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Morning all. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty: Everyone knows he's had a bad year. A slip on the firetruck thing, a stumble on the pool heater, and a general haughtiness that casts doubt on his image as a champion of the everyday D.C. resident.

But does all that hurt his chances for re-election next year?

Read More "Fenty Losing His Grip? Loose Lips Daily" »

OK, before getting into this huge news docket for the weekend, let me include a gratuitous slam on President's Day Weekend. It's a waste of taxpayer money, a disgrace in these lean times, a stupid holiday right in the middle of an ugly season, and it wreaks havoc on the Washington City Paper editorial deadlines. Enjoy Monday off, Rest of the World.

Big news coming out of Daytona. I mean, Kenseth is a monster.

Good feature on the front of Washington Post Metro today about an ages-old killing in Virginia, a confession, and the aftermath. I've been hearing some grumblings of late that the Metro people are having a tough time making it to A1. If so, this'd be Exhibit A in my case to the page-placement jury.

NYT has a great piece on an inquiry into corruption on part of U.S. officials in Iraq just after "Mission Accomplished." Something about big wads of money in pizza boxes and the like. Also, this guy Burris--perhaps the best approach was indeed to send him out into the rain.

WashTimes, with the unscoop that Obama administration says stimulus key to economic recovery.

Examiner's Nei-man needles Fenty for nominating two jogging buddies to posts.

This morning, some of us volunteered to pass out our special inauguration issue at various metro stops. The issue includes a great essay on what Obama's relationship with D.C. should be, a behind-the-scenes look at some of the more obscure balls, a look at how local politicos will be making the scene on Jan. 20, among all kinds of other cool stuff. You can read it all and much, much more at our special inauguration guide page.

While the links suggest that passing out papers is unnecessary, we decided to do it as a way of getting this issue directly into the hands (or mittens) of our readers. We braved the winds. We endured the cold. We waited for our papers to arrive (they were a bit late). And we suffered through an initial indifference!

We also faced serious competition from the savvy hawkers pressing the Examiner and the Express. Those guys really know how to pass out a free paper! They had special vests. They had gloves.

What did we have? We had Obama magic. It was amazing to see how many people picked up WCP with just the mention or shout of "Inauguration Guide!" Once we started shouting "Inauguration Guide" or "Special Inauguration Issue!" it felt a lot like 1997 (pre-Internet days when people liked to read).

So thank you Obama.

We left those Examiner and Express guys in the dust.

*picture of WCP logo courtesy of DCist. Ha.

In which Erik extols the unexpected joys of the Sunday Examiner and introduces a new fuego feature: the battle of the Spanish-language weeklies!

In which Erik gushes over the latest issue of Bash (a new-to-the-scene alternative-comics monthly) and takes the Examiner to task for a listings misfire.

The whole shebang, including some signature comic strip exegesis, below the jump.

Read More "Fuego/Frio: Dracula’s Testicles!" »

Ben Westhoff, a New York freelance writer and occasional contributor to City Paper's arts pages, recently signed on with the Examiner's new blogger-generated-content model, where writers proclaim themselves experts in some discipline and get paid based on pageviews. It didn't work out so well for Westhoff, who had a brief stint as a "music examiner," because, well---he was trying to get pageviews:

In the beginning I took my column pretty seriously, shouting out stories I'd written for other publications, and including some original content. It quickly became a slog. My hits were 200 or 300 a day, not terrible, but translating to pennies (or perhaps quarters) per day. Then, around the time of the Republican convention it occurred to me that the idiots who dial up Examiner don't want to read about Jamie Lidell or whatever, they want to read about Sarah fucking Palin. And so I began posting about her, every day. My hits went way up, well over 1000 for this Sarah Palin drinking game.

I was immediately told by an editor -- a different one -- that this was unacceptable, that I had to write about music only. I pushed back, noting my agreement with the first guy. But he couldn't be swayed, and since I was near a payment threshold I capitulated. I silently vowed to get over the threshold as quickly as possible, and to entertain myself in the process. And so I began to blog about nothing but Lil Wayne and boobs -- Katy Perry's, mostly -- in as absurd a manner as possible. Oh, and I still talked about Sarah Palin via ridiculous musical tie-ins. "Katy Perry and Sarah Palin to wrestle in Jello?" one was titled.

My hits stayed high, probably because nearly every post included a picture of Katy Perry with her tits hanging out, which were splashed across the site's front page next to headlines like "Katy Perry voted biggest boobs in music." (The first line of that particular post was, "By my friend Darryl"). After about a week of this they cut me off. My page is still up, but as of Saturday I can't post to it anymore. This annoyed me at first, but this morning I got paid so I'm over it.

Westhoff's post includes links to his Examiner posts, but they're all dead now.

* Seven years later, a Pentagon memorial is unveiled. [Via Washington Post]

* The Examiner asks if we're safer than we were in 2001.

* Via Politico: Republican foreign policy experts don't have much to say on Palin; Obama and McCain call a 9/11 "truce"

* In alterna-9/11 news, Busboys and Poets kicks off the "9/11 Truth Film Festival" this evening at 6 p.m.

* In case you missed it: Check out Brightest Young Things' comprehensive Large-Hadron-Collider-Will Kill-Us-All Doomsday coverage from yesterday, complete with stellar crying baby photo accompaniment. And via DCist: How to tell if the Hadron Collider has destroyed the Earth yet.

* And in this newspaper:

- Arthur Delaney on winning and losing rec centers

- Jule Banville on the long, slow investigation of an Adams Morgan hate crime

- Mike DeBonis on why Kwame Brown loves Love (and the Park at 14th)

- Dave McKenna on the Redskins' struggle to quit smoking

- And our arts & entertainment column, Show & Tell, meets its makers.

* Find your sex & gender roundup over at The Sexist.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Fuego/Frio is back from vacation with a new punch, some added zip and—just for good measure—a fresh touch of oomph.

Watch in awe as Erik assails the Washingtonian for hamhandedness, the Washington Hispanic for gun-nescience and the Washington Examiner for treading on well-trodden ground.

El Pregonero, meanwhile, gets some love for a paradigm-shifting day-laborer piece.

Plus: props to the New York Times for beating Wemple on the Brauchli story.

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