Latest News

Samantha Hungerford • August 10, 2011

In this economy, breaks are a tough thing to catch. But starting Aug. 1, the DMV will be offering just that: amnesty on all overdue parking and moving violation tickets issued before Jan. 1, 2010, meaning that late fees on outstanding tickets will be waived.

The Amnesty Program, which will be in effect through Jan. 27, is applicable only to District residents and does not waive the whole fee, only late charges. The DMV also won’t assess points on moving violations and hearings will not be granted for amnesty tickets. Tickets must be paid within the six-month grace period to receive the waiver.

The program is a method of inciting District residents to pay long overdue tickets. According to The Washington Post, Mayor Gray (D) said that the city expects to collect $6.3 million over the course of the program.

Do you have overdue parking tickets?

visit the DMV’s Website and enter your license plate number to find out.

Robert Devaney •

Setting aside the debate on the national debt as well as summer humidity, or maybe because of it, Washington influencers and personalities attended the launch party for Gilt City (D.C. edition) at Halcyon House on Prospect Street, July 26, co-hosted by Juleanna Glover, Winston Lord and soon-to-be-married Lindsay Czarniak and Craig Melvin. With BrandLink D.C. and Design Cuisine at work, the party was complete with mint juleps and iced lime rum as well as croquet and bocce ball. Not quite like Groupon or LivingSocial, the high-end discounter offers such experiences as a special dinner at Cafe Milano or private party at W Hotel to its members, not daily coupons. It goes fully online, Aug. 1.
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Courtney Overcash •

D.C. Water and the District Department of Transportation begin an overhaul on a two-part repair project today on the eastbound side of Canal Road, near Georgetown University.

DDOT anticipates traffic delays, as the first phase of the project confine traffic to one lane of Canal Road during construction. DDOT will to close the lane from the hours of 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Drivers may want to use George Washington Parkway as an alternative. Crews may also need to work 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday through Thursday.

The project will revive a 48 inch water main that helps deliver drinking water around the city. The main has been leaking persistently creating poor conditions along the surrounding roadway.

In the second phase of the project, crews will be working to seal a pipe along M Street between 26th Street and New Hampshire Avenue.

The project should be completed by September 1.

Shannon McGovern •

If a dog is a man’s best friend, then he’s going to want to spend his outings and vacations in the company of his favorite companion. These restaurants, hotels, attractions and shops cater to DC dog lovers and offer pet-friendly events and services.

HAPPY HOURS:

The Helix
1430 Rhode Island Avenue, NW
Every Wednesday from 5-7 p.m. the Helix Lounge hosts “Doggy Happy Hour” on its outdoor patio. The happy hour menu features a selection of filtered ice water, fortified vitamin water and assorted treats for dogs, and $3 and $5 drinks for their owners. The restaurant is located in the Hotel Helix at 1430 Rhode Island Ave., which also welcomes pets and provides amenities for its furry guests such as treats, feeding bowls, bottled water, beds and pick-up bags.

Cantina Marina
600 Water St., SW
This outdoor patio located at the Gangplank on the Potomac offers a menu full of great finger-food and famous fish tacos any day of the week, but during happy hour on Monday evenings from 5-9 p.m., dog owners can enjoy $2 beers on the waterfront in the company of their pets.

Union Pub
201 Massachusetts Ave. NE
Dogs are always welcome on the patio at Union Pub at 201 Massachusetts Ave., and upon request will be served water while their owners enjoy the pub’s famous burgers and beer.

Pat Troy’s Ireland’s Own
111 N. Pitt St.,?Alexandria, Virginia 22314
From the patio at Pat Troy’s Irish restaurant and pub, owners can treats their dogs to a hearty Irish supper from a menu that includes chicken, chopped burger, lamb stew and beef stew, all of which comes with a bone on the side.

The Argonaut
1433 H St., NE
Argo-Mutts Happy Hour takes place on the restaurant’s patio every Saturday from 12-5 p.m. The Argonaut has formed a partnership with Metro Mutts, which will bring treats and other giveaways for dogs attending happy hour.

Art and Soul
415 New Jersey Ave., NW
Art and Soul serves dog meals and treats every day of the week from its “Pooch Patio Menu.” Beverages include water, nonalcoholic “Bowser Beer” and “Vitapaw” – a vitamin enhanced water, and frozen raw bones, three ounce or six ounce grilled steak and beef tips with sauce and rice are among the entrée selections. The restaurant also serves homemade dog biscuits and granola treats.

Jay’s Saloon and Grille
3114 10th St. N, Arlington, VA 22201
Dogs are always welcome on the Arlington restaurant’s patio, but in addition, the Jay’s Saloon and Grille hosts “Yappy Hour” from 1-4 p.m. one Sunday each month. Pets can enjoy water, treats and games while their owners chill with a two-dollar bottle of beer, a $1.50 draft or $2.95 glass of wine.

Hotel Monaco
480 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314
The hotel’s locations in DC and Alexandria are both pet-friendly, and deliver bottled water, food bowls, a treat and a map of popular dog walks to the rooms of guests accompanied by a four-legged companion. The Alexandria location advertises Doggy Happy Hour in the courtyard every Tuesday and Thursday from 5-8 p.m. between the months of April and October, where dogs receive complimentary treats and water and guests can order from the Jackson 20’s Bar Menu.

JUST FOR FUN:

Potomac Riverboat Co. Canine Cruise
3 Cameron Street, Alexandria, VA 22314
Canine Cruises depart from the Alexandria City Marina every Thursday at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. between June 16 and September 15. For $15, dog owners can take their pets on a 40-minute tour of Alexandria’s waterfront.

Doggie Style Bakery
1825 18th St NW
This bakery caters exclusively to any dog’s sweet tooth, with custom-designed dog cakes for any occasion, “Mutt Licks” – the bakery’s ice cream for dogs, fresh baked treats and cookies and a variety of all-natural dog snacks. Owners can treat their dogs to a day of pampering in the shop’s boutique and spa for professional grooming and shampooing.

GROOMING:

Chateau Animaux
524 8th St., SE
This pet store on the Hill sells pet supplies and professional grooming services, but also strives to make pet care easy for owners. For $15 dollars pet owners are given access to a tub and the supplies they need to bathe their pets themselves, or the busy pet owner can arrange for food and other supplies to be delivered straight to his or her home on a regular or occasional basis.

Metro Mutts
508 H St., NE
In addition to selling pet supplies, Metro Mutts provides dog walking and dog sitting services in the Capitol Hill area. Pet owners can select from a variety of packages to meet their pet’s walking and feeding schedules, and will receive records of their pet’s daily activities. Metro Mutts offers to take care of small household tasks during visits, including bringing in the mail, watering plants and the like.

Fur-Get Me Not
1722 Florida Ave, NW
This shop has everything a dog could need, from treats and toys to training, boarding and walking. The doggie daycare strives to meet the individual needs of each dog, and customers can take advantage of daily scheduled or overnight dog sitting services.

The Big Bad Woof
117 Carroll St NW
The Big Bad Woof carries pet gear and supplies for “the socially conscious pet,” selling Fair Trade and eco-friendly products. Their food selections are based on a holistic approach to pet health and wellness, and many products are made from organic materials.

While there are a lot of great things to do with your best buddy in the city, everyone needs a break from the bustle sometimes. Now is a great time of year to head off on a road trip with your pooch by your side. Check out this dog-friendly getaway:

Keswick Club
701 Club Drive, Keswick, Va. 22947
This stately retreat offers not only a challenging golf course, tennis courts, fine dining and well-appointed rooms, but it also extends its hospitality to its guests’ canine companions. Dogs are welcome all over the grounds and in the rooms. Beloved pooches are even incorporated into the lavish weddings that the Club often hosts with the rolling hills of the Virginia countryside as their backdrop.

Nico Dodd • August 8, 2011

MRP Realty, the company that purchased Washington Harbour last year, is planning a $30 million renovation that includes updated offices, new restaurant space and a rebuilt outdoor plaza featuring an outdoor ice-skating rink.

At 11,000 square feet, the proposed ice rink would be the largest in the city, according to MRP’s Robert J. Murphy. During the warmer months, the rink would be replaced by a 7,000 square foot fountain.

The plans are still being looked at by neighbors and community leaders, but once the plans are ok-ed, work could begin early next year, with completion in the spring of 2012. Work to renovate Washington Habour’s office space has already begun.

After April’s flood, Washington Harbour could sure use a boost like this. Several of the bars and restaurants located there are still waiting to reopen.

Nico Dodd •

According to the Washington Post, this July was the hottest month in Washington on record. The average temperature was 84.5 degrees, more than one degree hotter than the previous hottest month, July of 2010. The hottest day of all was July 29 at 104 degrees, the hottest temperature in 13 years. The hottest ever was 106 degrees, on July 20, 1930. Over the whole month, the temperature reached 90 degrees 25 times.

The month also had eight record days for warm low temperatures, including seven when the temperature failed to fall below 80 degrees, four of which came consecutively (from July 21 to 24). On July 23 and 24 the District tied for its warmest all-time low temperature of 84 degrees.

August is not showing any signs of relief, as today’s high was 98 degrees.

Georgetowner •

In celebration of four years of business, Sweetgreen on M Street is giving customers free frozen yogurt with the purchase of any salad.

The store, which was opened four summers ago by three freshly-graduated Georgetown University students, has expanded from its original location to have eight storefronts in D.C., two in Philadelphia, and one roaming location – a food truck.

The founders left this message for their patrons on their website:

“Since our first shop on M St, we’ve changed and expanded, from new locations in Washington D.C., to introducing our very own food truck – Sweetflow Mobile, to expanding into Philadelphia, to throwing a music festival with the Strokes.

“We would never have been able to take these steps without the support of all the sweet people in our lives and our dedicated employees. To thank all our friends for taking this journey with us we’re giving away a free sweetflow with the purchase of any salad at Georgetown today. – Jon, Nic, and Nate”

Gary Tischler • August 4, 2011

Mention sports in Washington to a sports fan and nobody laughs.

After all: The Washington Redskins’ Dan Snyder sues the City Paper, Donovan McNabb is benched, no playoffs yet again and wait, there’s a lockout of millionaires. There may yet be an NFL season. Sigh.

After all: The Washington Capitals, the best hockey team, and the best Russians never to make it out of the second round of the playoffs. Sigh.

The Washington Nationals, where being a game under even is a major accomplishment, a team that has Jayson Werth who gets millions for batting .216. Sigh.

The Washington Wizards, who may never make the playoffs in my lifetime—admittedly a modest goal.

The men’s soccer team which had a 0-0 tie in its last game, I think. What a thrill.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company and “The Complete World of Sports.”

Now that’s funny.

You’ve got a few days (till January 24) to see the radically funny comedy troupe’s take on the wide, wide, and even wider world of sports from cave man’s earliest tug of wars to naked wrestling in ancient Greece, to the origin of curling and the burning question of why bowling is a sport—among the hundreds of subjects, countries, centuries and box scores tackled by the current RSC troupe and trope of three.

If you go, be prepared to run on stage and participate in the parade of nations, or just participate. Audience participation is one of the hallmarks of the RSC—doesn’t that have the same initials as the Royal Shakespeare Company with the word Shakespeare?—and wacky irreverence, slapdash and sometimes slapstick comedy, and a willingness to tackle any subject no matter how small, how large how endless.

They are very good at reducing just about anything. Eric Cantor, are you listening? Reducing. Anything. No matter how large. Can they, is it possible that they could reduce the national debt?

Maybe not. But they could make it funny?

“We go back a ways,” Reed Martin, one of the earliest members (he cam aboard in 1989) said. “It’s kind of strange. Wherever we go, we’re sort of famous. We have this built-in audience, built, over the years, and yet, we’re not, I don’t know, famous-famous.”

But what they do have is a phenom, and it’s gone, if not exactly viral, pretty huge. Several troupes tour with the RSC brand and shows, their works are collected in book form, and they’ve been all over the world.

Martin, in a way, is characteristic of the troupe and its history: he’s been a real clown (is there such a being?) with Ringling Brothers, he’s been a sports referee and he is what he is here, the bald one, who lends a certain intense, zany seriousness.

There is also his long-time partner in time and crime, Austin Tichenor, who looks a little like Will Ferrell, only funnier (sue me, SNL fans). He has that puzzled look of a lawyer in over his head, wondering why he didn’t join a comedy troupe

Last, and perhaps least but probably not is Matt Rippy, the kid, who looks like a kid, as opposed to the adult family men Martin and Tichenor. He is oddly enough, also the webmaster for the group, acts in movies and, according to his bio, is studiously avoiding adulthood and so far succeeding.

The whole thing started with Daniel Singer, Jess Borgeson and Adam Long, the troupe founders who used to work their way, hat in hand, at Renaissance Pleasure Fairs in California, which were quite heady festivals back in the day. But they put together a show called “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) followed quickly by “The Complete History of America” and “The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged),” which surfaced at Fringe Festivals, (what a nice coincidence) and then ran for nine years at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus.

All three have done improve, movies, television, voice over and a touch of standup. “I think all the credit in the world should go to our wives, our families,” Tichinor said. “They don’t get to so see us so much when we’re on the road.”

“People laugh no matter where we go,” Martin says. “We’re fresh, irreverent, whatever, naughty, there’s nothing we don’t make fun of but it’s not, like we dis what people value. You might think in the South where people take their Bible seriously something might happen, but it really didn’t. Noah in Baton Rouge, a little.”

“It’s hard work, sure,” Tichenor says. “But we get to play in great places. We come back here (to the Kennedy Center), all of the time. People get us. Maybe a little too much. The local sports radio people talked this up on their shows and a whole bunch of people showed up one night, they booed, they yelled, they argued, it got kind of lively. We loved it.”

So how do they pick people to bring on stage?“There’s two kinds of folks—there’s people who have that pick-me, pick-me look on their face and you have to pry them offstage, or there’s people with their head down, or they get that fear look on their face. We don’t pick them.”

In this town, the Nationals, love of ‘em or don’t ever go, are the team of the national past-time, which is baseball. Which is:

“Boring,” Rippy says. “That’s the funny part. You know, every time we mention baseball, one of us faints dead away.”

“One of the things about this is that every night, everywhere is different,” Martin said. “When you add the audience participation, it’s not just the people in the audience, but all three of us get surprised every time.”

Even when there’s boos on a Michael Vick joke.

“Too soon?” one of them asks.

Baseball has been very good to them. So has Shakespeare, the United States of America, God, the Bible, Hollywood—a lampooning of 187 of the best movies of all time, sports in general and coming to a theater near you soon, maybe in December:

“Christmas,” Martin says. “We’re going to do Christmas.”

The abridged version, which means you don’t have to unwrap the presents.

(“The Reduced Shakespeare Company in “The Complete World of Sports” will be at Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater until June 24.)

Now they’re funny.

Nico Dodd •

Friday night, now-former NBC 4 sports anchor Lindsay Czarniak celebrated her farewell party with co-workers and friends at sports bar Public in Tenleytown. Local media, celebrities and close friends wined, dined and made a toast to one of D.C.’s favorite media personalities who will be joining ESPN in Connecticut.

Czarniak, 33, has worked in Washington for 6 years since moving from Florida in 2005.

During her time in Washington, Czarniak covered all the region’s professional teams. As co-host of The George Michael Sports Machine and host of Lunch with Lindsay, she became a fixture of sports broadcasting in D.C.

Georgetowner •

Meet Phineas and Ferb with Radio Disney AM 1290!

July 30, 2011

11:00 AM | FREE

Verizon FiOS TV and Disney Channel are celebrating the debut of the animated Disney Channel Original Movie “Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension.” Local area kids and families are invited to meet everyone’s favorite adventurous duo, Phineas and Ferb, along with Special Agent P, and enjoy themed activities, photo opportunities and games. The Radio Disney Road Crew will provide entertainment inviting guests to sing and dance to the latest Radio Disney hits.

Address

Fashion Center at Pentagon, Third Level Center Court

1100 South Hayes St, Arlington, Virginia 22202

Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra Small Group: Collaboration in Jazz, Featuring the Music of Ge

July 30, 2011 at 07:30 PM

Through such tunes as “Walkin’ Shoes,” “Line for Lyons” and “Apple Core,” this program celebrates historic horn duos—pairs that expanded the role of the “front line” in the small jazz group. In this setting, one horn might take an accompanying role, providing a melodic line or rhythmic figure as accompaniment to the other’s solo. The two horns might participate in a musical conversation, passing ideas back and forth. Or, in a process that is as old as jazz itself, they might solo simultaneously, improvising in counterpoint.

Address

Baird Auditorium

National Museum of Natural History

10th Street and Constitution Ave. N.W.

Art + Coffee: Luce Unplugged with Cephalopods

July 31, 2011

Free to the public

Join us today at 1:30 p.m. for a talk on William Alvin Blayney’s Mural No. GU-43752 (All Rights Reserved), selected by the musical group the Cephalopods, who will perform in the Luce Foundation Center at 2 p.m. following the talk. Cephalopods is a DC-based instrumental trio and is made up of veterans of DC’s DIY music scene, drawing on punk rock as well as folk and classical traditions from around the world.

The Luce Center has expanded Art + Coffee to bring you an exciting lineup of local musicians. Luce Unplugged, an acoustic concert series, invites emerging musicians to play after staff-led art talks.

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Meet in the F Street Lobby

8th and F Streets

Bourbon Steak: Annual “Pig Out” Patio Party

August 14, 2011 at 03:00 PM

$35 per person

Tel: 202.944.2026

It’s time once again to “Pig Out” at Bourbon Steak (2800 Pennsylvania, NW). The modern American restaurant will host its second annual pig roast event on their spacious patio Sunday, August 14 from 12 to 3 p.m. Priced at $35 per person for food, and $50 inclusive of food and drink, guests at this year’s pork-centric party will once again enjoy a 300-lb spit-roasted pig from Eco-Friendly Foods, among other show-stopping offerings from Executive Chef Adam Sobel and his team. Bourbon Steak is partnering with DC Brau, the DC-based brewing company, to provide the perfect pork-pairing beers for the event. The restaurant will also make available special non-alcoholic punches available throughout the day for all guests. In case of rain, “Pig Out” will be held on Sunday, August 28. To purchase tickets to “Pig Out”, call 202.944.2026 or visit www.bourbonsteakdc.com for reservations.

Address

Bourbon Steak

2800 Pennsylvania, NW