Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what's going on in local Internet discussion groups.

CherrydaleCitizens
A homeless man is spotted on Arlington's N. 16th Street rooting through trash bins. Anybody want to overreact to this one? OK—John: “We probably don't need to remind folks that the majority of homeless are mentally ill and/or have various addictions,” he writes. “Hopefully the County can be forced to deal with this problem before a child is abducted or someone is assaulted—or before the problem starts to affect property values.” On high alert—though not high enough to second John's proposal on banning shopping carts from public spaces—is another resident who reports that golf clubs and a power saw have gone missing from her unlocked garage. This grim affair causes William to reminisce about Arlington's bad old days. “I agree that Cherrydale seems a bit less safe,” he writes, “though we had plenty of troubles with an Irish-American family of criminals thirty years ago.” To which a woman bearing the name O'Rourke replies, “I know what ‘cha mean about tem tieving Irish. Anytime I take myself to a family reunion, I got to keep my hand on my wallet! Tis hard ‘cause I need at least one hand for the drink.…sometimes two!”

columbia_heights
“Jon is fucking cracker asshole,” writes batboy8686, who notes that if he and Jon should ever meet on the street, Jon “better be prepared to do more than run.” Sara expresses her own distaste for Jon. “You sad little coward,” she writes. “I was raised in a nice, white, rich, suburb. But apparently I was raised better than to cast aspursions on an entire group of people.” Michelle takes the torch and flings it back at Sara. “What are you on??? I mean, seriously, what are you on when you get up in the AM, get dressed, go to work and then spout out some bs like you just did in this email???” And Jon himself finally enters the fray, defending his post on how a black mother he saw “smoking a joint in broad daylight” has doomed her kid to “no chance in life.” “[I]f the cracker assholes and yuppies didn't move in to your neighborhood it would be the same ghetto it has been for the last 30 years,” he writes. “Who do you think is footing the bill for all of the free lunches?”

Brightwood_DC
Arlene is concerned with diversity—specifically, how it's making her gag. “I am writing to you about the group home at 1419 Van Buren Street, NW.…I regularly witness the residents (retarded women) emptying garbage unsupervised,” she writes in an open letter Ward 3 Councilmember Adrian Fenty. “Councilman Fenty, this group home needs at least 2 more super cans. There are approximately 10 women living in that house and a good number of them wear diapers. I know this because these diapers have been among the garbage that been in my yard, when super cans are not properly secured.” Two hours and 27 minutes later, Fenty posts a response, promising to look into it. “Thank you for this information,” he writes.

At the P Street NW Whole Foods, wedged between circa-$10 relatives from the Belgian white and Maibock families, you'll find a display touting a “quenching, unpretentious nectar” that's a “local throwback to be proud of.”

Wait—Foggy Bottom's back?

Nope. Those words hawk $4.99 sixers of National Bohemian, Baltimore's contribution to the ranks of all-but-dead macrobrews. Of course, if it were canned, like all the other Natty Boh in D.C., shoppers might just think it suitable only for fueling a 20-second belch on an ex-girlfriend's voice mail.

But it's not canned—it's in glass—and that's the stroke of brilliance on the part of Whole Foods beer specialist Noah Watkins, who wrote the description. The 23-year-old spent six months persuading a distributor to transport bottles of the brew from the Land of Pleasant Living (since relocated to Wilkes-Barre, Pa.) to the Land of Quirky Interior Design Shops. “It's a simple beer…and it needs to be enjoyed out of the bottle,” he says.

The first shipment finally arrived in March, and Watkins says he sold 12 cases during last week alone. “As far as I know,” he says, “we're the only store that sells it, because [the distributor is] up my ass to keep on ordering more, because they got a pallet of it just for us.”

His distributor, Premium Distributors of Washington, backs up that claim—and the intended upscale audience. “[Pabst Blue Ribbon] was the hot beer about a year or two ago. It's lost a little bit of its steam, but we see Natty Boh picking it up,” says Premium's business development manager, Jessica Muskey.

“It's funny. They have disposable income, but they're drinking pretty [honest description removed] beer,” she says, right before asking that a belittling adjective not be quoted. “I can't be calling my products cheap.”

Photograph by Pete Morelewicz

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what's going on in local Internet discussion groups.

CherrydaleCitizens
No amount of neighborhood-pride parades or new developments named “Bromptons” can undo the damage done this week to North Arlington's quaint façade. “Believe it or not, when driving back to work on Lee Highway after my exterminator appointment today, I saw a rat jump/fall out of a dump truck and run up the road, in front of Cherrydale Motors,” says one woman. And a man writes in to say he's spotted larger unwanted animals in Cherry Valley Park: A homeless guy is living in the woods. “The police have been notified,” the man reports. “Those guys get all the good camping spots,” says a follow-up poster.

metromusicscene
Local band Los Pimpos gives a bitch slap to the status quo by putting out a call for new vocalist and lead guitarist. “After a solid 2 year run Los Pimpos is ready to reinvent itself in 2006,” writes frederick_house, who is presumably a member of the “Jamiroquai, DMB, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Sublime, 2 Skinnee J's, Outkast, Steely Dan and Phish"–influenced group. But not just anybody is welcome to step up with the Illin’ Ones at their gigs at Zigs and Baltimore's Hard Rock Cafe. Quality Number 4 in the Pimpos handbook for auditioners mandates that “You drink 40s on stage and start every show by pouring one out for your homies (not to be confused with ‘pulling one out’ for your homies…that's just gay).” Gay like homosexual, not gay like the band's song “KY (In Ya’ Brown Eye),” given text but sadly no sound on the Pimpos’ delicious Web site: “So have another drink we'll laugh ‘til we're delirious/I'll be the hamster, you be Richard Geerious” and “I'm like a storm tropper when I'm heading for your pooper.”

Ward7
There's a proper way to handle public urinations. Conveying emotion too strong for the confines of proper capitalization, Hillcrest resident Paul Savage unleashes on a group of people who piddled in front of his house. “THIS IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE TO US! IT APPEARS TO US THAT DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA GOVERNEMT OFFICIALS STARTING WITH DPR DIRECTOR KIMBERLEY FLOWERS SEEM TO GO OUT OF THEIR WAY TO INSULT LAW ABIDING CITIZENS IN HILLCREST AND ANC7B IN WARD 7!” That spurred poster Trish to offer a neat solution to future defacers of Savageland. “I once caught a man doing that near the corner store,” writes Trish. “I then loudly called him out and suggested that he do that against his mother's house. He quickly stopped, zipped up and walked swiftly away.”

3DSubstation
And then there are improper ways to handle public pissers, as this crime report makes clear: “An assault occurred on the 3500 blk of 13th St Nw at approximately 3:13 pm. Complainant reports that he told an unknown suspect not to urinate behind his apartment suspect became angry and pulled out a hatchet from under his shirt. Suspect chased complainant. There were no injuries to complainant and suspect was placed under arrest. Case closed with the arrest of Wilbert Jackson.”

What’s going on in local Internet discussion groups

3DSubstation
The Christian maxim “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is still alive in Mount Pleasant. On Sunday March 26, two cranks on Walbridge Place NW got into an argument about “religious beliefs,” according to a police report, which identifies them as Complainant 1 (C1) and Suspect 1 (S1). “S1 THEN GRABBED A TENNIS RACKET AND BEGAN TO HIT C1 OVER THE HEAD. S1 THEN GRABBED A 2x4 AND BEGAN TO STRIKE AT C1’S HANDS. S1 WAS PLACED UNDER [ARREST.]”

MPD-4D
Don’t wear these shoes: A crime report reveals that a teenager leaving a Brightwood dollar store last Tuesday was trailed by five ne’er-do-wells who asked him “How much did your shoes cost?” and “Can I wear them?” A member of the group then tackled the teen and, presumably, is wearing those shoes today.

What’s going on in local Internet discussion groups

MPD-1D
“How big a problem is this kind of behavior becoming?” writes longtime Barney Circle activist Jim Myers, referring to an incident this Sunday in which a PCP-crazed man unloaded a few rounds into the sky and a neighborhood car. Myers wants to know if this type of activity is the way druggies get off nowadays. “I had come to associate people running around half naked with PCP (or ‘dip’), but this gun issue is beginning to sound scary.”

brookland_kids
Terror rules the streets in the wake of gunfire and sightings of shady youngsters at Taft Recreation Center. One mother voices her determination not to let urban warfare shake her from her walking routine: “I go walking a lot around the neighborhood with my son and it seems like at least once a week, I find myself in a situation that causes me to be a bit uncomfortable. I am talking about someone walking up the street towards me, and something in their manner that makes me hesitate a bit and put on my mama bear persona (protect my little cub!).” What keeps her motivated is “defiance mostly,” but perhaps, she adds, when other mothers see her traversing Brookland’s Sidewalks of Death, they’ll feel inclined at some point in the future to come outside, too.

cleveland-park
D.C.’s most venerable listserv continues to deal with its neighborhood’s many troubling issues. “Does anyone know who the female dog walker is who lets 4 dogs run loose every day on Ordway Street along the 2700 block?” writes a traumatized resident. “There is a big golden retriever among them that runs and jumps on strangers.” For all those people who endured lumbar punctures, you wasted your time. “I got a call from the Department of Health today; the rabies test on the raccoon found in my yard mid-March was negative,” writes another resident. A third resident is pretty sure she has moles in her yard. “I know they’re not all bad, but I’m wondering what advice people have to get rid of them.”