The end result

DC is special in many ways, and one I’d like to say is related to our non-State status is the eviction process.

In most states, evivictions are handled by the county sheriff’s office. In DC, a U.S. Marshal is present to enforce the eviction, but landlords are responsible for providing labor for the eviction.

And in a great twist of logic, guess who eviction companies in the area and independent landlords have been calling on to provide the mover muscle to toss boxes on the street for the last six years? Homeless men!

According to the Street Sense’s great article Homeless People Hired To Evict Tenants, while two companies, All American Eviction and East Coast Express Evictions, deny the practice, several homeless people, including many Street Sense vendors and a good number crunching of the companies’ financial data, say otherwise. In addition, they’re accused of being cheap and paying way below minimum wage.

I’d say that Caroline Lansford, the CEO of All American, and Nelson Terry, CEO of East Coast, deserve a good spanking or a whole house full of irony. Either way, and no matter who they hire, persons employed in private industry in the District of Columbia receive at least a
“>minimum wage of $7.00 per hour, effective January 1, 2006.

Good morning ice cream lovers, Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry’s is here! From noon to eight you can get a free ice cream cone from any Ben & Jerry’s location. Find the nearest location: DC | VA | MD

…they won’t even play softball together. Seriously, the Republicans aren’t playing softball with the Democrats anymore after a dispute over the playoff format for the summer softball league. I am literally without words. So much of this town is becoming charged with the rancor between the parties that there seem to be no shelter for those who wish to seek it. So much for coming to DC to settle the differences like gentlemen and ladies, and come to appropriate compromises to suit the needs of the people.

A few weeks ago, WBIG, the Washington area’s “oldies” station fired their on-air talent for an immediate revamp and retooled their style for their current “Greatest Rock of All Time” format.

I’ve done my fair share of being down on DC radio, but I am truly all about the new WBIG 100.3 FM format. Daily I scan by there for a little Who, Seger, Stones, and Steve Miller Band. It is, of course, not something I want to stop the dial on, but the playlist satisfies a void that the DC radio market was begging to be filled.

Now if they could just do something about that pesky Jack Diamond…

Mark your calendars, drunkards, as DC’s Beerlympics is right around the corner. This year’s event sponsored by NAKID is going to take place on May 13th at a bar to be named later. Of course, you could just save yourself the hangover by chugging ipecac…but that’s not nearly as much fun as flipcup, boat racing and beirut. Stay tuned for more details.

It’s hard to believe that a day that ended so beautifully started out so disgusting, but it did. This is Eastern Market yesterday at noon when we were in the middle of our Seattle impression. Luckily most of us had tents up, though dead in the middle you can see where woodturner Aaron has simply thrown tarps over all his stuff and gone off for coffee.

However if you don’t like our Spring weather, just wait an hour. By 2:00pm my darling girlfriend and I were pondering taking the tent down completely. We probably would have if it wasn’t so unwieldy. Here’s hoping all of you got to enjoy all the sunshine and suffer less of the rain.

Steel flying in

If you’re hoping for smooth right turn off K Street eastbound onto 15th Street southbound this afternoon, good luck to ya.

The fiber optic cable layers are slowly rebuilding the street and to protect their newly poured concrete, will be laying big steel plates on the street right in front of CVS.

Tomorrow – no parking in front of Georgia Browns.

This might explain why some people feel such a need to have an SUV to navigate the bumpy wilds of their development community – more room for ribbon magnets.

Hasbro is retooling the classic board game Monopoly to add landmarks from various US cities, including Washington. They’re allowing folks to vote on three choices from the District: The Washington Monument, The Lincoln Memorial and The White House. Reducing any one city to a single location seems to me to be a fairly interesting choice to make. Are we more than just the memories of single great leaders? Why not choose the Capitol, which is the house of the people? The Supreme Court, which is the seat of Justice? Union Station, a great transportation hub?

That said I voted for Lincoln.

Go Vote!