These are the rare perfect nights here in Washington, when the weather is pleasant and civil. When you can sit outside on your patio, the hum of an AM radio droning in the background, the chirping of the robins dying down. The sky is robin’s egg blue, slowly heading for midnight blue. The breeze wafts in the smell of mown grass and freshly turned soil.

It’s the nights that make me love this town. In Summer, they swelter, and your clothes cling and stick, as if pressed down with a wet army blanket. In Fall, you can smell the fireplaces, the leaves, and the dew. In Winter, the smells of snow and of brisk cold and the fires down the street.

Tonight I can smell the charcoal grill two blocks over, sweet and gentle on the air.

All our windows are flung wide, the smell of springtime suffusing the house. I can almost smell my roses from here.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well, apparently, the District now owns 3 Czech-made streetcars. Sure, they’re still operating and living in the Czech Republic. The city, and its taxpayers, have forked over $10 million for a set of three streetcars back in 2005. The line still hasn’t been built yet. Designed to go from Bolling AFB to the Anacostia Metro, the tracks have never been laid. The city promises they’ll be looking into that, and an operator for this new system, this summer.

But those 3 streetcars are still running in the Czech Republic…

So, wait. We’re going to pay $10M for used streetcars? For real?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

For those who do keep their finger on the world pulse, tomorrow is World Malaria Day (April 25th), sponsored by the World Health Organization. While Spring is here, and the standing water from the heavy rains a few days ago will sure spawn our favorite Summer pest, the mosquito, it’s good to remember, that here, in the US, we’re lucky enough not to have the scourge of malaria, one of the largest killers of people, young and old, worldwide. So, as a reminder, since we do get other mosquito borne illness here, notably the West Nile Virus, if you have standing water pooling on your property, in buckets, plastic sheeting, or other places that seem innocuous, tip it out and drain it. (Remember, D.C. used to be a swamp, so it makes sense…)

On the upside, Senegalese singer, Youssou N’Dour is performing at the World Bank in the atrium at 2pm. I’m not sure if it’s fully open to the public, but you can try, given that it’s supposed to raise awareness…it’d be dumb to restrict access.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I started reading the Current newspapers recently. Their coverage of local issues is pretty great, but one thing in particular that shocks and intrigues me is the police blotter. I live in Adams Morgan and already knew that my block isn’t the safest—there’s drug dealing going on across the street, and our house was burglarized during the day a couple years ago. But, man, it turns out that crimes occur here all the time! Last week my block was mentioned in the police report twice (robbery [knife]; burglary), and the week before, it was in there four times (robbery [force and violence]; burglary (twice); theft from auto [below $250]).

What’s most shocking is that I haven’t heard about any of these recent crimes. One of my roommates has a nose for crime and always seems to be around during driveby shootings, car breakins, etc., but I’ve missed them all. It almost feels like I live on a parallel planet. Is Adams Morgan really that dangerous?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Perennial promoter of the art as well as the business of standup comedy, the DC Improv is announcing a monthly “Pay What You Can” night, in which tickets at the door cost… what you can pay for them. The first “Pay What You Can” night is one week from tonight, April 30th, and will feature Marc Maron. Tickets purchased in advance will still be regular price, but you can show up the night of and score a deal if there are any seats left. Additionally, the Improv will not be enforcing its usual 2-item minimum, making it an excellent opportunity to see professional standup in a great club on a budget. It’s a nice break from the $70 including fees you can expect to pay to see Lewis Black at the Warner next month. (Though, who am I kidding, I bought tickets to that too.)

Of course, while the Improv is a high-quality venue with professional, touring comics, that’s certainly not the only way to see great comedy on the cheap in DC. The Improv rents out its smaller lounge area to local comics and improv troupes, and you can check out the lineup right from the Improv’s ticketing system. And need I remind you of the many fine opportunities to see comedy in and around DC, ranging from free for most open mics to $10 for some of the locally-booked shows. Tonight, for example, you can catch some of my favorite local comics at The Awesome Room at McGinty’s in Silver Spring ($4 cover), and tomorrow head over to the Hotel Topaz on N Street for the no-cover open mic night there.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well, while the Caps made the Flyers work for it, in the end they we lost in overtime 3 to 2. Ovechkin managed to pick up another goal and an assist along the way.

It’s disappointing, but quite frankly this is farther than I think a lot of us – myself included – expected them to get, and I’m happy they did.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Overtime.

It’s the dramatic finishes that are the end of sports fans everywhere. When your team’s fought to a draw at the end of regulation, pouring their hearts and souls and bodies into the play of the game, and come up no better than their opponent, it becomes an endurance game. 20 minutes more of Overtime, then a shootout, that’s all that remains between the Capitals and either heartbreak or triumph.

Much like the democratic primary battle that’s going on tonight, there’ve been ups and downs, gaffes and glory, excitement and doldrums.

C’mon Caps! Finish well!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Julia’s Empanadas opened a branch in Columbia Heights last month. I missed the news then, but hearing about it today, decided to go there for lunch. Julia’s is one of the better healthy alternatives in town, though I wish the vegetarian empanadas would always include beans, not just sometimes.

Columbia Heights was absolutely buzzing with energy at 2pm on a Tuesday. What surprised me most of all was the ubiquitous construction, which I’d wrongly assumed had ended when the big DC USA complex opened. The neighborhood is still in the process of reinventing itself, with buildings-in-progress stretching north towards 16th Street Heights. But the central area, around where Park Rd. meets 14th Street, is pretty much done. It’s pretty great, too, with a semicircle of restaurants and cafes and even ice cream shops surrounding an open area. I know, I know–gentrification, prices, displacement, etc. Still, an area of the city that didn’t feel super welcoming in the past has opened up to more District residents.

Anyway, some things aren’t too different. Not everyone in the area has somewhere to go, or a way to get there. A really nice guy stopped me as I left Julia’s, asking for $.85 to get across town so that he could show up for his bimonthly urine test. I gave it to him, and he thanked me, saying he’d pray for me that night.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I’m sure some of you have come to the conclusion that I like beating up on WaPo. Really, nothing is farther from the truth and overall I have a positive opinion of the paper, particularly compared to the yellow rag that the Miami Herald had become by the time I moved here six years ago.

Unfortunately today I find myself annoyed with one of the sections that normally I find above average – Health. I was a little perturbed that the story on the debate about plastics made no mention of the tremendous impact plastic has had on the safety of health care, but the real offense in the section was about a plastic surgery.

Well, it would have been a story about that if WaPo writer Sandra G. Boodman hasn’t just vomited Newsweek’s original bit of scandal manufacturing back up without a hint of journalistic rigor or effort. The reality of this story – not presented anywhere in the original Newsweek piece or Boodman’s uncredited paraphrasing – is that this is a book published by a vanity press and authored by a Florida plastic surgeon for his own clients. This plastic surgeon actually does some good outreach to the public on plastic surgery, though somehow that link didn’t make it into the story: I guess talking about articles covering sun damage and porta-cath scars doesn’t sell papers.

Personally I think we have some… interesting attitudes about beauty and aging in the US, and it’s a subject that could do with some quality discussion. This isn’t it. If you’re interested in more detail about why this is a non-story, Teresa Neilsen Hayden spells out the situation in great detail here… in a post from about a week ago, which Boodman could probably have found if she’d taken longer than 4 minutes to re-use Newsweek’s story. The meat of the matter:

Big Tent Books … is a vanity press and marketing and fulfillment operation. It pretends it’s separate from another company called Dragonpencil—in theory, Big Tent is a marketing and distribution firm, and Dragonpencil is a publisher—but they’re really a single organization run by Jerry and Samantha Setzer. The two companies have the same address and phone number. Big Tent’s award-winning books get all their awards from Dragonpencil. Dragonpencil’s deluxe publishing package includes marketing and distribution by Big Tent. And if you poke around their sites long enough, you can find the page where they admit it.

Big Tent/Dragonpencil has the usual problem of vanity presses: zero to lousy sales and distribution. They’re a lot better at making books than they are at promoting them. Only a few of their titles are even listed at Amazon, and those are listed badly—half the normal publisher-furnished information is missing. Sales are minimal.

My Beautiful Mommy is not one of the books Big Tent lists on Amazon.

In other words, this story about shilling to children isn’t at all a case where anyone was shilling to chilren. Dr Michael Salzhauer’s book – which includes a surgeon named Dr Michael, in case you were wondering whether he really meant it for his patients – is for people who already have made the decision to have plastic surgery.

Or maybe Newsweek and Boodman think that books written about death for a child’s perspective are promoting kids being accepting of dying?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

D.C. Mayor Fenty put the kibosh on any further extensions for cabbies working in the District to install meters. Bottom line? Those cabdrivers have to have meters installed by May 1 or face a $1,000 fine each time they pick up a fare.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking – “All those cabbies are going to have meters installed in a week? But there’s like, a ton of them and only a few installation garages!”

You’d be correct.

So there’s an extension – but it’s not called an extension. I call it “a bone” that’s been thrown to the cabdrivers. Basically, if they’re caught without a meter between May 1 and May 31, then they’ll get a warning. If no meter by June 1, all those warnings will convert to the monetary fine. After June 1, the fines are enforced. This gives them an extra four weeks to get metering devices installed.

All this because Fenty won the court ruling yesterday that upheld the city’s plan to require time-and-distance meters, as opposed to the eons-old zone-fare-customer-ripoff system.

Hey, it’s a good thing.

Although I really suspect cab customers are going to be out of luck snagging a metered cab in May; with the constant temper-tantrums the cabbies have been throwing over this changeover, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find many of them riding with dozens of warnings until June 1, in order to soak as many customers as possible.

Meantimes, the drivers are sending their lawyer to the D.C. Court of Appeals, in order to prevent scrapping the zone-ripoff system while the appeal is pending. We’ll see.

Cabs will be spot-checked in May and warnings handed out. Citizens can also report unmetered cabs. According to the press release put out by the mayor’s office, “Passengers who wish to file a complaint against an unmetered cab should obtain the taxicab driver’s name, company and license number and report it to the DC Taxicab Commission at (202) 645-6018 or dctc@dc.gov.”

I’ll stick to Metro and my own two feet until this mess is all over.

Cab stand at downtown Hyatt, courtesy of drewsaunders

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

While I may not have been successful in my bid for a national anthem slot at Nationals Park, I suppose I could try out to sing at the Metro. Metro’s looking for musicians to audition to sing at area stations this spring, summer and fall. Auditions run two days in May, and there’s a ton of detail at the MetroPerforms! page. Bring a headshot and a bio, as well as your musical group.

Me? I want a bagpipe choir.

But that’s just how I roll.

Street music — Originally uploaded by CGoulao

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With about 14 minutes left in the third period, the Caps are holding on to a 3-2 lead over the Flyers. C’mon guys – get through this one and you’re back and home where we can cheer you on.

Update: And now 4-2, that’s two Ovechkin goals in a row. Seven more minutes…

And 4-2 is the final score! Woohoo! Next up: do or die at the Verizon center tomorrow.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

…a suspicious package has been found at the White House, but no further details are available at this time. Thanks very much to a new Twitter-based News Service for breaking the news, and suggesting that you might not want to drive down 14th or 15th tonight near the White House if you can avoid it.

Chances are it’s some laundry, or maybe Cindy Sheehan’s latest missive, and totally unrelated to reality, but it is going to screw up your drive home. Metro, trust me.

Update: The package, as we suspected, is totally safe. It still fucked up rush hour though.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

How is this night different from all other nights? For one thing, it’s the wrong darned night. Don’t let that stop you from attending the third annual Cyber Seder at CarlWeaver.com. This is the third year we have done a live cybercast of our Passover Seder. Unfortunately, we were out of town the first two nights of this important holiday, but we feel that it is important enough to continue the tradition that we are doing it on the third night to play catch-up.

Not sure what Passover or a Seder is? Read all about it here and then come join us. As long as we are here, your wanderings have not taken you too far from home, or at least a virtual representation of it. The broadcast will start at 6:30 and the actual Seder will commence at 7 p.m.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

So you just finished reading the latest Grisham thriller, or stayed up all night because you couldn’t put down Amy Tan’s newest, and now you’re just itching to tell everyone about how awesome it was. Or what a terrible read it was, so don’t even bother. What options do you have?

Well, a lot, actually. You can find a forum or review site pretty much all over the web these days….except at the library.

Those days are over, at least in Alexandria.

The Alexandria Library now offers patrons and residents a chance to put down their own reviews and thoughts on nearly all of the library’s holdings, which includes books, movies, music, and other material found on the online catalog. The Library has included this functionality as another resource for people to get recommendations and reviews from other patrons on materials to check out.

“Our Library now has a truly interactive mechanism, completely integrated into our catalog,” said Rose Dawson, Director of Libraries. “We know that our patrons are already used to such interaction on many commercial Web sites, but our Library affords its patrons the ability to reserve materials online—and to get those materials at no charge.”

Accessing the catalog is easy. Go to the website and click on “Library Catalog” and start browsing. When you find something you’d like to offer a review on, just type it in. Keep in mind that you’ll need to register to the website in order to do so.

The interactivity of the online catalog is just one more step in building the community, and one that is appreciated from its patrons.

I love libraries, courtesy of mj*laflaca

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Ever wish you had the luxury of a baseball player to just say, “Sorry dude, it’s raining WAY too hard out there for me to do my job,” and skulk off to the nearest bookstore/bar/bedroom and give the world the finger? Yeah, I think that’s how most of us feel this morning. After yesterday’s ark-inspiring demonstration of Mother Nature’s irrigation systems, to wake up to more rain this morning seemed like a bad joke, some sort of retribution for sins committed, or perhaps even just imagined, in the beauty of Spring in the days prior to the weekend.

Looking through a search or two on Flickr, it seems yesterday was spent in the pursuit of uploading the previous week’s collection of beautiful day photos. I was driving home from Winston-Salem in the storm last night, hitting several patches of rain so hard I had to slow to 25mph and flip my hazards on, as driving faster than that meant that I couldn’t see the end of the reach of my headlights, due to the sheets and sheets of rain coming down.

I may well declare a rainout today unless it gets better soon.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

That’s right, kids, it’s a gorgeous day out. The kind we get all too precious few of as DC makes the transition between “cold and gloomy” to “humid and sweltering.”

So why are you sitting in front of a computer reading this? Get up! Go outside! Open the sunroof! Occupy a sidewalk table at your favorite restaurant! Go to the zoo!

But don’t stay here when you could be taking advantage of this.

Omg awesome outside

Originally uploaded by tiffany bridge

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Heartbreaking.

That’s as good a word as any for Capital fans today, after last night’s loss to the Flyers. They now trail the surging Philly team 3-1 in the series.

By far, it was Washington’s best game of this year’s playoffs. But it fell short by a Mike Knuble goal in the second overtime.

I really thought the Caps would take this one away from Philly last night; I watched in awe as Ovechkin delivered a thunderous hit on Knuble in the early stages of the first period and saw that fire in him that reminded me of the last two weeks of the Cap’s regular season. The team was tight, calm, and focused.

It just wasn’t enough.

A less-than-stellar first period start didn’t derail the team, unlike the last two games, with the Caps shutting down the Flyer’s power play after practically giving them three penalties in a row early on. The lead changed hands all night, with Eminger netting his first playoff goal and giving the Caps the lead briefly in the third.

The Caps played hard – they led the game in hits, 38-29 – but the Flyers were ready for them. The lackluster showing last Sunday here in Game Two has really come back to haunt them. Ovechkin and the Caps now face elimination on Saturday, and the stats are not favorable. Philly is 15-2 all-time when leading a best-of-seven series 3-1. It’s rare for a team to roar back from being two games back and unless the Caps can dig deep and find the energy they had in the race to the playoffs, I don’t think they’re much longer for Round One. Winning three games in a row against a physical team that is peaking at the right time is a daunting challenge indeed.

Still, it’s a possibility, and I won’t count the Caps out yet. It’s not over until the final horn sounds.

8 ball, courtesy of jiariles

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Third Fridays at The Rock and Roll Hotel have been a nightlife staple of mine for the past year, as Metblogs own Michael Darpino (he of the perpetual tower of books) has been onboard as one half of Room 429’s Re:sonance DJs, along with Chris Diamond. These two tirelessly spin a relentless onslaught of shoegazer, brit-pop, 80’s/90’s underground, and whatever else the eclectic and diverse crowd cries out for…

My favorite thing about the Hotel is the unexpectedness of any given night’s events – one minute everyone’s chill, the next minute a girl is rocking out on the pool table, and then suddenly there’s a hula hoop dancer going wild in the corner. And yet it all manages to happen without any of the attitude that can plague other nightlife spots in the city – people are just happy, mingling and having a crazy fun time.

So join us this Friday, April 18th for the one year anniversary of Room 429, free upstairs from 9:30pm on. They’ll be giving away Screen Vinyl Image and Soundpool CDs. And don’t forget to say cheers to Darpino and Diamond for a job well done!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

In what is some shocking news, a Senate committee was informed on Tuesday that should a 10 kiloton nuclear bomb explode at the White House, a lot of damage would occur to our fine state city. They were also briefed on the lack of readiness by our government for such an attack. And here all along I thought we were completely safe since 9/11 due to our “war on the axil of evil”, the spiffy color coded terror alert system, and the addition of a few air marshals on our airplanes. No?

According to the article:

Dr. Cham Dallas, a public health expert at the University of Georgia, presented a map of downtown Washington, D.C., showing that there would be 100,000 deaths within just a few square miles of the White House.

Casualties would extend from the Washington Monument through Georgetown and north toward the Washington Zoo. There would be massive debris from damaged buildings, including shattered glass.

In Chicago or New York City, which have more concentrated populations, the damage could be four to eight times as bad.

I have to wonder, is this something we can really prepare for? A catostrophic disaster such as this, especially in our nation’s capital, would cause such a panic around the country and around the world, 9/11 would pale in comparison.

What do you think, DC? How safe and prepared do you think we really are? Or is it best not to even worry about it because if a nuke goes off we’ll be instantly burnt into crispy critters? I’m just glad I live nice and close to the White House.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs