A woman was struck by a train at the Rosslyn station this morning, resulting in a total hold at the Rosslyn chokepoint for some time around 7am this morning. The woman will be okay, she had a laceration above her eye, but should be released soon. Seriously, what’s going on here? Fires. Injuries. Abandoned Luggage. Bus problems. Train derailments. A system that was nominally fine six months ago has a rapidly rising injury rate and a rapidly dropping reliability rate? What’s going on here?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It’s so frustrating to hear about all the anti-technologists on the Hill. People who won’t read email, or deal with documents on servers, or hell, even congressional offices that don’t understand the concept of good, or in some cases any passwords. I’m both relieved to see, and dismayed by, Washington’s cold reception to Google’s Eric Schmidt who gave a talk at the Willard the other day about technology. I was relieved to see that even the big C-level executives from the West Coast get the same blank stare that I do, and dismayed by the area’s complete ineptitude when it comes to matters technical.

New York City understands the value of technology. San Francisco and LA understand technology and use it to power their economy. In DC, we just gape at it, like a bunch of slack-jawed yokels, and then once it’s clear we don’t understand it, we busy ourselves with trying to legislate it to death.

One of the morons in attendance at the Willard the other day asked Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, the most powerful company on the internet, about his fellow morons’ email habits concerning the Reply All button.

Christ on a pogo-stick, man, are you a complete fool?

DC needs technology, it needs networks and telephony, fibre rings and spam filtering, packet routing and VOIP, but it treats it as something it can’t comprehend and then just ignores. Well done, DC, you just invited one of the most popular companies in the world to show up here, only to be ignored and laughed at. Bravo.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

While we’re on the topic of prescription drug advertisements, check out this advert.

That’s a Plan B flyer in the CVS @ at 15th and K Streets NW.

Plan B is Barr Pharmaceutical’s controversial “morning after pill” which took two years to get over-the counter sales approval from the FDA.

Approval that politicians and consumer advocates are still debating in state governments while we in DC already have unfettered access.

Three cheers for the District of Columbia! We may not have control over Congress, but at least half the city’s population has control over their bodies.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

This is the front of the S1 bus this morning, filled to capacity.

Even the often empty area past the back door is elbow to eyeball with passengers.

Yet what happens when we stop to let on passengers? The silent bus driver allows over anxious wanna-be riders to cram the bus more.

At some point, passed often on cold or wet mornings, kindness to fellow man becomes a danger to other men.

WMATA, how about adding a gentle but firm, “Sorry, the bus is full. Please catch the next bus,” training to your bus driver skill set?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It’s with a great deal of personal joy that I welcome Metroblogging Pittsburgh, city #52 in the ever-growing Metroblogging network. Only 4 hours away by car, Pittsburgh is one of my favorite DC getaways, where the food it good, the sights are amazing and you can ever stay in some sweet Steel Baron digs without breaking the bank. So head on up to Pittsburgh, get yerself a Permanny’s sammich, and Go Stiller, ‘n’at.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Can you imagine showing up to your first week on the job, only to have two fires, an abandoned suitcase-which-could-have-been-a-bomb, and some other major catastrophes? It might make you reconsider a few things about the system you’ve inherited, I’d bet. Washington Post comic artist Tom Toles just about nails it with this perfect comic:

Well done, Tom. Good luck, John Catoe, you’ve got a flawed and dangerous system on your hands. Fix it.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

When WETA up and stabbed its listeners in the back, I was despondent. Where was I going to get my morning dose of Garrison Keillor? Where was I going to hear Car Talk on the weekend? It was looking pretty dire out there for NPR fans in DC. But then, usually hapless WAMU made the best decision of their entire 45-year history and decided to completely revamp their schedule in an effort to capture the now-disenfranchised WETA listener. Prairie Home Companion continued without interruption as that was the first show they picked up after WETA got done eviscerating their former listeners.

They’ve killed the reruns of Kojo and Diane, replacing them with On Point with Tom Ashbrook (who I dislike, but at least he has good guests!) and The World from PRI, which I enjoy a good deal. Now, I don’t really like Kojo or Diane, but as a friend explained at lunch on Friday, while pointing his fork at me in a threatening manner, no one fucks with those two. So, fair enough, well done WAMU, way to adapt to a changing marketplace to snare new listeners. Yeah, it’s pledge week, and they’re looking for some cash, but I’m happy to pledge them $50 in exchange for acting to capture the lost listener base from WETA.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Check out these two trucks promoting prescription drugs.

That’s the American Academy of Dermatology annual meeting warping DC’s advertising scene.

We get advert trucks promoting Ziana or Scloydn in downtown. Also, check out your local bus stop.

This weekend I saw several bus stop advertisements for rare chemicals I’ve never heard of.

Hmm.. What convention should we want advertising in DC? Who would give us adverts we would want to see? Take your 2007 pick.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I love to watch the urban scavengers strip a bicycle carcass. Slowly, they take every item of worth, here they’ve started with the seat.

Then they bend or break the bolted on metal, here the wheels. Last, they fill any remaining orifices with trash and refuse.

The whole process only takes about a month or two, before a perfectly suitable bike becomes a useless hulk.

Thankfully, DC is not China. There, abandoned Chinese bicycles are the scourge of major cities, the rusting metal impeding progress.

Here, we just have occasional street art.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

While you were freezing your bits waiting for the bus this morning, or wishing your car had a pre-heater, give a thought to the bus drivers.

They were up well before you and had to warm an entire cavernous bus before starting their day.

Or give a thought to the person riding in the back of the hearse. No matter your chill I am sure they’d trade temps.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

So a few of us DC Metrobloggers met up at Union Station on Thursday night to cab over to a few other DC Metrobloggers so there could be communal drinkin’. Before said drinkin’ even started, though, we noticed this giant, inflatable colon on display in the lobby.

But this inflatable colon isn’t just for show, oh no. It’s educational. You can walk through it and see what Crohn’s Disease, polyps, and colorectal cancer look like! So you can, I don’t know, diagnose yourself? Yikes.

Anyway, it was such a surreal experience that we felt the need to share it with you.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I know we have a reputation as a pretty type-A city, but c’mon! 7-11: your one-stop-shop for doughnuts, gasoline, and heart palpitations. Seriously folks, I don’t care what you do here in our nation’s capital, there’s no way you need to be THAT awake.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Arlington Police are on their way to pick the guy up. No joke. I just heard it on the scanner. He is probably 10-96 (a nut job) but it makes for interesting listening all the same.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The next time you see smoke at Farragut North or a bus on fire, WMATA suggests you call Metro customer service for information: 202-637-7000 It will now give emergency information before the prompts for general Metro information.

Um, yeah, depending on the day, that might be a long wait before you get to the standard information prompts.

A better action might be checking the WMATA website for real-time information about Metro service disruptions, bus detours or other emergency information, or signing up for the e-Alerts.

I say the latter, for the custom e-mail notifies me via text message to my phone when suspicious packages are found.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

As a former long time resident of Pennsylvania, I knew that we had two days that were very special, and almost totally unique to the rest of the country, the First Day of Deer Hunting Season (aka “Deer Day”) and Groundhog Day. Now the first was actually a state-wide holiday, where schoolchildren (at least in the 1980’s and earlier) were let out to join their fathers, uncles and grandfathers in the time honored tradition of weeding out the flock of Bambi and Bambi’s mother from the thick woods and countryside of PA. This is also noticeable by the stream of pickup trucks sporting gun racks heading north on the Turnpike from Philly.

The latter holiday, celebrated today, and co-opted by every other state in the union and most media outlets, is today in Punxsutawney, a burg outside of da’Burgh, Pittsburgh. As reported, he hasn’t seen his shadow, and was also seen sporting shades, a Hawaiian shirt, and Bermuda shorts because of the wacky weather which is now undoubtedly blamed on human-kind. So, bust out that DVD of Groudhog Day with Bill Murray and Andie McDowell and get your “Phil” of goodness before the big game on Sunday, even though the “Igles” or “Stillers” aren’t in it this year.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It’s midnight. Cold, with sleet falling from the sky. A random street corner in Mt. Pleasant.

As I park the clock-stopping hottie’s car, I see a guy walking down the street towards me.

He calls out, “Hey brother, I have a question,” as I lock her car. Guard up, I answer, “What?”

“Do you wanna buy an electric toothbrush?” And from his coat, he shows me a new Oral-B in the package. “I’m selling them cheap!”

For once, I am too shocked to speak. All I can think of is “What the F*^k?”

And I head inside, to warmth, to brush.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

When I travel, I travel crazy light. I am so minimalist, I never check my bags.

But even my economy pales in comparison to this traveler. They’ve compiled their entire existence into one shopping cart for total mobility.

Before you think this is sarcasm, be it known that I am truly in awe of many homeless people’s personal effects transport systems.

This is a very vertical arrangement, but there are others, horizontal, multi-directional, that are just as impressive. Feats of engineering to facilitate survival on DC’s rough streets.

Of course, they would probably rather trade daily wanderings with more sedentary, and secure, domiciles, but until then, for all my dislike of bums, I do give them this:

They are the master packers, baggage transporters extraordinaire.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

What happened to our “Al Gore Spring“? One week it’s warm and sunny in January (yea!), and this week we have bone chilling cold (boo!) in February. To top it off, today the National Weather Service issued this advisory for the DC metro area today:

EXPECT SNOW TO DEVELOP IN THE LATE EVENING AND THEN MIX WITH OR CHANGE TO RAIN AND FREEZING RAIN. EXPECT ONE OR TWO INCHES OF ACCUMULATION AND THEN SOME ICING ON TOP DURING THE NIGHT TONIGHT.

Or in DC-speak, that means we’re gonna have a day of “wintery mix” where everyone looses their mind and there are panic runs on salt and shovels.

I don’t know about you, but I like the whole Global Warming thing if it means less AccuWeather forecasts that look like this.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The folks at The Peace Alliance are having a big shindig this weekend at the Lisner Auditorium, and the promo graphic looks like this:

All we need now is John McCain singin’ Streisand to make the weekend complete!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

This morning during my perusal of the Post, I saw an article about Chili, and its relationship to the Super Bowl, which I’m told is on Sunday. Only now, at just after dinner time, have I calmed down enough to write about it. In their article, they mention a multiplicity of types of Chili, and that I can certainly get behind, but for the Post to claim that anyone in their right mind can include carrots and celery in their chili, they must have clearly slipped.

Chili, in its many forms, requires a tomato base, and the presence of beans, and is cooked low and slow, barely reaching much more than a simmer. Meat tends to be what defines the chili, either through its presence or absence, but really, mirepoix has no business belonging in a chili.

Post, listen well, and please find my very own native California chili below the cut.

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