversy; I mean attention, at the Wonderland Monday Night Trivia Fight. Just be brave (or insane) and sign up. I did, and now I am on tap for February 13. Are you?

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While its Bars & Clubs search needs refinement, Yahoo Maps Beta is a new & improved Yahoo Maps that now sports a handy “Live Traffic” function. Click that and you can see an assortment of traffic bottlenecks in real time. This would be good to check before that morning commute.

I just checked it now – 11pm, and there are only NoVA traffic problems, which I think means it only works in NoVA vs. only NoVA has traffic problems. Still, that’ll be valuable for my morning-afters with my NoVA supermodel harem.

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… you’d better not be drunk.

A cashier at the Gallery Gourmet Market in the basement of Ivory Tower was detained Sunday night after University Police was called due to inappropriate remarks he made to customers. GW spokeswoman Tracy Schario said the man was “clearly very drunk.”

I look forward to this level of policing extending past the university grounds. Like, say, arresting people who are being jerks during the anthem.

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The Board of Regents of the Smithsonian have announced the new site for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It will be located at the corner of 14th and Constitution, on a five acre plot located about 1000 feet from the Washington Monument. Though the Mall is already crowded, and I’m sure this will have a detrimental effect on traffic on that major corridor, it’s nice to see the Smithsonian expanding their museum options for our tourist friends.

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The weather today is nothing short of outstanding, a taste of spring in the midst of winter here, and so several of my cohorts and I took a walk at lunch. DC is such a walkable city, with broad sidewalks and gorgeous façades (okay, okay, not all of them, but more here, I’d say, than in many other American or European cities), there’s good reason to take a nice constitutional. Days like today, that remind us that all of winter’s gloom is nearly behind us for the year, are truly special in this city of ours, for in addition to walking past a store owned by a man who loves to shtupp his employees, you can also get stun guns, marital aids and martial arts equipment.

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My dinner on Thursday was at a DC restaurant I have taken a real shine to, Galileo. This was my second experience there and they showed consistency with my last visit. Part of this is good: everything we had was at the worst very good, and more often excellent. The other half of that consistency was unfortunate: service is very uneven. I’ll elaborate below the fold.

If you have any interest in Galileo, however, you should sign up for the email list by sending a message to subscribe@galileodc.com. You’ll get a message every week or so about what’s going on with the lunchtime grill as well as special events and promotions. I encourage you to sign up – its how we got Thursday’s meal at 50% off, including wine.

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Yesterday afternoon I joined a glowing friend of mine for a spa afternoon – the perfect Sunday indulgence. She chose Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door in Friendship Heights, to which I’d never been.

Spas are strange places. It seems to me there’s a lot of effort that goes into relaxing, and sometimes, a lot of attitude.

My best spa experiences in DC have been at places that are dedicated to a truly tranquil environment, where they wrap you in cosy robes with slippers and gently usher you from treatment to treatment as if you were both engaged in some sort of quiet temple ritual. That was my experience once at Christiane in Georgetown, where I was wafted from a massage to a vichy shower to manicure/pedicure so seamlessly and with such hushed reverence I began to have delusions that I was being reborn as Aphrodite.

I certainly didn’t feel like a goddess’s avatar as I was chided twice at Red Door, first by the receptionist and then the nail technician, for committing the ghastly sin of being fifteen minutes early for my appointment.

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Yesterday morning there was a serious fire at the Falls Church Presbyterian Church on Broad St. in Falls Church. Flames leapt from the trashcans between the buildings into the building itself and the church was nearly lost. The FCFD were amazing in their response and saved the church from what would be a fiery destruction. The choir room was a total loss, including the piano, and the back stair will need to be entirely refurbished.

Church met this morning in the Falls Church Community Center, on a gym floor with the baskets raised, and never have I seen a tighter community. They had received offers from Dulin Methodist, Presbyterian and several other faith communities nearby to help host a service, and that warmed a lot of peoples’ hearts this morning as we all sat in the gym, working with an electric piano and an altar that folded up and went back beneath the bleachers when we left.

We collapsed the piano, we folded up the chairs and stacked them, and got the facility ready for the 11:30 basketball game.

I saw wet eyes today, but I saw more hope and adaptability and perspective than I’d seen recently. Pitched during the sermon today, and in the bulletin, is a mission trip to New Orleans to help them rebuild, and Pastor Tom Schmid reminded us how lucky we were to have only lost a choir room.

We are, however, looking for a choir room in Falls Church or Arlington, with a piano, for rehearsal this week, and maybe next. If you know of any, please let me know.

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“This is Lisa Simpson and when I grow up I’m going to marry her!!” What better way to kick off the weekend before Valentine’s Day than proving to the one you love just how big of a geek you really are?

Fantom Comics is celebrating their grand opening with a Simpsons Trivia Contest over the weekend of February 11th and 12th. To enter, visit their site and fill out the entrance form. The Grand Prize Winner stands to take home over $500 worth of merchandise – just don’t try to split it with anyone named Martin or Millhouse. They’re located at the Tenleytown metro stop above the Best Buy and The Container Store.

So here’s a bit of easy trivia for you – what occupied that building before the days of comics, containers, and computers?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs