What could a customer and a coffee shop be scuffling over that would lead the owner to publicly announce that if the customer comes back in, he’ll “punch him in the dick?” And the customer saying the only way he’ll come back in is with “matches and a can of kerosene?” The right to pour espresso over ice, obviously. The blogstorm began as follows…
d.c.
DC Tickets And Tows Stolen Car, Releases It To Thief, Then Sends Collection Agency After Owner
By 4.10.08
Steve Steinberg refused to pay a parking ticket issued after his car had been stolen, so the Washington, DC Department of Motor Vehicles sent a collections agency after him. Steinberg’s car was stolen in September of 2006. After he reported the theft, Steinberg says, the DC police and DMV ticketed his car, towed it, then released it to the thief.
Did Rite-Aid Kick Out A Gay Couple For Hugging?
By 11.2.07
Washington, D.C. is actually a pretty gay-friendly place—hell, even a few closeted types seem to find a way to make a living there. (Just a few.) But in early October a gay couple was thrown out of a Rite-Aid a few blocks away from the city’s traditional gay neighborhood for allegedly hugging each other in the store. According to them, while they were shopping, one of them hugged the other one from behind, and the store manager ran up and shouted, “Get out! Get out!” A few seconds later, the security guard told them they had to leave, although he said he didn’t know the reason why. The manager, Denny Getachew, won’t comment, and Rite Aid spokesperson told the local gay magazine, “We are looking into this matter, and we will take disciplinary action if need be.”
DC Scraps Zone System, Cabbies Threaten To Strike
By 10.20.07
Cab rides in Washington will soon be cheaper thanks to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s decision to scrap the DC’s antiquated and expensive zone system in favor of the modern meter system found in any respectable city. Cheaper fares for residents means less profit for cabbies. Said one: “There is no way we can make a living on a [time-and-distance] meter.”
“The talk of a strike is in the formulation plans,” said Nathan Price, a driver for Yellow Cab Company of D.C. Inc. and a spokesman for the D.C. Professional Taxicab Drivers Association (PTDA).
D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty Cut The iPhone Line
By 6.30.07
Did D.C. Mayor Adiran Fenty dispatch henchmen to retrieve an iPhone? An eagle-eyed tipster spotted a member of the Mayor’s coterie dashing into a double-parked SUV with three bags outside the AT&T store on 17th and Pennsylvania Avenue.
By this point, more than a few people are asking questions, and after a guy behind me yells out “fix the schools first,” the [Mayor’s staffer] gives him the finger and sneers, “there’s only 15 left.”
The full email, after the jump…
Above And Beyond: Baseball Edition
By 4.16.07
Tom attended opening day at RFK Stadium to see the Washington Nationals, but couldn’t get a hot dog. What is baseball without a hot dog? Is that cricket?
At no point during the game were the lines shorter than two innings. When I tried to go back in the 7th, there were hotdogs, but no buns. Who the fuck orders more hotdogs than they order buns? I mean, I get that they come 8 buns to a pack, but 6 dogs to a pack, but the solution here is to use combinatorics, a word which I alone learned on Square One back in the late 1980s, and come up with an equal fucking number of hotdogs and buns. Folks, this is not rocket surgery. It’s fucking concessions. Owners were supposed to fix this situation, not carry it forward. Yet, this opening day, much like the previous two, have brought concession lines that were unacceptably long, and concessions unable to cope with the demand of a full stadium.
Tom forwarded his concerns to Stan Kasten, President of the Nationals. Stan’s response, inside…
When Flying Requires a Shoehorn
By 6.27.06
At six feet, five inches, Tom is a big man and when flying, he likes the aisle. Lately, the airlines don’t seem to care.
Verizon Fined For DC Graffiti Campaign
By 4.4.06
More guerrilla marketing via public vandalism: Verizon has been fined $1050 for spraying graffiti on Washington D.C. sidewalks advertising the Yellow Pages.
