Thanks to the road crews who, over the past week or so, have fixed seemingly every pothole in Falls Church. Even the slight delays have been worth it. And at least today they don’t have to work in the sweltering heat.

My pal Jim Milak came to visit from Chicago this weekend. He was treated to a new high, and a new low.

Friday, on the way to the CSIS picnic somewhere in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, or some other DC suburb, we saw the best stop sign alteration ever…

Then, in front of the Supreme Court on Saturday we saw the lamest protest ever. About 7 or 8 teenagers lined up at the bottom of the stairs at 5:40pm. The building’s closed, there are few tourists and absolutely no government officials anywhere in sight. I decided to photograph this girl, and she kept laughing so I started shouting at her, “stop laughing, this is serious shit!” which only made her laugh more, eventually causing the tape to come off her mouth. The girl next to her kept her nose in the bible, as if it said something new after two-thousand years.

I’m wedged into this seat. I have no clue which one it is as this is cattle call Southwest, an airline I’ve always hated since it had me wedged backward on my Californa hype deflation tour flight from LA to SF.

This time I’m in the middle seat thanks to the idiots at the Fells Point Brew Pub at BWI. If you wander through after me, be sure to give ‘em a good kick, I should have. I had a coveted A boarding pass going into BWI, but then when hunger overrode thought, I found myself trying to get a sandwich in less than 20 minutes to make my boarding call. Fool I was.

There is no way that Fells Point Brew Pub’s waitress could get her thick head out of her ass long enough to take my order, much less make a whole sandwich in 20 minutes or less. No way in hell. Not with her training, straight from Raku is Crapu. As an added bonus, she even kept my credit card, only giving it to the gate agent after my plane left.

So do yourself a favor, go to the

On my way home from GMU tonight, I stopped at the Safeway at Braddock and King in Alexandria to pick up a few things. I had the idea of buying a few microwave dinners. When I got to the Healthy-Choice/Lean Cuisine aisle (which is a long aisle) I was met by nothing but empty freezers. I thought, well maybe the power was out earlier and all the meals were being saved in some meat-locker in the back. But then I noticed that there was a 4-fer sale on Healthy-Choice and Lean Cuisine dinners. I couldn’t believe that there would such a huge run on frozen dinners that a super-market would run-out. (I never go to the super-market so excuse my ignorance if this happens often)

Ultimately I discovered 4 dinged-up, pathertic little boxes wayyyy in the back of a freezer. Just enough to get the 4-fer sale price.

Driving home on Braddock I discovered that the homes along its entire length are without power. Assuming these are the folks who shop at that Safeway – I am just picturing thousands of melting microwave dinners and a legion of diet fanatics panicking because they have no power to the microwave any of these meals to salvage them.

Then I worried that I may be in the same situation when I got home. But alas as I turned onto my street I discovered once again that my neighbors and I live on the “cul-de-sac of invincibilty” and our power was still on amidst a sea of black-out.

I swear a nuclear attack could EMP all of NoVA and we would still be up and running over here.

Now lets say you’re headed out for a night of sing-along sing-song fun at JR’s in the summer heat.

Dress clothes are out, unless you chance a psycho taxi driver while hoping for the sweet Mohamed. Shorts or linen is in, and you need the shoes to match. My vote are nice flip flops. Hey, they’re worthy of the White House, so why not JR’s.

No so is the opinion of some boys in JR’s. They content that running shoes are better. Better, not for fashion, which all agreed I had more of in my fancy flops, Better to protect your feet from all the bad stepping going on when folks try and drink + sing.

Me, I’d rather suffer from fashion than be caught in running shoes if not actually running. NoVA khaki pants style be damned, running shoes are called ‘running’ shoes for a reason.

Don’t be standing in a bar with ‘em, fool, be running in them. Stand in a bar, especially one like JR’s, in fancy flops. Hey, wear rhinestones if ya got ‘em. The boys will love ya!

Kate Ziegler is 17 and a senior at Bishop O’Connell High School here in the greater DC area. She’s also the fastest woman in the world in the 1500m freestyle. She recorded the third fastest time in history yesterday in Montreal at the World Championships, just behind Janet Evans’ monster record and Hannah Stockbauer’s herculean effort five years ago.

Way to go Kate! Promise us you’ll show us the medal when you get back next week!

That’s right, we’re one step closer to the Nats games being broadcast on cable here in the DC area. Of course, it’s really a shame that satanic flames didn’t just engulf the entire proceedings today, since that’s the only way any of us actually get to “win” out of a fight between Peter Angelos and Comcast. The Orioles think that this means that Comcast will start to pick up MASN broadcasts, now, but I think it’s more likely that they’ll have to be dragged back to court before the games get seen on any Comcast boxes.

Of course, this is one of the drawbacks of a persistent monopoly. Thankfully I opted out of that horrible choice in 2002.

Here we go again! Stay off Southbound I-270, be sure to protect your motherboards and get indoors because the DC Text Alert says:

National Weather reports a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for all areas in the region until 10 pm. With rain, damaging winds and hail expected between 4 and 5 pm. DCEMA will continue to monitor and update.

The Washington Post is asking their readers to vote for their Best Bets of 2005 from among the top ten in each category. There’s less than a week of voting left, so get in your votes while you can.

I have to complain, though, about the numbers of national chains in the voting. I mean, are people really going to vote for Papa John’s over Pizza Paradiso? Or Starbucks over Sparky’s for coffee? Over half the entries in the Women’s Clothing Store category are for chain stores. Is it that there’s a lack of local shops, or that the readers of the post just don’t know about them? Or that the chains are just doing a better job than local stores?

(Some of my votes: Amsterdam Falafel Shop for cheap eats, Sticky Fingers Bakery for bakery, and Politics and Prose for best bookstore.)

You know you live in D.C. when every conversation you have has some mention of the weather. Everyone probably hears about five complaints a day about the heat. This being the hottest week by far this summer, the number of complaints rise in proportion to the temperature. When you hear about someone visiting Arizona or Las Vegas and talking about the temperature, you snobbishly tell them, “But it’s a dry heat.” We D.C. people have to deal with heat AND humidity. We’re such martyrs.

Unfortunately, I haven’t heard many creative comments/questions about the heat. Mostly it’s, “Stay cool,” or, “Don’t go outside,” or, “Still hot?” Has anyone heard anything more creative?