If you haven’t noticed, all the Metblogs sites have been given a redesign and are now sporting more design and less ads! Always a great thing.

The pages should load a bit faster but the most exciting feature should be the removal of comemnt registration- you no longer need to register to tell us how much you hate like our writing!

So I hope you enjoy the new look of DC Metblogs and I look forward and invite you to send some feedback our way in regards to our posts.

Just a day after getting rid of Jim Bowden, the Nationals unleashed this:

credit Washington Post Sports Bog.  Also-(Deadspin) and  (Fox 5 Video) if you want to see the demon move.

upon the world.  There are some things that you cannot undo, you cannot take back-this image of the new Screech is one of them. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am now too scared to go to Nationals Park-especially a night game.

What hell-spawn pit did this thing crawl out of and why didn’t someone stake it in the heart the moment it first reared it’s ugly demon eagle head?  Does it even have a heart?  Did someone open The Gate?    Has Screech’s feed bill been cut due to the recession?  Is this supposed to be lean and healthy Screech?  Because if he is I have to say:

Feed Me!...Your CHILDREN!!! GRAAHHHH!!!!

He clearly looks hungry.

What child is going to not be completely freaked out by this change? 

I’m sorry, but this thing is just foul (no pun intended).  By Screech’s appearance I would hazard a guess that either they stapled his stomach or he has become best friends with Lindsay Lohan and is currently going through his “bad boy of Hollywood” stage.  This bird is not healthy and someone needs to make sure he is eating his birdseed (or whatever you feed an Eagle).

I’m not the only one who thinks so either.  Patrick’s quote when I ran this by him (to make sure it wasn’t too much to reprint here):  “It is so scary.” 

So there you go. 

Side-note:  Could this monster be the evil minion of Jim Bowden, sent back to exact his revenge?  Or was Bowden secretly misunderstood-the only warrior between our dimension and whatever plane of existence this thing came from?  Someone needs to call Dr. Who.

2010 Camaro

Last Thursday evening, I took a trip over to the Washington Auto Show after work.  I’ve been itching to get a close-up look at the new Camaro since that Christian Slater show got cancelled, since my first car was an ’82 Camaro.  With pinstripe!  (It was a piece of stuff, but man, did it look cool in the high school parking lot.   But I digress.)

All the car companies had hybrids on display, with electric prototypes heavily featured.  However, I’m a pony-car lover and went there to look at the pretty muscle cars.

Ford and GM (along with all their brands) were located on their own exhibit space on the upper floor of the two-story show.  I headed up the steps in eager anticipation and singing Dead Milkmen songs to myself, and was greeted at the top by…a seven foot tall purple-and-green robot.   But I pushed on!  My impressions of the Ford and GM show floor after the jump. (more…)

Veronese Totally Photoshopped This.

Since the unfortunate exodus of DC’s old guard of Metrobloggers, the Capitol’s Metblog has gone through a rough stretch. Our friend and Metroblog Godfather Sean Bonner, along with the new staff of authors in DC have been working hard to get the site back up to snuff- a Renaissance if you will. Just a couple notes to the blogosphere:

• Please give us some feedback! Any suggestions you can comment to us would be greatly appreciated. Never hesitate to suggest a story either.
• Did I mention feedback? Kazam! [poll=2]
• We are still have openings for authors on this site. Those interested should visit this post.
• Stop by the Metroblog Hub. I just did for the first time and it is nothing short of sexy. You can even visit my homepage there, create a page of your own, join some really cool groups, and invite your friends to join in the fun.
• Buy stock in the DC Metroblog. It is currently America’s only sign of economic growth.

Writing for Metblogs has the potential to be the most rewarding experience in your entire life. It’ll make you rich, famous, good looking, will help you lose weight, make your clothes fit better, and get you a super good deal on a new car. It will make you the most well known person on the entire planet. Yes, each and every one of you. Really.

OK maybe not. Actually those are all lies, but it’s fun at least. The truth is Metblogs is the largest network of locally focused blogs on the web, covering almost 60 cities around the world and we’re looking to add a few new bloggers/writters/authors to this fine site. If you wanna know more about us check out this wikipedia entry but it’s kinda boring so I won’t waste time repeating it all here again. If you wanna write for us, here’s the scoop:

• All author positions are volunteer. That means you don’t get paid.
• You must live in (or very near) the city you plan to write about.
• Anything you post must relate to the city somehow. That means you shouldn’t post a movie review, but talking about going to see a movie at a local theater is fine.
• There’s no requirement for how much you can or should write, but we ask that if we set you up as an author you make about 3 posts a week.
• You can post about things you love, you can post about things you hate. It’s entirely up to you

Additionally, because of our global network, there’s plenty of options for things you write to be read by people all over the world. Interested? Want more details? Post a comment and we’ll be in touch!

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!

Friday on ESPN’s FirsTake, there was an amusingly in-depth interview with team president Stan Kasten and President Teddy Roosevelt, trying to get to the bottom of why, in fact, Teddy has never won the Presidents Race at Nationals Park.  In watching the video, it became apparent that some sort of a fix is in, despite Kasten’s protests that “it’s inevitable” that Teddy will win.  I mean, slipping on a Banana in Pajamas?  When was the last time the BinP were out in public?  What other purpose could they have to be at the ballpark, other than to engage in some bipartisan plotting by Jefferson, Washington, and Lincoln?  And what about the Baltimore Oriole and his blatant clipping move (approx. 2:00) ?  Surely some sort of penalty should be assessed.  I mean, just because he doesn’t have the newest ballpark on the block any more, his has to act like a blue  jay?  Sheesh.  Well, turnabout’s fair play, as Teddy soundly whooped the bird in a match race between the two.  Hah!

Perfect for a hot summer day (it’s supposed to get up to 92) — go get your free slurpee today at your nearest 7-Eleven!

My time with Metblogs has been far shorter and less-prolific than most of the great people on the team. Still, I have enjoyed having this opportunity to talk to you and write about this lovely place.

In keeping with my minimal presence on the site, my sign-off here will be brief. I wish all our MBDC readers and friends well, and hope we will see some of you over at We Love DC.

When DC Metblogs launched in late July 2004, I felt like a fraud. I had moved to DC two years before, and had spent a lot of that time getting lost due to my legendarily poor sense of direction, defining my world based on its relationship to 395 or a Metro station, and coping with the sense that my grand quarterlife crisis plan of moving to DC was not turning out the way I expected, but suddenly I was writing about life here as if I had any idea what I was doing.

Four years later, I’ve grown into DC pretty well, and I think writing for DC Metblogs has been a huge part of that. With my fellow bloggers, I’ve explored corners of the city I would never have thought to see on my own and made friends I wouldn’t have met otherwise.

Thanks, everybody. It’s time for Metblogs and me to part ways, but I’ll still be writing about the city I love at the appropriately named We Love DC.

Goodbye Mr. Sun See You Tomorrow

Originally uploaded by moonjazz