Extra-Ordinary Life (XOL) purports to provide "life changing experiences to teen girls in foster care environments that inspire them to DREAM BIG and ACHIEVE." One of the ways the organization inspires kids is by getting them to leave D.C.: "XOL will use travel as a vehicle to reinforce the belief that the 'world is their oyster'," the website says.

But if they're doing much, the city government isn't aware of it. Ward 6 councilman Tommy Wells, chair of the D.C. Council Committee on Human Services, tells City Desk he's never heard of XOL. Neither had several employees at the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers. That may be because the charity only kicked off in January. That would have been right around the time Turner was filming Real Housewives.

Anne Williams, spokesperson for XOL, says one has nothing to do with the other. "Extra-Ordinary Life has been in the works for quite some time [since 2009], and Stacie saw the opportunity with Real Housewives as an opportunity to leverage the personal exposure she would get from the show to help the efforts of Extra-Ordinary Life," she e-mailed City Desk.

In any event, the charity is poised to pull in beaucoup bucks, especially once tomorrow's episode airs. Williams says things are already going well. "We currently have a number of sponsors including: Cover Girl, BET Networks, Procter & Gamble, and Dell Computers." Recently, the charity sent "8 remarkable young ladies" to South Africa during the 2010 World Cup. Williams says Bravo wasn't around to film the send-off.

The Triangle posts an up-to-date Google map of where crimes took place in its downtown neighborhood so far this year. A lot of theft from autos! It's like smash-and-grab city.

Petworth News brings us up-to-date on the Upshur Street Arts Fair in mid December. You can find some history of this fair here.

And Now, Anacostia has an update on the street-car development complete with handy Google map.

New Columbia Heights wonders if there's too much parking available at the DCUSA megabox complex.

Frozen Tropics discovers that a new Five Guys opened up in the ugly-ass ATF building. How much security do you think you have to go through before you can get to the burger joint?

Pop Cesspool confesses to watching some pretty terrible TV.

Over at Brightest Young Things, Justin Moyer aka Edie Sedgwick aka Iceland pens an open letter to Thomas Hardy.

Coates has this.

*photo courtesy of Supaqool as found in our Neighborhood Flickr Page.

Starting on Wednesday, when Season 5 premieres, Hall will be competing against 16 other "cheftestants" (I did say that I sometimes hate myself for liking the show, right?) I'll be watching closely to see how far Hall goes. Will she make it all the way to the top? Or just far enough to create the kind of buzz that propelled Spike Mendelsohn into quasi-celebrity status and burger joint fame? I guess I'll be watching like everyone else to find out. 'Cause Hall can't say nothing about the show. Period. Can't even drop broad hints, like she wanted to claw Padma's eyes out after one episode.