You: Young woman, late twenties, outside the entrance to the Mayflower Hotel. Black business suit and heels. Black wheeled suitcase, black laptop bag over your shoulder with a Texas flag luggage tag. In your other hand: A mostly empty bottle of Patron.

Me: Young woman, late twenties, walking past the entrance to the Mayflower Hotel. Also wearing all black. Wondering what the tequila was for. Who drank it with you? What was the occasion? Did you drink it by yourself? How did you manage to look so UN-hungover? Were you celebrating the end of your suck-ass job, like I would be later that evening with the very same libation?

So much in common, so many unanswered questions. Perhaps we would be friends.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Think fast DC. It’s 2:00 in the morning on a Saturday night. You just polished off 10 beers with your friends at Lucky Bar. While your goal was to meet some hottie, well, it just didn’t happen, even with those extremely thick beer goggles you have on. Your friends are in the same boat that you are so you say, “Adios amigos,” and go your separate ways. You stumble home, plop down on your couch, but there’s only one problem. You somehow forgot to eat dinner and you’re starving! What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?!

Well if you’re like me, you have no food in your house. Your fridge contains butter, expired salad dressing, and some ketchup. You could go to 7 Eleven and get one of their day old hotdogs that have been rolling around on the torture rack all day long. But an even better alternative is to get on your computer and go to DC Snacks.com.

From ice cream to frozen pizza, condoms to cigarettes, DC Snacks has a little bit for everyone. They accept orders from 8pm to 2am (Sun-Wed) and 8pm to 4am (Th-Sat), and judging from their customer testimonials they do a good job.

I don’t know about you, but I miss the days of Kozmo.com. You could order almost anything from their site (magazines, movies, food, beverages, etc) and have it delivered to your door for free. Why leave the house? Sadly they were a victim of the dotcom implosion.

I just found out about DC Snacks a few days ago so I haven’t tried them out yet, but hey, Saturday is only a couple of days away and Lucky Bar is calling my name.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

By the Metro escalators at the Union Station 1st St NE entrance, for several months now, a large enclosure of wood panels has blocked the gap between the escalators and the entrance to Amtrak HQ. This week I noticed that the walls are finally gone, and once again foot traffic is free to pass through the gap to get to the down-bound Metro escalator without squeezing in with the opposing traffic on the other side of the entrance.

What I’m wondering is, why was that area closed off for so long? Call me unobservant, but I really don’t see much visible change in the floor or walls which were walled up, other than a shinier floor and some duct tape over the grout. Surely all that work wasn’t just to lay down some wiring and polish the granite? Union Station Metro-goers, what do you think?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

DC Media Makers will meet tonight for their monthly social night at RFD near Gallery Place. This is a great group of folks, dedicated to videoblogging, podcasting and other Internet media-related topics.

DC Media Makers meets every other Thursday, alternating between the type of social gathering that is happening tonight and then meeting for discussion and education again two weeks later.

From their website:

Join us as we Media Makers expand our social frontier & try a new place downtown at At R.F.D (Regional Food and Drink). All videobloggers, videoblogger wannabees, and media moguls of every stripe welcome to this informal networking event.

RFD is located at 810 7th St NW in Chinatown, between H and I streets. Take the Metro to gallery place and take the 7th and H exit to Chinatown. It’s half a block up 7th on the left, just after Fado and before the Goethe Institute

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

So has anyone determined yet what type of extra training the Metrobus drivers are going to have to complete because of the recent accidents and fatalities since the beginning of the year?

This subject came to mind just this morning as I was driving along M Street and bus #4322 (DC license plate number B37176) ran a red light, turned on its left signal, careened into the right lane and then returned to the center lane. The swerving was apparently to avoid a large mass of air particles. Nothing else was in the way.

Whatever the extra training might or might not entail, I think this driver could certainly benefit from it. Granted, I did not see a collision, but that is more likely due to chance than strategy in this case.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well, if your collection wasn’t complete without a velvet Karl Rove, then you clearly need to see the video from last night’s Press Correspondent’s Dinner, featuring the cast of Who’s Line is it Anyway, and MC Rove. Now, Yahoo video sucks, because you can’t just link to the player for whatever reason, so, read the story on the correspondent’s dinner, and then it’s on the left hand side. It’s actually pretty funny, if you’re willing to laugh only at the dancing involved.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

This is the escalator scene at the Austin Convention Center during SEPG 2007, everyone standing on the left.

I never realized how fierce we maintain a stand-to-the-right rule on Metrorail, or how much I enjoy the ability to tackle stairs at my own frantic pace, until this sight confronted me every day this week.

The first day I would barge past folks without even an “excuse me” but by today I just wait for the moving stairs to take me to the next floor.

I have learned that this is not DC, and these flyovers are not getting out of my way no matter how much I bitch on the up or the down escalator.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Does anyone know what’s going on in Clarendon above Highland? It seems that every storefront between Orpheus Records and the Kabob Bazaar is now shut, and the whole area looks like a scene out of a bad union-strike movie set in West Virginia rather than just blocks away from some of the hottest nightlife in the region. What’s with all the empty storefronts? Is this gentrification in process, or are the landlords asking for too much money? With about a dozen spots empty in the two blocks between the Clarendon Ballroom and the Metro, Arlington’s got to be losing out on some serious revenue if those places stay empty much longer.

What’s going on?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Spring has sprung and that means it’s time to get those bulbs, seeds and saplings in the ground. That garden’s not going to tend itself, as my father might remind me if I were still 15 and playing the Dead Kennedys as loud as I could. Back then I didn’t know composting from Jello Biafra‘s left nut but now that I am a middle-aged guy living out here in the ‘burbs my ears perk up when someone speaks of such yard care wonders.

Arlington County has made compost bins available to residents for the low sum of $10. Is this a bargain? Hell yeah. Have you seen the prices compost bins go for from some of those fancy-pants gardening catalogs? $10 is more than a great deal for your pocketbook; it’s a wonderful way to help the environment, reduce your ecological footprint and get those worms making some great castings.

Even for this particular product, the Presto Compost Bin, $10 is way lower than prices on some of the web sites I came across. This is a low-tech composting system, just slightly fancier than the way nature does it all on its own.

The bin is simply a piece of flat plastic with a bunch of holes drilled in it. Nothing fancy, nothing complex. Throw your vegetable-based kitchen scraps, yard waste and even crushed eggshells in there, layer on something good and nitrogen-rich and pretty soon you will have some of the most beautiful black soil you can imagine. The worms will love it and you will too.

Here are some more details:

This compost bin has an adjustable capacity – up to 3 ft. in diameter, or 17.6 cubic ft.
Compost bin is constructed of 50 mil thick plastic (minimum 50% post consumer waste) with natural ultra violet inhibitors to prevent degradation by light
Excellent ventilation for aeration
Helps retain heat and moisture
Easy to assemble; lightweight

Go give yourself and your garden the gift of compost. You will never look at food scraps or worm castings the same way again.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It’s official, DC. Spring is here. Warm weather has arrived. The ice storms are gone, our spirits have been lifted, and our minds are thinking of lifting spirits (aka “drinking heavily”). There are two windows of time in this city when the weather is perfect, neither bitter cold or disgustingly hot and humid. It’s a time when you can leave your windows open at night, go outdoors without dreading it, and join your friends for dinner and drinks at one of our many patio bars (Local 16, 18th Street Lounge, Wonderland, etc). It’s also time for the beautiful people of the city to start packing themselves into Lauriol Plaza as if Corona and swirly margaritas were life necessities.

Most people either love or hate LP. I’m quite fond of it myself, partly because I think their food and margs rock, and partly because it takes me 5 minutes to walk there from my house. The biggest complaint I hear is, “Oh but the wait! You have to wait for hours to get a table!” Nonsense, poopy pants! If you’re a party of 8, sure. But if you’re 2-4 people, the most you’ll have to wait is 45 minutes, usually only 10-15. They key is getting there before 7:30, but if that’s too early for you, just hang out on the patio with your friends and a pitcher of margaritas and enjoy this weather while it lasts.

As far as the food goes, I highly recommend sticking with the basics. The fajitas, tacos, burritos, chimichangas, and enchiladas are all tasty treats. You may be tempted to get something fancy like lamb fajitas or crab enchiladas, but it’s your gamble, not mine.

So what say you, DC residents? Can you name a better Mexican food restaurant in town?

Photo by our very own Tom Bridge.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

“Hope you don’t need to use maps in our nation’s capital!” Those of you who regularly use Google Maps might have noticed that ever since late February, the addresses and directions may have been stumbling over most letter streets. Seems that a recent update of Google Maps’ address parser has broken addresses along streets with single-character names, so that it goes wild. A search for 15 E St NW, for example, gives you the generic location of 15th St NW, although if you search by name of the specific establishment at that address, in this case the Hotel George, the map seems to work fine. The Google Maps Help Group isn’t much help at all, and there hasn’t been any action on the bug for weeks now, so those of you entertaining Google Maps-using visitors to DC would do well to warn them of the bug, and avoid Google in favor of other map apps for now where the District is concerned.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Tables

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

One of my favorite places to take friends when they’re passing through town is the Boulevard Woodgrill. Now, full disclosure, I’m their web guy, and a friend of the management, but I’ve been a regular fixture there for about four years off and on. The food’s great, the prices are really reasonable, and the atmosphere is classy, but separate from the formality of downtown DC. On a nice Spring night, dinner on the sidewalk there is a small slice of heaven. When Managing Partner Ryan Duncan told me that he was opening up a new spot in Old Town Alexandria, I wondered if they could duplicate some of that feeling across town; turns out, they’ve done one better.

Overwood opens today, marking the fourth restaurant in the group, and bringing that stylish feel to Old Town’s antique brick. Overwood’s open interior and exposed brick and wood give the place a warm feeling. It’s not a new restaurant, it’s the same great place you’ve been coming to for years. You feel right at home as soon as you’re in the front door. Their wet bar features an incredible array of draft beers (including new-to-DC Bell’s, as well as old standby Victory’s HopDevil and Allagash White) and a great wine list.

The staff was still getting the kinks out on our visit to their Mock Service last Saturday night, but the kitchen seemed to be hitting on all cylinders, as chef Boubker Errami (formerly of Faccia Luna) produced some absolutely delicious food. I had the center-cut pork chops on potatoes with gingered black beans, and Tiff had a cut-with-a-fork lamb shank with mirepoix. Their new signature dessert, the Elvis Pie, is a big slice of a peanut butter/banana pie that has to be eaten to be believed. I hold no responsibility for any hip-shaking you may feel necessary after eating it, though.

Its location off King St, about two blocks from the Torpedo Factory makes Overwood feels like it’s already a part of the community, meshing well with the cute townhouses and offices that are part of Old Town. It feels like a neighborhood place, something homey and dependable, even though they’re just barely open. Be sure to check out their amazing panini sandwiches at lunch, or their Rockfish or Lamb Shank or Lasagna at dinner.

Overwood
220 North Lee Street
Alexandria VA
www.theoverwood.com

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I had lunch yesterday at Mai Thai at 6 King Street in Alexandria, right by the Torpedo Factory. Honestly, I was a little hesitant at first, knowing that it was nestled in a high-rent area and figuring that I could only get the priciest of meals there. How wrong I was!

For $21 my lunch companion and I each got delicious entrees and shared a dessert. Now, this may not seem like a complete bargain and more like a regular bill for such a meal, but the price was more than right. When you figure in cost per unit deliciousness (the ultimate restaurant bargain determining factor), Mai Thai offered one of the best deals around.

My drunken noodles with tofu was delightful, having a wonderfully intertwined mélange of basil, garlic and some sort of incredible brown sauce I don’t entirely know how to describe but have gotten better at reproducing. All I know is that I was belching up Thai goodness all afternoon and enjoying every minute of it. Although it was not as spicy as I prefer, it did have a little bite and was completely digestible, which was a great trade-off.

The other dish ordered was fried rice with chicken and shrimp, which was reportedly very good. I cannot comment firsthand on this one, as I do not eat meat, even in Thai restaurants. I am sure the shrimpy goodness was a blast of subtle exuberance and the chicken was as delicious as the day it was born. Or something like that. I don’t know how to describe chicken and shrimp anymore.

Our dessert was mango with sticky rice. This simple dessert really takes a deft hand to complete and it’s all in the sauce. Usually the sticky rice is cooked with coconut milk and sugar but at Mai Thai they do something a little different – they pour a coconut milk sauce over the sticky rice, which makes the dish even more interesting to behold. A very slight salt flavour in the sauce helped bring out the sweetness in the mango, making this most delicious of all fruits (with the possible exception of the durian) seem all that much more delicious.

In short, I highly recommend Mai Thai. On top of the incredible food, the servers were all friendly and helpful and made our visit enjoyable. It’s hard to pick a favorite Thai restaurant but Mai Thai is certainly up there.

What’s your favorite Thai place? I want to go try it!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I don’t want to get the reputation here as a Washington Post basher – when I moved here from Miami I was delighted to be somewhere with a paper superior to the one from my home town that I felt was somewhat trashy – but the Post’s page 5 placement of this story on radio system being deployed by the DOJ made me raise my eyebrows.

The story reveals that Justice has spent almost 2/3 of their allocation these past six years for this project to maintain their old system rather than making progress on the new one. DHS is setting out on their own to set up a system because they claim they can’t wait. The new system is currently 15 months behind schedule.

The article only makes passing mention of 9/11 as an issue here with the statement “The need to upgrade and unify emergency law enforcement communications has long been identified by emergency personnel as a major problem, one underscored by the confusion seen in the response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.” More accurately, there’s a strong belief that the state of the NYC radio systems was a major player in the number of deaths – particularly among the fire department – that happened that say.

As a resident of what is arguably the #1 terrorist target city in the nation, I’d like to see this system come together expediently… particularly since the target date – which is apparently already in danger of not being met – isn’t till 2021.

Am I being overly reactionary in thinking this should have been front-page news?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Mike Panetta is the DC Shadow Representive (not to be confused with Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton) and while I’m not sure adding an amendment is a “rare parliamentary procedure”, it does strike me that his point is fairly clear: Let’s get a vote held on the DC Voting Rights Act!

In specific, Shadow Rep Panetta would like you to call Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer to get them to get working on the DC Voting Rights Act. Specifically:

Can you please take a minute and make two phone calls to help with this effort? I need you to call both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Both have been champions on this issue and we need to thank them for their leadership in this fight. They also need to hear from people that this bill needs to brought back to the House floor this week before the upcoming recess.

Their phone numbers are below:

Speaker Pelosi: (202) 225-0100

Majority Leader Hoyer: (202) 225-3130

Please make the following points on your phone call:

* You are calling in regards to the DC Voting Rights Act
* You are very appreciative of their leadership on this issue
* You are urging the House leadership to bring the bill back to a floor vote this week.

Give ’em a call. It’s time for the District to get some representation. And no, we don’t mean the morons who claim they’re your reps. Better yet, come out to the DC Voting Rights Happy Hour and drink the vote.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Maria Simonsson’s display of fiber vessels called “Form Over Function” will be going off display after April 1st, so this is the last week you can go enjoy the works. The idea of fiber vessels may seem silly at first thought but seeing how real and functional they look, you might never guess that they would not hold water.

By the way, if you are rich enough to purchase such cool art, I recommend not trying to use these. They are beautiful and certainly fit the idea and form of vessels but when introduced to water or other liquids worthy of decanting, I suspect these would prove to be highly absorbent.

The installation, which looks at the form and function of various types of vessels, is on display at The Art League Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Old Town Alexandria. Gallery hours are 10-5 Monday-Saturday and 12-5 Sunday and the location is 105 N. Union Street in Alexandria.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I made my maiden voyage to the Arlington Cinema ‘n’ Drafthouse this weekend and was excited at the prospect of table service during the movie, and even more excited once I saw the menu. Unfortunately, the very swift delivery of my fountain-poured Coke product was the highlight of the dining experience.

I ordered “nachos deluxe,” which could have been a very nice meal of tasty nachos and all the fixings but instead was a small gathering of cheap movie house chips, melted Velveeta and some tiny dabs of sour cream and jalapeños and cheap salsa. It was a mushy mess with no fork to eat it with. Velveeta on my fingers has always been less of a problem than it seems like, but it was messy all the same.

My mother, who was in town for my birthday, had some chicken dish she said she couldn’t even taste (seriously) and my wife had the eggplant parmesan, which she said was somewhere between okay and good.

I had high hopes for this movie house but now am not sure I will return unless it is to simply watch a movie and have a few beers. Usually I give a restaurant two chances before ending the relationship but in this case I think I will break it off early. Three samples at once is good enough for me.

On the other hand, the Drafthouse has wine tastings, $1 movie admissions on Mondays and even monthly bus trips to Virginia wineries. Definitely go check it out but don’t arrive hungry unless you plan on filling up on beer and good movies.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I’m sitting in Starbucks – having been chased out of my home, my first choice for a comfortable place to work and drink coffee – and twenty minutes ago I was amazed at how many people come here to conduct business.

Now I am amazed that apparently nobody comes here to conduct legitimate business. Maybe its legit in a legal sense but it’s business I would be ashamed to tell my mom I was in.

Listen, if you’re reading this and you don’t know it already, ALL MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING SYSTEMS ARE SCAMS. They are essentially envelope stuffing systems with more complexity. They are pyramid schemes that manage to stay on the right side of the law through a baloney dodge of having a legitimate product line in parallel with the nonsense that happens on the layer that does the recruiting.

If you’re not sure you understand how these things work well enough to identify them and not fall for them, here’s the simple test: ANY ’employment’ scheme that (a) promises you huge money easy and quick and (2) wants YOU to pay THEM up front is certainly designed to make money… for the people selling that material. You, on the other hand, will be pushed to attend paid seminars or buy materials to “help” you better sell and add people beneath you.

In the case of the scheme I had to listen to (hey thieves – INSIDE voices, dudes, INSIDE voices – your mark is 2 feet from you, those of us across the room don’t need to hear you), recognize that someone who spends ten minutes telling you they “can’t spend forty-five minutes answering your every question” is full of bull. That “Informational Session” they want you to come to is just setting you up to talk to the more experienced closer.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Lawrence Small stepped down from his post atop the Smithsonian Institution today, amid furor over his extravaganceas the Senate had voted this past week to freeze the $17M increase in spending budgeted from Congress. Things were looking pretty rough for Small, and it’s good that he decided to find someone else to pay over $2,500 to have his chandelier cleaned.

I suppose that amount might feel more appropriate if that was a euphemism for something.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

One of Virginia Senator Jim Webb’s staffers was arrested today for trying to take a loaded firearm into the Capitol. Relax, relax, it looks like he wasn’t going to go all postal on someone, it looks more likely that the staffer was carrying the Senator’s gun, which was left loaded and inside his personal effects, unbeknownst to the aide. There’s a lot of guessing as to what really happened right now, but overall, it just looks like an embarassing faux pas, not something really important or sinister.

Recommence ignoring the Hill in 5…4…3…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs