‘Flip Flops’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

The public petition challenge portion of the At-Large council campaign came to completion this week, with Patrick Mara and Bryan Weaver remaining on the ballot, and Jacque Patterson being denied ballot access due to lack of signatures.  While DCBOEE did forward on the 8 pages of signatures from the Mara campaign that appear to have been forged, even without those counting, Mara still had over 3,000 signatures.

This morning, Patterson endorsed Vincent Orange’s money-laden campaign, citing Orange’s “unique skill set” in working in past councils. The endorsement is another boon for Orange, whose campaign has kicked into high gear after receiving $191,000 in campaign contributions, many from outside of the District. While it’s clear that Patterson harbors a grudge against Biddle for getting him booted from the ballot, it’s an interesting choice that Patterson made to grab money-strong Orange.

It had seemed from the previous evening’s tweets that Patterson might come down in the Weaver camp, given his support for the dark horse in last night’s candidate forum, but it appears that Patterson believes Orange to be the stronger contender, especially with a large war chest.

Biddle still may be the favorite due to his incumbent status, and his connections and council support, but there’s no writing off Orange at this point.

‘books tell stories’
courtesy of ‘erin m’

Borders is closing out a pair of their stores this weekend, leading to a massive selloff in two stores, one up at Friendship Heights and one downtown (18th & L), and the cuts are deep.  So if you’ve not dove head first into the realm of the Kindle and the iPad, this might be a great weekend to stock your shelves with some delicious knowledge, and maybe some cheap chairs and whatnot, as they’re selling the fixtures right down to the bookcases.

‘Halloumi Cheese from Cyprus’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’

I love cheese; I especially love stinky, stinky cheese. In fact, I love stinky cheese so much, on my last trip to Paris I specifically learned the phrase “Je veux votre fromage qui pue” (I want your stinky cheese) so that I could ask Parisan cheese mongers for their more odorous varieties.

Going to Paris to pick up some cheese, however, is not always the most cost-effective or convenient method. For those constrained to more local merchants, Cheesetique in Alexandria has you covered. Join Jill Erber on March 27th and 28th and April 3rd and 4th at 7:00pm to learn why stinky cheeses are so darn pungent and how to best select, serve and pair these “special” creations.

Lasting about an hour, and costing only $35, the class will give participants the opportunity to smell and taste ten cheeses and pair them with two perfect wines. Register here.

Cheesetique is located at 2411 Mt. Vernon Ave, Alexandria, VA. They can be reached via phone at 703-706-5300.

‘Wizards’
courtesy of ‘erin m’

Lead Item: At 16-50, the Wizards sit in 14th place in the Eastern conference, two full games off the pace of the 13th slotted Toronto Raptors. They’ve lost nine of ten, five in a row and were shellacked in the last week by the Clippers, the Western Conference cellar dwellers and perennial losers. The Clippers have been a punchline of not just basketball franchises, but pretty much universally across all the major sports. I’m pretty sure MLS teams used to mock them. Yet, as Bryan Harvey at The Faster Times noted, the intersection in the last week between the Clippers and Wizards is notable for the direction the teams are headed:

“The difference being that the Clippers at least have a direction in which they are heading–Blake Griffin gives them that–while the Wizards, with the exception of John Wall, appear fully content being adrift in the NBA cosmos; atoms and molecules that don’t amount to anything–they are what they are. And they seem fine with that.”

The Wizards need to win 10 of their remaining 16 to match last year’s horrendous record, and if it wasn’t for the implosion that is the Cleveland Cavaliers, they would be looking up at absolutely everybody in the Association.

Nowhere to go but up, Mr. Leonsis.

The rest of the Ticker…after the jump.

Continue reading →

‘The Town Of Bray – The Ardmore Pub’
courtesy of ‘infomatique’

No, it’s not officially staying open until 1am for St. Patrick’s Day, though that is a nice little side benefit.  Metro will be staying open for March Madness at Verizon Center.  As the Phone Booth will play host to four games tomorrow, with the start time of the last game expected after 9:30pm, WMATA’s going to give you an extra hour after that game to get to the Metro, and get home safe.  So, St. Paddy’s day revelers, enjoy your extra hour of partying, and know that the Finns are secretly pissed at you because you got an extra hour tomorrow, while revelers for St. Urho’s Day have to cash the party at midnight.

‘Washington Post box’
courtesy of ‘Joe in DC’

I know what you’re thinking since reading John’s post yesterday – since WaPo truncated all of the RSS feeds on its blogs, how could consuming local news possibly get any better?! Well, my friends, I have good news.

When the feeds first went live on Sunday evening, the new shortened posts looked a little empty. Just a single line of text with the link to the full post. Fear not, people who like colorful objects in your feed reader, now accompanying that single stanza of text is an ad some nine times the size: Continue reading →

‘stretching kitty’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

Live near Glover Park/American University? Own an outdoors kitty? Then volunteer your feline to participate in an upcoming research study by Smithsonian Institution’s Migratory Bird Center. Starting this summer, the center will begin studying outdoor cats’ interactions with wildlife using miniature video cameras (aka “CatCams”) that oddly look like collars with cassette tapes.

The researchers are also interested in, what is nicely termed, your cat’s “prey returns,” which they will document (assuming you can tell what it is) and compare to what they learn from the cats who wear cameras. The research aims to learn more about cats’ lives and experiences and help them (and owners) better understand the interactions of outdoor cats with wildlife. For instance, why no one has ever seen two cats having sex–just joking ;)

If you are interested in participating, contact dauphinen@si. edu or reitsmar@si. edu. Or write to:
Neighborhood Nestwatch
Attention: Bob Reitsma
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
National Zoological Park
P.O. Box 37012, MRC 5503, Washington, DC 20013-7012

‘Every Food Fits – Rebel Heroes’
courtesy of ‘staceyviera’
Another day…another lunch. I wish more food trucks would hang out in the Union Station area.

Sigh.

Click on through for our ThestrEATS-powered lunch map to find where your favorite food trucks are stationed now! Maybe you’ll be luckier than I am.
Continue reading →

”
courtesy of ‘Violette79’

Early last month, we shared the news that the delightful corridor surrounding Wisconsin Ave and M St was set to get its due in scripted, dramatic, television form. Somewhere along the way to creating a show about Georgetown, though, the production company decided to look outside of the narrow, one-way streets of the furthest west regions of Northwest DC.

A reader of NY blog Gothamist shared a flyer with the blog that showed up in his mail box that indicated that the company was going to run its production out of New York – and that they needed a brownstone Brooklyn house to film the pilot.

I’m sure there is logic on this – my guess is that the key point involves the proximity of studios to NY and the fact that is probably easier to get filming permits up in Park Slope than in Washington. Still, would anyone ever confuse the borough across the East River [<—NYC geography updated thanks to a commenter!] for the DC neighborhood down Pennsylvania Ave?

(ht Patrick Gavin)

”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

The Washington Post has seen fit to truncate its RSS feed to only an excerpt, and that requires you to now open the story in a web browser. It’s a monetization issue; we get that. But it’s quite frustrating for those of us who have developed a reading (and saving) habit in our RSS readers. But there’s a solution: FullTextRSSFeed Dot COM! (sing “DOT COM!” it makes it more exciting). This gets your reader back with full articles and what not. You can choose your feed and run it through their tool, but we’ve provided some:

Washington Post Local Feed

DCist Full Text Feed (without the new design)