Well, if the one DUI charge down in Florida wasn’t enough to scare Sidney Ponson straight, perhaps his new DUI charge in Maryland will do the trick. Of course, he might just beat up the judge like he did in Aruba.

Of course, I’d be drinking too if I hadn’t won a start since the middle of June, or pitched in a game since the beginning August, but I think I’d be smart enough to get someone to drive me home from the bar, instead of trying it myself. But hey, that’s just me, I guess.

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Right now my housemate and I pony up something like $150 clams for Cable + Internet from Comcast. That’s much beer money in this Majestic household, maybe too much. I’ve seen the ads and I just checked, we can get RCN if we want. My question to you is simple: Will RCN connect me to something more than Comcast?

With Comcast we usually get flickering premium channels, and only get the digital music channels when there is a lunar occultation of Jupiter. Is RCN any better? While I like RCN’s current $60 Cable + Phone + Internet deal (Nationals games!) is it even worth the hassle of changing? Have you done it & are you happy?

An uber Geek needs to know…

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Yes, its Party Planner Wayan, back again with another Thursday night line-up for your drinking pleasure.

First up we have a new entrant to the Thursday night Happy Hour scene, one that I’m not convinced is worth the $10-15 cover and mandatory RSVP, or list of intricate rules to escape either. Still, a Brazilian Sunset Samba Happy Hour and Dance Party, complete with a limbo contest, does sound like fun, and the Hilton Embassy Row Rooftop location cannot be beat. I only wish they could figure out better ad copy than the vaguely sleazy-sounding “social networking and connecting with beautiful and diverse International Professionals.”
Hilton Washington Embassy Row, 2015 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
6:30-10PM, $10 with RSVP/$13 without RSVP

Next you can show your support for the AIDS Marathon in Honolulu by Learning How to Hula for a Good Cause Happy Hour. There will be an extended happy hour, including drink specials, a free taco bar, a hula demonstration and great raffle prizes from local businesses. “Great” being relative when prizes are one pound bags of Starbucks coffee and free lei’s.
The Front Page, 4201 Wilson Blvd, Arlington,VA
5:00pm to 8:00pm, $10 minimum donation requested

Perennial party-makers Professionals in the City are having a 35 Plus Evening Cruise on the Potomac, which sounds “great” until you realize what that means. Namely, that you’ll be trapped on a boat in the Potomac for three hours, with either Diane from Accounting or Bill from IT Support stalking you from bow to stern with tales of their psycho ex or jail-bound kids. I suggest wearing clothes you can swim in as an emergency escape plan.
Boat leaves from Washington Harbor (in Georgetown) 3050 K Street, N.W
7:30 PM – 10:00 PM, $20.00 if purchased in advance

Last but not least, there is a new club in town, kstreet, which is opening tonight. If you know the special handshake, or subscribe to DC Collective or PartySlave, you can to get in on the opening night for free before Midnight. Everyone else will have to pay a $10 cover charge. Now if you are willing to guarenttee at least a $500, you can reserve a tale and have “faster table service through the use of handheld wireless technology.” I wonder if that means the servers have pagers, or are we talking some cool Google Hack?
kstreet, 1301 K Street, NW
10pm, $10 cover without email printout

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Let’s say you have a friend coming in tomorrow night, a former college buddy of your husband’s, who left DC in the late 90’s for a jetsetting life of international intrigue.

Where would you take him for a night on the town?

Primary objective: Show him the many changes DC has undergone since his Barry-era college days.

Secondary objective: Prove DC has made some progress in it’s 21st century quest to be more stylish, hip, and funky.

Need ideas for drinks, dinner, and more drinks…
Where would you go to show off the city’s changing vibe?

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Inspired by my recent trip to the Tivoli Theatre, I found a fantastic book on lost buildings in DC.

Ranging from architectural treasures to the more mundane, James M. Goode’s treatise “Capital Losses” features beautiful old photographs and well-researched text. Some of the stories in here are classics and it’s well-worth a look.

I spent most of my lunch hour leafing through it at the downtown Barnes & Nobles, sighing over some spectacular visions of DC Victorian grandeur.

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Well, the DC area has one less Talk Radio Host as of today, WMAL fired Michael Graham for his anti-Islam remarks. Michael has proved so delicately for all of us that while you do have a right to free speech as guaranteed by the Constitution, you have no right to be an asshole and not have to suffer for it.

Of course, talk radio hosts are a dime a dozen, so it’s one down, 20,000 to go…man I miss Art Bell.

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Yesterday I returned from that classic DC summer ritual, the long weekend at the beach. Congratulating myself for the foresight of taking today off to clean in preparation for a mid-week house guest, I set out to battle against acres of dust, piles of dirty laundry, stale air, and the usual minefield of cat hairballs.

Several hours later, sweaty and frustrated, I’m still at it.

When you have an old house, cleaning eventually vanquishes you. You endlessly run up and down stairs with buckets of cleaner, finding all the little presents your cats left you. Somehow even more dust descends the second you turn off the vacuum. So I find myself thinking of the first owner, Mrs. Campbell (we found her calling card once in the space behind the pocket doors), and how the hell she must have managed.

If I complain about cleaning the house, scampering about in a little sundress and sneakers, how did she do it in 1890’s full regalia – underdress, corset, petticoats, wool dress, laced up boots, long hair (real and false) piled high? And there was even more dust in those days – our house was at one time equipped with a “modern” coal system venting hot air into the rooms, leaving a nice film of soot to clean every day. Wool carpets, heavy draperies, all the tchotchkes of Victorian life – it’s a wonder those people could breathe!

All the moaning we do about how hot it is, and we have the luxury of CAC to escape to!

Were they all just tougher than we are today?

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Dear Guy in the Blue Coupe at the Glebe Rd. Harris Teeter this afternoon:

If you’re waiting for a parking space, perhaps you could, like, wait near the parking space you intend to take, instead of parking over by the curb in front of a parked minivan where no one can see you. Maybe then people would notice that you’re waiting for it.

Instead, in a fit of impotent rage at my indifference to your self-created predicament, you screamed a phrase that was clearly calculated to anger me, but only entertained me. After all, there you were, seething in your car, still circling the lot, as I was on my way into the store. Clearly, I win.

Love and Kisses,
Tiff

PS: I may be a “fat c*nt,” but you’re not exactly a prize package yourself, you scrawny jackass.

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A week or so ago, a friend of ours stayed at Hotel Monaco down on 7th and F on the verge of Chinatown. Apparently, the Klimpton Group Hotel also drew the attention of View from the Wing writer George Leff:

Once we had finished our entrees, the waitress brought our check. We asked whether they offered dessert? And she took away our check and brought new menus. No, she wasn’t trying to get rid of us. I wasn’t commenting on all of these deficiencies during our meal, we were more than pleasant! It just never occurred to her that at 11:45 am we might want dessert after brunch. Bad for the restaurant (it reduces average bill amounts) and bad for patrons (it’s hardly anticipatory service, and if she’s unsure if we’ll want something she might do better to ask).

And that’s just part of his complaint. Yowza.

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Okay, so I may be new to this whole “speeding ticket thing,” I’ve only ever been hit by the Arlington PD for going to fast along Lee Highway (dude, 30 is not realistic for a four lane street that is a major thoroughfare, c’mon now.) in 2002, but this to me seems a bit off-axis. There’s an off-duty DC cop who is pulling people over for speeding.

Yes. You read that correctly. He’s giving out speeding tickets as a hobby.

Am I the only one who sees this as vigilante work? If he was doing something like stopping robbers, or preventing rapes and murders, I suppose that would be one thing, but just generating revenue for the city? Now I’m not so sure…

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Some things are just too bizarre to be false. Seriously, much like our baby panda “Butterstick” (which got some serious love in the Express yesterday.), some things are so bizarre that they must actually exist:

Part of Frager’s 85th Anniversary Celebration

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF EVENT:
Bring us your biggest, ugliest and heaviest homegrown tomatoes. $85 Gift Certificates will be awarded in addition to the tomato most resembling our owner Mr. Ed.

STREET ADDRESS:
Frager’s Hardware on Capitol Hill. 1115 Pennsylvania Avenue SE.

Sadly, all of my tomatoes were perfectly lovely, and, well, delicious. But if you’ve got ugly tomatoes, take ’em to Frager’s, you could come up with some cash for next year’s crop.

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God, I love Google. From Google’s spy eye in the sky to drilling under your desktop they are really bringing good things to light. In doing so, they are opening up many of their products to hackers too, and look at the goodies produced so far:

Cheap Gas Hack
The next time you’re facing gas sticker shock, or like Tom watching it rise by the day, go on over to this cheap gas Google hack where you can put in Washington, DC and find that gas is $2.52 at Connecticut & Veazey. Powered by GasBuddy and Google Maps, this little hack could save you more than GEICO!

Traffic Advisory Hack
Next up, you can use this amazing Traffic Advisory Google hack to make sure you’re not getting the long line of red lights that Gridlock DC often provides. Powered by Yahoo traffic alerts, it tells you where construction and such is going on.

Distance Traveled Hack
Better yet, be like me, and go car free DC. Then you can use the Gmap Pedometer Google hack to figure out how far you walked, ran, or biked without resorting to a sextant or a GPS. While it take a little work, and clicking on the “Click here if you don’t live in Hoboken” link, this hack is a dream for those of us who don’t run the way cars drive.

Apartment Rent Hack
And when you’re ready for that shower after your run or a beer after your drive, look no farther than this kick-ass Housing rate Google Hack Combining the “for rent” posts on Craigslist with Google maps, you can search for places to live by geography and cost. Also this is a great rent leveler – is your one bedroom really worth $1,500 in your hood?

They are so good, I think I’m gonna work for Google!

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Local Megalomaniac Dan Snyder, fresh off his bribery attempts at the Department of Interior is now after a park of a whole other nature. Yup, that’s right, Dan Snyder wants to own a controlling share in Six Flags. He’s been outspoken of the management there since he bought a 8.6% interest in the company a little while ago. He apparently said they need to win the playoffs, and he’s just the guy to helm them to do just that. He wants to make sure that Daffy gets more catches and that Bugs gets a few more carries each quarter. Or something like that.

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Yesterday the Herndon Town Council approved a Day Laborer site run by a grant from Fairfax County to the tune of $170,000 and administered by Project Hope and Harmony out of a former police station. This stirred up a bunch of controversy when Wayan wrote about it earlier in the month.

Friend of DC Metblogs Marisa Martineau is quoted in the WTOP article:

“We do not support illegal immigration,” said Maria Martineau of the Hispanic Committee of Virginia. “Rather, we favor eradication of societal structures that create a permanent underclass.

This is going to be an interesting project to watch. If it works, better for the area. If it fails, however, are we going to see further crackdown on day-labor gathering places?

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Welcome back Redskins fans! Now get ready to pay more. WMATA is gonna charge folks who park at the station lots at Morgan Boulevard or Largo Town Center, then walk to the stadium, $25 for the privilege. This is comparable to what the team charges in its lots, but unlike the team lots, there is a way out: Anyone whose SmarTrip card shows a subway ride within two hours of leaving the lot will only pay the regular parking charge.

So my dear car-loving football fans, save yourself $20 the easy way, ride the metro from one lot to the other before and after the game. Say you parked at Morgan Boulevard. Then Metro to Largo, walk to the game, and after the game walk back to Largo & metro to Morgan. Poof! You just paid $6.20 for parking, ($3.50 parking + 2.70 for the metro ride) instead of the full $25.

And while I’d much rather you actually Metro all the way to/from the game, just remember, you read about this Metro hack here first.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Great piece in the Post today on bringing football back to Gallaudet. Gallaudet is one of the District’s frequently over-looked universities, providing liberal-arts education to over 1800 students who are hearing-impaired. Football’s a bit of a challenge when you can’t hear your coach. Their coach, Ed Hottle, is just learning sign language with 2-hour practice sessions every day.

Workouts start tomorrow, with their first game on September 4th against the Shenandoah University JV squad. Go Bison!

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So all I wanted in the world yesterday morning was to get in my car and go to work. I like my job. I was in my mental “Go-to-work” zone. I got in my car, pulled away from the curb, and noticed a vague rumbling noise from under the car, and an odd feel to the handling that I couldn’t quite identify. So I pulled over.

Well shit. I’ve got a flat.

I parked the car again and considered my options. Fortunately, Tom drove me to work instead of our usual carpool arrangement. He offered to change the tire for me too (because I can barely get my spare out of the back, much less jack up a car), but since the car was parked facing down a hill, I was less than comfortable with the idea of asking my life-partner-in-crime to get on the ground next to 2,500 pounds of steel that could shift unexpectedly off the very teeny jack on a 30% grade. Thanks, no, I value Tom’s life and personal structural integrity.

But… my certified pre-owned Beetle came with roadside assistance! Aha!

After an evening of dealing with a Volkswagen rep and a towing company rep that were dumber than a bag of hammers, a truck from King Towing in Fairfax (Fairfax? Is that the closest garage you could find, VW?) appeared around 7:30 PM. They brought a tow truck with the winch that can grip the rear wheels of a car, thus preventing it from sliding anywhere.

This is why I call a professional Emergency Truck Road Service. They have professional equipment.

The whole thing took about half an hour, swatting at mosquitos the whole time.

And now my full-size spare is securely on the Bug and my car is once again driveable. But it’s on the right side, which is also the side I banged up a bit against a parking garage wall a few months ago. So my car looks all gimpy on the right. If you see a little green Bug matching that description, wave at me and my poor, bruised ride.

Fortunately, it’s just a very small hole in my tire, so I can fix it and reinflate it for less than $10, rather than spending hundreds of dollars getting new front tires. Maybe I’ll finally get that rubbing compound to take out the scrapes, too…

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Sure, the Georgetown DMV is closed for renovations, and the K st. location is closed for at least another week or so due to disrepair, but that always leaves the C St. NW location if you’re trying to get stuff in Northwest….right?

Well, today, not so much. While I wouldn’t hesitate to that most times, the DMV is full of crap, today that was literally so. Due to a sewage issue, the office was closed for most of the day, only reopening at 2:30 this afternoon.

C’mon guys, get your shit together, this is just embarrassing.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Welcome to the twenty-first century, Mayor Williams! You’ve gotten yourself a blog. Welcome to the internet. Sadly, no RSS feed just yet, but I look forward to reading your site. Take a lesson from Councilman Garcetti in Los Angeles, and come hang out with the bloggers. We’ll all be at The Washington Weblogger Meetup Group event at Pharaoh’s tonight. We look forward to seeing you there.

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That evacuation at the Mayflower this weekend? The one that happened twice? It was a terrible mistake. The box itself belonged to a Secret Service contractor who left the device there accidentally. Apparently, had the box actually been a bomb, and had it exploded…

…it would have taken our two city blocks.

Oops.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs