Frozen Tropics reports that H Street Country Club will be the site of  a Skeeball League. Is skeeball the next kickball? The next ping pong?

Georgetown Metropolitan reports on the return of a smelly pandemic.

Borderstan warns to watch out for a mugger in business attire (complete with briefcase). Blog also reports crime is way up in Borderstan over the last two months.

The New Teacher on the Block gets a surprise e-mail.

Pop Cesspool thinks Bruce Willis should be noted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Pop Cesspool is mighty impressed with a letter from the Nationals which explained the firing of Manny Acta and gave a blunt assessment of the team's failings. After running down the season's few highlights, the Nats letter states:

"Much of the season, however, has been defined by weak relief pitching, poor defense, and youthful inconsistency. We have tried to work through this period with patience and focus but now we are faced with mounting losses which are beginning to take a toll on our entire roster. Clearly, some changes are required as we prepare for the second half of the 2009 season and, more importantly, build for a competitive future."

The Heights Life notes that the recent Mount Pleasant Farmers Market got a boost from a local chef serving up advice and Italian food.

Frozen Tropics reports that H Street Country Club is set to open its doors to families during the day this weekend.

Life in Mount Vernon Square offers a take on a recent meeting on the development re: the Bundy School:

"2 things bothered me:  the first is these words from OPM Director Robin Eve Jasper regarding the Bundy School: "In this budget environment, it's highly unlikely that the landscaping plan will be fully implemented." (Oh really? not to sound like a broken record but that $h!#@^!t would never fly in georgetown and should not fly in Shaw.  besides, this is a facility for abused children! leaving the yard bare & funky contibutes to it looking like a forbidding fortress.  this is supposed to be a welcoming place, plant some nice flowers and trees.  I'm sure many neighbors would be happy to help dig.)  The other thing was that ANC 2C03 Commissioner Doris Brooks went on about having a park for children being more important that dogs, a valid sentiment echoed by others (but as a certain neighbor said not mutually exclusive).  But she adamantly opposed the renovation of a park in her own backyard on the 600 block of N St NW and indeed officially voted in 2006 for DC to give it to UHOP for 'housing or parking.'"

Anti-Real World DC notes that one cast member has an affinity for some kind of Panda hat.

Intangible Arts does a little architectural deathwatch on Bruce Monroe Elementary.

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

The New Teacher On The Block has a really dumb classroom aide: "Ms. Know-It-All (the mean aide in my classroom) just asked me if I had 'gained a little weight in my stomach.'"

DC Teacher Chic attends an event in which Rhee is asked to rate her performance on a scale of 1 to 10. Answer is not quite given. Rhee seems just not very revolutionary when compared to the Green Dot Charter leader profiled in the New Yorker.

The 42 writes on the glut of Thai restaurants, eating/not eating on the Metro, and so much more.

The Heights Life sees a new sign going up in Columbia Heights and it says something about chicken and steak.

Congress Heights On Rise posts pictures of the neighborhood's recent parade and festival.

As Joe Englert and I take a taxi (he rarely drives because he thinks it's cheaper to take cabs, once you figure in parking tickets in D.C.) to Enology, the wine bar he co-owns with Adam Manson, I ask the businessman if this indeed has been an average day for him. After all, by my reckoning, here's his day (at least the parts I witnessed):

• Eat breakfast with sons, Henry and Alex
• Call a taxi and take Alex to school
• Play tennis with buddy Matt Weiss
• Sign a few documents in his office
• Play bubble hockey with me
• Share some rum shots
• Eat lunch and crack jokes at Argonaut
• Pick out china and flatware for the H Street Country Club
• Drink a small glass of black muscat at Enology
• Make phone calls

Yep, Englert says, this is pretty much an average day, though he's quick to remind me that he did get some documents notarized at the National Capital Bank of Washington, where he traded jabs with Vice President John Gordon, who wanted to know when Englert moved to D.C. It was 1984, Englert remembered, right after he gorged on Big Macs in Los Angeles when McDonald's was giving them away for every U.S. gold medal won during the Olympics. "That explains a lot," Gordon says dryly.

But Englert says that sometimes he goes from place to place, checking on the Internet jukeboxes at his bars and restaurants. He wants to make sure that some evil music hasn't been automatically downloaded onto the machines. "You can show up one day, and George Michael is on the jukebox," Englert says. "It's just not good for your place."

Joe Englert keeps teasing me about a blog item I wrote, calling for a moratorium on stories about the H Street Country Club until the place actually opens. Englert thinks that I secretly believe the indoor miniature golf/Tex-Mex joint will never open. As if to prove me wrong, we stop by the construction site so that Englert can help select china, drinking glasses, and flatware.

It takes all of three minutes to make the choices. The rest of the time is spent cruising the three-story (including roof) structure that will, no doubt, once it's finally built and open, become the hottest goddamn ticket on H Street NE. (See sketches below of some of the proposed holes.) Part of its appeal will be the Tex-Mex menu, conceived by Ann Cashion and executed by former Cashion's cook, Pablo Cardoso, who just happens to be on hand at the Country Club to explain both the sit-down menu and the bar menu. There will be, Cardoso says, lobster tostadas, homemade tamales, Mexican slaw with chicharones, lamb shank enchiladas, snapper Veracruz, gorditos, and a dessert pineapple chimichanga with Mexican vanilla ice cream.

The joint will also serve a decent line of Mexican beers, which will be available even on the 18-hole miniature golf course (nine holes on one level, another nine on the roof). Englert plans to have a putt-putt version of a beer cart, delivering cold ones to parched putters on the course.

Later, after we cross H Street NE and step inside the office that's overseeing beautification projects in the neighborhood, I ask Englert if he's not worried that construction will do to his businesses what construction did to those on P Street NW—almost ruin them. He brushes off the question and says there's already a shuttle bus that operates along H Street and that many patrons don't drive over, but take the Metro to Union Station. The operators here, he adds, have learned the sad lessons of P Street NW.

In other words, I'm just being a pain in the ass again.

DCist has a way early look at the H Street Country Club. Let's see: ironic name? Check. Godzilla breathing fire? Check. D.C.-themed mini-golf? Check. Re-purposed thrift-store junk? Check. Bowling alley style booths? Check. All that's needed is some Vampire Weekend on the stereo.