If Metblogs is a city, hub.metblogs is the playground. We kept hearing from people that one of their favorite parts of Metblogs was meeting and interacting with readers and writers from other parts of the world, as well as getting requests for more ways that readers could be involved besides just posting comments. We thought about this for a while and decided that with a network like this, a giant community area where folks from all over the world could hang out, post photos and videos, talk with each other, form groups, play games, send messages, and do about a million other things was probably a pretty fun idea. The Hub is that.

If you have any tech ideas or suggestions join this group and speak up. See you on hub.metblogs!

Dearest Residents of Washington DC,

Hey there. What’s up?

I’m Sean. I’m not actually in Washington DC right now, but I was born in there. True story. It was awesome. Also, you guys have super cool train stations. But you knew that already I’m sure. You also may or may not know, and more importantly may or may not care, but I’m one of the dudes behind this Metblogs thing. We make local blogs and stuff. Blogging in general, and about local issues specifically is a soul sucking, thankless, monotonous, time eating profession that makes no money. But it’s awesome and we love it. Actually it’s all we know how to do, so we just keep doing it. Can you guess why I’m posting something here? Go ahead and try. Come on, there are no stupid answers, only stupid questions. Give up yet?

That’s a shame, you should never give up.

Well, if by chance you happened to read the last buncha posts here you know that many of the writers of this fine site have walked away to start their own site which is called We Love DC and can be found at the web address www.welovedc.com. Didja get that? Let me link it again just to be safe: We Love DC, We Love DC, We Love DC, We Love DC, We Love DC, We Love DC. I forgot if any of them mentioned it so I figured it was worth a plug or two. Anyway, we here at corporate overlord headquarters would like to officially welcome them to the soul sucking, thankless, monotonous, time eating world of blog publishing that makes no money. It’s awesome. Really. I promise. Cross my heart. So yeah, you should check that out, it’s over at We Love DC.

On a completely unrelated note, we seem to suddenly have some soul sucking, thankless, monotonous, time eating blogging positions that pay no money open right here at DC Metblogs. Have I made this sound awesome enough yet. Have I mentioned it’s awesome? Because if not I should do that. Additionally we’re about as hands off as it gets here. We ask that if you write something for the site it somehow relates to DC, but otherwise you can do whatever the hell you want. I guess I should also mention we’ve got a bunch of readers from all around the world who might check out your stuff too which is kinda cool. If you are into that. Or not. Whatever. I guess that assuming you don’t suck, because if you suck they won’t read your stuff no matter what. Anyway, I know I’m quite the salesman and by now you must be scratching at your computer screen trying to physically claw your way into this site, but trust me, that won’t work. What will work is if you post a comment and let me know you’d like to give this a try. Then I can hook it up for you. That’s right, I’ll hook it up for you. Because you are that important.

Smooches. From me, to you.

PS - We Love DC!

First off, if you’re a Nats fan headed to the game with the Orioles on Sunday, good luck. You’re hosed.

Heads up to everyone travelling across the District this weekend: every single Metro line is seeing major track work and rail testing from Friday night through early Monday morning.

Blue Line
Sad to say, this one’s been hit the worst. First, customers traveling between the Franconia-Springfield and Van Dorn Street Metrorail stations should add up to 30 minutes of travel time for their trips because of track maintenance. Inbound and outbound trains between these locations will share one track from 10 p.m. to closing (3 a.m.), Friday, June 27, 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., Saturday, June 28, 10 p.m. to closing (3 a.m.), Saturday, June 28, and 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., Sunday, June 29.

Additionally, if you’re traveling between the Pentagon City and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Metrorail stations, you should add 15 minutes of travel time for your trips because of track maintenance. Inbound and outbound trains will share one track between these locations from 10 p.m. to closing (midnight), Sunday, June 29.

Yellow Line
You get to piggy-back on the Blue Line’s woes. See above for sharing issues between Pentagon City and Reagan National.

Orange Line
Riders traveling between the Stadium-Armory and Cheverly Metrorail stations should add up to 20 minutes of travel time for their trips because of bridge repairs. Inbound and outbound trains between these locations will share one track from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, June 28.

Green Line
If you’re traveling between the Greenbelt and College Park Metrorail stations, add 15 minutes of travel time for your trips because of rail car testing. Inbound and outbound trains will share one track between these locations from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday, June 28.

Red Line
And finally, riders traveling between the Friendship Heights and Medical Center Metrorail stations should add 15 minutes of travel time for their trips because of track maintenance. Inbound and outbound trains will share one track between these locations from 9 p.m. to closing (midnight), Sunday, June 29.

George Carlin died last night at the age of 71 from heart failure. He’s this year’s recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for Humor, and probably one of the best satirists of the last 50 years. Tickets for the Award Presentation show go on sale on August 11th.

So, without further ado, please enjoy some really, really not-safe-for-work language to honor his contributions to American Humor, and to incense a few of the Congresscritters who will cry out “Think of the Children!” before keeling over.

Speaking of the Kennedy Center, it has announced that this year’s Mark Twain Prize will be awarded to George Carlin. A worthy recipient indeed, as Carlin is one of the defining luminaries of stand-up comedy, and American comedy in general.

But I can’t help but note the irony of the Kennedy Center awarding its prestigious comedy award to an artist best known for his bit on the “Seven Dirty Words” you can’t say on television, when they wouldn’t allow Lewis Black to associate the Center in any way with his “Red, White, and Screwed” special because he says the word “fuck” too much.

In any case, congratulations to George Carlin for this much-deserved honor, and thanks to the Kennedy Center for giving Lewis Black more comedic fodder.

If, like our Mr Bridge, you’re a fan of the late Mr Russert, you might be interested in WAMU’s live coverage of his funeral service today at the Kennedy Center. If you’re one of the 8 people in the country with an HD radio you can turn into HD-3 on 88.5 FM. If you’re one of the rest of us, WAMU streams all three stations online and you can find links here. The funeral service will be at 4pm this afternoon.

Tim Russert - PRSA International Conference - Philadelphia, PA, courtesy of hyku

That’s the word from Capital Weather, talking about today’s severe weather that we’re being warned about by NOAA. Most probable at 45% is damaging winds with hail being less likely at 30%. Tornadoes only get a 2% shot but I still wouldn’t do my kite-flying today.

Here’s hoping this is just an anomaly early in the season, but CW points out that normally there’s 1 or 2 of these NOAA warnings a year and at June’s midpoint we’ve had 4 so far now. Yuck. It’s moving west to east, so you might see it sooner or later than the 3 to 8 window depending on where you are in the area. Be careful out there.

Washington DC storm, courtesy of ™bluhousworker

A second fire has closed Metro Center and further complicated an already awful day week. WMATA and the DC Fire Department are working to combat what seem to be a system of fires.

Seriously, if you’re at work, start preparing to take another method of transit home if you Metro’d in. Tell your boss you need to leave early today. It’s Friday, in the summertime, leave at lunch.

A Pepco substation serving a good portion of DC’s downtown business district failed at 7:30 this morning, leaving 10,000 businesses in the downtown area without power, and Metrorail stations McPherson Square (Orange/Blue), Farragut West (Orange/Blue), Farragut North (Red) and Dupont Circle (Red) without power. In addition to the outages, there’s been a fire reported by WMATA at Metro Center, and another reported by WAMU, WTOP and multiple twitters at Dupont Circle Station this morning as well.

DC Dept. of Transportation says that more than 30 traffic signals in the downtown core are also out, and has requested that people please treat them as four ways stops. I know there were more than a few people on my drive up 15th street who failed to treat them as such. Of course, when traffic’s flowing, it’s hard to treat them that way, I get it, but still.

Be aware, commuting today probably sucked ass, so please be nicer to your coworkers who looked like they slogged through a marsh of fire in order to come to work.

[Update, 9:56] Dupont Circle Metro is now closed due to the power outage. Apparently a lot of people were having trouble exiting the station on the long escalator climb to the surface.

Now that my commute to work is shortened to a quick stroll from the kitchen to my home office, I’m not so in touch with the morning rush. But that doesn’t mean I forgot the pain involved with a message like this from Alert DC:

Metro is reporting delays of over an hour on the Red Line. A small fire on the tracks in the Metro Center area has been put out, but major delays continue. Additionally, at least Dupont Circle, Shaw-Howard U, Farragut North, Farragut West and McPherson Square Metrorail stations have no power due to an unrelated power outage. Non-Red Line service is operating normally in those stations, but with low (emergency) lighting.

While I think the view in the stations would be pretty cool for some station photography - masses of people waiting in low lighting, an almost Orwellian feel if you find the right depressed look - I think it best to follow the last direction from Alert DC:

Avoid Metrorail entirely if you were planning to use the Red Line.

Happy Friday, everyone!