Well, our new Web site has been live for more than 24 hours now—plenty of time for you to have decided what you like, what you hate, and what you really, really hate. So let us know. We might even listen!

Are you excited for our Best of D.C. 2010 issue, out in print tomorrow? Pick it up, it's the best! In it, you will learn much more than just where to go for the Best Burger, the Best Barbecue, and the Best Wine List. You'll also find out the Best Dandy (no, it's not you), the Best Edible Cold Remedy, and, according to the Readers Poll, the Best Place to Smoke Weed.

Speaking of weed, get ready to grow some! D.C. Councilmember Phil Mendelson says a provision that would allow "home cultivation" is under discussion and could be added to David Catania's medical marijuana legislation. You could get five or six plants! I mean, there's rules and everything, but still.

As the Washington Post points out this morning, a lot is at stake in how the city sets up the whole program, which will likely center around five (or some other number of) dispensaries. Luckily, there are lots of people with experience willing to help: like a "Netherlands company offering indoor-growing technology" and a "California dispensary proposing a new franchise."

(Could you go wrong with either one? Advice, Mike Riggs?)

More from the Post:

Council members are looking to the 14 states where the use of medical marijuana is legal for answers. Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, which supports legalizing pot for medical reasons, said that once policymakers become more familiar with regulating marijuana dispensaries, it becomes a routine part of governing.

"It's a boring clinic. It just maybe smells different than anything you've been in before," said Sherer, a D.C. resident who uses a marijuana spray four times a day for neck spasms.

That's actually what the clinics are going to be called: Boring Pot Clinic No. 1, Boring Pot Clinic No. 2, Boring Pot Clinic No. 3, etc.

In other non-pot-related local news, a flasher (description: white male) has been exposing himself to women on the Washington & Old Dominion bike trail. It's happened at least 11 times since January.

Speaking of white males, Joe Biden got really, really excited at the East Room signing ceremony for the healthcare bill yesterday. Barack Obama said things like:

“Our presence here today is remarkable and improbable. It has been easy at times to doubt our ability to do such a big thing, such a complicated thing. It’s easy to succumb to the sense of cynicism of what’s possible in this country."

Biden, not realizing he was being picked up on a mike, said simply: "This is a big fucking deal."

Happy hump day.

Photo by ElPablo!, Creative Commons Attribution License

CHRIS MATTHEWS PLAYED HARDBALL last night with the District, pounding Fenty like back-to-back snowstorms. D.C., said Matthews, has "the weather of Buffalo with the snowplowing capability of Miami." LL dispatched Matthews nicely last night; for a more nuanced take check out yesterday's Kojo NnamdeNnamdi, on which I heard DDOT head Gabe Klein remind people that you can't fund snow removal with the expectation that you'll get 15 inches a year, then freak out when that isn't enough money to deal with 60.

MORE SNOW MONDAY? Parents region-wide will freaking contemplate suicide if this happens. Today will be my kids' seventh day in the house, and when you find yourself shaking your head knowingly at a Petula Dvorak column, you know it's grim. Not "Johnny Damon looking for a job" grim, but close.

BY THE WAY DO YOU KNOW HOW SERIOUS THIS STORM WAS? It sort of affected New York City!

WHAT'S THE BUZZ? Google Buzz! I'm not sure what it is, but I have 31 followers on it and am following 45 others. Seems like a good way to keep up with my friends' bon mots, even if it has a "huge privacy flaw." We still get to care about privacy? Some things I learned in Google Buzz yesterday: Genius CP alum Mike Riggs has decided to consolidate all his information there: "Hey Buzzers! Welcome to my Google land, where everything tastes like John Mayer's regret!" and stalwart contributor Aaron Leitko is organizing a videoshoot on the CP parking deck. "Aaron, is this offer only good while there's snow piled up? How many cameras?" asked Tom Carrico at 10:07 p.m. Sorry if that's a flaw in your privacy, dudes.

ALLEZ LES HABS! (Sorry.)

Roger Ebert summed it up this way in a tweet: "Massachusetts to Teddy: 'F–k you.'"

The Post reports on a D.C. Council bill that would make medical marijuana available at five spots in the city. Can't wait for the debate over who will grow and dispense the stuff, and where. Said Councilmember David Catania, who proposed the legislation: "I would rather not have the Department of Health engaged in the cultivation of marijuana." I don't know, I think he should keep all options open. The city could become a great grower. Think Conrad Shepard in Weeds! Maybe we should ask Mike Riggs over at the Daily Caller what he thinks!

Police are searching for a man suspected of killing eight people in Appomattox, Va., yesterday, which newly installed Gov. Robert McDonnell called a "horrific tragedy." The manhunt is centered around a wooded area about 2 miles wide and 10 football fields long, where 39-year-old Christopher Speight is thought to be hiding. The killings—four bodies were discovered outside "a white house along rural Snapps Mill Road," three were inside, and one was a distance away—may have stemmed from a domestic dispute. Schools there are closed today.

Now here's a story: The District is being sued by the lienholder of a Mercedes-Benz that was impounded because of a bunch of unpaid parking tickets and then sold at auction for a pittance (well, as far as Benzes go).

Writes the Examiner:

Ten months after selling Stephen Yelverton's Mercedes SLK350, the District finds itself the defendant in a federal lawsuit, potentially being forced to pay thousands more than the vehicle was worth.

The D.C. Department of Public Works towed the 2006 Mercedes convertible, the subject of seven unpaid parking tickets totaling $980, to the Blue Plains Impoundment Lot in early 2009. Liquidation.com, the District's online auctioneer, sold the car March 17 for $18,900.

But Yelverton, a D.C. lawyer now in bankruptcy, still owed $42,606 on the car when it was impounded. Michigan-based DCFS USA, the lienholder, had issued a default notice the previous September, according to court documents. Yelverton had not made a car payment since June 2008.

You see, Yelverton apparently was notified about the impoundment (which, to be honest, seems like the least of his problems, since he was more than $600,000 in debt as of last spring). But DCFS claims it was not. Let's let the lawyers duke this one out, at taxpayer expense.

Happy hump day. Unless you're a Democrat.

UPDATE: A spot of good news: Virginia State Police say the suspect in the killing spree in Appomattox, Christopher Speight, has surrendered without incident.

Today is the day when people get trampled to death at retail outlets in America in the rush to save money on big-screen TVs and other must-have items (sometimes, there are also shootings). My mother-in-law got up at some ungodly hour one year to save a few dollars on a DVD player that wasn't even a brand name and which I'm pretty sure was busted within a few days. This seems like a good use of time to me.

The big news about Walmart, where last year's tragic trampling took place, is that the retailer decided to remain open for 24 hours so the mob that normally forms outside in the parking lot ready to bust down the doors would instead be dispersed inside, ready to form a mob once again when the really, really good prices went into effect at 5 a.m. It may seem a sad commentary on the state of society that the best way to keep people from trampling other people to death in a store is to never close the store—but whatever helps.

The Black Friday websites—BFads.net; blackfriday2009.com; PC World has a list of the top 10—have been obsessively and compulsively tracking deals just for you on everything from vacuum cleaners (a refurb Dyson DC14 Steel/White All-floor vacuum, $235.99, you save $153.95) to handguns (Gander Mountain's Ruger Semi-Automatic Pistol, $249.99, you save $150). If you've been taking this seriously, you have had these deals delivered straight to your Twitter feed. And you've already been up taking advantage of the all "Doorbuster" deals, which seems an especially good name for the whole thing, especially if we're trying to cut down on the number of fatalities involving people going from one side of a door to the other.

There are entire discussion forums on the ins and outs of Black Friday, with commentary on the hottest toys of 2009, including Zhu Zhu Pets, voted the "Holy Grail" of this year's BF by PunkyBearToys.com. "Zhu Zhu pets , jesus h christmas are they hard to find," reads the title of one post by a frustrated mrbill317: "Well the ebay hoarders have made this near impossible to find for my 7year old. My Walmart has received NO stock in 2 months of these rodents , they have had an empty shelf for so long other crap is placed in it with the tags staying the same lol."

Bigboots2007 sought advice on the optimum time to arrive at Target to secure a deal on a Sonicare toothbrush (I don't think this was my mother-in-law). Reply to bigboots: "Whatever time they open." Reply from bigboots: "Thats what I figured."

By the time of this posting, no deaths had been reported.

Actually, it means other things, too: You will not read in today's issue about Chuck Lane, how good an idea it is to legalize marijuana (complete list of links too long to provide here), or cheese dip. There also will be no chanting of USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! for any reason. There is no need for that anymore. Freedom is dead.

Do you really think it's a coincidence that the first day without Freedom Friday is Friday the 13th?

Speaking of Friday the 13th, Donald Dossey, founder of the Stress Management Center/Phobia Institute in Asheville, N.C., says that between 17 and 21 million individuals alter their routine in some way on this day because of superstitions. Irrational fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia (actually, Dossey made this term up). "For some people it's just mild anxiety,'' says Dossey. "Some people stay in bed all day." (Should we call and check on Riggs?)

I'm no clinician, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt seems like he might have been a classic case of someone suffering from that long word. Thomas "Dr. 13" Fernsler, a mathematician at the University of Delaware who got that nickname from his extensive study of that number, notes that FDR refused to leave on a train trip on the 13th. But that's not even the crazy part: He died in April 1945 on Thursday the 12th! He was so scared of Friday the 13th, he died!

There is a poem about paraskevidekatriaphobia, but I don't really recommend it, as one of the stanzas is "I think back to my mother/her winter boots capsized w/blood/& my tiny fists lit from within."

A "quirk" of the calendar means there have already been two Friday the 13ths this year. And on one of them, Congress passed the stimulus package! Coincidence?

One last thing: I have a black cat.

Be scared! And follow me on Twitter!

The Way We Get By is almost certainly a marvelous movie, at least judging from Mike Riggs' review, which ran in our Silverdocs issue (6/12). The producers of the movie liked Riggs' review so much they excerpted it on their movie poster, an excerpt of which you can see above. Interesting thing about that review, though: Riggs never said "Absolutely stunning" in it (regardless, I am absolutely stunned I didn't kill such wildly gushing copy when I had the chance).

To find that part of this quote, you have to turn to Riggs' morning roundup from Thursday, June 11. He wrote then:

As for me, I got pretty choked up watching The Way We Get By, and can’t think of a single friend, family member, or down-on-his-luck stranger to whom I would not recommend this film. Absolutely stunning. And Trimpin opened my eyes to the joys of reviewing movies while high sound installations.

I had to ask. He says "I had smoked a little bit before I watched" The Way We Get By, but swears he was stone-cold sober when he wrote that ringing endorsement.

Our wacky company. Jesus, our wacky company. Today was the day a judge in Florida was due to decide how best to conduct an equity auction next month that'll presumably end our company's nearly yearlong journey through bankruptcy. She kind of punted.

But: Talk about burying the lede! Following the ruling, Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason said he was considering stepping down as CEO to, as Wayne Garcia reports, "focus on formulating a new equity bid for the post-bankruptcy company."

This leaves us without a CEO. And in the absence of an obvious candidate, may I suggest our own City Lights editor, Mike Riggs? Some points:

• Riggs is a Floridian, so Tampa, with its strip clubs, Hooterses, and insatiable appetite for Shawn Alff posts, would not present any cultural problems for him. In fact, last year Riggs held his birthday party at Hooters. Clinton Portis was there.
• And he's got ideas! On budget issues, Riggs writes: "Fly less. This is America, 2009, not Rome, 100. CEOs can govern via free teleconferences, instant messaging, and Skype. Also, in the case that travel is unavoidable, this company needs someone who can ride the rails and make use of their surroundings. I've read Travels with Lizbeth and can spot a safe head of lettuce in a dumpster full of syringes. Also: couch surfing. Hosts would be treated to one (1) comped soda per trip."
• On advertising strategy: "No one's got this down. I read somewhere that papers across the country are making less money this year than last year. Step one: Offer perks to advertisers and assume that we can afford them. Like in that episode of The Office, when Michael Scott offers the company's biggest client 50% off its massive paper order. Essentially, we would offer something 50% off, but probably not ads. Might even delegate the ad question to an expert, so long as the expert was willing to offer advice for $0.05 per pageview."
• On the transformation of journalism: "New media is my bread and butter. Twitter? Facebook? Social bookmarking? I know all about them. I'm probably going to make a tweet in about five minutes. First things first: No more paying for new media training. Young people use this stuff instinctively–I bet one or two of them would love to teach a bunch of grizzled newshounds the ins and outs of Digg, just for resume padding! Also, writers/bloggers in house/freelance would be contractually obligated to promote their own material. I'm not even kidding about this. Write post, email it to four people who are not your mom or roommate or your mom's friend. Boom. Traffic. Relationships. Social networking."

Riggs also has some worse ideas, but I'm trying to plead his case here. He's young! He's energetic! He's got "Stand Up & Raise Hell" tattooed on his chest! Judge Delano, what more do you need?

Photograph by Lilly Sadler

Some people who live in an apartment building finish the holiday season with some extra wine that they never cracked. They look at the calendar, see that the inauguration is coming up and say, Hey, let's use this wine for a little inaugural party. Said party gradually grows in ambition, adding champagne, a caterer, plus a kickass jazz band. It becomes a full-fledged inaugural ball, complete with a A-list celeb in political commentator Mark Shields and other high-flyers who are overheard congratulating themselves for electing Obama.

That it all happened in a Kalorama building, one of the toniest areas of the city, detracts only slightly from its value as a great 2009 ball of inaugural yarn. According to correspondent-in-the-field Mike Riggs, the narrative above is exactly how 2029 Connecticut Avenue came to be throwing a huge soiree tonight.

2029 Connecticut, you say? Where's that? Well, that's right on the crest of the Connecticut Avenue hill that separates the greater Dupont area from the Taft bridge and upper whitedom. One of its famous denizens is none other than Carol Schwartz, who, at a party she threw a decade ago, pointed out to a Washington City Paper reporter that she had a nice view of the Washington Monument...from the seat of her toilet. At the time of the 2029 Apartment Building Inaugural Ball, Schwartz's doggie was being walked. Correspondent Riggs wasn't quite sure what kind of dog it was, but describes it like this: "It was hairy and solid black–closer to a Newfoundland than to a collie. It's fluffy—long hair and a thick coat but it is flat."

Reporting by Mike Riggs, writing by Erik Wemple