And we thought it was interesting that the auctions for our newspaper chain and Mother Harriette's house in the Virgin Islands were announced the same week. Now it turns out the Watergate is on the block. Another coinkidink: The famous hotel is $40 million in the hole, which is roughly the same as Creative Loafing's debt after it bought the City Paper and the Chicago Reader. So Weird!

And speaking of City Paper, it's fresh in the box today, with another kickass cover starring Marion Barry. Unfortunately it does not star the phrase "You put me out in Denver 'cause I wouldn't suck your dick," but that would be overkill, doncha think? Read Mike DeBonis' ongoing scoop, complete with reax from the bossman himself.

Also new in the dead-tree: Tim Carman tells you were to get good bar food and valet parking, Dave McKenna's wondering whither the Nats? in the new D.C. sports talk, Amanda Hess details why Eckington hates battered women and their children, Aaron Leitko uncharacteristically writes the phrase "a burst of happiness," plus Fringe Fest, movies, and more!

Elsewhere in the D.C. Blogoworld:

The dog park is almost done! The dog park is almost done!

Somebody hates riding the "herky-jerky" bus but still sees the glass half-full, believing the SmartBike program is going to be something other than a funny joke.

We, too, wonder why D.C. doesn't have a llama farm. But we do NOT think the pandas are stupid.

We also wonder if the banh mi at Pho 14 in Columbia Heights are any good. Capital Spice ate like a virgin in an effort to let us know.

Still looking for the world-famous Stikman? Here's one in Dupont Circle.

Red-line rider put out by crowds "so intimately located near my personal space I feel compelled to forgo foreplay and skip right to the proposal portion of the the rail ride."

Why.i.hate.dc loses its edge, writes a post about 14th Street's "wine and furniture" district that could appear on Borderstan. Sigh.

Wake up, Metro. It's morning time! Also: Two of your employees are telling WJLA-TV that they not only knew about the circuit problem that likely caused the June 22 crash five days before it happened, but that they reported the problem to their supervisors. This seemingly contradicts GM John Catoe's statement yesterday, in which he assured the public the circuit's intermittent inability to detect trains on tracks was "not an issue that would have been easily detectable to controllers in our operations control center." Metro had no comment on the unnamed technicians' allegations, citing the ongoing investigation.

In case you missed it: City Desk reported last night that one of the crash victims' families lawyered up with local institution the Cochran Firm, which won the business over another firm based, partially, on its willingness to file suit before the investigation's over. Attorney David Haynes called today to correct my mistake. The family of Veronica DuBose actually has two law firms lined up, one from Florida already familiar to the family, as well as the Cochran Firm, which was brought in as lead counsel by the Florida lawyers. Haynes also notes that his firm is representing five people injured in the crash.

City Paper's fresh online and in the stands. Of note: Carman on Breadline's closing and reopening, Graham on The Year of Magical Thinking, Olszewski on the new Transformers, Leitko on Meow vs. Meow, and West on the theory of everything.

Elsewhere in D.C. Blogolands:

* Borderstan's reporting that actor and Obama up-and-comer Kal Penn, better known as Kumar going to the White Castle, is moving into the neighborhood. But no dice on exactly where.

* Molly, the pure-bred Viszla brazenly stolen from in front of the Whole Foods in Logan Circle, is still lost. Bloggers are on it.

* Congress Heights on the Rise has some news found newsworthy by the Examiner: Congress Heights is NOT Anacostia.

* We Love DC chimes in on the Caps signing winger Mike Knuble away from the Flyers. The Post says he'll be the net presence we lack. We're comin' for you, Pittsburgh. Grrrrr!

Photograph by City Paper Staff Photographer Darrow Montgomery

An American Idol upset last night. Don't care. Don't watch it. But today the Washington Blade is saying it was "smear the queer" time in America. Just like when Brokeback lost! Scandal! Sniff!

My idol? Michael Volpe, the 25-year-old guy standing in front of Metro stations with a bright orange sign advertising himself as an entry level jobseeker. I have a soft spot for SUNY Geneseo grads after spending several weekends there as an undergrad way back in the early '90s. But even if you don't, you gotta read Petula Dvorak's sweet little story about this guy. And she took the photo. Is the Post turning into the Current?

Also local in our paper of record: Tai Shan really is leaving this time. Know the real reason why? He gained weight and ceased to be cute. My mom told me the same thing way back in the early '90s.

Moving on to other people who write blogposts:

* DCist has the lowdown on the trainwreck Tweets between DCRA and the owner of the Capital City Diner, the 1940s dining car moving to a Trinidad used car lot (which Tim Carman broke a few days ago on our Young & Hungry blog). Matt Ashburn, one of the partners in the venture, had to drop the car in the middle of Bladensburg Road. Spokesman to the stars (or just for DCRA) Michael Rupert later cleared things up. The foundation was poured wrong and the dining car's on blocks for now. Also on it: We Love DC.

* There's Euro Trash in Borderstan.

* Hoogirl gives it up to Hoogirl for landing in the Post. Also, she's going to Target today.

* The Anacostia Gateway's getting some new buildings that probably won't be boarded up. And, Now's got the scoop, of course.

* I can't believe we missed Cher's birthday. Q Street News cannot say the same.

* The Ride of Silence honoring local killed cyclists couldn't have happened on a nicer evening, weather-wise. I see no updates this a.m., although the peloton went by my apartment. The WashCycle, which organized the ride, has other news, namely the opening of the pedestrian/cyclist bridge over a historically dangerous and often-crossed section of Route 50 in Seven Corners. (Incidentally, this bridge goes to the shopping center targeted by the snipers in 2002. I mean: Could that Home Depot be any safer these days?)

In what the Post this morning says "will likely go down as one of the best playoff games in Capitals franchise history," D.C.'s scrappy hockey team went up 2 games to none in their playoff series against Pittsburgh. That means they've won their last five playoff games, their longest post-season streak to date. It took the Verizon Center staff three minutes to clear the ice of another sort of caps---the hats kept coming after Alex Ovechkin's third goal of the night, his first hat trick in in the playoffs. The Pens' Crosby got one of those, too (and a lone hat thrown onto the ice), but in this chapter of the "showdown for the ages," Sidney went home a loser. Final score: 4-3. Money quote from Ovechkin: "If I was a Capitals fan, I'd be really happy right now."

Crosby, of course, not a Caps fan. What a player. But what a whiner. Last night it was about the hats: "I was just asking if he could make an announcement to ask them to stop," Crosby said of the fans. "I mean, the first wave came, and then I think they were all pretty much picked up, and then more started coming." Earlier this season, he piled on the chastisement for Ovechkin's 50-goal celebration/failed joke. And even this pro-Pens blog thinks Crosby's bellyaching about a hit he took from Ovechkin in January is just a bit much. But trust a CBCer for a measured response: Let's not debate who's a better player. Let's like them both! Whatever, Elliotte Friedman with your extra letters in your name.

The must-read, as McKenna pointed out in this space yesterday, is Mike Wise's A1 Sunday profile on Caps enforcer Donald Brashear. Does his sad life excuse breaking a guy's orbital bone? No. But is it sad? Oof.

Lest one think Ovechkin and Brashear are the only Caps worth writing about, Canada's National Post has a rundown on the rationale to give goaltender Simeon Varlamov his shot after Jose Theodore's implosion. Seems like a no-brainer now, but Bruce Boudreau says he "lost hair" over the decision. Who knew hockey coaches could be so funny? But can you sportswriter-types please stop writing about how to pronounce Varlamov's name? Yeah, we get it. Sim-YON Var-LAHM-ov.

Game 3's in Pittsburgh tomorrow. The Philadelphia Inquirer says, "historians of the Pittsburgh-Washington rivalry will say the Penguins have the Capitals right where they want them."

Flickr photo by Wyfurasko.

Is the panic subisiding? Not a chance, but two of the six potential H1N1 infectees in Maryland are schoolchildren (one at Folger-McKenzie Elementary in Ann Arundel County and a teenager at Milfred Mill Academy in Baltimore County) and schools are open today. A lot of parents, of course, watch the TV, where things have been getting frothier on the flu-coverage front. So attendance is expected to be low.

In more schoolchildren news: Two of them in Montgomery County planned to kill their prinicipal with a nail bomb and set off another "incendiary device" in the auditorium---after puncturing a gas pipe, something they'd already tried to do in the boys' bathroom, according to cops who arrested and charged them.

You think getting your dog to the vet is a problem? Try convincing a 5,500-pound hippo to get into her crate. A continuation of Happy stories over at the Post.

D.C. blogolinks after the jump.

* Speaking of your dog: Borderstan wants cute pictures of them.

* 14th and U thinks the new hotel planned for 13th and U looks a bit stunted at nine stories. So much for NIMBY outrage. I guess this time U Street really has been transformed.

* U Street gets a 9-story hotel. Petworth gets a CVS. That seems about right.

* Petworth gets a CVS, Anacostia gets a refurbished yellow Victorian. And Now, Anacostia drove the homeowner WAY over to Capitol Hill to give him color inspiration. But, no, he's sticking with yellow. NIMBYism is back!

* Anacostia gets a nice Vic, Penn Quarter still gets Christmas decorations at the Washington Welcome Center. In April. Prefers a Caps display. Go Caps!

* PQ gets Christmas trees, the Triangle gets pedestrian improvements at 5th and Mass. Plus: aerial shots!

*Maureen Dowd visits Twitter HQ to find out "if the inventors of Twitter were as annoying as their invention. (They’re not. They’re charming.)" (The real question: Is Maureen Dowd as annoying as this column?)  In her umpteenth use of the screenplay gimmick (at least she wrote it herself this time!), Dowd confesses her own Twitterific ambition: "When newsprint blows away, I want a second career as a Twitter ghostwriter."  Someone sign this woman up!

*The Examiner reports a surge in D.C.-area gun sales. Are people stocking up in anticipation of tightened gun regulations and economically fueled civil unrest? "Experts" say yes.  But there may be something else at work:

“Business is great,” said Bill Kelley, own of The Gun Center of Frederick. “The gun industry, like everything else, was going into a recession. All of the sudden, after November, the entire country decided they had to have [guns] and have them now.”

Gun enthusiasts here and around the country say they don’t trust the Obama administration and a Democratic Congress. There was a similar sales rush after President Bill Clinton won election in 1992, but Philip Van Cleave of the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League says he’s “never seen anything like this.”

“People are pulling their hair out,” Van Cleave said.

God knows I am.  When the Prez starts palling around with Chavez, and a whole host of tyrannies loom...it's Glock time!

*Over at the Washington Times, Cal Thomas has penned the definitive meditation on the Susan Boyle mini-phenomenon. The take-home?  Surface is shallow, prettiness passing, but true inner beauty—now that's the stuff! "For two days I contemplated the phenomenon that is Susan Boyle," Thomas confesses, before leading us through the viewing experience:

We quickly size her up: a nearly 48-year-old woman with graying hair, a dress that looks as if it might have been purchased at the British equivalent of Wal-Mart hugging a body that even she described as "like a garage." Frumpy is the word that first comes to mind.

Crikey.  With looks like that, how could Boyle possibly (as the show's title goes) "got talent"?  But lo:

All those hypocrites who thought nothing good could come from this dowdy woman because our narcissistic culture has taught us that the only thing that matters is beauty, not depth of character, suddenly want to embrace what seconds ago they had instinctively rejected.

The question remains: Does the Boyle sensation represent an actual cultural inversion, or what a better columnist would call a "flash in the pan"?

*Prince of Petworth approves of a Young Playwrights' Theater production based on his blog commentariat. "I didn’t get made fun of too badly," marvels the Prince. Coming soon: a CBS special inspired by whoever comments on this very post!*

*Or, at the very least, a Lifetime miniseries.

Who needs a reality show when actual news is good enough? Applications to the U.S. Naval Academy are up 50 percent. The academy credits its two-year outreach campaign to minorities and the Post considers if it might be the lure of a free education in lean times. But we're going to jump to conclusions. It's pirate-fighting. Who doesn't want scurvy on the high seas?

New in City Paper: Every one of our hits and misses for Filmfest DC. Now in its 23rd go-round, the fest is growing up and drinking better cocktails. Plus: It's April. What else are you going to do?

Last night was Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Semifinals and let's just say Bruce Boudreau is wearing his cranky face today. Caps lost 4-3 to the Rangers, making a couple things clear: It's going to be a tough series, their goalie is better than ours, and Ovie better ice up after all those hits 'cause they're coming after him on Saturday. Game 2's at the Verizon Center again. Got tickets? No one likes a showoff.

Elsewhere in the D.C. Blogoworld:

* Diary of a Mad Cabbie offers this insight: "Transvestite escort girls are very hard to come by in Washington DC and you better have a thick wallet to have a real convincing hot chic looking transvestite like Alexis."

* Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space has a tax protest that, unlike tea bags, makes sense.

* The new InTowner is online and boldly going where others have gone before in invoking "Dick Cheney" in proximity to "Peter Nickles." You still need a copy editor, InTowner ("...being seriously insensitive to how his conduct has been undermining the voters trust..."), but, hey, you're still alive.

* Penn Quarter Living excited about sidewalks, misses Popeye's.

* Why I Hate DC actually loves D.C....'s welfare system. BONUS: Awesome picture of a bum.

* We Love DC, meanwhile, also loves brunch. I, too, love D.C. but have to disagree on brunch.

Photo of a stuffed pirate dog by Rev Dan Catt.

* Morning, all. You've heard by now the sad fact: Natasha Richardson, versatile actress, mother of two boys, wife and daughter of famous people, died at 45 in a rather freakish accident on a bunny slope. Several of us in the office have bonded over loving Love Actually, in which Liam Neeson plays an alarmingly charming man who's lost a wife he clearly adores. Richardson's mother, Vanessa Redgrave, just finished the stage version of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking in which the main character grieves the loss of her daughter. In life, however, they'll have to deal with the paps and E!. Sending good thoughts.

* Today's B1 News: Fairfax officials saw the light (or perhaps the taillights) and reversed the boneheaded move to put off, yet again, the widening of I-66 inside the Beltway. Marc Fisher's logic sort of prevails. Of course, another required traffic study could take 10 years. Fairfax County supervisor Catherine M. Hudgins, among two who flipped her vote, reports: "This just brings us back to where we were in 2007." Having traveled that highway to hell every day for two years, I find it sad to understand that another 10-year study counts as progress.

* B3 News: You know when a Brookings man says, "I looked at these numbers and said, 'Wow!,'" it's big.

From around the D.C. blogoworld:

* Unsuck DC Metro recaps the week that was in Metro delays, failures, and mechanical problems. It's an impressive list. Metro, rather than unsucking itself, instead gets a twitter account.

* Greater Greater Washington, apparently smarting from my "anti-car" jab yesterday, posts not one, but two entries about cars: one about performance parking in G-town and a thoughtful argument for state-sponsored rest stops (Virginia may close 25 of them).

* And Now, Anacostia has some more fun with PhotoShop, this time putting the paint on the Historic Homeowner Grant Program. Rosie's Row is looking good and/or better than it did.

* SWDC Blog gets the deets on I Street SW. It's getting a bike lane and a pedestrian island for the kiddies at Amidon Elementary. Nice!

* RenewShaw takes awhile but answers Jack Evans' challenge to name buildings the recently increased vacant property tax has sped along to rehab. Remaking Le Slum Historique retorts: "I think I can cite several previously vacant properties (all in the 1500 block of 8th Street) that have changed hands recently and are under rehabilitation currently---most likely a direct result of the tax and/or tax increase." Take that, Friends of Jack!

The B1 news this a.m.: Permanent state of stalling. The D.C. vote bill is on indefinite hold. Blame Maryland's own House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. He blames the NRA for its gun riders---or did he secretly want to annex the District? Lobby efforts from Fenty, et al, will probably go nowhere and not very fast, so it looks like EHN went shopping, got the dress, got the shoes, but is still not going to be invited to the dance. What else is new?

In other less glass-half-empty news around the D.C. blogoworld:

* ComicsDC reveals/aggregates that deep inside a "large envirornment firm" in D.C. lurks an ad director who's really the guy behind the design for Batcave Companion.

* Frozen Tropics reveals/aggregates that the streetcar Tommy Wells named desire is moving forward after all these years. And what is the evidence? There's now an alliance. And a blog about the alliance. Grab your Rice-A-Roni, folks, because this is an imminent H Street to Benning Road treat.

* This just in: Penn Quarter Living's commentary about tourons on Segways. They are "cute."

* And Now, Anacostia is also full of good hope after discovering a request put in about a year ago for some trees has been answered. Helpful touchups in PhotoShop reveal where the small, skinny trees actually are.

* Congress Heights on the Rise continues the backrubbing, giving props---I'd go as far as to say kudos---to DCRA for... launching a Web site. I know. It's amazing.

* But never fear, blogsnark seekers. There's always why.i.hate.dc, which starts out trolling for hits by breaking news about another new restaurant on 14th Street and then offers this tasty app: "Oh and just what the hell is Mediterranean and Asian fusion tapas? It's like all the restaurants on 14th Street had an orgy and then their abortion was turned into a new restaurant."

Flickr photo, "Happiness Is a Warm Gun," by badjonni