The D.C. government has been trying to encourage street vendors to diversify their offerings, even holding informational meetings titled "You Don't Have to Sell Hot Dogs," the Post reports. Although vendors see increased profits in selling ethnic food, wariness of increased regulations have kept the number of hot dog carts high.

In other food news, the Washington Times reports that some DCPS parents and officials are worried about the new D.C. Healthy Schools Act, which ups the nutritional and exercise standards for local schools, saying that the new requirements will be burden on the system and stretch schools' already tight budgets.

A number of Apple fanatics spent the night camped outside the Clarendon store, waiting for today's release of the iPhone 4.

Meanwhile, open government fans may have to wait longer for Freedom of Information Act responses from the D.C. government, if Attorney General Peter Nickles has his way. Nickles asked the Council to give the Fenty administration a a "safety valve" of "unspecified additional time" to respond in unusual circumstances, the Post reports.

Photo by rollingrck/Creative Commons Attribution License

For all you cyclists in the District, that pesky bike lane in the center of Pennsylvania Avenue is finally open for your convenience. After a month of deliberation about the lane’s width, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) finally agreed to shave it down to five feet, two feet skinner than the department’s original plan. But cyclists are still concerned.

A ball of fire erupted out of an electrical manhole yesterday evening on the corner of 18^th and I streets. According to WaPo, the fire was due to a busted transformer. Although witnesses agree to having seen large quantities of black smoke belching from the hole, there seems to be no general consensus about what the explosion actually sounded like. One witness claims, “it sounded like thunder.” Another said “it sounded like a car crash.” But we know for certain that those two things don’t sound the same. Perhaps the explosion is more dubious than we think.

Teenagers should be wary of strolling around the street after midnight this summer. D.C. police have launched a campaign to warn kids under 17 that breaking the midnight curfew is against the law. In a lousy attempt to imitate teenage vernacular, the campaign has adopted the tag line, “Are U N?” WRC-TV posted the campaign’s hilarious video, too.

Photo by Smoobs/Creative Commons Attribution License

In another move to boost liquidity: Lawmakers will allow D.C. liquor stores to open for business on July 4, a Sunday, when such beloved neighborhood institutions are normally closed. Naturally, not everyone supports the holiday exemption to the rule. The Post quotes Councilmember Yvette Alexander griping, "the Jack Daniels and the firecrackers – that's not a good mix."

WTOP reports from the BP fill-up station at 7605 Georgia Avenue NW, where owner Shahzad Aslam claims to have lost 40 percent of gasoline sales since the oil spill fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico. "[Even though it's] a BP gas station, BP is not directly involved," Shahzad tells WTOP. Still, protesters have picketed his pumps, "apparently unaware their efforts were doing more damage to a local business owner and his employees than an international oil giant."

In other news: WUSA-TV reports that police have identified a fatal shooting victim found in Fort Dupont Park on June 9 as 43-year-old Don Diego Jones of Temple Hills, an opera singer with the National Orchestra. Police have also arrested a Southeast D.C. man in connection to a triple shooting in Shaw last week, according to the Post.

Expect afternoon thunderstorms in the "strong to severe" range, with the "main threats being damaging winds and perhaps large hail," say forecasters with WJLA-TV. Sunshine returns tomorrow.

Video by DCWASAPublicAffairs/YouTube

Good morning, everyone. Today’s somehow supposed to be a lovely Tuesday with intermittent possibilities of rain. Doesn’t make much sense to me. I went out and bought the Facebook Effect last night–haven’t been this excited about a read since Harry Potter. This morning's photo is in honor of Twitter–the sperm whale was failing all last night.

In case you missed it: motherfuckers need to be checkin’ themselves, the Textile Museum gets a new director, Japan ain’t no Korea, and blizzards are a silly excuse for missing work.

Virginia is headed toward an annual surplus for the first time since 2008, Gov. Bob McDonnell said. Great news, except Fairfax County still sits in that $2.2 billion transportation funding hole. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s hardcore about keeping his minions in check, but perhaps he should take a kindness lesson from Northern Virginia. Fear that your kid may kill you in your sleep? Move to NoVA–residents there, compared to other parts of the state, are the least likely to assault other people in their household, according to a new report published by the Family & Children’s Trust Fund of Virginia. Rihanna should’ve caught someone there, as you'll recall Chris Brown is from Tappahannock.

The Washington Examiner’s Harry Jaffe argues that big hole in D.C.’s criminal justice system ought to be fixed. Obama’s hustlin’ for another Stimulus package. Free money!

Remember that oil spill down south? The Los Angeles Times reports:

“The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands–a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean.”

Well, I’ll be damned. Sounds like every other product I wear, use, and consume in the good ol’ USA. Are we surprised? And BP’s latest plan to capture the still gushing oil, may pose safety risks to workers, wrote BP Vice President Doug Suttles in a letter. Three ships placed in the area at the end of June may process up to 53,000 barrels of crude oil a day. I don’t get it. Why can’t we just plug the goddamn hole? What’s this capturing shit about?

All right kids, that's all. I'm thinking sushi for lunch before it's no longer a possibility.

Photo by d.boyd. Creative Commons Attribution License.

For more viral, malt-beverage-fueled hilarity, check out Alex Balk's "Bros Icing Bros And The Fate Of Humanity: A Look Back."

In more sober news, The Walk Disney Company will be closing most of its ESPN Zone restaurants, including the Washington and Baltimore locations. According to an NBC Washington poll, roughly 67 percent of local bros are sad about this.

Maureen Dowd takes on the bros at the Landon School who decided that setting up a hook-up fantasy league would be a good idea. Dowd concludes that it is "time for a curriculum overhaul" at the school, which is also the alma mater of George Huguely V, the University of Virginia lacrosse player accused of murdering his girlfriend Yeardley Love. "Young men everywhere must be taught, beyond platitudes, that young women are not prey."

Vanity Fair

Vicki Bagley, who Quinn wrote about unflatteringly during her days in the Style section, had this to say about her:

"She called us all social climbers. Well, a bigger social climber will have never been…. Sally was the very person she was writing about…. We were all doing things. We were all working. Sally wanted what we had, and she wanted to destroy us because we had it."

When Bagley found out Quinn wanted to buy her N Street house, she more than doubled the asking price, telling Ben Bradlee, "Sally will never live in this house unless you pay a premium."

In other social-climbing news: Vincent Gray is running circles around younger incumbent Adrian Fenty in the arena of social media, former Loose Lips columnist Mike Debonis reports on his new Washington Post blog. @GrayForMayor's 426 Twitter followers, for example, dwarf @Fenty2010's 79. "The mayor is young and tech-savvy, supposedly," Gray's New Media Director Ian Koski says. "But they seem to be a little behind."

DCist reports on the National Zoo's hope that 19-year-old male sloth bear Francois, who just returned from the Little Rock Zoo, will become more than just friends with 15-year-old female Hana.

In light of the Washington Teacher's Union's approval of the new, Chancellor Michelle Rhee-backed contract, WaPo columnist Robert McCartney hopes Rhee and the teachers can be friends.

Finally, happy 20th birthday to Moby Dick's, loyal friend of kabob-lovers everywhere.

Metro Deputy Police Chief Mark Olson says reports of violence and disorderly conduct on the transit system are actually down this year. But trouble spots remain. Olson lists the District's most unruly transit hubs as Tenleytown/AU, Minnesota Avenue, Anacostia, Brookland-CUA and Fort Totten.

In related news: The Examiner reports that Metro's recent fare hike isn't doing enough to cover the rail system's budget shortfall:

The reason why Metro is in such straits is because it fell short of its ridership estimates in each of the first nine months in the current fiscal year, for a 9 percent ridership drop below expectations...

Perhaps they should start charging riders extra to watch all these "Metro Gladiators" in action.

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!