Wayan’s DC Photos

The ANSWER protest sign drama continues as the anti-war group hides behind the First Amendment in its defacement of Washington DC public property.

Yesterday the Department of Public Works fined the ANSWER coalition $10,000 for posting hundreds of signs to promote a peace march September 15 that were illegally affixed to utility boxes, using glue that was too sticky, exceeded the number of signs allowed per block, and not registering copies with the DPW.

Today ANSWER responded that it would counter-sue, claiming that the DC government fined them in a “politically motivated” bid to silence their efforts against the war in Iraq.

Let me be one of the many to call “bullshit” on ANSWER coalition position. Slapping up ugly-ass posters on every inanimate object in the city, violating very clear anti-graffiti rules that every other protest organization follows, is not Free Speech. Nor would the content be what pisses off the citizens of Washington.

ANSWER forgets that DC is majority Democrat and in general does not condone the idiot in the White House, and is very much against the war in Iraq. More importantly, they forget that they are guests in DC, and defacing our city isn’t the way to treat guests hosts.

So I’d like to send ANSWER a message. I’d like you to join me in removing ANSWER signs and sending the detritus to ANSWER’s HQ at 1247 E St. SE, Washington, DC 20003. Better yet, give them an earful while you do it on (202) 544-3389.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of LarryKang

Max told us about DC corrections officials putting a woman in with the male inmates. Perhaps they simply were jealous that the female corrections officers are getting all the play, what with two female officers now being arrested for boffing people under their supervision.

Well, less people than person, given that they were both ….. ‘laying with’ the same man, each without knowing about the other, apparently. Some house arrest – I can leave my house and I don’t get that kind of delivery service.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

On the drive from Columbia, I had that feeling creep up on me. It starts in my lower back, and works its way up my spine. I just need to put the pedal to the floor and feel the roar of the engine, to move through traffic like water down an incline, finding the surest path to the bottom.

Turning off the Beltway onto the GW Parkway, the radio obliged my need for speed, pumping up the bass line and ripping into “Going the Distance.” I wove like a shuttle through a loom. I knew I was risking a ridiculous fine and federal charges, but it was worth it. Traffic slowed as we reached the city again, but the feeling had passed.

I’d love to find more spots like the GW in the DC area to indulge myself automotively, where can you drop the hammer a bit?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of Get Your War On

Demonstrating the same kind of attack-the-supply thinking that has helped us be so successful in fighting the War on Some Drugs, the Herndon council has decided to start requiring the day labor center run out of the old police station to check the immigration status of workers who show up. Since the current organization running the center, Project Hope and Harmony, know they don’t work for INS they’ve refused to do so and will be replaced.

I look forward to the imminent return of rule of law, since once this is done we can expect that all the illegal workers will just leave the country and those jobs will instead go to all the people on welfare. Because “people wouldn’t be sitting around collecting welfare checks if illegal immigrants weren’t taking the jobs they are perfectly happy to do.”

I think this is gonna cure cancer too. And insomnia.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Someone commented to me over the weekend that I hadn’t put up a vanity plate photo lately, then on the drive to work today I saw this. Fate, I tell you.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Actually, no she’s not.

In what appears to be yet another major screw up by our fine DC police department, the Washington Post is reporting that a woman was mistakenly booked as a man for “suspicion of prostitution”. Despite her insisting that she was very much a woman, Ms. Virginia Grace Soto was held in a male detention area and allowed to shower with male inmates…”even after she was strip-searched”. It wasn’t until later that a doctor examined her and determined that yes, she was in fact a woman.

Now I’m sure that there are many ways that an androgynous person could be mixed up with the other sex, but when nine jail employees fail to realized that this he is really a she, there is something definitely wrong with the system. The good news I suppose is that three of those employees have been let go.

I’ve lived in DC for a few years now, and I feel comfortable in saying that our police force, while competent in many ways, has way too many incidents that lead us to believe otherwise. Is there any way to solve this? Can’t we hire someone to do a complete overhaul of our police force? Clean out the officers that aren’t performing? Find a way to recruit better officers? I guess I should just shrug my shoulders and say, “That’s life in the big city.”

Photo by DC Police

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

What gives, people? There I am, enjoying a nice walk through Donaldson Run Park and I find a poor, lifeless rubber chicken right next to the path. Sliced up the middle from crotch to sternum, completely gutted, only the skin remaining.

Just as curious as why someone would bother to slit a rubber chicken like that are the questions of why someone would bring it to and leave it in the woods and why rubber chickens have held such an important place in our lexicon of humor when really they are only funny when you find them gutted in the park like this. Not all mysteries are meant to be solved, I guess.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Have you been wanting to take your sweetie out for a nice dinner but can’t scrape together the cash? Or have you been eyeing a pair of running shoes but can only afford one shoe? Maybe your Metro SmartTrip card is running low and you don’t get paid until the end of the month.

Well here’s your solution: get rid of your unwanted car! You know, that thing that you’ve got up on bricks in your front yard? The one that has been taken over by a squirrel family? The one the police found a dead body in? The one that has had a permanent odor ever since you had it valeted at Lauriol Plaza?

Just call the number above and all of your prayers will be answered.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

As anyone who has ever gotten a new TiVo knows, the process of teaching your TiVo about your preferences to make the Suggestions feature work well can take a little time. Yesterday, based purely on our expressed enjoyment of a particular Food Network show, TiVo started recording a bunch of arts-and-crafts type programs.

As Tom raised the remote to start deleting them, I noticed that the first program on the list was “The Joy of Painting.” “Stop!” I yelled. “Is that Bob Ross?”

It so totally was. And since I had a crap day at work yesterday, Tom humored me and we watched a full half-hour of happy little trees, each with a friend, and listened to Bob tell us, “It’s your world, so you can have whatever you want.”

Bob Ross died in 1995, but the company that bears his name is based in Sterling, VA, continuing to sell Bob’s paints and promote his “wet-on-wet” painting technique. The early episodes of the series were produced in Falls Church– which surprised me; I always imagined him living on a farm somewhere in California.

There has actually been a concept developed for a Bob Ross “Joy of Painting” video game for the Nintendo Wii, which will take advantage of the motion sensors in the Wii controller. The original developers walked away from the project, but Bob Ross Inc. is looking for a new company to pick it up. So Wii-owners, watch for that.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

In late June, 4 young women died in a horrific beltway crash. Then, I prematurely blamed alcohol for the crash and the resulting fatalities. Many corrected me that there was no evidence of drinking, only alcohol in the car. Today, the toxicology report was released, with a .02 rating for the driver, as well as positive for marijuana. It does strike me that there was careless action, either by the person who sold her the alcohol and couldn’t recognize her fake ID, or by the driver herself who’d had at least one drink before getting behind the wheel.

The Post uses the phrase “a sad coda” to the story, and I think they’re spot on. I’d even titled this entry with that, before reaching that phrase halfway down. Right before that phrase is used, the families of the deceased passengers raged against youthful irresponsibility and the failure of the system to protect their children from underage drinking. Might as well rage against the wind for blowing or the rain for its wetness. Tragedy? Surely. Avoidable? Possibly. Enough to make one hug their friends? Definitely.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of Gullevek

Being an area that’s been flat-out nuts in the housing market the last five plus years, I’m betting we have a good number of folks here who have purchased houses and had work done on them. So I have a funky question – has anyone reading this ever had an external entrance added to a basement?

My darling girlfriend and I are looking around at housing – both rentals and purchases – and we came across a property that was very nice, except the basement had no outside access. Being as the basement will be where the woodshop will live, this is somewhat of a problem. Could I pass lumber in and out of a window? Yes. Do I hate myself enough to do so? Probably not.

So, have any of you or anyone you knew ever had an additional entrance put into a home? It can be done, of course, but I wonder how weird an occurrence it is. Would Joe Average contractor have done it before? I’ve done a lot of construction in my life but I’ve never retrofit a door into an outside wall, much less one that’s partially below ground level. In my home town we call the area below ground level “underwater.”

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

While most shots of our beloved Metro system are uninteresting and seem to all look the same, this shot by relative Flickr new comer krisetya really captures the essence of DC’s mass transit system. The perfect symmetry of the tracks fading off into the great unknown, along with the giant concrete canopy really give you a sense of scale and show you just how massive the Gallery Place station is. I love how all of the people are lined up like the robots that they are. And thanks to Metro for installing the new red platform lights to add a little extra zip to the photo’s color.

Be sure to check out his other photos. We have a great new photographer on the DC scene.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

C&O Canal

Originally uploaded by alberto238
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Well, with all the traffic woes of this morning, I decided to hang back a bit and delay my entry. Now with the American Legion Bridge work entering it’s supposed final phase, that backed up traffic quite a bit even in the later morning hours… what is a motorcyclist to do, but hit the Cabin John Parkway and the Clara Barton.

Now, I haven’t been on it in a while, and think the tree lined canal area is quite nice and tranquil. Motorcycling in the morning is nice, and in general, you get fresh air, natural air conditioning, and the smells of the day. Normally, the latter is a good thing, except this morning. About C&O lock 8, my nose said to my brain:

“What in the holy mother of christ is that smell?”

Now, I would think, maybe, just maybe, there is the random effluent from DC making it’s way to the Potomac. But, at each successive C&O Canal Lock, as well as some of the closer bits of the canal to the road, my nose caught that scent. The scent of the worst spoilage imaginable… some worse than dead bodies and spoiled milk. (And yes, I’ve even been around a blooming corpse flower)

What’s the deal? I think it’s the last bits of last weeks heat finally releasing the brew of rotting algae, and other garbage that’s in the canal. I would suggest, to the National Park Service, if possible, to try to flush that canal at their earliest convenience, or I fear, if we get another week of heat, that brew in the C&O could turn deadly, knocking bicyclists off their seats, joggers out of their shoes, and us motorcyclists tearing up in our helmets. (Yes, I know it’s supposed to be “natural” in setting, but that’s an “unnatural” smell)

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Derek Terrell of myLHBS brings us another fine beer to beat the last days of summer and take us into cooler times. If you got started now, the beer would be ready to drink by the time September comes to an end, just in time to usher in cooler autumn evenings and a sense of relief, having survived another sweltering summer.

What? You don’t homebrew? All the cool kids are doing it! Derek can hook you up with all the equipment you need, from fermenters to carboys to bottles.

Go see Derek or one of his courteous, helpful staff. He’s the guy to talk to if you want quality ingredients for good prices and great advice to boot!

Shipwreck IPA (2007)
Shipwreck IPA was written in the mid-90s and became a best-seller for Brew America & now myLHBS. This ’07 version uses hop varieties and specialty malts unavailable back then. For added fun, consider the even more robust “Ship-rocked”!

Ingredients
8 lb. Alexander’s Pale liquid malt extract
1 lb. Briess Golden Light dry malt extract
1 lb. Gambrinus Honey + 8 oz. Briess 20L crystal malt (crushed)
2 oz. Yakima Magnum + 1 oz. Summit pellet hops (bittering)
1 oz. Simcoe pellet hops (1st flavor)
1 oz. Amarillo pellet hops (2nd flavor)
1 oz. Summit* pellet hops (aroma)
1 oz. Summit* whole hops (dry-hop: optional but highly recommended)
1 package Safale US-05 dry yeast
3/4 cup priming sugar * Summit comes in 2 oz. packages

And don’t forget…
Irish Moss (recommended), grain bag(s), hop bag(s), bottle caps and sanitizer as needed.

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

It took four days and two trips to my house by Comcast staff, as well as six phone calls to Comcast across two days, but I now have a TiVo HD working with the Comcast network.

Folks, this is absolutely positively ridiculous. It should not be this hard to get a cable-ready device working. The reason for the 1996 Telecommunications Act was to make this possible and doable, not to make it obfuscated, arcane and foreign. But, I guess that’s how Comcast is.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Prince of Petworth Photo

No matter your stance on the Iraq War, or the effectiveness of protests, I am sure we all can agree that too many signs about anything ain’t good. These are available in bulk from any inexpensive banner printing shop, and are used in protests and processions, only sometimes in a gratuitous way.

And in my hood we’re all kinds of pissed off with Answer Coalition’s “End the War Now” sign posters as they’ve covered every lamppost in around Grant Circle with their garish yellow fliers.

A few people have suggested that Answer devote as much energy cleaning up their mess on September 16th as they are preparing for the 15th. But I think my neighbour Joe has the best idea:

One concept: We’ll have city-wide clean-ups after the September 15th march, tabulate the time it took to clean up their mess, and send the bill to A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition. Their return check to the District government could be equally divided among wards for neighborhood beautification projects.

I know I’d be happy to bill them for my time scraping off their signs August 15th.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It might’ve been warm today, but it’s been a pleasant warm, and should make for a delightful evening to take a picnic out to the Mall around 15th and Constitution and catch Screen on the Green: Casablanca tonight. Screening starts around 8 or so, and you can claim your space after 5 tonight.

So grab a sandwich and some chips from the deli downstairs, and a couple sodas with ice, and head for the Mall to see Bogart and Bergman spice up the screen, and to hear my favorite line: “I am shocked, SHOCKED, to hear there is gambling in this establishment.”

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Wayan’s DC Photos

After escaping from Macy’s wedding registry runaround, I noticed the newest expansion at the Pentagon City Mall.

Victoria’s Secret is now going to occupy several storefronts, stretching a mighty long way for a lingerie store in uptight DC.

Could this be a sign of a secret sexiness in the usually straight-laced Capitol? A delayed Jessica Cutler effect? Or is there an increase in lingerie knowledge from NoVA libraries?

Either way, as visual man, I welcome this greater opportunity for women to celebrate the curves god gave them.

May the store be a uplifting success!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

When’s the last time you saw a suicide knob in action? I think the last time I saw one was in my grandfather’s car when I was a kid. He had an excuse, though. He had extra hand controls custom installed due to missing a leg from a run-in with a forklift, so freeing up one hand by use of a spinner was somewhat legitimate.

I saw this at a rest stop here in VA a few weeks ago. I doubt they are street legal but I would love to hear from someone who knows for sure. Probably it’s more like legally selling a kit to turn a rifle into full-auto, but it being illegal to own an automatic rifle. What do you think?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Tom’s got a rather unpleasant Comcast experience he wrote about here and a twittering little birdie leads me to believe that more is on the horizon. The question is, when the company with a monopoly on your service doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about serving you what are you supposed to do about it?

You put pen to paper and let the local and national regulatory boards know about the bad service, that’s what. What we’re interested in is over here, their general information sheet.

Here’s what Tom should be concerned with (emphasis mine):

Cable operators may schedule appointments for installations and other service calls either at a specific time or, at a maximum, during a four-hour time block during normal business hours. Cable operators may also schedule service calls outside of normal business hours for the convenience of the customer. No appointment cancellations are permitted after the close of business on the business day prior to the scheduled appointment. If the cable installer or technician is running late and will not meet the specified appointment time, he or she must contact the customer and reschedule the appointment at the convenience of the subscriber. These requirements concerning installations, outages and service calls must ordinarily be met at least 95 percent of the time, measured quarterly, under normal operating conditions.

So, what you or Tom should do when Comcast comes down and screws you this way is make sure the FCC knows about their failures. These folks have been granted use of OUR land to run their monopoly cables and things over so they need to hold up their end of the bargain and provide appropriate service. If you have questions or your needs aren’t being met, you can call the toll-free number, 1-888-225-5322 (1-888-CALLFCC). A letter is worth a thousand nasty phone calls, however, so send your written complaints to:

FCC,
Cable Services Bureau,
445 12th Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C., 20554

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs