This really bothers me. Immensely. And I can’t place why. [Update: I just watched it again, and it makes me a little excited in the pants. Which is *more* disturbing. Damn.]

A list of 100 amazing sites to see with Google maps. I spent hours with Google Earth when it came out, zooming in and out on the house I grew up in.

My recap of the DC dining experience is now up over at DCFud. I should be doing more for them as the year goes on. There’s already plenty of funny and very good writing on DC comestibles up there, so I’m in good company. (Thanks, Michael)

Go forth and consume. At the rate of one item per day until we run out or until midnight whichever comes first. And there’s a blog, too.

If you’re a Mac fan (or you just like super sexy design) there are lots of things to ogle here today. New Apple laptops (not ‘Powerbooks’ anymore; they’re called ‘MacBooks’) and a new iMac, all with Intel processors. For the uninitiated this for many Mac users is like buying a bottle of Dom Perignon with Sprite inside. Not me. I say give me speed at a cheap price and I’m happy. I used to be a snob, but then I started buying my own computers…
It also looks like Apple.com has moved away from an 800×600 to a 1024×768 sized design. There are also lots of Ajax goodies spread throughout all of the various shopping interfaces.

Motel hell. The one in Atlantic beach looks like every beach-front hotel on the NC coast, even today.

If you want my respect today don’t tell me you’re a blogger. Lie to me and tell me you work in “traditional media”, or better yet that you still converse via stone tablet. Good thing I’m tough as a fresh batch of nails and five times as hot.

The train trek is over. DC is over (for now) and I am exhausted. More info including pics after I get about 12 hours of sleep.

For anyone looking for a job in the non-profit sector (like yours truly) check out this site, an excellent resource for jobs in the non-profit world. Unsure about the credentials of any foundation posting a position? Check out the NCNA and see if they’re listed there.

I’m going home tomorrow morning. I’m really wiped out from my extended DC stay but I promise to post lots of pictures of my train trek back to NC. I’ve had a wonderful time and have laid the groundwork for a really amazing 2006 in several respects. I’ll miss this town and its occupants and one roaming expatriate very much, but I’ll see them all very soon.

Locked Out - a true story of kindness in the city

Last night, after giving the little dog I’m taking care of his last dose of meds, I was dozing on the couch happily. It was late, maybe 12:45 or 1 am. Sure enough the dog started doing his peepee dance. Sometimes I try to fake him out to buy myself four or five more minutes of sleep. But this time there was nothing doing; he had to go, and *now*. Drowsy I got up and put on my coat, and helped him into his. I started looking around the room to see if I could eyeball everything I’d need before going out: front door keycard, regular keys for the door, cellphone.
But the dog had other plans, and somehow I opened the door and he took off down the hallway like a shot. I jogged after him and the door–from a fully extended open position–slammed shut. Hard.
Oh shit.
It’s possible to have three dozen thoughts at once inside one head, I now know. I hatched about a dozen plans–some legal, some not–and finally decided just to take a cab across town and crash on a friends couch. But with no way to call ahead and no cash or metro pass getting too far away from the building seemed like a bad idea. To make matters worse the 11PM-3AM desk clerk had missed her shift. I was going down the elevator to the basement to look for the maintenance person when I met F. I asked him if he knew when the next shift started. In a crisp Guyana accent he outlined what he knew of the front lobby shifts.
It would be 7AM before anyone could let me into the apartment again. By now I had called myself every name in the book for not being more alert. I thought a locksmith would be the best way to go. F. suggested I use his phone and I gladly accepted, calling around a few places and finally finding someone willing to come out.
A half hour later I met the locksmiths in the hallway, who all had apparently been dispatched from the “ethnic” division of central casting. To my horror I realized that with no wallet I couldn’t pay them unless they got inside where my checkbook was. I suddenly had visions of being tortured in the back of a van hurtling down Massachusetts Ave. at 2AM, as a steady stream of Greek profanity filled my ears. Or worse these three guys drilling the lock just so that I could pay them.
Lucky for the people of Park Tower, and woefully unfortunate for me, these locks just aren’t pickable. Defiantly I told them about the money. A brief Greek profanity filled huddle ensued. I fully expected the next sound I would hear to be the ripping of duct tape. Instead it was, “How much you have?” I reached into my front jeans pocket and produced the change from an earlier trip out for groceries: twenty-four dollars and some change. It was a miracle I had put it there and not in my wallet, but my hands had been full and I’d stuffed it there. The elder Greek stared at me as he began preparing a receipt. I would live to gain a greater understanding of dolmades and tiramisu after all.
After all this madness I returned to F’s apartment to deliver the news. The locksmiths, despite their best efforts, had been unable to get me back inside. Fortunately my life had been bought for twenty-four dollars and some pocket lint, so things were still alright. I told him I would wait for the next shift in the lobby and reached down to get the dog. As I was thanking him for his hospitality and making my way to the door F. emerged from another part of the house laughing quietly with a glass of water, a pillow and a comforter. “They are never on time. You are tired and the dog is asleep. Go down in the morning.” I was too tired to argue. When I asked how I could ever repay all this kindness he said that I already had, because he could tell I would do the same for him.
It was like Buddha had smiled on me, and I haven’t even really started working for him yet. I fell asleep watching a documentary about Fidel Castro and talking about socialism with F. This morning the dog and I, having been let in by the front desk clerk, fell asleep in a heap on the bed and didn’t move until almost 11am.
This is what I was saying about being a receptor for good things taken to ludicrous new heights; I made a bonehead mistake and it was as if the entire world stopped to help me out of it. All night it seemed the less I asked of people the more they wanted to give. It was an embarassment of riches and it didn’t so much renew my faith in humanity as reinforce it. I know that these people had great days today. And what an adventure.

Celebrity Xing

Paris Hilton accused of spreading ‘vicious lies’. I *so* wanted the sub head under this to be something like, “File Under : Slow News Day” or “From Our ‘No Shit’ Bureau in Obviousville, OH”. No such luck. I loved the quote from her “publicist” :

“I can assure you that when all of the facts are revealed in this matter, they will show that the victim is, in fact, Paris Hilton,” Hilton’s spokesman said.

I’d love to get to say lines like that as part of my job. “I feel when all the chips are down and all the evidence has been weighed, we will see that it was indeed Mr. Lennon who stepped in front of the bullet, totally exonerating my client.” Celebrity is like kudzu choking meaning out of so much of our cultural landscape. Paris Hilton is a culturally meaningless figure and yet she has an army of publicists working around the clock to make every dumb thing she does seem like the act of a loving saint.

I’m not jealous of whatever it is we’re supposed to believe she has; rather, I’m anxious to live in a world where things like this don’t necessarily wind up on the front page of a huge news outlet’s website. Go ahead and run the story–just put it in the bored housewives section, well away from the updates on the health of the Israeli prime minister. Save yourselves at least that *scrap* of dignity.

The amateur sociologist in me can’t help but tie national obsessions with celebrities to large upticks in conservativism; to wit: in the heyday of the Reagan administration Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous enjoyed quite a reign, reminding us of the virtues of following your unbridled capitalist urges to their fullest extent. LOTR&F dovetailed neatly into Entertainment Tonight, which was essentially more of the same for the first Bush generation. The only real difference was that is was packaged like real news. But with Clinton’s election came a break in our national preoccupation with the idle rich. Suddenly there was a world out there beyond our own borders.

But now that Bush II is at the helm, and we’re feeling more isolated than we have in many years, the celebrity “journalists” are in full swing dishing on every bit player and Hollywood construct they can find. I guess if there really is a pattern here it isn’t anything new; during World War II our fascination with celebrities was peaking. But the difference between then and now is attitude–Paris Hilton behaves as though she somehow deserves this adulation, as opposed to a Zsa Zsa Gabor for instance–who, even when she was slapping cops, would never pretend that her antics were something we couldn’t live without. But what reason have we given to Hilton to make her think otherwise? The adulation machine is humming right along side her when she dumps drinks on hapless jet setters, or dumps cash on her little dog.

The avenues of authenticity and humility make up an intersection that we sometimes refer to as reality; at their crossroads celebrity can often occur. The celebrities of today need to be much more mindful of the fact that when the light changes on that intersection, it’s time to go–if you don’t, you’re merely blocking traffic. And as a nation of onlookers we need to learn that rubbernecking is both rude and unbecoming.

Wireless iPod? If there’s a patent, Jonathan Ive can make it beautiful. Perhaps we’ll know tomorrow.

At Foggy Bottom station everyone is blinking their way into the sunlight. I’m on my way down and in, back to U Street and my friends’ beautiful apartment. I feel “free”, in that corny way that they must mean in the soap commercials and the car ads; I’ve had such a wonderful time here that I can’t think about coming back because I can’t yet think about leaving. The next few months are going to fly by faster than I can possibly imagine. Even the 28th will be here practically overnight. The landscape of that timespan is littered with dozens of emails, books, records, running sessions and songwriting; shows, searches for a decent meal, driving, phone calls, new places and photographs.
Right now is a fantastic time to be alive, to be an open receptor for all of this fun and adventure and newness. It’s also a wonderful time to glance at my calendar every now and then.

This is not a game. Dude, seriously.

I had a lot of different ideas about how I might be getting back to NC when this fantastic trip was over. I mulled over going to Boston for a while on a Chinatown bus, and thought about heading to Charlottesville for a few days. But after my favorite airline closes Thursday — the one that shuttled me to and from S in particular and DC in general many times last year, and that I had my very first fight on — I would lose my free flight. After recounting the distinguished career of a cousin of mine, Amtrak sprung to mind.
So instead of flying or driving I’ll be aboard the Carolinian for over 6 hours, watching the countryside roll by. After hearing my dad talk about trains, and his aforementioned cousin’s 11 years at the helm of Amtrak, I’m really looking forward to it. It’s interesting to think about the generations of travelers who never even thought about flight as a way to travel from D.C.; for them, Union Station was the exclusive gateway to and from here.

It’s been a wonderful trip. I reconnected with some old friends–some of them places and some of them people–and realized that this really is the place for me, at least for a little while longer. As someone said the other night, D.C. is a town that you seem to miss more once you’re actually here. I did, and I do, and I’ll be back before you know it.

If you find yourself needing to recover your root password under OS X — and your OS X installer disks are in storage in some far flung part of the country — this guide will come in very handy. The wonders of single user mode never cease to amaze me.

Here are my new year’s resolutions, better late than never and put on display to keep me honest.

1) Lose 25 more pounds. I’ve managed to keep the 100 off from over the past year, which is great. Looking to capitolize on that.

2) Drive more, ride along less. In my work, in my relationships, everywhere.

3) Finish the damn record. There are 9 good songs done, with three more in early stages. Once its mastered I’ll consider it “done”.

4) Always have four digits in the bank. All the traveling makes it kind of tough, and living by your wits is fun, but seriously.

5) Start painting again. I can feel it brewing but all my supplies are in storage. Got to get one piece done to know where I stand.

Well, I celebrated the new year much like I assume our “sober” president did: by getting drunk and falling down. Despite the bruise on my ass (and a matching one on my pride) I had a blast with the DC indie rock/blogger mafia. I think I had forgotten how much fun you can have here. There are only a few days left to spend with S before the waiting for April starts. But if the last week has been any indication that will be like falling off a log, too.
So welcome everyone to the future. If you’re wondering where your jetpack is, well, the line to find out what the hold up is forms behind me.

I’m semi-back to posting again after a bit of a break. I’ve forgotten how walking in this town really takes it out of you. Going to buy milk here means a 10 block walk, and the net effect is to make beds and other horizontal surfaces very inviting at the end of the day. All the napping really eats into my blogging. Still I’m glad to be rid of my rental car and back on foot; it cost an arm and a leg but was fun to drive.
Tomorrow I’ll be seeing the Sean Scully exhibit at the Phillips Collection with a friend who’s passing through on the way to Boston. It’s another perk of being in a city where you can be in a gallery just by walking eight minutes in any direction. I’ll also be in attendance as I finally get to see S. act for the second time, only this time I’ll actually know it’s her.
Who am I kidding. I’ll be napping again tomorrow for sure.

Christmas. And my family. And my old friends hearing my music for the first time. And drinks. And thoughtful gifts. And now DC for two weeks. I need a huge nap.