• RealWorldDCNEWZ RUMOR: The Real World DC House at 2000 S Street NW is on fire (unconfirmed so far) #RWDC about 18 hours ago from web

• sloflin @RealWorldDCNEWZ re: fire at real world house – i see yellow tape up but no smoke or firetrucks about 18 hours ago from web

• RealWorldDCNEWZ RT @omgitsmejd: @RealWorldDCNEWZ just heard on the radio the real world house is on fire?! about 17 hours ago from web

• cortista RT @RealWorldDCNEWZ: RUMOR: The Real World DC House at 2000 S Street NW is on fire (unconfirmed so far) #RWDC about 17 hours ago from UberTwitter

• ELJefe843 is the Real World DC house really on fire??? someone please confirm! #rwdc about 17 hours ago from mobile web

• KarlaG26 @RealWorldDCNEWZ: RUMOR: The Real World DC House at 2000 S Street NW is on fire. On fire?! When this all happend? During the show or after? about 14 hours ago from UberTwitter

The answer to that final question: Neither. Earlier today, I reached Anawat Jaithum, manager for Thaiphoon Restaurant in Dupont, which happens to be located right across the street from the Real World house located at 2000 S Street NW.

“From where I’m looking right now, there’s nothing on fire—nothing serious," he said. "There’s no one living in there, so there shouldn’t be a fire.”

Jaithum wasn't working last night, but he talked to another staff member who had been around in the evening. He remembered seeing firetrucks outside.

D.C. Fire Department spokesman Pete Piringer also checked into the rumor for me: "There’s nothing in the computer for 2000 S street. We were in the vicinity of 20^th Florida around 8 p.m. Monday for a sick or injured person...” he said.

From left to right: Chris Wiggins, Beth Ploger and cast members Callie, Emily and Ashley.

So I mis-tweeted last night.

After arriving at Metromix's Real World DC premiere party, I called the event the "official RWDC party."

For the event to be official, it would probably need to be thrown by MTV. And no one from MTV was around that I saw at least. Instead of watching the first episode with network publicists, the four cast members at BlackFinn last night sat with Chris Wiggins and Beth Ploger, two of the cast's certainly unofficial, most devoted local followers during filming.

Wiggins funneled cast member gossip through his RWDC tweets all summer long, while Beth "Elizabethany" Ploger recorded frequent videos of her and her friends on the hunt for cast members, posting them to her pop culture blog.

For months, they were the "stalkers," showing up wherever the cast might be partying and ticking off producers and crew members. You would think the former housemates would disdain Ploger and Wiggins after a certain point—after all, they only signed up for a certain kind of attention. Official cameramen: Yes. Random girl with camera constantly in hand: No.

But I was mistaken.

They were chatting with the cast, and shared front row seats with them before one of Blackfinn's biggest TVs.  Wiggins helped organize the event (his name was on the press invitation), and Ploger was a co-host.

...I am naive about this stuff.

They weren't the only ones there to reunite with old "friends." A lot of the people I met proclaimed to have a connection to the cast—some more tenuous than others.

Toward the front of the bar, Ashley Gum and Barbara Moorman–sorority sisters, both graduated now, from George Mason University–sat in a booth eating dinner around 8:30 when I arrived.  They said one of their friends, Krystal, was going to be in the first episode. She met the cast out at a club and then went back to the house. Krystal was apparently not concerned about how she would be portrayed. "She wanted it," one girl told me, "She just went in the hot tub and the confessional and bitched about her ex boyfriend." (If Krystal was in the first episode, I missed it.)

Then, there was Tim Hanlon, who I met on a step near the kitchen overlooking where the cast was seated and talking to reporters. He said he met Mike—the bisexual jock from Colorado—and Callie—the sweet photographer girl from Texas—during the season.

"I'd like to touch base with Callie," he says. "She looks like she lost at least 20 pounds." It soon became clear that Mike has maintained his friendships with the cast in the same way thousands of others can: By Facebook.

Tim and Callie reunited.

Then there was the girl who said she knew Emily—the former religious fundamentalist from Missouri—but wouldn't say how other than to mention that they had dinner that night.

And for the record, the lack of MTV oversight didn't stop Ploger or Metromix from dubbing the party  the "Official Real World DC  Premiere Party" on their own.

Want to attend a party where a bunch of photographers, cameramen and reporters swarm around four twenty-somethings who up until six months ago were completely anonymous?

You probably can't get within ten feet of them unless you're a member of the media or a "friend." But you can buy them shots. And about an hour after this pretty posse arrives, get this: You can watch them—two slender brunettes, one muscular black guy, and one petite blond with a gold bow in her hair—watch themselves debut on the 23rd season of The Real World.

Yup, it's true: that show is still on television.

Well if that sounds like the party for you, I'm sorry to say you missed it. Some 800 people heard about the event, held at BlackFinn on I St., through Metromix Washington D.C.. For more on the show, the filming, etc., check out our RWDC archive.

Okay, so there are even more Real World DC videos. MTV has released mini video profiles, complete with some of the original, homemade castings tapes (though multiple cast members told me that their first casting experience was at an event—not submitting a video. So I'm not sure when these are produced.) Cast member Emily is shown returning to the cult-like Christian church of her youth. Ashley talks about how you can spot her Portuguese heritage–apparently it's all in the nose. And Andrew divulges that he has always been the dumped person, never the dumper, in relationships.

After a week of Real World DC madness, the blog has transitioned back to its usual housing and development-related content. This week, we welcomed both "Proud Satanist" and "Proud Catholic" as commenters to the blog. Both of them were, of course, posting about Catholic Charities' recent threat to stop running city-contracted social service programs if forced to extend employee benefits to married gay couples.  Look for more on the same-sex marriage legislation from my colleague The Sexist Amanda Hess this week. As for me, well Ask Housing Complex! is launching in the next few days—should be fun, and by "fun" I mean "full of misery, which will hopefully lessened with sound advice."

(1) Councilmembers Dig in Heels on Catholic Threat

(2) Catholic Church Threatens to Withhold Social Services if City Passes Same-Sex Marriage Law

(3) Second Chance for First-Time Buyers

(4) Worst Cities for Pedestrians

(5) Meet Real World DC Cast Member Ashley

(6) Second Chance for First-Time Buyers, Part 2

(7) An Explanation for the Boutique Hotel Boom

(8) Here They Are D.C., Your Seven (Eight, Actually) Strangers!

Image by TheChristianAlert.org, Flickr Creative Commons Attribution License.

Okay, in truth, the following list should read Real World, Real World, Affordable Condos, Real World, Real World, First-time Homebuyer Tax Credit, Real World, Real World, Real World, Real World. It's an unstoppable force! as I predicted.

But in the name of variety and, well, a "housing complex," I'll leave most of the Real World posts to be discovered by Googlers and those that click on the top link. All the bios I wrote about the various roommates are collected there.

(1) Here They Are D.C., Your Seven (Eight, Actually) Strangers!

(2) D.C.’s Designated Affordable Condos Are Great—Just Don’t Move Any Time Soon

(3) Congress May Pass New Homebuyer Tax Credit This Week

(4) Homebuyer Tax Credit Will Extend Through July

(5) First-Time Homebuyer Credit Will Be Extended…But How?

(6) Now That’s What I Call a Sidewalk!

Image from MTV

There were rampant rumors that Erika Wasilewski left the show before the season wrapped. She was around earlier during the press day, held last month, as evidenced by the Washington Post's video. But when I stopped by later, Erika was nowhere to be seen.

MTV publicists said that she was in the city, but she was sick. And by "sick," do you think they meant "sick and tired of all the lies?"

Josh Colon, 23, from Philadelphia is described as a "Puerto Rican/Italian glam rocker/rapper" by MTV. While touring me through the house, he went on and on about his band, and showed off his large sneaker collection—a wide variety of multi-colored Converse Kicks, if I'm remembering correctly.

His last Philly-based band broke up roughly a year ago. "There was a lot of inner turmoil. I had a lead guitarist that had a drug problem. One kid went into the Marines. I was actually thinking of going, but this came through first. It was career decision time for me. I had to make a move!"

While here, Colon worked at Rhino Bar in Georgetown and started a new band, Wicked Liquid, which played at the Rock and Roll Hotel back in late September. He calls them a "mix between the Chili Peppers and The Roots" and said they were planning on touring the East Coast after Real World shooting completed.

Josh arrived in Washington while still in a relationship with a Philly girlfriend, and hinted that the season shooting period hadn't been easy on the relationship.

Image by Sadie Dingfelder.

Andrew Woods is the goofy blond guy spotted in D.C. wearing weird blue goggles and a panda hat. Originally from the Denver area, he decided to audition after a little prodding from his younger brother. "He thought I’d have a better chance of getting on the show, because I’m more of a prick," he says.

According his MTV bio, he came to Washington after his latest girlfriend cheated on him and dumped him, and he "heads to D.C. a single man, looking to get with any girl who will say yes."

I must admit, the best anecdote I ever heard about Andrew, I picked up in the Washington Post's recent video of the Real World house. Andrew tells the story himself, standing in front of a basement couch:

"I once brought a girl home, and she was lying on the couch, and I thought it would be cool or something to try and pick her up. And she was a lot heavier than she looked, and then I dropped her right here on this thing, [he's pointing to the arm of the couch here] and it bruised her ribs."

Andrew goes to Colorado State, and is a cartoon artist, so I'm pretty sure these are his works. He served as a graphics intern at the Washington Times while here in D.C. And MTV press docs mention something about how "one night with Andrew, and you may be the target of his next comic." So look out for that delightful little plot line.

Photo credit: Kyle Gustafson / www.photokyle.com.

Ty Ruff, 22, came to D.C.  as a recent graduate of Trinity College, and a recently single man ("fresh out of a three year relationship," according to MTV press docs.)

We soon saw him taking off his shirt at Cobalt, interning with the Caps, and doing other dramatic things like eating Subway sandwiches.

Ty had a rough-and-tumble childhood in Baltimore. After being abandoned by his biological parents, "Ty was shuffled around foster homes before being adopted at age five; and he grew up in a part of Baltimore he compares to 'The Wire,'" according to MTV.  During college in Connecticut, Ty played football, and thought he would "be in real estate and be a Wall Street type of guy," he said during our interview.

Here, he completed a rotating internship with the Washington Capitals, starting in marketing and moving to PR and then to media, learning the inner workings of the website, live streaming video, and operating cameras.

This opportunity...inspired him to go in another direction. "Having been out here, and been a part of this experience, I’ve been more into entertainment," he says. "I did some modeling in Connecticut, and I’ve done modeling here," he says.

So post-Real World, Ty wants to head to California, with the ultimate goal of acting in movies. "That’s the place to chase dreams," he says.

MTV's bio for Ty says "there just might be a roommate who steals his heart."  Ty insists, with a twinkle, that he's "not easily swayed by females. Steal my heart—are you serious? ...No I’m joking."

Photo credit: Kyle Gustafson / www.photokyle.com