There Be Lions Here: Typical postings on the Cleveland Park neighborhood message board deal with urgent matters like where one can find "electric adding machines." A recent update had something a bit more urgent—reports of a mountain lion loose near McLean Gardens. Hide your kids! Or at least keep them indoors with their adding machines. -1

Virtual Transfer Virtually Open: Don't like Metro Center, but need to transfer from the Red Line to the Blue Line so you can experience all the single-tracking delays Metro has to offer? You're in luck—starting tomorrow, the system will let you transfer electronically between Farragut North and Farragut West. (You'll still have to walk between them, of course.) Exiting at one end of Farragut Square and re-entering on the other won't result in any fare being deducted from your SmarTrip. Just in time for winter, too. +2

Radio, Radio: Sports-talk radio can get even the mildest-mannered listener all worked up; the format just seems to encourage ranting and raving, especially when you live in a city where the options for starting quarterback for the local NFL team are Rex Grossman or John Beck. Which may explain why Nazir Zia allegedly plowed his car into the studios of WJFK-FM during today's broadcast of The Sports Junkies. No one was hurt. Presumably, callers were complaining as soon as the crash was over about the tactics involved. -1

Trick or Treat?: In search of candy this weekend? Head to the West End. So says Zillow.com, in a new ranking of best neighborhoods for Halloween treats within cities. We suppose Trader Joe's might have some good chocolate, or something, but otherwise we're not sure we agree with the pick. Kalorama, U Street, Dupont Circle, and Georgetown were also ranked. Apparently there's no candy east of Rock Creek Park. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 54 Today's score: -1 Today's Needle rating: 53

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The indoor pool at the University of the District of Columbia was closed Mar. 4 “for leaks,” according to DOH spokesperson Dena Iverson. Apparently, water has been seeping out of the pool and into the ground for years prior to the shutdown, says UDC spokesperson Alan Etter, who says school officials have hired a contractor and hope to reopen the pool next spring.

“For years, they’d patch it,” he says. Now, “they just want to fix it right.”

The other four pools closed this year were inside apartment complexes, and the managers are none too eager to talk about their public shaming.

Eliot Bernold, manager at Brookland Manor, blames bureaucratic red tape for the June 25 closing at his complex on 14th Street NE near Rhode Island Avenue. 

“It was one day when there was a bureaucratic issue that was resolved within a few days,” says Bernold, before adding testily, “I have no more comment.”

Bernold was downright cordial, however, compared to the response from the Capitol Park Plaza apartments in Southwest, where manger Pat Rooks hung up the phone after insisting her pool was the victim of false allegations.

“There was nothing wrong with the pool. Someone made an accusation so the pool was closed for the day. But they reopened it,” Rooks says.

We’re still waiting to hear back from Iverson to confirm Rooks’ and Bernold’s characterizations of those two closings. About 48 hours after we first starting pestering DOH to check its records, Iverson said the department was still “investigating.” She did not respond to follow up question inquiring as to what there was to investigate since the closures took place some time ago.

Meanwhile, managers at two ritzier complexes—Vaughan Place at McLean Gardens and Market Square West—did not return phone calls.

Vaughan Place, which has a Web site prominently displaying a photo of a guy diving into clear blue pool water, was closed on July 21, according to the health department. Officials shut down the pool at Market Square West, near the Mall, back in June and still haven’t signed off on its reopening, according to Iverson.