Like my Dad used to caution me, when it’s raining, you wear a raincoat. He didn’t mean a real raincoat, of course. Southerners speak in metaphor and I knew what he meant.

Someone apparently found it necessary to don a raincoat over on E Street NW. I suppose there are less romantic places to get busy than near the homeless shelter but I certainly haven’t been forward enough to bring anyone there.

To the guy who hit it and his lucky female and/or male companion: Thank you for picking up after yourself, at least for the contents of the wrapper. Next time, though, even in the heat of the moment, in the throes of your E Street passion, please take the time to pick up the wrapper. It will show that special someone that chivalry is still alive.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of Studio Theatre

Moving on from Shakespeare re-imagined into Shakespeare-inspired, the Studio Theater is staging Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I’m excited to get a chance to see this performed on stage – I love the movie version with Gary Oldman, though Tim Roth is the real meat there, I think.

If you don’t know it, R&GAD’s story runs parallel to Hamlet but only intersects with the play in a few places. Otherwise we follow Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (or was that Guildenstern and Rosencrantz? Mocking their interchangability in Hamlet, even they seem unable to keep track of who is who) as they make their way to Denmark in responce to the Queen’s summons to come help her apparently fruit-loopy son. There’s commentary on the nature of chance, battles of the question game – no rhetoric or repeats, please – and their interactions with the Players from Hamlet are great.

I’m stoked.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Dave Attell and D.L. Hughley are each taping HBO specials at the Lincoln Theater next weekend- Attell on Friday, June 1 and Hughley on Sunday, June 3rd. The production company is looking for audience members for both, and the tickets are FREE. The catch is, you have to win the ticket lottery to get them. How do you enter the ticket lottery? I’m so glad you asked, because I’ve got the scoop.

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

photo courtesy of The Shakespeare Theatre

Most prominent of the current All Bard, All The Time phenomenon is the Shakespeare Theatre’s annual free-for-all, this year again presenting Love’s Labor Lost. I’m always a little skeptical of modernizations of Shake’s work, at least when the original language is preserved. Sure, retelling The Taming of the Shrew in a high school can be effective when you reset the entire work and write your own dialog. But for every effective modern setting, Elizabethan prose staging of Romeo and Juliet you get a horrific Hamlet. If WaPo reviewer Peter Marks is to be believed, however, this one’s in the successful camp. I’m sojourning with some of our western Metblogs cities, however, do I won’t be back to see it till the 31st. I can say with absolute certainty, however, that it’s certain to be worth more than you paid to see it.

There’s three locations to get those free tickets, plus the web. If you work downtown and your arrival time is a little flexible you’re probably best off hitting the WaPo location. It’s the earliest opening at 8:30 am so you can queue up and if you fail there’s another shot for you at Noon at the other two locations. Get your sweetie to try the online source in the morning while you’re waiting at WaPo so you can double your chances.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It’s been a while since I last wrote about a photo, due in part to laziness as well as not seeing any photos that really motivate my blogging fingers. Today I decided to put an end to my drought and make an effort to scour through the archives of Flickr.

This great shot by Flickrite Nestor’s Blurrylife may have been more relative to our city about a month ago, but hey, I’m a sucker for a good portrait. I love the fact that D.C. is tied to Japan (a country I’m fascinated with) by its gifting of the cherry blossom trees, and how we celebrate it every year. It’s such a great way to welcome spring and put an end to our horrid winter. The flowers are blooming, things are turning green, and everyone is happy, much like this geisha.

I love the detail of this photo, its timelessness, and how you’re drawn into her eyes. You know she’s got a story to tell and I’d sure love to hear it.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Pickpocketed near his Georgetown home, Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen went running after his robber. He managed to grab the attention of several DC Police officers, who joined in the hunt and apprehended an 18-year old suspect.

That’s what you get for messing with New Jersey, man, it’s a minor miracle the mugger-to-be didn’t find himself on the receiving end of a Tony Soprano-style Curb Job.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

While randomly shopping with the clock-stopping hottie, I came across this amazing find for anyone moving: Costco has mountains of boxes right by the cash registers, free for the taking.

When I was packing to move into the new abode, Costco became a cardboard box goldmine.

The Costco employees helped me dig out the right kind of boxes, sturdy ones not pre-made to be product display cases. I was able to scrounge about half my boxes and all the funky-shaped boxes I needed in this pile o’ dead trees.

If you wanna do the same, I have only one tip: guard your finds. Two other customers tried to swipe my cardboard while I was searching – the suburban thieves!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The Washington Post is reporting today that it’s probably not a good idea to start a fire in D.C. any time soon, whether it’s on purpose or accidental. If, for example, you leave a candle burning in your living room and your damn cat knocks it over, the fire department will have to try four hydrants before it finds one that works. In the meantime, Furball might really, really regret what she did and wonder why she’s so stupid…and then start to wonder what that smell is.

That’s right, D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin is estimating that at least 25% of the city’s fire hydrants are worthless. Please note two key words in the previous sentence: at and least! What does that mean? Are 50% of our hydrants out of order? 75%? All of them?! Don’t get me wrong, I love living in DC, but I have to question once again, “Where are my tax dollars going?”

To quote Rubin, “It’s like a sucker punch when firefighters are fighting a fire and go to a hydrant that doesn’t work.”

To quote me, “It’s like a roundhouse kick to the groin from Chuck Norris when your house burns to the ground because the powers that be have no idea how to run their city!”

I’m going to go home and throw all of my candles away, and if I had a cat, I’d throw it away too.

Fire hydrant photo by Bill Adler

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It’s a packed house over here at Ireland’s Four Courts as Liverpool and AC Milan face off in the finals of the Champions Leagues. Milan’s up 1-nil at the half, scoring a goal on a deflected penalty kick, causing half the bar to cheer and the other half to groan.

The last time I saw a pub this packed at half-past three was the World Cup. Irish accents, British accents, American flat vowels, they’re all here, along with the rapid patter of Spanish and Portuguese.

Skip out on the rest of the day and head here, or Lucky Bar, or Elephant and Castle and catch the second half.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Memorial Day Weekend. Blockbuster Movies. While everyone’s stuck in traffic tomorrow night getting an early start on the long weekend, I’ll be eating popcorn in the Balcony at the Uptown watching the new Pirates of the Carribean movie. You know you want to ditch the early escape traffic and do the same, so grab some tickets for the 8pm show, and we’ll see you there.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Since Friday, there have been 19 robberies in the 1st Police District, which covers the area around the Capitol, and down to the Anacostia, and as far north as the junction of New York and Florida Avenues. The 19 robberies over the weekend add up to 60 robberies, without gun, and 19 armed robberies, with gun, a 20% increase from the same time last year. And while violent crime, as a whole, is down just about a percent, without the rash of robberies over the weekend, we might be looking at something like a 20% decrease in crime across the First District.

So, what happened this past week to spike a 20% increase in robberies? We can’t blame this strictly on youth violence, we can’t blame it on much of anything, really, it seems. So, what’s with the spike in crime? If you can find the hints in the Crime Map and tell me what you’re seeing that I’m not, say so in the comments.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of Jakk6

‘Lord Andrews’ says it much better than I ever could, so I will for the most part present without comment this excellent article about persistent MySpace and Facebook profiles for people who are now long dead, the Virginia Tech victims amongst them.

An excerpt:

I have witnessed this phenomenon firsthand: a year ago, Ben, an acquaintance of mine at Virginia Commonwealth University, killed himself by jumping off a twenty story building. Before long, Ben was only the name of a person on Myspace; the real human was long since gone, but his profile was never deleted. Before he died, Ben gave the profile password to his best friend, who used it to send out news of the boy’s death and funeral arrangements to his entire social network. It was strange, receiving a message from a man announcing that he was dead. Later that summer, I encountered a memorial to him at an anime convention where he used to work – eight of his Myspace photos were printed out on 8×11″ glossy photo paper and pasted to a display board. It seemed very surreal at the time; it was the first occasion I thought to consider the implications of these funereal web pages.

Ben has been dead for almost a year now, but people are still talking to him online. His “wall” is covered in chatter: “Happy birthday”, “how are you”, “we miss you”, “our prayers are with you” and “we hope you’re in a better place” are all standard fare. A girl named Jenny wrote Ben an entire paragraph

Read the whole thing. You’ll be glad you did.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Look what I found: the office candy drawer. And note that I wasn’t the first.

It seems that the office rats staff also knows where to score chocolate mid-day. From Hershey to Mars, this container of calories is a favorite of the sweet tooth.

Now that I know of its location, temptation calls that much stronger. Maybe even more than the office candy bowl.

Do you have an office candy drawer? And if you do, do you want to know where?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of SideLong

If you spent some of your drive in this morning cursing at your XM radio as the signal drifted in an out, you’re not alone.I did the same and so did pretty much everyone else. Apparently XM botched a software update and the problem is at the sats themselves.

And yes, I did a shout-out to a movie so dumb that it implied you could hack an alien spaceship with a Mac (on OS9 no less!) and that a space-faring race needed to use satellites for timing rather than a simple atomic clock. Sue me.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) was the first of the crowd to put a not-so-anonymous hold on the DC School Takeover Bill, and today, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) was the second to do so. Sen. Landrieu has put a hold on the bill at the behest of the President of the DC Board of Ed President Robert Bobb.

Ah, DC. Just because a bill passes the council, twice, gets signed by the mayor, that doesn’t make it law.

This is DC. Bills that pass the council and the mayor, also have to pass through the Congress, meaning that there are 535 other people who can stop the bill at any point through the Legislature. And so, today, the chair of the Board of Ed ran an end around.

What’s next? Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) asking for a hold so that she can hold the District hostage over some other point? Sen. Brownback (R-KS) doing the same so that he can hold the District hostage over yet another point? This is just ludicrous that those elected by a wholly separate group of Americans, not even geographically or culturally close to the makeup of the District get to choose what happens here.

It’s honestly embarassing to me.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I’m heading off to Ireland this Wednesday, for a jaunt through the West Country. So it seemed fitting that before I step into the the mystical land of dolmens, bogs, and Yeats, I experience a dose of modern Irish reality. Saturday night I went to see a play about a city one associates not with green but with grim grit – Belfast.

Solas Nua is performing Owen McCafferty’s complex montage “Scenes from the Big Picture” at my alma mater Catholic University’s Callan Theater through June 24. It’s part of the Rediscover Northern Ireland initiative that’s currently taking place as a build-up to Northern Ireland’s inclusion in the Smithsonian’s Folklife Festival. Peter Marks gives it a rousing review in today’s Post.

The play weaves myriad characters of questionable likability – apathetic teens, drug dealers, cheating husbands, estranged families – in a quickening gyre of urban life. There’s no sunny blarney here, only the fierce determination of living under difficult and dangerous conditions. But at the end one is left with a strong sense of the tenacity of hope against despair, with a beautiful final image of an old man removing his cap, paying homage to his dead wife as a magical meteor shower bathes him in light.

Be sure to check out the Rediscover Northern Ireland site for a fresh look at an area that’s suffered more than its share of grief, and raise a pint to the Irish spirit.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I have no idea how I missed this when it happened, but WTOP News sold the naming rights to their glass-enclosed nerve center, to Ledo Pizza, of all people. News reports from WTOP now come from the Ledo Pizza Glass-Enclosed Nerve Center.

Me? I just can’t wait for the Prada Presents the Washington Post Style Section, or maybe it’s something like Verizon’s Pennsylvania Avenue or Sprint/Nextel U St.

What else are we going to see the naming rights sold for?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Today our office takes up residence at 1900 M Street NW and the lunch options overwhelm.

Shopping, dry cleaning, CVS or Rite Aid too, I am at a loss for all the usual office worker services and I need your help.

If you work nearby, if you have advice or guidance, do share. Metroblogging is all about local knowledge and I need some.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs