mark your calendars: the next f.w. thomas performance will be at the warehouse monday, september 18. i especially like the promise of how "F.W. Thomas Impresario and Master of Ceremonies Adam Mazmanian will explain what it is like to watch one's father slowly but inexorably transform into a doppelganger of Kim Jong-Il."

i know the feeling, buddy.

as you may have surmised from the millions of new flickr photos pouring in over on your right, i was in d.c. this weekend for a visit. and it was great. but like tommy, this summer has just been Too. Much. Travel. it's always worth it to go to d.c., and my trip in two weeks to the outer banks and my move back to d.c. right after will be good, but. christ. may i recommend something? don't move FOUR TIMES IN ONE YEAR. i mean, i know budget truck and the airline industry appreciate me single-handedly supporting their revenue, but, oh my god! i'm tired! and broke!

still, though, d.c. all the fun. i got in thursday night, and tommy knew how to cure what ailed me: he took me straight to crisp and juicy. what's so best about that place - besides the hot sauce - is the cashier lady totally has a crush on him and remembers his order every single time (mine too, now, but i don't feel lesbianistic overtones from her). tommy always gets green peppers on his sandwich, but this particular evening they were out. and before we could even tell her what we wanted on the sandwiches, she looked at tommy with mournful eyes, shook her head, and said, "no green peppers tonight." very cute.

don't get me wrong - as behind the SOaP silliness as i am, i have moments in the night where i wake up, sweaty, fevored, and screaming, "WHAT IF IT'S SO BAD IT MAKES ME WANT TO KILL MYSELF?!?! THEN WHAT?! WILL MY URBAN TRIBE CAST ME OUT? CAN I EVEN BLOG EVER AGAIN!!?"

but the first two paragraphs of this review have calmed me. (don't read beyond that as there are apparenly spoilers)

What the hell, I said. Now or never, I said. If I'm going to see those motherfucking snakes on that motherfucking plane, it's going to be at the very first motherfucking showing, I said. So I drove to the local five-plex, plunked down my $9.25 and stayed up past my bedtime for a raucous screening of "Snakes on a Plane."

Short version: I had feared that, after all the hype, the movie itself would be underwhelming, neither good nor bad enough to merit all the attention. But it delivered exactly what the greatest title of all time promised: lots of snakes, lots of screaming, lots of silliness, and Sam Jackson again demonstrating that he can take anything seriously, so long as there's a paycheck involved. Not a great movie -- not even really a good one -- but no worse than, say, "Tremors," and with a more elegant concept. I definitely got my $9.25 worth. Of course, it helped that the small theater was packed with kids from the local high school who went nuts for everything, up to and including some of the trailers (whoever got Jackson's "Black Snake Moan" trailer attached to this movie deserves several raises).

no worse than tremors, and more elegant?!?! if you know anything, you know that tremors was one of the best bad movies ever (it's basically snakes, underground). so my hopes have again been raised. see you tonight, at RFD, at 8 or 8:30ish.

the washington post best bets contest proves itself to be a fraud in every way year after year (starbucks?! fuddruckers?!? FRONT PAGE?! [the caps for front page are done in mock rage as we all now wearily expect that drool bucket of interns to win, like, everything]). but the way the list reveals itself to be most terrible is by having the best italian restaurant be maggiano's. christ almighty. the EVEN WORSE part? the truly best italian restaurant in the city, obelisk, doesn't even make the top ten. if you want a delicious - but pretty expensive - meal, head on over there. it gets the zunta five star rating.

UPDATE: with his usual aplomb, the dceiver takes down the best bets list. i lie not when i say some coffee spray made its way onto my keyboard this morning. i cannot wait to see SOaP with this man.

even though the snakes on a backlash has (deservedly) begun, there ain't no stopping this snakes on a plane...train. um. the dceiver, the governess, and i (putting myself amongst those two names almost makes me wish i had a cool internet alias) will be at R.F.D. for some beers and some fun times starting around 8:00 or 8:30. the governess will be dressed as a flight attendant.* should be a good crowd - by my count we have about 15 people, if not more, willing to participate in this ridiculous evening. awesome!

*this may or may not be a lie, but how great would it be?

courtesy. it's all professional-like!

also, when the governess and i were first talking about this legendary day, we traded our snakes on a desktop:

there has to be some sort of super-awesome-totally-fantastic plan in place for the debut weekend of "snakes on a plane," right? because, yeah. there just has to be. i'm counting on you all!

(my only thought was to make lots of these and sneak them into the theater, but i am not really sure how super-fantastic an idea that is.)

fishbowl's annual hot media hotties hot hot list is up - and in the male off-air selection alone, we have three competitors of whom i know. 1) joe heim: wonderful man. sweet as pie. i interned for him at washingtonpost.com. 2) nick gillespie: he must be hot, because i am a bag-eyed ho unworthy of his love. 3) a mysterious man who i hear likes chia pets.

who to vote for?!

I realize it's hot out, but tonight is probably the best Fort Reno lineup of the summer (and certainly the one with the most Unbuckled alumni): Georgie James, Hard Tomorrows, and The Fake Accents (who I'm not familiar with). Show starts at 7:15 and is free, as always. And it's within walking distance from the Tenleytown Metro. Who's in?

folks on the DCist mailing list this morning pointed out a legal times article that refers to DCist as "relatively hip." how awesome is that? at least as awesome as the time i got called a d-list internet celebrity.

The Borf saga continues. This flyer, courtesy of Rob, has been making the rounds on DC's streets:

The domain in question isn't curently live, and the WHOIS information is fake — it lists prominent leftist lawyer Bernadine Dohrn as the contact person (no, I hadn't heard of her before either). That's pretty much in keeping with the vibe I picked up from the kids we met at last summer's Borf-in at Dupont: basically, that they're the sort of folks who show up at WTO protests but don't break any windows.

They've still got until the 27th to hook the nameservers up to something, I suppose. I didn't have a lot of faith that they'd be able to pull this meager feat off, however. But now I hear that New York's Graffiti Research Labs are involved in the proceedings. Suddenly I'm considerably more interested.

GRL are the folks who invented LED throwies, popularized the electro-graf (which I hope to adapt toward making a fablab-assisted sign for the new office), and had a significant presence at the Maker Faire. And, although I didn't realize the extent of it, I guess I did know that they'd conducted some pro-Borf agitation, too — including some right here in DC.

So they're basically big-time geeks with a mischievous streak. If they're gonna be at Borf's welcome-home party, count me in.

Good lord.

yay for weekend trips and spending short but quality time in d.c. i flew home this weekend on friday night and just got settled back in atlanta an hour or two ago. it was a tiring trip, but worth it. however, i must admit, the entire enterprise started off inauspiciously in the ATL airport. witness:

somehow the atlanta airport has taken it upon themselves to set forth on the world an "art" "project" that consists of having your faucet sing "row, row, row your boat" every time you attempt to wash your hands, at least in the bathrooms of concourse d. you may think: charming! you may be: wrong. since my flight was delayed a couple of hours, and i am constantly drinking water, i was spending a lot of time in the bathroom, watching the murderous expressions cross women's faces as we were assaulted over and over again with the dischordant tunes of several faucets singing "row, row, row your boat," and not even in an awesome round. save yourself while you still can, atlanta. worst. idea. ever.

after that whole debacle, though, everything was pretty alright. tommy and i stayed in friday night, where he managed to get me loopy drunk off of two vodka tonics. saturday we went to lunch with la famiglia at logan tavern, where i had a yummy mimosa, and then we took in a screening of pirates of the caribbean. please tell me internet folks that you also thought this movie was the pits. it kind of looked amazing; i really loved the envisioning of davy jones and his crew. but, plot? hello? what? and why the hell does keira find herself attracted to jack sparrow?!?! ew?!?! it was also amusing to me that the man who played the tiny evil east india trading company boss played mr. collins in the most recent pride and prejudice adaptation, because of course there he was creepily wooing keira k. but here he was just find of tinily evil.

saturday night we met up with ryan for a drink or more at the saloon, where we spent some quality time chatting about europe (london visit planning imminent!) and, um, natural disasters. i talk about those a lot. i blame yglesias and his spiel on the supervolcano in yellowstone park, which terrifies me to this day. then we mosied on over to yglesias' and kriston for one of their quality parties and chatted and drank the night away. as for the aftermath, i highly enjoyed this post of beck's detailing her morning after.

sunday involved a late lunch at chinatown express (i am obsessed with their pork dumplings) and couch naps. also, "end of days" was on tv, which is always good entertainment.

and that brings us to about here, and sleepy time. check out the photos!

rob got linked on romenesko. cool!

Some things everyone can agree on: an evening that begins at Russia House and ends at Recessions has been badly misconceived in at least one way. Fortunately, it was still pretty fun.

We were celebrating Kriston's emancipation from the working world, as he quits his glamorous cancer-research-editing lifestyle in favor of freelance writing. I know just how arduous it is to pursue a career from your couch and in pajamas, so I was ready to buy the guy a few condolence drinks.

Russia House was the plan — I'd been bugging folks to go for a while. Not because I enjoy being packed into a tiny, expensive space filled with preppies, tourists and aspiring Eurotrash. it's just that every guy wants to feel like James Bond. Or, failing that, he'd at least like to be treated like shit by a hot Russian girl (even if it's just the waitress). Russia House doesn't disappoint on either of these counts.

But we'd barely gotten through the vile infused vodka sampler before our numbers grew too large and we had to move. Brickskellar? Nah. In keeping with the places-we-don't-usually-go theme, we decided to head to Science Club. But it was mostly reserved for private parties, and its remaining corners were packed. Where to?

If you don't work around 19th and L you might not be familiar with Recessions. Let me get you up to speed: it's terrible. Located in the basement of an anonymous hotel, it's a drop-ceilinged, fake-stone abomination that may actually only exist in a 70s-themed parallel dimension. The prices are low and the staff is friendly, but as you sip your enormous Bud Light it's tough to escape the feeling that you're just there as cover for the guy who's cooking up a bucket full of heroin in back. Also, the internet jukebox seems to be connected to a different and considerably crappier internet than the one you and I are familiar with.

For a while and for reasons I can't explain Recessions was serving as EchoDitto's preferred happy hour destination. So it was nearby, I knew it, and Catherine wanted to see what all the complaining was about. So we descended into and onto Recessions.

I'm afraid that's pretty much it. We had a good time; Catherine took some photos. One word of warning to future patrons, though: when Catherine and I left, a little after midnight (we had to drive to the airport in about 4 hours), the bartender had to unlock the front door to let us out. I think you can count on the beer being cheap, but escape is far from guaranteed.

best baseball game ever tonight (thanks kriston!) - i mean, except for the nats losing. a lot. because, in addition to delicious beer and sausages and free little american flags and stuff, we had TWO FAMOUS SIGHTINGS. (ahem, for d.c.) outside, while tommy and i were lounging around on the armory steps, we saw MARK WARNER. be still my heart. it was actually our second sighting - we'd seen him apple-picking in charlottesville once. second sighting: david gregory of nbc. not as awesome, but still kind of cool. people in the bleachers actually recognized him. d.c. is such a dorkily awesome town.

i'm not gonna lie: i miss chicago something awful. it's really been hitting me hard the past couple of days. i miss my neighborhood; i miss the slew of bars and restaurants and boutiques; i miss the lakefront running path and i miss the sidewalks full of people (d.c. somehow seems a little more deserted); i miss the best drinking buddies west of the mississippi not on the east coast and i even miss class, as stressful as last quarter was.

at the same time, it's really really weird how easily you can slip back into the rhythm of a city, and i seem to have done that with d.c. and it's nice.

yesterday i woke up when tommy said goodbye and headed to work (which means i slept in a little; the bastard doesn't head out until 9:30 or 9:45). i spent a couple of hours tooling around on the internet then headed out of the house. i walked my well-worn path down to chinatown where i spent a couple of hours browsing at urban outfitters and h&m (not exactly d.c. institutions, but still fun). i hopped on the metro (i still had money on my smartcard, woo) and went up to dupont circle, where i stopped by alberto's for a slice of pizza, then went to get my hair cut by little john at studio 2000 (g., we chatted about you and your loveliness!). later in the evening i went with folks to the f.w. thomas reading at the warehouse, which was funny, and ended up for one person with an art purchase. everyone came back to porch it up afterwards, where i learned how deliciously dangerous ginger ale and whiskey is. but, i woke up hungover free! i am bionic woman!

today i woke up again at tommy's goodbye, headed out to azi's for a coffee and a croissant (one thing d.c. has over chicago is a good independent coffee store with illy coffee within a block of the apartment!). i headed out later for lunch at pizzeria paradiso (i swear i've eaten more pizza since i've come back to d.c. than i did my last month in chicago) with a bunch of medillians. we stopped in at the d.c. newsroom (13th and F) where i heard about the wonders and perks of the national press club (free gym, taco fridays, free breakfasts). jen and i then headed to the museum of natural history, which, something like 15 years since i've been there, is still teh awesome. i'm still obsessed with that elephant in the entrance hall and the insect museum. then we headed up to the national gallery of art, where we ate gelato. and i have to say, i was impressed. i had remembered thinking the cafe's gelato sucked last time i tried it, but the frutto di bosco and zabaglione flavors at least were delicious this time around. it's no snoopy, but, hey. i'll take what i can get.

and lots more fun stuff coming up this week. my little sis's graduation; dinner at palena; galileo grill; possible nats game; celebratory affairs with kriston for him finishing his job. woo, d.c.!

i do believe tommy and i will be headed to the warehouse theater tonight to catch the f.w. thomas reading. if you can believe it, i've still never been to the warehouse even though it's like five seconds from the apartment, so i am excited. should be a good literary time.

the party? was teh awesome. a smaller crowd than we were anticipating showed up, but that was actually good because a) more time to talk to wonderful people and b) lots of leftover beer that we'll need help killing the rest of the week. highlights of the evening included seeing all the great regular zuntaparty folks plus a few new faces, getting to know some of the lovely echoditto crowd that have made tommy so happy these past months and meeting the absolutely charming becks, one of my favorite bloggers. i mean, any night that ends around 4:30am with a bottle of whiskey being passed around and a rousing episode of karaoke revolution can't be a bad one, right?

emily was particularly gung ho with tommy's camera last night so you can expect some flickr action soon. thanks so much to everybody who came out!

UPDATE: drew comes through with the first photos.

UPDATE II: here's tommy's set.

tommy and i had the pleasure of attending ryan and lisa's wedding last night at the arts club of washington, and it was looooovely. everything about the ceremony was wonderful, including the vows that each of them wrote, which i usually pshaw. but tommy pointed out that it helps vows if you happen to be excellent writers. anyway, they both looked gloriously happy, the arts club was a beautiful setting, lisa was beautiful, the dinner was incredibly delicious, the cake (which was actually artfully arranged cupcakes from cake love) was actually....really good. i guess when you do let them sit out long enough they are, in fact, yummy, contrary to my previous thinking. the open bar was very open, and the dancing was fun. and one of my favorite parts of the evening? ryan, on his wedding day, was kind enough to bring me a stack of dcist temporary tattoos. god bless the boy.

photos here. frankly, a lot of them are really terrible - some because i didn't want to blind everyone with flash, some because i went on to get kinda drunk. but peruse freely!

don't forget: charles, tommy and i will be hosting a fine, fine party tomorrow night, starting around 10, and you're all invited. if i somehow neglected to get you the evite, just shoot me an email asking for details. my favorite "yes i'm coming" evite response thus far:

Michael (06/05)
if only to get to the bottom of this "tommy" craze, i'm there. plus i'm eager to discover that catherine is more than an alias that you created on your blog.

interesting theory. if tommy keeps popping in and out of the bathroom in a blond wig...well, just be prepared.

i'm home! tommy picked me out of the 125 middle schoolers crowding the baggage claim, cabbed me home and made me a burrito. you don't get this kind of boyfriend service in chicago, i tell you.

i blogged on the flight over. and by blogged, i mean "scrawled an incoherent screed on the back few pages of my book, which was the only writing surface i had available." believe it or not, i STILL have one final due tomorrow at noon, but if i get that done, i will faithfully type up my nonsensical words for you.

Is this kind of shit just a DC thing? I'm with Rusty: these ridiculous private online clubs creep me out. Aside from the invite-only Bittorrent tracker where I'm a member, of course (ah, hypocrisy).

Judging from some recent conversations I've had, it's not just the Georgetown set, either. Sigh. I completely understand and accept that the internet revolution is a chance for our generation of geeks to play high school all over again (this time we can win!). I just wish folks were interested in doing it better.

Maybe I'm being naive about all of this. I donno — I certainly wouldn't want to make the DCist staff list open to anyone who might want to join and observe our editorial process. And I genuinely believe in a right to privacy. But these virtual cliques still leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Some of you might remember me asking for career advice a while back. I ended up deciding to take the new job, then blogged the first day. Then everyone at work discovered this site (using their strange internet powers), and, aside from some generalities, I haven't mentioned it.

Well, let me fill you in. It's been about six months, I think. People use the phrase "it was the best decision I ever made" to describe getting a hair transplant, or buying a boat, or ordering a Cobb salad. So I'd like to avoid joining their idiomatic ranks, but I can't. It just seems so obvious. These are the smartest, coolest, funniest, most talented people I've ever worked with, and the job itself is interesting, varied and rewarding. I look forward to work every day. Okay, every non-hungover day.

The reason for my gushing: we're hiring. If you're geeky, really smart and interested in working in the non-evil sector, you should think about applying. You'd like it. Seriously.

the first: last night after returning from some delicious margaritas, i saw a guy struggling with a heavy-looking box and trying to get into my apartment lobby. i ran to hold the door open for him, then was, like, huh. i hope i am not letting in psycho murderer dude. so i asked him if he was moving in, because i didn't recognize him. and he said, yes, he was moving into I2, but just for the summer. and then i wept tears of joy. because I2 is the apartment above mine. and that must mean that NUN has moved out. noisy upstairs neighbor is dead, long live noisy upstairs neighbor. of course, this only happened when i have approximately 10 days of staying in my apartment left, but i'll take what i can get.

the second: we're having a party! the O street gang (that sounds terribly retarded but i'm going with it anyways) is having a party june 10. no reason, except i'm in town and am super eager to see all the lovely d.c. people in one convenient place. if you didn't get an evite, don't feel slighted - i'm just disorganized. you're certainly all invited, so just shoot me an email if you want the details.

remind me to avoid republic gardens when i come back next week.

It's on, people. Come see the excellent Deleted Scenes and Georgie James. And, as if that wasn't enough, there might — just might — be some temporary tattoos given away. I know!

I'll be there, although I'm afraid I won't be sticking around too long after Georgie James' set — there's morning news to be rounded up, chest colds to be fought and pre-beach packing to attend to. But although I won't be rock-and-rolling all night, it should still be a fun time. Hope to see you there.

So, the weekend. It happened, there's no denying that. On Friday I watched basketball and drank beer with Matt, Kriston and Charles, and it was good. On Sunday I saw The Da Vinci Code with Mark and Rebecca, and it was not (although it was good to see M & R). In between I somehow managed to pick up a cold and an accompanying case of nocturnal laryngitis: for the past two days I've lost my voice right around 8pm. Yesterday it occurred somewhere during the course of the movie, so it's not from overuse.

But, my fascinating symptoms aside, the big excitement of the weekend was making the trek to the Argonaut on Saturday. This has been on my to-do list for a while. I like U Street just fine, but there's no denying that its cachet diminishes a little bit more with every new trainload of prelaw girls crammed into tubetops. Not that, you know, *I* am an authentic participant in U's cultural offerings. It's just that I, too, own a Gap card. I've been on a GSA schedule. I drink light beer, and shop at Ikea, and have strongly-held opinions about olive oil. I'm sorry. I can't help it. But I find these things just as noxious in others as you do, and consequently try to avoid doing my socializing in the presence of too many similarly callow twentysomethings.

In order to achieve that goal I'll eventually have to identify the next bar scene ahead of time, so that I can enjoy it in its unspoiled state/get a head start on ruining it. The early indications have been that H Street is going to be that scene. It's got all the signifiers: climbing real estate prices; a new music venue and several bars that are threatening to open; race-baiting WaPo gentrification articles; and, of course, the neighborhood is terrible, aka "edgy". Surely this is where one ought to go to find the city's artists, poets, intravenous drug users and other creative types. In my mind I had pictured Paris cafe culture, only with more stupid t-shirts and public urination.

So on Saturday Kriston, Matt, Ian, Valerie, Sommer, Genevieve, Jon and I — fortified with sausages and beer — ventured out from the shadow of the Ellington, hailed a couple of cabs, and headed east. "That's right by my house!" said the cabbie. He didn't seem like the indie rock type, though.

Well, we went to the Argonaut, and it was pretty good. The Sierra Nevada-ish house beer was okay, and the prices were okay, and the jukebox was okay. But there was barely anyone there on a Saturday night. The only folks out on the street seemed to be in the process of a) waiting for the bus or b) getting arrested. We had a fine time, but I don't feel particularly compelled to go back.

The X2 makes it more convenient and awesome-sounding to get there than I would have guessed. But until some more stuff opens up and some more people start going, I don't see a particularly great reason to head to Trinidad.http://www.zunta.org/tomsblog/archives/005333.php

Edition two of the F.W. Thomas Performances is tonight at the Warehouse Theater. I don't know any of the acts this time around, except for T.M. Lowery, who was a highlight of the last show. But I have been told that the event is being held in a larger and presumably more accessible performance space than the last one. So if a fire breaks out during the show, you're less likely to die a horrible, agonizing death. How's that for an endorsement? This is probably where I should also note that it only costs $3.

I intend to go, but that plan may be short-circuited. Charles and I both came perilously close to starving to death this weekend, so some emergency grocery shopping might be in order instead.

Well, my SMS project has finally been loosed on an unsuspecting world. And yeah, it's for DCist. Go check out the announcement message here — it's got all the details on what the service does and how to use it.

My dirty little secret? Throughput is an unimpressive 4-6 outbound messages per minute. If things don't crash horribly under the announcement traffic, I'll be very surprised. But there's nothing I can do but dive in and see how it handles load. Once it breaks I'll start sorting it all out.

npr's weekend edition has a piece up where two gourmet food writers go to ben's chili bowl. it's actually kind of poorly paced and boring, but, it's ben's! and there's this great exchange:

npr lady: "i'm listening to you order, and you've ordered a substantial amount of food..."
male food writer: "...and we've only had four meals today..."
npr lady: "is there...some secret to your digestive system?"
male food writer: "oh, here come the cakes and pies."

they also address the problem they had of finding a d.c. local food speciality, and agree it's the half-smoke.

So, as everybody knows, Mike Grass, friend to me and Catherine and cofounder of DCist, has launched his newest professional endeavor, a blog for the Washington Post's Express newspaper. The site looks great, and I have no doubt that it will be a wild success — Mike was born to be an editor. It seems highly likely to me that I'll be pestering him for a cushy IT job someday.

But there's already a tic of the new site that's erupted in controversy: the bolding. Between this and DCist's now-partially-abandoned editorial "we", Mike's establishing a pattern of copy-editing controversy.

Well, personally I can't get enough of it. And if you can't either, I can help sate your bottomless lust for bold. Presenting the Expressamifier, a Javascript bookmarklet to bring FreeRide's distinctive look to virtually any webpage! Just click on and drag this link up to your browser's quicklinks bar (where Firefox sticks "Getting Started" and "Live Headlines" by default):

Expressamify

Then browse to any site and press it. Our sophisticated algorithms will selectively highlight text to maximize, uh, boldousity. Yeah.

And, as a special bonus, you can try running it on the Express website itself for a unique surprise. The resulting reaction is not unlike matter and antimatter colliding.

SPECIAL BONUS NOT TONGUE-IN-CHEEK ADDENDUM: Okay, so the bookmarklet will try to remove the bold from FreeRide. But it turns out that there's so goddamn much of it that you have to run it several times to remove it all. No joke.

ALSO: This bookmarklet is pretty inefficient, and could easily crash your browser. Don't use it if you have unsaved work in some other tab.

AND: It seems to produce an error in IE, and doesn't work at all in Safari. But shouldn't you be using Firefox anyway? This clearly isn't the sort of thing I'm going to waste time debugging. Probably.

FINALLY: Because it's late and I apparently can't adopt a consistent sarcastic voice, I should point out that the stuff above about Mike is meant in earnest. The stuff about liking the bolding... yeah, not so much.

How can it be five games into the Wiz/Cavs series and I haven't checked in with the WizNutzz? It's inexcusable. Fortunately, TNT is trying to educate me about Heineken Light at the moment, providing an opportunity for me to check in with the font of all Wizards commentary in the universe.

And as always, they deliver. One example: mathematical proof that Gilbert Arenas is better than LeBron James. Evidence supplied by real, professional math dudes! You can't get this kind of in-depth analysis at the dead-tree sports outlets, people.

UPDATE: Tonight's empirical confirmation of the above proof seems to have suffered from some sampling error. Don't fret, by game 7 I'm confident that further stochastic measurement will have vindicated science once again.

I just got back from Whole Foods and I'm alarmed to report that it suddenly contains a large number of thugged out white guys. Shorts were pulled low; fake earring bling sparkled in the afternoon sun; and stupid hats were in abundance — particularly wrongly-colored baseball caps. And the latter were fully-utilized: I saw the gentleman ahead of me in line proceed through an amazing three distinct ballcap-bill positions during our brief time together in line.

They talked about this obscure "Magic Hat" beer they were buying, and one enthusiastically introduced the other to Washingtonian, an up & coming restaurant-finding resource. Then they asked the cashier if they could split the checkout amount across two credit cards. All in all, it felt like I was standing behind Turtle from Entourage, except twice. Deeply unsettling.

You can watch the progress of today's immigration protest via DDOT's traffic cameras. Looks like the crowd has made its way down 16th to Scott Circle as of now (3:50 PM).

You know, reading this post of Matt's and reflecting some more about my own post (and what Heather said in comments), I've begun to think that this kind of talk is counterproductive. Sure, it's fun to belittle the Tom-Toms of the world, but it's really just egotism. And there's no point in getting into a hipster pissing contest: despite impressive recent gains in indie cred among the HTML-authoring set, our cause would still be hopeless. I've got a feeling the cool kids are already spending their evenings on H Street. It's no use trying to keep up with the Spike Jonzes.

But that's alright. All that you and I really want is a good pint at a good price with good friends — and not to have to take a cab to do so. That goal can be achieved without constantly reminding everyone how much Mr. Days sucks. Because here's the problem: nobody likes being told their preferred watering hole is lame. Push those people far enough and they'll start looking for cooler pastures.

Sure, it won't happen right away. And sure, it won't be all of them. It'll start with the borderline cases — the guys and girls who don't really like their jobs on the hill. The ones who kind of wish they'd double majored in English, too, instead of just Econ. The ones who in the deepest, most secret corners of their hearts feel that yes, there is a limit to the number of live versions of "Ants Marching" that a person ought to have on their iPod. The kids who keep meaning to put some time into updating their Late Night Shots profiles, but just never seem to get around to it. These are not bad people. They could be saved.

But that's a risk we can't afford. This is a sinking-sub type of situation: we have to close the airlock or we could lose the whole ship. I know there are a lot of good people on the other side of that door, but we can't take the chance. They'd show up; and stop wearing clothes prominently featuring the letters A and F on the outside; and fall into line, larding their mp3 players with the Pitchfork-approved pantheon, just like we all did. And for a while everything would be great.

But then kickball season would end, and their friends would start asking why they never see them anymore, dawg? They would say they should totally hang out sometime. They would say alright, why don't we come to your 'hood?

And then they would begin to arrive. The guys w