Recently, my brother started commuting by bike to and from his job in Chicago. I love my brother, but his commitment to half-assedness is breathtaking—rather than buy a helmet, he made do with his 10-year-old son’s skateboarding helmet, which he perched on top of his head Chilly Willy–style, and instead of lights he had…nothing but optimism bias. It made choosing his birthday present pretty easy.

All this is by way of saying however you feel about bike helmets, it’s considerably harder to argue that bike lights are not a good idea, especially as the days grow shorter. And today at 4:30, if you trot your lightless bike over, you can get lights for free at the plaza in front of the SunTrust on 18th Street and Columbia Road NW and at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart Church at 16th Street and Park Road NW. The giveaways are organized by WABA, which will also hold another such event a week from today at Cora Kelly Elementary School in Alexandria.

(Hat tip: TheWashCycle)

(Oh heck, DCist had this way before me, too. I am crap at service journalism. Get some lights anyway.)

Photo by adamscarroll

The Erie, a building at 2351 Champlain St. NW, just down the street from our offices, offers “light-drenched condos,” “rooftop retreats,” and parking, all of which sounds just fab.

I’m not so sure about another amenity, though, the “undulating courtyard walls soaring to 45 feet.” That sounds like something out of Poltergeist!

Maybe it’s lovely and canyonlike, but I’ll bet they don’t get a lot of Californians moving in. This is what I think of when I hear “undulating walls.”

1. LIVE BLOG: Town Hall Debate by Amanda Hess

2. Virginia Obama Supporters Accused Of Racism by Brian Reed

3. Dispatches From Capitol Hill’s “Car-B-Cue Alley” by Rend Smith

4. Graham: Ellwood Thompson’s to DCUSA by Mike DeBonis

5. Palin Ignites Hate Speech At Rally by Jason Cherkis

6. Fired Fenty Aide Strikes Back in E-Mail by Mike DeBonis

7. Undecided? Stay Home in November by Mike Riggs

8. Did McCain Campaign Register www.voteforthemilf.com? by Mike Riggs

9. Creative Loafing Bankruptcy Enters “Day 2″ by Andrew Beaujon

10. We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Morning Roundup by Amanda Hess

Photo by Flickr user kimberlyfaye

Perly’s Restaurant on Grace Street in Richmond, Va., has great breakfast. And even though I’m not a Democrat, about the best thing I could ever say about the Virginia GOP is that it has its office next to a great breakfast spot. The Republican party of Virginia is, and always has been, a welcoming home to a particularly impressive strain of stupid a-hole. Like up-and-comer Del. Jeff Frederick, who recently earned himself a chorus of “hell yeahs!” from his fellow dipshits by comparing Obama to—wait for it—Osama bin Laden! Because they “both have friends who’ve bombed the Pentagon.”

(Following that logic, Frederick, whose GXS Strategies has done work for Paul Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation, has friends who think the Jews killed Jesus. Nice friends, Jeff!)

Today there’s a bit of bloggy outrage about the Va. GOP flyer reproduced above, which does indeed depict a dark-skinned man as the face of terror. That man appears to be bin Laden—you know, Obama’s bud—at least according to TPM. (I’d have guessed Gadaffi.)

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So there I was today, trying to have a civil conversation with Ruth Samuelson about her City Paper-branded lip balm, and there she was, waving the tube in my face, saying “Want some? You want some? Ooooooh” and snapping it away from me just as I flailed at it with my girly wrists. Not a high point. But I know what you’re thinking: City Paper lip balm? After the pens, the magnets, the hats, there’s lip balm, too?

Sadly, no. Marketing Director Jacqueline Law denies all knowledge of the lip balm. Our publisher, Amy Austin, told me she was pretty sure Kim Dorn, our former events and promotions manager, had it made in limited quantities for some “lip-balm-related event.” I e-mailed Dorn, and even though she’s in San Francisco, where the air is so magic that people can hear e-mails just like phone callsNew Orleans, she hasn’t gotten back to me. (@1713, she did; see UPDATE below)

Like heat or natural light, lip balm never made its way down to the editorial floor, except to Samuelson, who snagged hers upstairs. It’s kind of the Bigfoot of City Paper promotional items. E.g.,

UPDATE: Kim Dorn e-mails from New Orleans–not S.F., thanks for the bum steer, Hutto!–and says “I assume [the lip balm was for] a matches party, but I’m not sure…I do remember one of our promotional peddlers sent me free sample of CP lip balm and I was hooked, but I can’t remember if I ordered more, or just used the freebies.”

The Stranger’s Brendan Kiley offers 10 suggestions. No. 7? “Build bars.”

Photo by Flickr user A Clear Blue Sky

Last Monday, Creative Loafing, the company that owns Washington City Paper and five other papers, announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At the time, Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason said, Chapter 11 was a “natural place for the Company to go to accomplish an orderly reorganization of our finances.”

This move was occasioned by a dispute between Creative Loafing and its biggest creditor, New York- and Atlanta-based Atalaya Capital Management, which loaned Creative Loafing Inc. (CLI) $30 million to purchase City Paper and the Chicago Reader last year and to pay down $15 million in debt that CLI already held. (CLI also borrowed $10 million from BIA Digital Partners in Chantilly, Va., when making the purchase.)

As collateral, Eason pledged his voting shares (he owns 100 percent of the company’s class A stock).

Yesterday, as Atlanta Magazine’s Steve Fennessy first reported, Atalaya filed an objection to CLI’s “emergency motion” for a temporary restraining order, claiming that Eason’s stock was owned by him alone, not the company, and as such was outside the scope of CL’s bankruptcy. Further, Atalaya contested CLI’s assertion that Eason “provides the vision and direction for the Debtors’ viewpoints of various issues, including social, political and cultural, that are occurring in each of the Debtors’ communities.”

Yesterday, Judge Caryl Delano of Tampa, Fla., where the case is in motion, disagreed with Atalaya.

Had the company been successful, it would have been able to essentially take over Creative Loafing. “It was a legal maneuver they were doing to get more control,” says Eason, speaking from his office in Tampa.

“When we filed the bankruptcy,” he says, “there was a concern that Atalaya or BIA might use the collateral as a part of the bankruptcy to come in the backdoor and use the shares to basically foreclose on the shares and function as the board of directors.”

Atalaya says Eason is not the “only employee or officer of the Debtors capable of managing the business” and that CLI hasn’t “suggested that Mr. Eason will contribute anything in the way of credit, money, or property to fund any proposed plan. Mr. Eason will contribute only his time and energies for which the Debtors have proposed that he continue to receive a significant salary and potential bonus.”

In one particularly memorable section of the filing, Atalaya gives examples of companies in Chapter 11 whose sole proprietor was “the only person who can run the business”: one was the only physician at his chiropractic clinic; another was “the only person with trade secret knowledge of how to process codfish in the Caribbean.” (Note: I am now desperately trying to work the phrase “it’s hardly processing codfish in the Caribbean” into my everyday speech.)

Eason calls this “a bit of an aggressive move.” He characterizes the first 10 days of the bankruptcy, as “Day 1″ hearings, when the court unfreezes the company’s assets one by one—its ability to use its bank account, its ability to pay employees, freelancers, vendors, etc. He characterizes these hearings as “Can we turn the lights back on?

Yesterday’s ruling was part of what Eason calls “Day 2 proceedings.” He says CLI now has “a total timeout for 110 days,” during which time CLI management will get a reorganization plan together. “Essentially…the initial set up is done,” he says.

UPDATE (FRIDAY, OCT. 10; 6:15 P.M.): Via Tyler Brown, an attorney for Atalaya, this statement.

Atalaya Administrative, LLC, (”Atalaya”) is the agent for the lenders who hold the senior secured loan outstanding to Creative Loafing, Inc. (”CLI”) and its affiliates, which are debtors in chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Tampa, Florida.  Atalaya is owed in excess of $30 million by CLI.

Atalaya believes that the bankruptcy filing was unfortunate and unnecessary. It is very important that management of CLI continue to operate the business in the ordinary course and that the bankruptcy have as little negative impact on CLI’s operations, employees, customers and vendors as is possible. Atalaya wants the business to succeed and, despite whatever court actions may be required to protect Atalaya’s interests, wants to assure all interested parties that Atalaya has no intention of attempting to shut down the business. Atalaya believes that the business can succeed with the right management and business plan in place.

You know how in pretty much every Will Smith movie there’s an early scene where he and his beautiful family get ready for the day, and they’re in their beautiful kitchen cracking jokes and grabbing juice and ignoring the radio, on which an announcer is droning on about all sorts of ominous developments in the world?

Except for the beautiful kitchen part, my morning routine of late has become much like a Will Smith movie. Because, geez, the stock market. And the Redskins are winning. And people are eating cats!

But you know, in every downturn (or calamity) there are people who figure out how to make money off of the sadness of others. These people are generally feted when times improve. So here’s a tip for you would-be bloodsuckers out there: Iceland.

The country’s currency, the krona, is worth almost half of what it was a year ago. That means that you can stay at a three-star or better hotel in the heart of Reykjavik for about $110/night. The “Icelandic fish menu” at celebrated restaurant Laekjarbrekku will run you about $55/person. And entrance fees at the Blue Lagoon spa are now a very reasonable $19.77 (might as well rent a robe for $7.70 more). Remember what it used to be like to go to Canada? This may be your last chance to feel that giddy for a while overseas.

Plus, forget about the baggage that comes with scooping up “distressed” properties: Iceland really needs you to come! Plus the knitwear is really nice; you should totally get some of that when you’re there. Just not a sweater if you’re a guy (cautionary tale here) unless you have an Amish beard, a Turbonegro tattoo, and a healthy gut. Then you can get away with it.

Photo by Flickr user JAANY

*Not literally; projected high tomorrow is 48 degrees

1. City Paper Owner Files for Bankruptcy by Erik Wemple

2. Did McCain Campaign Register www.voteforthemilf.com? by Mike Riggs

3. The Sexist’s Vice Presidential Debate Drinking Game by Amanda Hess (The Sexist)

4. Fired Fenty Aide Strikes Back in E-Mail by Mike DeBonis

5. NOW: Live Blogging the Vice Presidential Debate by Amanda Hess (The Sexist)

6. Fun With Bankruptcy, Nunc Pro Tunc and an $185,000 Retainer by Angela Valdez

7. Vice Presidential Debate Live Blog by Amanda Hess (The Sexist)

8. Nude Co-Workers: Disturbing? by Amanda Hess (The Sexist)

9. D.C. Jail on Lockdown; Secret Terror Document No Longer Googleable by Arthur Delaney

10. Michael Phelps, Michael Phelps (A Restaurant Week Blog Item) by Jule Banville

Photo from Flickr user rockcreek

Restaurant Rater ChrissyRenee had a terrible time at Bar Louie.

I was there on a date with a friend. The drinks were horrible. I ordered a mojito and it had way to much alcohol in it. I ordered about 5 more drinks and they were digusting. I will never eat there again. The food had no taste to it. The only thing good about that place was our waitress and the fact that they had the football games on, but I would never recommend this place to anyone. Please save your money and go elsewhere this place is diffently not worth it at all.

Have you had as exciting an experience lately? Tell us about it.

Starbucks is going grammar-forward. How else to explain its promotion of the adjectives warm and delicious to nouns? The last time this happened to warm, Neil Diamond was writing slightly creepy lyrics about Caroline Kennedy.

Now, your average grammar geezer would say something in a high, annoying, contestant-on-Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me voice like “A toasty warm WHAT? A savory delicious WHAT?” But I don’t think one noun-deficient ad is anything to get Carl Kassel all worked up about. In fact, you could really liven up your Friday by unclenching and giving this language a try. E.g., “For lunch, I would like to get a tasty saucy and spicy cheap”=”I think I’ll try something at that food fair on Euclid and Champlain today.”

I have tried to get in touch with Starbucks about this sudden leap forward in the English language, but all I’ve gotten is one rather vague e-mail from a contract publicist on Tuesday asking me to clarify what ad I’m referring to. I did, and that was that.

Which is too bad, because the back of the card raises another question (besides, you know, what the hell is a piadini). Are breakfast sandwiches not going away? In fact, they are not.

Should I be flattered that Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association, took time to read Tim Carman’s piece on bagels and then left a thoughtful comment about it?

Why no, because Carman’s piece barely touches on high-fructose corn syrup. Closest he comes is quoting someone else saying bagel quality has declined since many bagelries went to “cheaper (and sweeter) agents like sugar or high-fructose corn syrup” instead of malt syrup.

He doesn’t talk about the way that nasty crap is turning children into blobs or how rogue outfits like the Mayo Clinic encourage you to avoid it. But just to be safe, Erickson, who assures us she’s not a robot by admitting HFCS “may have a complicated-sounding name,” tells us we can learn more about the “misunderstandings” about HFCS at sweetsurprise.com.

Or you could just eat food that doesn’t have HFCS in it, like Carman’s bagels, which may have been baked in lies but were really, really good. Best I’ve had since I left New York (if I find out La Bagel Delight uses HFCS, I will slit my wrists).

Please give a big welcome to the Beerspotter, aka Orr Shtuhl, whose new weekly column spotlights interesting brews he’s found around town. Shtuhl’s written a couple pieces in this space, and he knocked out a fine Young & Hungry once. He’s really interested in music, specifically lyrics, which he writes about on a blog called Wordsworth, and beer. If you see an interesting beer, drop him a line.

Photograph by Darrow Montgomery