The wife and I took the kid out for her morning walk this morning and decided to stop in at Pan Lourdes, the new-ish coffee shop/bakery on 14th Street just north of Columbia Heights Target. It was great – they have a big refrigerator that makes a lot of noise and even vibrates the floor just a little bit. The kid slept like a rock in her stroller. She stirred a little bit when it cut off, but then went back to sleep. The coffee is nothing to write home about, but the baked goods are pretty awesome. I think they all come from the big bakery on 11th Street near Wonderland, but I’m not sure. It’s funny – I imagine someone from Central America would recognize most of the baked goods, but I sure didn’t. I mean, if I go into a Dunkin Donuts or something, I recognize what most of the things are without needing a sign. Maybe I can’t tell the difference between raisins and blueberries from across the counter, but at least I’d be close. At Pan Lourdes, nothing looks familiar. And they have nothing labeled. I suppose I could have asked the guy behind the counter, but that’s not as adventurous. I had something with a stripe of red frosting, and the wife had something with lemon. Both were good. We’ll definitely go back, for the fridge if nothing else. Everything is really cheap, too – four dollars and change for two pastries and two coffees.
Tag: harvardstreet
I’m going to punch Mother Nature in the Face. And also WMATA.
In what I’m sure will be a recurring theme for the day for DC bloggers, I’d like to take a moment to complain about the cold. I don’t get cold easily. In fact, just last night the wife and I were discussing that it would be awesome if I could sell my excess body heat – I certainly don’t need all of it, and others (including the wife) would be happy to have it. In any event, I bailed on my usual walk to work after less than a block. Most days I enjoy the walk. It gives me time to think and prepare for the day at work. But not when it’s this cold. Weather.com tells me that it’s 11 degrees out, and it feels like -4. That would explain the frozen snot in my nose. So, I took the bus. Not usually a problem, except that I was on one of the really old models, and it broke down at V Street. The driver didn’t announce anything. We just sat for a minute, and then someone got off, then another person, and soon the whole bus had cleared. Luckily there was another bus right behind, so we didn’t have to wait. But tell me – have you ever been on a bus that broke down in pleasant weather? I’ll bet you haven’t. Then I find out that they’ve opened the roadblocks for Obama, and my normal bus stop is back in use. Except I was on an S1 instead of an S2/S4, thinking it didn’t matter due to the road closure. You got me again, WMATA. And then, just as I thought things were picking up, some woman tried to run me down on while I crossed H St. I didn’t have the light, but there were no cars except this woman, pulled over and letting someone out. So I crossed the street, at which point she started to drive. Now, H Street is four or five lanes at this point. I’m not that big a guy. She could quite easily have worked with me and let me cross (In the crosswalk, though against the light) without making me stop. Did she? I think you know the answer to that question. In any event, I’m at work now, and inside, thankful that my job doesn’t require me to do otherwise.
My pants are wet for you, Barack
More “as a result of you”, but that’s not such a snappy headline. As many of you may know, they have closed off a bunch of streets downtown until the Inauguration. I hear it’s because Obama has moved into the area earlier than expected, so there wasn’t a spot for him on the White House grounds. I don’t know if this is the case, and don’t really care. My problem is that they’ve interrupted the S2/S4 bus route, and I had to get off at 16th and K NW this morning. In the rain. And now my pants are soaking wet from the walk. And WMATA is no help – it took me 20 minutes last night to find any information about the detour beyond “there is a detour”, and I still don’t know what the next stop after 16th and K is. It’s somewhere near 13th and H, I think, but I generally get off at the stop I know rather than hope that the next one is better. In any event, this is just one more reason that January 20th can’t come soon enough.
It takes four signs to explain the parking
Originally uploaded by thetejon
I took this photo the other day while I was up on the roof with the heater repair guys. I couldn’t hear the bulk of the conversation, but I believe the woman in the brown coat, one of my neighbors, was complaining first to a parking enforcement officer, then to a police officer, and then to this woman, a parking enforcement supervisor, about tickets being written. During the winter, they suspend street cleaning. They don’t change the signs, they just assume you know that, from some arbitrary date in November to some equally arbitrary date in March, you are free to ignore the no parking signs for street cleaning. Try to find out what those dates are. I dare you. However, it seems you can only ignore some of the signs. Usually, the south side of the street is two hour parking for all out-of-zone cars. On street cleaning days, it changes to DC residential parking permit holders only. So the parking enforcement official ticketed all the Maryland and Virginia drivers on the south side. I’m guessing that my neighbor was arguing that these signs don’t apply when street cleaning is suspended. I don’t think she’s going to win this argument, but she did leave notes on all the ticketed cars. I don’t know what they said. I would have told them to contest the tickets by mail, which won’t do any good, but might make them feel better. Still, it is pretty absurd that it takes four signs to explain the parking. Doesn’t this suggest to someone that the parking restrictions might be overly complicated?
Tire vandals in Columbia Heights
The only reason we still have a car is my daughter’s car seat. It’s just not worth the hassle in the city. Sometime Sunday night, someone came down our street and slashed or deflated a bunch of car tires, including one of ours. I don’t see a visible puncture, but I find it pretty hard to believe that someone actually removed the cap, let the air out, and took the time to screw the cap back on. It could have been worse – we need new tires anyway – but it’s a huge hassle. I’m going to have to call AAA because the Mazda dealer managed to lose the wheel lock key last time I was in for an oil change, back when they were still doing them for free. So I can’t change the tire myself. I was thinking about this – if I were the vandal, I would actually take the time and let the air out and replace the cap. I think that’s way funnier, and it doesn’t cause any damage, so you don’t get in as much trouble if you get caught. Mindless vandalism lacks style. Do I need to file a police report? Half the street got a tire slashed, and I know at least a couple of my neighbors reported it. Our insurance deductible is more than the cost of a tire, so we probably won’t report it to them, either. Doesn’t seem like it’s worth the trouble.
Banana Leaves – Yum
Dinner was so good. I had the Grilled Honey Peanut Tofu with brown rice and the wife had the Malaysia Mee Goreng, and we each had a vegetarian spring roll. The website lets you choose a time for delivery. We chose 7:45, and the delivery guy arrived at 7:43. It’s funny, because the first time I heard of them, it was because I found the website, and I made fun of it for being really awful. And in some sense it still is really awful, but at least they spent their time (or, more likely, money) on an online ordering system rather than gobs of awful Flash. Well done, Banana Leaves. We will definitely be ordering again. Local blogging sensation Prince of Petworth mentioned Banana Leaves today, too. The commenters there aren’t all as positive about the place as I am, but what do they know?
Dancing bananas and surprising websites
Have you ever been to Banana Leaves at Connecticut and Florida NW? I went once when they first opened, and was pleased with the food. The bench seats were freshly varnished and stuck to my jeans, though. They have a pretty goofy website with a little dancing banana gif straight out of 1996, but they also have a pretty neat little online ordering system. It apparently doesn’t work too well in Firefox 3 on OSX (The wife’s computer, not mine), but it was fine on my work laptop (Firefox 3, XP). I just ordered dinner. I’m waiting for confirmation. The interface is a little bit three years ago, lacking the polish that we’ve become accustomed to, but it seems to work well. This is fantastic for those of us who would really like to abolish phones. I try not to ever have to talk on the phone. I did have to call them to make sure they deliver to us, although I could have just ordered and waited for them to say no, but that would have taken too much time. We’re trying to time delivery with the little Fusspot’s eating schedule so that maybe the wife and I can both eat together without a screaming baby. She’s been pretty good today, so we’re hopeful. I’ll let you know how the food is.
Wikimetro says, “We’re totally not a scam”
I got an email from Wikimetro last night telling me that they were not a scam. They did nothing to address my concerns, however.
Dear Complaint Hub (we dont know your real name, sorry), We just saw your comment on Complaint Hub and wanted to reply. Wikimetro is not a scam at all, but rather a marketplace that lets ad buyers and bloggers meet. If you are avail to talk, just email us a tel number and time to call, or give us a call using the contact us page on our site. Jeff B www.wikimetro.org
It was nice of them to actually read my blog this time rather than scraping a header tag for a name-like word, but this was never really my concern. It was more a clue that the email was auto-generated by a script. But telling me you’re a “marketplace” is one thing, and listing blogs as available to purchase ads on when these bloggers have never heard of you is quite another. I’m going to start my own “marketplace” here on Complaint Hub. For $500, Jeff B of Wikimetro will tattoo your name on his forehead. No, he doesn’t know it yet. But when you give me the money, I’ll approach him (Through the convenient contact us page on their site) and see if I can work something out. Or maybe I’ll just pocket the money and never even tell Jeff B he was part of the transaction.
I hate the Cowboys
Originally uploaded by thetejon
What a disappointing game. Fantastic seats, though. The picture from my phone kind of sucks, but I didn’t feel like bringing the cool camera and I forgot to steal the wife’s point and shoot. Have you ever been to FedEx Field to watch the Redskins? It is the worst stadium I’ve ever been to in terms of getting home. There don’t seem to be signs to get back to the Metro (Probably because it’s a mile away) and getting out of the parking lot takes hours. I met my friend at New Carrollton because he was coming from Annapolis, and I rode with him to the parking lot. On the way out, he was going to drop me off at the Metro again, but I had to leave him and walk. When I got to the Morgan Boulevard station, he still hadn’t moved from his spot, and I caught the second to last train of the night. It’s too bad, because I like the stadium, but I’m not sure they could have made it less accessible.
Is Wikimetro a scam?
Recently, I got an email from someone I’d never heard of from Wikimetro.org wanting to talk about advertising on my site here.
Drupalcon, Who is the contact for discussing advertising on your blog Complaint Hub? We have received 24 requests this week for advertising on Complaint Hub, and the page has been viewed 69 times. Our website, wikimetro.org, is the largest online BlogAd marketplace with more than 50,000 blogs in more than 2,300 US cities and towns. Here’s a link to your blog on wikimetro: http://list.wikimetro.org/market/info.aspx?blog=822 If you are agreeable to scheduling a time to talk on the phone about this, please tell me a good time by contacting me at this link (choose phone): http://list.wikimetro.org/contact.aspx I’ll cc my assistant to set up a time to talk, if there’s interest. Alex Rawlings Wash DC BlogAd Account Direct Email: alex.rawlings@wikimetro.org Website: www.wikimetro.org Motto: “Everything Local” Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.wikimetro.org/wikimetro_guide Tel. +1(202) 470-0961
It sounded a bit scammy to me, especially because by addressing me as “Drupalcon”, they clearly didn’t actually look at the site, but just scraped it with some script. A bit of Googling made it sound like Wikimetro was a scam, but nothing really concrete. So I looked at the local blogs they had listed as participants and emailed one I recognized to ask if Off Seventh was actually participating, or just being used to bait others. I got an email back, and it turns out Off Seventh was totally unaware of the deal Wikimetro claimed to have. So, the conclusion I draw from this is that Wikimetro is a scam. If they contact you, I suggest being very cautious. Edit to add: Follow-up from Wikimetro is here.