A comment left on a Raw Fisher post about the city’s new bikesharing program:

It’s that time of year again: the FishbowlDC Hottest Media Types contest is upon us. And frankly, I’m a bit disappointed: due to last year’s… irregularities, Patrick Gavin promised new and improved technology. And I was ready! I checked Crowbar out of SVN and into a virtualized environment; I created a custom screen-scraper script for it, and got it working with XulRunner in such a way that it could be called by Ruby. I started looking into firing up a farm of Amazon EC2 instances to run the operation in parallel. I hit a snag when trying to find a decent RDF parsing gem for examining Crowbar’s output, but then the poll went up and I saw it didn’t matter.

It’s the same goddamn PollDaddy crap as last year! And it’s still just as vulnerable to a looped one-liner shell script. Fire up Firebug to grab the AJAX call’s URL, then set curl to keep loading it. You don’t even need to fake your user agent.

Ah well. We can still have some fun with this. Thanks to this handy GreaseMonkey script compiler I’ve put together a little Firefox extension that should help this year’s voting arrive at the appropriate result: namely, one that puts Mr. Brian Beutler at the top.

For those who question the propriety of this enterprise or (gasp) Brian’s hotness — well, there’s probably no hope for you. But look, maybe an analogy will help: Fifty Cent got shot a bunch and it made people start acting like he can rap. Now he’s a millionaire with access to unlimited supplies of Vitamin Water. A public acknowledgment of Brian’s post-shooting beauty is a pittance in comparison. It’s the very least we can do.

And it should be really easy, too. All you have to do is click the link below, say OK to whatever security warnings come up, and install the extension. I think it’ll work in Firefox 2 and 3; I’ve only tested it in the latter, though. After it’s installed and you’ve restarted Firefox, navigate over to the appropriate page. A message should pop up, then the robovoting will begin. You’ll get feedback, too, and the total number of votes you’ve cast (and your associated rank) will be displayed as it proceeds (it should remember the total even if you stop and restart the process).

And if you really want to demonstrate your love for Brian, you can leave proof of your vote total here in comments by pasting the tiny hexadecimal garbage displayed under it (along with the vote total you’re claiming) — each total has a unique code. No cheating!

Install the Beutlerator

Lord knows we need all the tolerable bars in DC we can get, but last night’s experience is making me want to write off Townhouse Tavern. We ended up there with a larger-than-expected and somewhat unwieldy group, but arrived early and had secured chairs for everybody outside. After an hour or so one of our party went a few feet up the street to take a call. When the bartender came to clear empties he pushed the guy’s chair a bit out of the way, making it look like it belonged to a different, unoccupied table.

Some new arrivals approached another table out front that had folks around it, and one of them grabbed the now-slightly-displaced chair. We tried to explain that it was spoken for, but the guy who had snagged it just ignored us. Emily politely tapped him on the shoulder and explained the situation again, but he continued to blow us off, not even bothering to make eye contact. One of his group found the whole thing funny, and asked us incredulously if we realized that the chair-taker owned the bar.

Well, hell, did he? My gullibility is well-established, but it actually seems pretty possible to me: the bartenders were hanging out with their table all night, and the guy certainly carried an attitude of entitlement sufficient to mark him as a proprietor. If so, man, what a lousy way to treat your customers. I left that place pretty pissed off, and am sorry to have had a chip placed on my shoulder about what is, like I said, one of the few endurable bars in DC.

I suppose when you buy a place like Townhouse a large part of your motivation is a desire to host your friends exactly how and when you want. I can understand that. But it’s tough to want to put money in the pocket of someone who treats you like garbage, regardless of how nice his bartenders are. Hopefully somebody’ll pipe up and tell me that no, there’s no way that was the owner.

KRISTON TO THE RESCUE: Mr. Capps, a good friend to me and Townhouse both, writes with assurances that the TH owner is considerably taller, beardier and more Scottish than the thoroughly dude-like dude who behaved so poorly toward us. Sounds like it was just a bunch of regulars with delusions of grandeur. Good.

Don’t miss Jason’s annual commentary on the Hill Hotties list. My favorite line:

“Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.) is proof positive that a high school quarterback can marry his cheerleader girlfriend and live happily ever after.” Phew! Glad that’s been proven! It’s certainly an improvement over the quarterback who was proof positive that being a fake cowboy moron could only take you so far if you were a crypto-racist goon (George Allen).

Other highlights:

• Andrew Savage: I totally know that guy. He’s good friends with Michael. I can’t say I’ve ever seen him make any furniture, but I suppose he could have slipped off to cut decorative scrollwork while I was in the bathroom at St. Ex.
• Check out Otto Mucklo, then try to tell me with a straight face that you believe the bio when it says he’s not German. Otto! C’mon!

There’s a new credit card for Redskins fans. Along with the substantial joy to be had by having a custom logo in your wallet, it’ll give cardholders the ability to skip through clogged lines at Fedex Field… and at airport security.

It’s not like I had a lot of faith that the registered traveler program wouldn’t become horribly corrupted, compromised and ineffective. But I did think it’d take a little more time and sneaking around before we got to quite this level of tackiness.

I’m also sorry to see Rob and Libby go. Not only because they’re great people who I already don’t see often enough, but also because this means Bostonians will suddenly get to learn fascinating new things about their city as Rob discovers, researches and writes them up — a luxury that I’ve grown accustomed to having for myself over the past few years.

If there’s solace to be had, it’s that Rob’s membership in this city’s secret transit cabal seems unlikely to be affected. So take heart, and if you’re feeling wistful, go reread my all-time favorite Goodspeed Update entry.

I’ve been friends with Charles for a long time now. There’s no use trying to fool anyone, so I’ll fess up: I’d support his musical endeavors even if they were terrible.

But it’s awfully nice that they’re not. I’m not sure when it happened, exactly — the frenzy of the Iota show and the vastness of Fort Reno may have concealed the exact moment — but last night at the Black Cat it was clear that the City Veins’ live show has passed a new threshhold. God damn but they killed it. Maybe it’s just Stockholm Syndrome; if it is, I’m prepared to embrace it.

Watching them play, I couldn’t help feeling a pang of envy: it’s tough to see such wholehearted commitment to the moment without wanting more of it for yourself. Fortunately it was easy to drown that wistfulness in joy, and pride, at watching your friends throw themselves so completely into something they clearly love.

It looks like it’s easy now, like the songs have been worked and reworked until they’re so pliable that they can be twisted into whatever shape the band imagines during the count-off. I’m sure that’s just an illusion. But it’s a convincing one, and a testament to how good these guys have gotten at playing together.

I’m sorry I didn’t mercilessly promote last night’s show; if you weren’t there, I wish you had been. I’ll do my best to step up my harassment when their next DC gig rolls around.

WashCycle has a good post on scofflaw cyclists and the outsized anger directed at them by pedestrians and drivers. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but here’s a bit about jaybiking:

[A] better question is “why don’t drivers ‘jaydrive’?”


Is it because they love the law so much? Did you skip the previous section?


It’s because their risk/reward calculation is coming up with a different answer. And that makes sense. In a car you’re several feet farther back from the intersection and you’re often a foot or two lower, meaning you can’t see as well (I bet those on recumbents don’t jaybike as often as those on standard bikes). In a car you’re in a soundproof enclosure so you have no stereoscopic hearing. And if you make a mistake you aren’t as maneuverable as you are on a bike or on your feet. You can’t just ditch to the sidewalk. Driver’s don’t jaydrive because, in their own estimation, they can’t. But if they could, I’m sure they would.


Still, that doesn’t explain the anger. Drivers get — I feel — irrationally angry about this. After wondering why for so long, an anthropologist friend of mine helped me to understand. Running a red light is so dangerous for cars that it isn’t just illegal, it’s taboo. You’re breaking a social construct. Which means people find it objectionable and abhorrent. So if education is needed, maybe it’s needed to explain why it’s safer for cyclists to do this than for drivers.


[...]


The way to end jaybiking violations is to decriminalize them. [...] Idaho has changed its law — and California is considering it — to allow cyclist to treat stop signs as yield signs and stop lights as stop signs.

I agree with all of this, although it doesn’t really apply to me any more: over the past few months I’ve become a very, very good citizen cyclist.

It’s not that I think patiently waiting for a red light to change is making me or anyone else safer — it’s just that I can’t stand the thought that I might provide grist for those who whine about bicyclists’ lawlessness. Besides, the instinctive anger that drivers feel upon seeing a bicyclist is no doubt that much more intense when they can’t put their fingers on a handy excuse for why the biker’s presence infuriates them.

My traffic safety habits are now entirely spite-based.

First: the plan to move DC’s intercity buses to the L’Enfant wasteland is on hold. I got the following in an email on Friday:

The District Department of Transportation as of July 3, 2008 has suspended the new intercity bus permit regulations to allow for additional evaluation and review of the program. Originally intended to begin in early July, the regulation seeks to better manage the use of public space and institute curbside management practices through new permitting requirements and by identifying specific locations for passenger drop off and pickup. [...]


Further details will be available as DDOT continues to evaluate the new policy.

Hilariously, the email’s author appears to have simply cc’ed everybody who wrote in about the issue. It looks like they got about 400 complaints.

On Friday Kriston and Matt tried to convince me that the whole bus terminal project was a sinister plot to legislate Greyhound’s competition out of existence, delivering yet another crooked victory to Big Bus. Key to this undertaking, they said, was a little-noticed but crucially important new rule forbidding the bus companies from selling tickets at curbside. Instead the companies must maintain a storefront — a requirement that, given the lack of available real estate at the new depot site, could not be met. Presto: no more intercity buses.

I was dubious, and after reading the text of the (now tabled) proposal, I’m even more so. Here, have a look yourself. Section 3307.8:

An intercity bus operator shall not:

   (a) Vend tickets in the public space;

   (b) Arrive sooner than thirty (30) minutes prior to scheduled departure in the intercity bus zone;

   (c) Remain in the intercity bus zone for more than thirty (30) minutes after arrival; or

   (d) Allow intercity bus passengers to obstruct the flow of pedestrian traffic in the public space and into adjacent buildings.

Obviously the curbside ticket-sale question would have hinged on what “public space” means. I am not a [etc.], but 3307.8(d) strongly implies to me that the interior of the bus isn’t considered a part of the public space — certainly it’s legally distinct in at least some ways, since the bus operators can charge admission to and eject people from it. And of course many of the intercity bus companies sell their tickets at the pickup site, but do so as their representative moves through the loaded bus checking tickets. Sometimes you pay as you get on, sometimes you pay once you’re seated. I can’t imagine mandating one or the other would dramatically disrupt these businesses’ operations.

Besides which, the proposal sidesteps more obvious ways to inconvenience Greyhound’s competitors. Fines for noncompliance are only $200 or $300 (depending on whether it’s a first offense); the fee for renting space for loading and unloading works out to less than $2.50/hr. This isn’t to say that moving these buses to L’Enfant is a good idea, but I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, either.

is “pre-gentrification Clarendon“.