While I recently moved from DC to LA, I’ve still been keeping tabs on the old city via Metroblogging. This is probably of interest to almost nobody, but I was surprised to see a staff exodus from the DC site this morning… the following people have abruptly quit: Tom Bridge, Don Whiteside, Tiffany Bridge, bhrome and David. They’ve all apparently ditched to work on a new site, We Love DC.

They’re oddly silent about the fact that there’s been an obvious mass exodus taking away half of their authors. I’m curious if there’s some dispute with Sean Bonner and the larger Metroblogging sphere? The lack of pronouncement is puzzling. It’s vaguely Violet Blue-ish in its awkward silence.

So, did someone insult someone? Is someone not getting paid enough? What’s going on at MetBlogs people?

Like I said, this is likely of interest to almost nobody.

UPDATE: Two more gone - Brittany and Wayan. Is there going to be anybody left at the end of the day? The DC Metblog is starting to look like a hollow shell of a website.

That being said, Sean Bonner and Tom Bridge were both kind enough to respond indicating that there’s no mysterious plot or internal power struggle or really ANYTHING interesting going on. Still, it’s going to be sad to see what will likely be sparse posting at the formerly lively site.

FROM: [Assistant Dan]
TO: All Students, All Faculty and Staff
DATE: Thu, May 8, 2008 at 4:57 PM
SUBJECT: Smoking

Today the Law Center had its second mulch fire this spring due to a discarded cigarette. If you smoke please do so in the smoking areas where ashtrays are provided. Please use the ashtrays. These smoking areas include the east side of Williams patio; the library quad; the northwest side of McDonough podium; the center of the Tower Green; the alley behind the Fitness center.

The University’s policy for a smoke free work place prohibits smoking at the entrances to the buildings. You need to move at least 20 feet from the building entrance before lighting up. Thanks for your cooperation on this.

Assistant Dean
Georgetown University Law Center
600 New Jersey Avenue NW
Washington DC

Let it be known, “the alley behind the Fitness center” is where a homeless man was stabbed two years ago. Smoke up!

Here’s the map that helpfully lets us know where we can smoke without starting a mulch fire, marked with big smiley faces!

Click to big-ify

Crazymonk thinks he’s SOOOOO cool with his recent swarm of earthquakes. Well guess what, DC can have earthquakes too! Oh yeah, a 1.8! Good thing I had my earthquake kit ready to go.

The new Nationals theme song is really, really bad. Via Metroblogging and Why I Hate DC.

BarBri is expensive: joining BarBri can cost over $3,000, just trying to snag the books on eBay can cost you over $700. Yesterday at lunchtime the books for this summer’s New York bar exam arrived at Georgetown and by 7:30pm they were already being put to effective use:

Yes, the box is full of books. Click to big-ify.

I know ONE door that’s going to be passing the bar.

And is that Tom Skerritt sitting next to Naziville? Who would have expected it?

From here. I like that Washington, D.C. maintains a relatively high price for female sex workers, but a very low price for male sex workers. Does politics attract mostly straight men, thereby destroying the demand for male sex workers? That seems unlikely. Is it possible that DC in fact draws so many gay men that there’s no need for a cash-based underground market? I have no way of knowing. I wish someone would investigate this further.

International rates are also available (Dubai is expensive, and a number of cities managed to secure a negative price for male sex workers, which I don’t understand).

I just remembered an incident I overheard a few months ago.

I was meandering through a GameStop and a black man, about 40, was looking at Rock Band for the Wii. The store was crowded at the time, but he managed to get the attention of a clerk, also black. The shopper asked if the game merely allowed the playing of pre-selected songs, or if it also allowed freestyling. The shopper was clearly hoping that Rock Band was more of an actual music generation system than a video game. The clerk explained that the game only played pre-selected songs and that he could not use it to freestyle.

The clerk then looked around, did a sort of fake cough, and stated “and, uh, you can only play… well… rock music.”

I wonder if this unrequested piece of information was volunteered because the customer had asked about freestyling, or if it was because the customer was black?

These are on in DC all the time; I don’t think Eastern Motors services the higher end of the market.

US, Washington DC, Anti-Protests (2007)

You know it’s opening day of baseball season in Washington DC when you’re suddenly startled by fighter jets screaming past your window. Either baseball season, or, you know, war.

US, Washington DC, Arlington Cemetery

US, Washington DC, Halloween (2006)

Last night at midnight I was biking from Woodley Park to Capitol Hill and had two notable encounters. First, at K Street and 18th there’s a big building being pulled down:

If those picture didn’t paint the scene for you, here’s a quick video of the construction in action:

Throughout the ride I had seen a significant number of cops with their sirens on zipping hither and thither. I didn’t think much of it until I got to K Street and 10th, when a cop car suddenly came flying through the intersection towards me, coming across the double yellow line into my lane. It stopped right in front of a car parked, but running, to my right. The cops jumped out and start screaming “get your hands up! get your hands up!” I swerved away from them and started to get my hands up (tricky while swerving on a bike) before I realized that they were busting the guy in the car and the prostitute he was in the middle of picking up. They might have been doing a vice night downtown… it would explain all the sirens. As I stopped to watch them bust the guy, three more police cars showed up within seconds. They must have been staking out this particular corner. It was pretty weird.

The hooker kept saying “We were just having a conversation? Is it against the law to have a conversation on K street?”

Apparently it is.

US, Washington DC, Immigration Protest

US, Washington DC, Georgetown University Law Center

In order to attend the Supreme Court on an average day you have to line up outside before 7:00am. At 7:30am they hand out 75 tickets that do not guarantee entry, but are merely used to “establish a numerical order” (as if math and the universe hadn’t already established one?). At 9:30am, they let in between 25 and 75 people.

I arrived at 6:40am; I was number 27.

By 9:00am the line was several hundred people long; most were obviously not going to get in. A woman approached my area of the line, asked if we were from DC and then explained that she had driven 9 hours to see the case. She had arrived at 4:00am (though, inexplicably, wasn’t in line at 4am), but was now too far back to get inside. She looked at us in silence, hoping we would feel sorry enough for her to simply offer her a spot in line. When, unsurprisingly, nobody volunteered, she slyly indicated several rolled bills and offered us $60 for one of the numerical order tickets.

Everyone declined — standing in the early morning cold for three hours was worth more than $60.

click to big-ify

But, the question for today is, is it legal to scalp numerical order tickets to the Supreme Court? The court would likely be able to deny entry to a scalped ticket holder, since “no substitution [is] permitted,” but would the act of scalping itself be criminal? Anyone know anything about DC/federal scalping law?

That woman offered me $60. If I had strolled down the line taking bids, how high could I have driven the price? If it had been an abortion or gun rights case, I probably could have pulled down a thousand dollars… sadly today was merely schizophrenia and bankruptcy.

^*Ticket images (front and back) lifted from MatthewBradley under CC.

If all has gone according to plan, I should currently be standing in line to get into the Supreme Court.  Today’s two oral arguments are:

07-208             INDIANA V. EDWARDS
May a criminal defendant who, despite being legally competent, is schizophrenic, delusional, and mentally decompensatory in the course of a simple conversation, be denied the right to represent himself at trial when the trial court reasonably concludes that permitting self-representation would deny the defendant a fair trial?

07-312             FL DEPT. OF REVENUE V. PICCADILLY CAFETERIAS
Whether section 1146(a) of the Bankruptcy Code, which exempts from stamp or similar taxes any asset transfer “under a plan confirmed under section 1129 of the Code,” applies to transfers of assets occurring prior to the actual confirmation of such a plan?

I might not stick around for the second one, it sounds dense.  It depends on how sleepy I am after the presumptively exciting discussion of schizophrenia.  I’m quite curious to find out how someone could be legally competent and yet be delusional during simple conversation.

Who wants to give me odds on seeing Thomas ask a question?  He’s got to be due soon, right?  He’s like the Cal Ripken of not asking questions.  If he does, should I stand and applaud?

I really REALLY really hope I get the opportunity to say no to this.  DC is amazing.

US, Washington DC, Anti-War Protest (2005)

US, Washington DC, Capitol Building

US, Washington DC, Baseball Games (2005)

Last Elliot Spitzer thing, I swear. The Macon Music, a minor league baseball team, will be holding Elliot Spitzer Night and will feature the following promotions:

1. The Music have extended an invitation for former New York Governor Spitzer to be on hand and throw out the first pitch
2. The team will give away a New York Vacation including a one night stay at the MayFlower Hotel
3. Client #9 (or fan #9) will receive a free Music prize pack
4. Any fan with the name Eliot, Spitzer, or “Kristen” along with any fan from New York will receive $1 off admission
5. The Music will play Frank Sinatra music throughout the evening in honor of New York
6. Wire Taps will be placed throughout the ballpark this evening
7. ATMs will be available for cash withdrawals not to exceed $5,000 per hour
8. Any fan who has resigned their position will be given $1 off admission
9. The 871 fan will receive a gift certificate for the Macon Music Team store.

Someone should probably tell them that the Mayflower Hotel is in DC, not New York.

Yesterday I attempted to look at three cars: the Subaru Impreza, the Nissan Sentra and the Volkswagen Jetta.  The Impreza visit/test drive went fine, but the Nissan and Volkswagen dealers were part of a single, awful complex and were inable to ever actually show us a car.

First I walked into the Nissan showroom and was poking around at cars for a while.  Eventually I, and a friend, got inside the Sentra they had on display.  I poked around at it from the inside, hit the buttons and pretended I was driving.  I may have even made some VROOM VROOM noises.  We were in there for a fairly long time.   During that time people, who I can only assume were Nissan staff, ate lunch and watched me.  Nobody ever came out to ask if I needed help.  Ultimately I just walked back out of the showroom without taking a test drive.  Whoops, bad salesmanning.

Next door I walked into the Volkswagen showroom and was quickly approached by a salesman who claimed it was his first day.  At first I laughed, because I’d be warned online about the “it’s my first week” angle that car salesmen might use to get your guard down.  But then it appeared, sadly, that he wasn’t joking.  He took us out to the lot and didn’t seem to know anything about cars.  Like, literally, anything.   When asked the difference between two different models, he indicated that one had a 2.5 after its name while the other merely had a 2.0 after it’s name.  What does that number indicate, we wondered.  There was no answer forthcoming.  When it became clear that he knew literally nothing about the cars, I asked if we could just go on a test drive.  He said sure, wandered away, and then didn’t come back for twenty minutes.  We left before he got back.

I think he wasn’t actually a car salesman, just another customer who saw us looking for help and decided it would be funny to pretend for a few minutes.  If that was the case, it was pretty funny.  If not, it was really, really sad.  It’s hard to imagine how they sell any cars.