By Tom Bridge
‘Ikea Metro Ad’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’
We caught these ads last night at Gallery Place, and this big banner was part of a series of ads hawking bookcases and dressers and a big ol’ sale down at Ikea. I admire the timeliness of the ad, but I’ve got to ask: Did y’all really want to commercialize the Inauguration in such a way? Kinda creepy to use the peaceful transfer of power of a nation to sell cheap ass furniture.
But that’s just me, I guess.
By Rebecca
by flickr user ArtFromM
Over the last week or two, I’ve been noticing a surprising amount of pennies on the streets of DC. They lie on the cold pavement, waiting for some DCer to take .4 seconds out of their day to bend down, pick them up and put them to use.
While I agree pennies can be annoyingly heavy, and have a habit of multiply like bunnies in your pocket, WE ARE IN A RECESSION PEOPLE! Is carrying around that one penny really that hard?
If you can tolerate carrying, OMG say just 5 pennies, you can buy a piece of Bazooka Joe gum, read the accompanying comic, and laugh your winter recession blues away. Or if you hang on to 25 pennies, you can upgrade to a pack of Juicy Fruit. And for hoarding 100 pennies, you can get a McChicken sandwich from McDonald’s.
So save let’s try to save the pennies and reap the rewards.
By Amélie
Spiderman Obama issue from Marvel
It was announced last week, and for industry insiders, it may have been a bit longer, that Marvel Comics, purveyors of The Hulk, Fantastic Four, and “Geek-in-Chief” Barack Obama’s favorite, Spiderman were issuing a special edition of the latter for the inauguration. This 5-page story was to center around an impostor taking the oath of office this coming Tuesday and Peter Parker, while covering it for the Daily Bugle, helped Spiderman save the day and democracy as a whole. However, unless you’re a subscriber at a local comic book store, you may be out of luck to catch a first printing in D.C.. Fantom Comics in Union Station and Tenleytown were somewhat caught unawares and only had acquired 9 copies total to split between the two stores. However, there is a second printing, albeit with a different cover, coming this Wednesday the 21st.
By Tom Bridge
When last we left our intrepid hero, he had found the mysterious gang of quasi-Juman terrorists lead by Tony Almeida somewhere along the DC waterfront. The terrorists were in possession of some magical device that lets them into the Air Traffic Control systems, but they handed that off to The Big Bad Guy, who’s leaving threatening messages on the State Department’s Voicemail like an intern who’s had a bit too much Busch Light on a weeknight.
Sorry for the late start everyone, Happy Hour at Science Club ran long.
10:06am
We begin tonight’s episode in the White House, where President Taylor is dealing with the consequences of the compromised firewall. She’s hoping that the FBI will quickly break Almeida, which means it’s off to the FBI Bureau again. Which has a helipad. In DC? Really guys? I don’t think so. Again with the skyscrapers in the distance here. 12 stories and a penthouse is the rule in DC. No one breaks it, not even the Feds.
And suddenly there’s an open air parking garage adjacent to the helipad in DC? Yikes. Not so much, guys. Not so much. We’re going to take this out on Tony Almeida, I can just tell.
By Tom Bridge
With the return of everyone’s favorite vigilante/law-enforcer Jack Bauer, and the show’s move from Los Angeles to here in DC, I thought it might be a good time to track 24’s progress through our streets and see how we fare. This’ll be a live-blog tonight, and if it works well, we’ll bring it back next week.
8:00am.
Cellphone in the driver’s compartment? That’s a ticketing. Good thing he got plowed by a nearby truck. Continue reading
By Jonathan
Just because the inauguration is only a week away shouldn’t mean we avoid any other controversy. Like, for instance, a battle over jamming cell phone signals.
As Tom reported earlier, DC is going to test a system to jam cell phone signals coming from one of the DC prisons.
But, the prisoners have a new ally in the fight to keep those unlawful cell phones. CTIA – the cellular phone industry’s lobbying group – has filed suit today trying to stop the DC department of corrections from testing cell phone jamming equipment.
By Tom Bridge
A DC Taxi Day (though not an Envirotaxi) by Wayan
Apparently, getting a cab in DC is as easy as Twittering to @taxinow (aka EnviroRide.net taxis) your start and finish destinations, and they’ll route you a cab. For those of us who absolutely hate using the phone to talk to cab companies, this seems like a really straightforward way to get from point A to point B without having to call ahead.
Sure you might want to give it a little bit of time to get there, but this sounds vastly preferable to calling the call center, to me.
Modified Speed Hump Sign on Monroe Street NW, by Mr. T in DC
The photo is a year and a half old, but it just made it into our Flickr pool, so it’s new to me. And it entertained me thoroughly. If you can’t read the sign, be sure to click through. And I agree, Mr. T, the grammatical error just adds to the comic effect. I almost regret that it’s not immortalized this way in Google Street View. (Yes, of COURSE I checked.)
By Tom Bridge
The Washington Post
Originally uploaded by krossbow
Well, I didn’t see that coming on a Monday Morning. The Post’s managing editor for print, Phil Bennett, is stepping down effective Friday. It was previously announced that their managing editor of WashingtonPost.com was stepping down after the inauguration, but it now seems that both of the major editors at the Post are out the door in the same month.
What’s cooking over at the Washington Post that’s got people running for the exits? Is circulation really that far down?
By Katie
Taxi by flickr user cupcakepanda
New Year’s Eve, my friends and I headed to a house party on Capitol Hill. Since we were all going to be enjoying our fair share of champagne, we decided to rely on taxis as our main transportation. Taxis were the best option, especially since the house we were going to was not accessible by Metro (not to mention ridiculous gusting winds and freezing temps). We were able to miraculously snag a Red Top Cab on our way to our house party, and decided to call Washington Regional Alcohol Program’s SoberRide to catch a safe (and free!) ride home.
For those of you unfamiliar with SoberRide, the program is aimed to reduce dui las vegas cases in the area. SoberRide provides free taxi rides (up to a $50 fare) to people 21 and over. This is a truly fantastic idea. Plus, from what I understand, they have the ability to act as a switchboard, and can direct you to a taxi company with availability. Continue reading
Baby's First Christmas, by wfyurasko
Thanks for a great year, everyone. This has been OUR baby’s first Christmas, and by way of celebration, I thought I’d take a look back at some of our most popular posts this year, in case you missed ’em the first time.
By far, the most popular post this year in terms of both pageviews AND comments has been Welcome to Murky. You Don’t Get It Your Way. Who could forget this tempest in a coffeepot? It had everything: An outraged customer, a small-business-owning coffee artist, downtrodden hourly employees caught between the customer and the boss’ policy, not to mention threats of arson and physical violence… This is the kind of drama the Internets are made for, people. Don’t forget to read through the comments for links to other accounts of the incident. Continue reading
By Ben H. Rome
PC290059.JPG, courtesy of OberonInDC
Ahhh, memories. Metro has given us some great ones over the last year; in the spirit of the holidays I thought I’d share the twelve most memorable, in no great particular semblance of order. It’s been a year of ups and downs for WMATA, so why don’t we look back and smirk, scowl, smile and shrug at some of Metro’s best – and worst – escapades of 2008, to the (heavily butchered) tune of that great holiday carol, the Twelve Days of Christmas.
By Tom Bridge
Well, so much for landing a local superstar to anchor the Nationals this year. Mark Teixeira, and his feckless thug of an agent Scott Boras, extracted $180M from the Yankees for an 8-year deal with the [expletive deleted] New York [expletive deleted] Yankees, who apparently also included [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] piles of money. And the Nats continue their inability to sign anyone who’s worth half a damn for more than half a season.
So, in tribute, I bring you this video:
[expletive deleted] you, New York, and [expletive deleted] your precious [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] panda-raping [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] grandmother-shoving [expletive deleted] Blagojevich-fondling [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted]-gargling [expletive deleted]-punching Yankees. Oh, and Steinbrenner? Cancer. CANCER, I say!
making a wake, by Flickr user philliefan99
…because there’s been a water main break so massive that people are having to be rescued from their cars, which are stranded in several feet of water, including a mother and child who had to be rescued by helicopter. Just steer clear of that part of Bethesda entirely.
Be safe, everyone.
By Tom Bridge
Oh Baby it's Cold: 17F
Yeah, it’s not warm out there. With wind chill around -5°F this morning, winter has broken down the gates and established its cruel authority over the DC area. As Jenn pointed out below, though, the days are getting longer here in DC, and the march toward 70 and sunny at the Tidal Basin has begun. I know that’s not much comfort when the mercury’s well below the water-freezing point, but just think, today’s sunlight duration was 2 seconds longer than yesterday. And tomorrow’s will be 6 seconds longer than today’s.
Bundle up, this is something to endure.
By Ben H. Rome
Bay Bridge, courtesy of FreaksAnon
According to WTOP, the young woman who caused the fatal wreck on the Bay Bridge this past summer will not be facing charges. Candy Baldwin, 19, received three traffic citations but won’t be prosecuted for the wreck that sent a truck plunging off the bridge into the Chesapeake, killing John Short Sr, the driver.
Baldwin claims she fell asleep at the wheel; the county prosecutor stated her Blood Alcohol Concentration was .03, well under the .07 legal limit for impairment. She was instead cited for a license restriction, failing to drive right of center and negligent driving.
Let’s convienently forget she’s underage and was drinking.
By brownpau
Here’s a video I took Tuesday night on the Metro of an electrical locker swinging open and shut as the train moved. Looks like someone didn’t close the doors properly, and I was wondering just how dangerous it was to have all these sensitive electronics and switches and leads exposed. This was on Blue Line train #3262AC. I’ve read enough about WMATA rolling stock to know that this is one of the Alstom-rehabilitated Breda cars, but I need a WMATA engineer or some other DC transit railfan to tell me what kind of systems are in this locker, specifically. Anyone know?
(And should I have hit the emergency call button? I don’t know if it was safe, but no one was touching it, and I was already at my stop and didn’t want to put the train out of service and cause cascading delays up and down the Blue and Orange Lines.)
By brownpau
As of December 15th and till today, two out of three street-level escalators at Foggy Bottom Metro station are closed. Only one narrow escalator serves double duty as up/down stairs for rush hour crowds. It’s an outrage and an unmitigated catastrophe in progress, but still nothing new to this beleaguered Metro station. This means more lines, more crowding, more walking down broken steps. Avoid it if you can: use this handy map to find alternative Metro station entrances. More on this from Dr. Gridlock.
Update: As of about 7PM, the middle escalator has been opened, but only as stairs, with escalator #3 going up. There was no backup or bottleneck; how was it for you?
By Tom Bridge
You probably heard about this over the weekend, as our friends at DCist had this as part of their weekend coverage, with the original story coming from Greater Greater Washington. Late yesterday, Metro put up their side of the story which basically says, “Well, they wanted us to invest time and effort into doing it, and we can’t be assed to make the trains run on time to begin with, what makes you think we’d help someone else make money?”
But wait, there’s more.
Continue reading
By brownpau
Over by the National Christmas Tree there is a Santa’s Workshop where children can line up to visit Santa Claus and have a picture taken. I don’t have kids but when I visited Saturday night, the view through the window was a cozy, picturesque scene of a jolly old man smiling as he held wide-eyed children on his lap, and I had to get a photo — which, of course, came out blurry in the dark.
As I was fiddling with my ISO settings an elf-suited girl told me, “You can’t take photos through the window, the flash will just reflect off the glass and distract Mr. Claus.”
“Thanks,” I replied amiably, “I have flash off.”
“Well, you still can’t take photos!” said a man by the exit, bodily moving to block the window. I believe he may have been trying to sound intimidating, but it came out as more obnoxious than anything else. Not wanting to make a scene, I said nothing more, put away my camera, and walked off in a huff.
Continue reading
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