Michael Wayne Edwards, Jr. , who was originally arrested on charges of a July 15 squirting incident, and then confessed to three more squirting offenses at the same Gaithersburg Giant, was sentenced Thursday to a three-year probation period. (Lawyers dropped the other three squirting charges as part of the plea bargain.)

Edwards received national attention last August (including from us) when details of his squirting campaign became public. Edwards filled a small squirt bottle (like the ones normally used for hand sanitizer) with semen, snuck up behind women in the grocery store, and sprayed them. Sometimes he took pictures of his accomplishments with his cell phone.

At the sentencing, one of Edwards’ victims spoke, saying “this was a traumatic event for me.”

As for Edwards, he says he’s ashamed for his actions, according to The Washington Post. “It’s a shameful act,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

Judge Stephen P. Johnson, who decided on the probation, said his main goal was to ensure Edwards never did anything like this again and cautioned Edwards to shape up. He also issued two years of “back-up” time to be served if Edwards gets in trouble again.

If Edwards shows up before the court any more, Johnson warned, “we will have an entirely different conversation.”

In addition to the incident on July 15 at the Giant grocery store, police also discovered an attack at Michaels last November. Now there are three additional cases at the same Giant on July 2 and 8, according to the Washington Post. Now we're starting to wonder how many women are clueless and wandering the streets in closes covered in squirted semen. Wait, don't answer that.

Michael Wayne Edwards Jr. has been charged in the first cases and turned himself in today on the latest three charges.

In cased you missed the drama last week: Edwards is accused of sneaking up behind unsuspecting women and using a small bottle (like one used for hand sanitizer) to spray them with semen. In at least a couple cases he was so proud of himself he thought it would be wise to take cell phone photos of his work, probably to help him produce more attack juices for later.

If you can believe it, there could be more victims out there. Victims should call 301-258-6400.

Though cringe moments, I have enjoyed
Real Housewives just left me annoyed
They're filled with self-loathing
Have got way too much clothing
Their heads? Just a huge gaping void

Vince Gray's full of vigor and vim
(Or that's what he says with his trim)
The man with new glasses
Says Fenty half-asses
When jobs in this city are slim

They ranged from type II diabetic
To needing some real anesthetic
But even a cynic
Observing this clinic
Would deem these guys nearly prophetic

I'll finish this rhyme with a quiz:
This guy stood outside of what biz?
But wait, it's a trick
Two stores? What a prick!
For covering shoppers with jizz

Not even crafters are immune to semen-spray attacks

The now infamous Gaithersburg grocery store Semen Sprayer has been pegged in another attack. This time he allegedly squirted semen on a lady at Michaels craft store in Gaithersburg. Not even the innocent knitters are safe from semen attacks! And there could be more victims out there, police say. We can't wait to hear what other types of women this suspect felt the need to spray without their permission.

Michael Wayne Edwards Jr., 28, has been charged in the two attacks.

Some more details about the attack at the Giant grocery store:

• How did semen get on these poor ladies, you ask? Well apparently he had a small bottle like those used for hand sanitizer.
• He thought his little attack was so funny/sexy/clever that he decided to snap a cell phone picture after he did it. Advice: Don't keep evidence of your crime. Just stupid.
• When the woman noticed the sticky substance on her back, she turned around to find the suspect behind her. When she asked him if he had also been hit by some unknown liquid, he played dumb.

Police are confident there are two more ladies who have this man's semen on their clothes/neck/hair. How can you figure out if you were one of them? WaPo spoke to Officer Dan Lane who helps you out:

Gaithersburg police ask anyone who may have noticed an unusual substance on their clothes but wrote it off as benign to call them at 301-258-6400. "No one would ever think that someone would do this," said Officer Dan Lane.

Well, Officer Lane, that depends on who you are talking to. It's a crazy world out there. And one quick question: Have we confirmed this is his own semen? If not, this story got a whole lot creepier.

Photo by AlishaV, via Flickr.

We all have our groc'ry routines
And times when our rice just needs beans
If Giant is trouble
Your options soon double
When Target adds fresh leafy greens

If Metro is not how you travel
You know nearby "streets" are just gravel
To lighten your moods
The street work concludes
Before we are all start to unravel

The verdict came down on their side
The three guys aren't guilty as tried
But where their luck faltered:
It's likely Price altered
The knife on the night that Wone died

Reluctant at first, but not now
M.Rhee sent a shot 'cross the bow
If Gray beats Hizzoner
Then she is a goner
Not staying? No way and no how.

And another point of consensus: The M Street Safeway is better than no grocery at all, which is what Southwesterners are bracing for this spring. During about two weeks in April, the company plans to close down the existing store while it puts the finishing touches on a brand new Safeway, set to open April 16 as part of a redevelopment of the same parcel.

A two-week closure might not be a big deal in neighborhoods with abundant shopping options, but it’s going to be a hardship for waterfront residents, says David C. Sobelsohn, secretary of the 6D Advisory Neighborhood Commission.

“This Safeway is not only the largest retailer in Southwest; it’s our only source of food. For many people without cars, there is really no other option,” Sobelsohn says. “We are looking for assurances that Safeway will do what it takes to make sure people in this neighborhood have access to food.”

The old store is slated to close on April 4. The new one will open on April 16, according to Craig M. Muckle, spokesman for Safeway’s Eastern Division.

Among those concerned is Tserha Gebreamlak, 41, who moved into the neighborhood a decade ago, partly because of the supermarket a few blocks from her apartment. She suffers from a chronic syndrome that often leaves her exhausted, so she tends to shop two or three times a week to cut down on number of items she has to lug at any one time.

“I moved here depending on Safeway,” she says. “Now I may have to take a train to Harris Teeter,” on Capitol Hill, near the Potomac Ave. Metro station.

Safeway also has another store near Kentucky Avenue SE. But both of those supermarkets are located on the other side of the Southeast Freeway, more than a mile away. That leaves a 7-Eleven, a few variety stores, and not much else by way of shopping options.

Sobelsohn and other residents would like the store to remain open and wonder whether Safeway executives are just trying to save a few bucks with the temporary shutdown.

But Muckle says the company needs the time to move existing equipment into the new store located directly behind the old store and demolish the old building. Besides, Muckle says, Safeway has already gone out of its way to keep its doors open during construction.

“This isn’t about creating a hardship. We want to do what’s right for the community,” says Muckle, pointing out that things could be much worse: Safeway’s Georgetown store has been closed for renovations for about a year now.

But those two neighborhoods make for a lopsided comparison. For starters, Georgetown is one of the city’s wealthier neighborhoods, while the area around the Safeway is still one of the District’s poorer sections despite new construction in recent years. Not only is there a Whole Foods Market a few blocks from the closed Safeway on Wisconsin Avenue NW, Georgetown residents are more mobile. According to 2000 Census figures, the most recent available, 83 percent of households in the Georgetown, Burleith, Hilldale area of the city owned cars, compared to 60 percent of households in the Southwest-Waterfront section of Ward 6.

“Southwest is an older, established neighborhood. It’s mostly seniors and may don’t drive,” says Clarence Brown, executive director of the District’s Office on Aging, who also happens to live next door to the Safeway. “Ten days, I can live with that. I go to Harris Teeter,” he says, “but it will be a concern for a lot of people.” (Safeway originally estimated a 10-day closure but revised that yesterday to12 days.)

“I’m still driving,” says Sandra Butler-Truesdale, 70, the secretary of the residents’ association of St. James Mutual coop building, on O Street SW. “I’m just concerned to know what those seniors will do and what plans are being made” to help them get to the supermarket during the closure.

Neighborhood residents have been pushing Safeway officials to discuss their plans to make sure no one goes hungry during to the 12-day closure. Shuttle bus service to another grocery store, moving a small retail operation into a temporary trailer on the property, or offering free delivery service are among the ideas buzzing around the neighborhood.

Muckle says Safeway officials are working on alternative "shopping opportunities” but declined to go into detail about what they might be.

“We are working on those and will have something in place by the ANC meeting in March,” Muckle says.

That’s not much comfort for Gebreamlak, who says she could probably cope for a couple of weeks but “it would be nice if I knew in advance, so I can make a plan.”

Anger over the closure just adds to resentment Southwest residents feel about the way they say the store has been run over the years, concerns that prompted the ANC to launch a special task force to work with store management to improve cleanliness, security and a litany of other issues.

“Items advertised on sale are so often out of stock that I have begun to think ‘on sale’ is a euphemism for ‘out of stock’ at that store,” Sobelsohn says.

Anger boiled last September at a community meeting to discuss Safeway’s application to sell beer and wine at the new store. Hundreds of residents packed the meeting and bombarded Safeway district managers with complaints, recalls Robert Sockwell, chair of the SW Safeway Taskforce. [CLARIFICATION:  Sockwell emailed to say the meeting was called to discuss the problems at the store but the liquor license was also discussed.]

“The meeting probably never would have ended if we hadn’t cut off the questions,” says Sockwell, who also chaired the September meeting.

Susan Henriques-Payne has lived across the street from the store for 31 years but, like Brown, hasn’t shopped there in ages. only shops there on "an as needed basis." Instead, she makes road trips to Virginia to buy her groceries. She’s looking forward to the prospect of shopping closer to home once the new store opens, but her expectations are low.

“It’s a culture of mediocrity,” she says. “They really aren’t customer focused.”

“I know we have to regain some credibility with the community,” Muckle says. “But this is in no way an attempt to place some hardship on them. We see the new store as an opportunity to turn the page completely.”

The District of Columbia is about a month away from having to pay five cents a pop for its plastic bags, and some details are yet to be worked out.

Such as: What about the self-checkout facilities increasingly populating city supermarkets—how are they going to work with the bag fee? After all, there's no human to control the bagging process there. Who's to stop some earth-hating customer from triple bagging his junk and absconding with 45 cents worth of free polyethylene?

Human oversight? Defeats the point of self-checkout. Honor system? Would certainly be dishonored. Complicated technological contraption? That would be complicated.

City Desk phoned the two largest operators of self-checkout facilities in the District—Safeway and Giant. Neither, according to their respective spokespersons, have yet figured out how to implement the bag fee at self-checkouts.

Safeway spokesperson Craig Muckle describes a behind-the-scenes Manhattan Project-like effort at his employer. Corporate executives have had several meetings on the matter, he says, and are close to working out a solution.

Though Muckle says he's been in on the talks, he declines any of the possibilities in detail—though he does mention that a solution icould pontentially involve human employees who are currently tasked with overseeing the self-checkout stands at Safeway stores.

Same goes for Giant. That dominant local grocer is also undecided on a solution to the self-checkout quandary, spokesperson Kim Brown says: "We are working on a couple of different options, but we'll definitely have a system in place."

Brown, too, declines to details what those options might be. But she gives some parameters: "We're hoping that it's going to be simple for customers to use and easy for us to track."

Read: They have no idea! PANIC!

Click image to enlarge

If you pick up a paper copy of Washington City Paper this morning, you may experience a sensory flashback to 2006, when our issues averaged 160 pages and always weighed this much. However, it's just that our fall arts guide is stuck inside! Don't panic! The newspaper business still sucks! This year's guide has listings and content up the wazoo, including critics' picks and a feature that purports to tell local bloggers such as Morgan Hungerford and Matthew Yglesias just what they should do with their entertainment dollars this autumn. Also in this piece: bear joke. It looks great in print. Pick one up!

As Mike Watt would say, I feel like spielin' this morning. If you don't have the time, DO NOT CLICK MORE.

Rain! That stuff is wet! If you haven't left the house yet, pack a hat, or better yet: an umbrella!

Tonight, Virginia gubernatorial candidates square off in a debate that will focus on business. Washington Post helpfully points out that unions are shoveling money toward Creigh Deeds, which in Virginia should go over as well as another Ben "Cooter" Jones campaign. For sure, the race has tightened since Thesiscaca™, but it's hard to see Deeds pulling this one out. My buddy Norm points out this is a poll of registered voters and probably an "outlier," but then again he thinks the tea-party protests were a wake-up call to fancy-pants Republicans such as himself. I don't buy that—who is going to herd the nutballs into a majority? Mitt?

Also can I get a what-what for Anita Kumar, who is covering the bejesus out of this race?

• Has anyone else noticed that Giant is a lot cheaper lately? This major newspaper has. Can I get a what-what for lower prices?

• BIKE COMMUTING CORNER: After my helmet, your second-most important accessory is gloves. Buy yourself a quality pair! Sure, they're great for protecting your hands should you fall, but they also dampen the vibrations that lead to hand numbness. Velo Orange is contemplating a fussy pair for fancy-pants people such as Norm, but I have had tremendous luck with these gloves, which I got on sale for $4.95 and which have come through two summers beautifully. Look for extra material around the thumb.

• ITEM! Christmas will soon rock for the color-blind. Demby, I got you on this one, man!

It's 10 a.m.! I'm out of time! E-mail me for more riffs or follow me on Twitter!

The Issue

Go Away, Giant!: Some residents have raised standard NIMBY concerns ranging from parking and traffic to noise and even the glare of a new neon Giant sign at night. The Wisconsin Newark Neighborhood Coalition has filed suit appealing the Zoning Commission's decision, with resident Ann Hamilton and others arguing that the commission doesn't have the authority to green-light a project that conflicts in scale with the current zoning designation, as they say the Giant one does.

Build the Giant, Already!: Pro-Giant residents say the project will revitalize an area that badly needs it, and that opponents are being obstructionist. Jeff Davis of the group Advocates of Wisconsin Avenue Renewal broke the news of the appeal to the listserv on Friday, writing: "I am disappointed that a small group of neighbors chose to delay a project that so many of us in the neighborhood support and to frustrate our efforts to put that divisive issue behind us."

Added resident Anjana: "Whatever happened to democracy and the voice of the majority? How can few that are in the minority decide to block what everyone else wants? Where is justice? Are we living in a third world country? I moved to this country because I thought every voice is heard but majority rules! There should be laws to throw this ridiculous/frivolous opposition overboard."

Next Step: Work at the Friendship Shopping Center site will now be delayed – again. Sharon Robinson, a consultant to the project, said the appeal, while not unexpected, "is subject to a judicial process that will likely take two years or more to complete." But Giant doesn't have plans to back down; it "remains committed to the project."

With the lamented demise of Screen on the Green, the 2009 National Theatre Summer Cinema series is one of the few free film events left in D.C. This year's series honors philanthropist/diamond-, husband-, and Oscar-collector (Butterfield 8, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) Elizabeth Taylor.

The series–"Who's Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor?"–kicks off June 22 with Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, the 1958 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play about the family dynamics between an ailing southern patriarch (Burl Ives), his alcoholic, limp-mannered son (Paul Newman) and his attention-starved daughter-in-law (Taylor). All films are screened Mondays at 6:30 p.m., in the Helen Hayes Gallery of the National Theatre. Tickets will be distributed 30 minutes before show time, first-come, first served. Full schedule after the jump.

June 22

• Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958), starring Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives; directed by Richard Brooks.

June 29

• National Velvet (1944), starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Angela Lansbury; directed by Clarence Brown.

July 13

• BUtterfield 8 (1960), starring Elizabeth Taylor, Lawrence Harvey, Eddie Fisher; directed by Daniel Mann.

July 20

• Giant (1956), starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Dennis Hopper; directed by George Stevens.

July 27

• A Place in the Sun (1951), starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters; directed by George Stevens.

August 3

• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis; directed by Mike Nichols.

Photo: Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

For a project 10 years in the making and still not even close to breaking ground, the new mixed-use Giant grocery project on Wisconsin Avenue can really pack 'em in. About 70 people showed up last night to a standing-room-only meeting inside a hot and airless room at the Police 2D headquarters on Idaho Avenue NW.

Outside, one guy handed out stickers—"Build the Giant Now. Approve the PUD"—and found takers with more than half. Just what is a PUD? It's a zoning term for "Planned Unit Development," which is what the new giant Giant, the new retail stores, the new condos, and the new parking spaces will be. It's akin to a variance developers need to get past the city's zoning laws and regs, which are particularly sticky in greater Cleveland Park. And therein lies the blockage on this project, although the District Office of Planning seems finally ready to get out the Drano.

In response to a few vocal critics, Jennifer Steingasser, assistant director of the Office of Planning, told the crowd: "We are supportive of the redevelopment of the site. I'm not backing down from that."

Her office has decided that the project fits the double-negative requirement for approval: "It's not inconsistent with the comprehensive plan" for the neighborhood, she said, describing the area in question as "very much a combination." In other words: upper Wisconsin Avenue is not exactly bucolic, closed-off Ordway Street with its Norman Rockwell porches, so get over it.

Although those leading the meeting tried to keep it focused on the process and the Office of Planning's part in that, it quickly and typically became a referendum on the merits of the project itself. One guy likened it to "having a Wal-Mart in my neighborhood." Another, sitting next to me and clicking his dentures incessantly, wanted to know why, if this project wouldn't have been approved when the comprehensive plan came together, should the city allow it to be built now?

Others—particularly residents of McLean Gardens—expressed frustration in promises unfulfilled. "I bought my condo 10 years ago and that's how long I've been hearing that we're going to get a new Giant," one said. Another—Matt from 39th Street—soaked in some sustained applause when he countered residents calling for additional traffic studies with "we've had study after study after study. There are a lot of people who think this is a good project and want it to go forward."

It's possible he may live to see it. Steingasser says lawyers from the zoning commission are getting ready to schedule a hearing, the date of which could be announced next week. The earliest opening, she says, is for January and it will last for one or two nights, during which commissioners will hear testimony for and against the project. There will then be a period of time for submission of additional written testimony. Final action occurs after that and, if approved, it will take another two to six months before building permits will be submitted.

"So we're looking at the end of next summer," said ANC 3C Commissioner Trudy Reeves, who had slapped on a PUD sticker. We'll be on the edge of our shopping carts until then.