I am biased against the Safeway on Columbia Road NW. I respectfully disagree with my former colleague Jule Banville, who wrote a stirring defense of this store; I have never forgiven the store for only de-grubbing itself once Harris Teeter moved in nearby. Because the Safeway near me, in Alexandria? It's delightful! But the one on Columbia Road NW, it's like it was punishing people for shopping there. One time I had to dig an onion out of the little recess in the produce stand where they used to keep the twist ties. And God forbid you should need a sandwich; the counter folks always seemed surprised anyone would take Safeway up on its offer to make them. And the prices sucked, too!

These are problems you fix because you want your store to be good, not because a nicer store moves in nearby. So ANYWAY today I needed fruit and pretzels, and I decided to throw caution to the wind and turn left instead of right when I left the office. Here is my report.

ITEM: Bananas. 39 cents a pound with the Club Card. That's a good deal. But they were all pretty unripe! I got two more-yellow-than-green ones, and one was mushy when I ate it.

ITEM: Apples. Why are farmers markets cheaper than grocery stores when it comes to apples? Twin Springs Fruit Farm at the Arlington Farmers Market is still knocking my socks off with winesaps and mutsus for $1.99/lb. They are never mushy. Today I got a Michigan gala for the same price for $1.50/lb (Club Card price) and I will be surprised if it rises above "adequate." This situation would be the same at Harris Teeter. I don't like to buy apples at grocery stores.

ITEM: Pretzels. The Columbia Road NW Safeway is small and cannot devote an aisle to snacks, which is fair enough, but I could not find my favorite pretzels, which are Rold Gold Honey Wheat Braided Twists. These are perpetually on sale at Harris Teeter for $2.50 a bag. In a way, I guess, Safeway saved me money on this one.

ITEM: Self-checkout. An off-duty employee blew past me in line to use the self-checkout a friend was finishing up on. This has happened to me before at the Teet.

CONCLUSION: I think I will keep walking to Harris Teeter, even though it's more of a hike.

For the second year in a row, contributor Jeffry Cudlin won the arts criticism category for his work, which this year included the following: "Pine of the Times" about the Martin Puryear retrospective at the National Gallery of Art, "Sheet Smart" about the Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit at the Phillips Collection, and "Pain by Numbers," a wrap-up of what D.C. museums did and didn't offer in 2008.

Editor Erik Wemple won first place for media reporting/criticism with his cover story "One Mission, Two Newsrooms" about the Washington Post's struggle to bridge the cultural and geographic divide between its print and online operations.

In the elusive "innovation/format buster" category, the cover story some loved and others hated—"Washington City Paper Files for Chapter 86 Content Bankruptcy"— also took home first-place honors. The piece by Wemple, Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon, and Asst. Managing Editor Jule Banville was written and presented in the form of a legal document spoofing both the changing nature of City Paper's journalism and and the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by our paper's owners, Creative Loafing.

Creative Loafing's Atlanta paper received second-place honors in the feature category for the first-person account, "Sober," by Thomas Wheatley. The Chicago Reader, also our sister paper, received two second-place awards. Ann Ford was so honored in the arts feature category for "Life Without a Script" and columnist Ben Jarovsky's "The Works" was named in the column (political) category

The AAN Awards are open to its 130 member papers. Most of the altweeklies in U.S. cities (plus a few in Canada) enter the contest each year. This year, the top all-time AAN Award winner, the L.A. Weekly, led the pack with four first-place awards. In the 14-year history of the awards, Washington City Paper has won the second-most overall awards in the top-circulation categories: 51.

The Association for Alternative Newsweeklies announced finalists for its annual prizes today, selecting Washington City Paper as a top contender in four categories: Photography, Arts Criticism, Media Reporting/Criticism, and Innovation/Format Buster.

Staff photographer Darrow Montgomery, who's been shooting for City Paper for 23 years, is among the top three entries for the highest circulation category (50,000 and over). This is the fourth time Montgomery will be honored by AAN. He was given honorable mention for his work in the 2008 awards.

Galleries writer Jeffry Cudlin, who won the top prize for arts criticism last year, was again named a finalist for 2009.

Editor Erik Wemple was named in two categories. His cover story about the Washington Post's struggle to merge its print and online operations, "One Mission, Two Newsrooms," is a finalist in the Media Reporting/Criticism category.

Wemple also contributed to the finalist in the Innovation/Format Buster category, "Washington City Paper Seeks Content Bankruptcy," along with Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon and Asst. Managing Editor Jule Banville.

The Village Voice takes home the most nominations this year with nine. Our sister papers were also nominated. Creative Loafing Atlanta is a finalist for Feature Story for a first-person piece, "Sober," by Thomas Wheatley; the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky is a finalist in the Political Column category. Entries from 57 papers made the final cut. Winners will be announced at the annual AAN convention on Friday, June 26, in Tucson.

Only one other paper, LA Weekly, which has a grand total of 68 nominations, has received more AAN awards than Washington City Paper, which now has 51.

Finalists for the Blog category have not been announced.

Pictured: One of Darrow Montgomery's nominated photos, which appeared with Ruth Samuelson's cover story, "Truce and Consequences," about a turf war in Shaw.