Kevin Costner's Russian's Rusty: Washington DC Metropolitan Area Thread II

Shoot me a line if you're going up to Dremo's any time soon. I worked there this summer, and am in there all the time.

How's the cold turkey going? Quitting smoking for five days is pretty impressive, seriously.

Silver Spring = hardcore dangerous. Our new Ann Taylor Loft only sells Mad Max style leather vests and bandoliers.

I met a friend today at Cafe Bonaparte in G'town. Yummy crepes. Also walked past the C&O canal, around the waterfront park and up Book Hill to the G'town library, which is unfortunately, not open on Sundays.

Dropped some $$ at Urban Outfitters on a green le Tigre track jacket that I soo did not need. but, pretty pink tiger. Went into H&M but the few basic black velvet and black corduroy jackets only available in plus and minus sizes. Was hearkened by the sight of the Lacoste store but not cheered by the merch within. Tried on the navy-blue "boy blazer" at J, Crew, but so not worth the money and the duds at Zara left me cold. The military brigade seems to have ususped the peasants. Found a nice argyle sweater at Commander Salamander but already have the cardigan in a different color scheme.

Tried to go to see Tony Takatani at the E, but couldn't find parking, got confused, gave up and came home. Maybe tomorrow. Must see.

H&M at Tyson's Corner had a few awesome tops, navy blue w/knotted detail at the neckline, fantastic. Didn't have any cash though. In fact I was returning a $8 top to get cash for the drive out of the city because I was running so short. oops! Almost bought a totally preppy navy wool fitted blazer with gold buttons from teh Goodwill a few weeks ago, but at the last minute put it back because the sleeves a touch too short (as usual).

Searching for a place to live completely sucks. Maybe I should try to find guy housemates. Whenever I go to see a place and the potential housemate is a girl, I don't know, I either get the smug competitive vibe or the passive aggressive "I don't like you for no reason" vibe. The other day I called up this dude from a Craigslist ad who had a nice sounding place off Connecticut and after I politely ask if the room was still available, he's like (sarcasm) "No, I just really wanted to talk to a bunch of random strangers so I thought I'd post an ad." Hey, excuse you, asshole!

Really wanting a preppy navy school-style blazer, so bad I walked into American Eagle today bc I had a strange feeling that I had seen such a garment in one of the various American Teen mags. I only walked a few steps in, didn't see it, realized I'd have to go upstairs, looked at the doorman and walked out again.

I've also seen one from Brooks Brothers which is cheaper than the J Crew one, but not by much, and if the J Crew one had fittedness problems, was a bit boxy, I imagine the BB one would be a lot worse.

Good luck, D. I hope something comes through.

I tried on these Free People plaid pleated and cuffed trousers today, but the zipper was so short--it was very strange, like half the size of the a regular zipper. They were like fake pants or something.

Went through the G'town flea market also, slim pickens but it was a beautiful day.

I was out in Fairfax County for a couple days at a temp job and someone ripped the Maryland Democrats sticker off my car. Now I have to find the spare & see if I still have that extra Kerry for President sticker to put next to it. thanks, Virginia.

Yeah, the Brooks Brothers blazer I saw in a photo shoot was actually from the boys' department, not the pseudo "boy's blazer" FOR WOMEN offered by J. Crew. The J Crew one had kinda puffy shoulders and wasn't very tailored. i would think it would have been more slim-fitting. Blazers are so damn expensive though.

http://www.brooksbrothers.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id=356&Product_Id=827247&Parent_Id=346

http://www.jcrew.com/catalog/product.jhtml?id=prod64723681&catId=cat75816

Hm... You could always have the buttons changed..

Gap boys wool uniform blazer

Kaz Sushi Bistro is a shining beacon of hope in the Farragut rectum.

I am perturbed by the number of people who are all up and about and headed to work at 7am. Jesus.

We can't just go with tried-and-true DoD solutions because what does DoD know about what our agency needs LOL PWNED

I've been at the same pay grade for twelve years no I haven't heard of the "Peter Principle" how is that spelled LOL PWNED

We need to get this documented and approved by the SES we don't want to do anything without two months of meetings and writeups because it's proven fact that two months of meetings and writeups prior to starting action ensures that I can't be held responsible for my mistakes LOL PWNED

Who cares if we actually do anything all day, we work from 6:30am to 2:30pm so barely anybody notices, not like we're ever around to answer our own fucking phonecalls LOL PWNED

--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld LOL PWNED

Do they usually have no A/C in that joint or was it just the night we were there?

One of my coworkers at a recent temp gig was a guy who spent the summer working at DOJ. In order to use up all the money in their budget they hired a bunch of temps to shuffle paper and file things and sit around listening to music, at $25/hour. I so missed out.. LOL PWNX0R3D

I know one guy who is going back to GS world from LM because our project is totally frustrating to him, and he wants "challenging as in having to use my brain, not challenging as in having to work 60 hour weeks" which I totally understand. He's getting them to match his play at GS-12 step something, which is not bad, and he knows the people there and likes the position.

OTOH he is the only, only, only person I know who has decided to go back to GS from the contracting world who isn't already at basically the GS-15/SES level.

I don't think the Big Scary Man is so scary anymore. 3 weeks vacation! Not 2!

Northrop Grumman & Lockheed Martin's hiring practices are to offer people boatloads of money so that they don't go to work for anybody else. Which contributes to skyrocketing turnover and a real estate bubble!

Gee.

I love working for the government, though I work for the little g, city government. I only work part-time and they offer healthcare and holidays. I don't work Mondays, but every time there's a national holiday on a Monday, I get to work 6 hours less during that week. However, one of co-workers absconded to Lebanon for the past three months, so I have to work every other Saturday to fill in for her. LOL PWNED.

About three months later (long after I had taken my contracting job), I got a notice that one of my applications had made it out of the first tier of bureaucracy and that whatever office if was forwarded it to would be getting around to looking at it in three MORE months. Now, perhaps there are a lot of people out there who are willing to sit around for six months to find out if they got a job or not, but I'm not one of them.

The job I did take went something like this: sent resume and cover letter on Tuesday. Got a call to schedule an interview on Wednesday. Preliminary offer Thursday. One day of salary negotiations. FedEx with offical offer arrived on Saturday.

Now that I do hiring myself I've gotten to employ the seven-day resume-to-offer-letter schedule, so it wasn't just me; meanwhile, I'm still waiting to hear about that NIH job three and a half years later.

I'm always surprised by how friends of mine have managed to get along in sketchy neighborhoods like "oh, it'll be fine, don't worry about it," but I guess I don't have their good luck.

when my former roommates and i were looking for a place we looked at a beautiful house on harvard btween 16 and 15, and we talked to neighbors, many of whom had been there for 5+ years and seen the safety of the neighborhood improve greatly. we asked the current tenants if they'd had any troubles, and one replied, "oh no, not at all, no troubles, it's very safe. ...except the day we moved in someone smashed all the windows to my girlfriend's car and stole all her stuff out of it."

which we decided was not okay.

on the other hand, i've had my car broken into twice in two years at 15th & Q, there's been a pcp-enraged stabbing down the block, a mugging across the street last week, etc. nowhere is really all that safe.

um, i don't know what's required to get a p.o. box, but if you need a person on location i could probably help you.

Anyway, three things I like about the DC area right now:

1). Wonderland.
2). CDepot
3). Mulligan's grill in College Park when it's 4:00 PM on a saturday afternoon, no one is there, and my roomate is bartending.

Can someone address the opinion I've heard that The Black Cat dance nights are like the psuedo-hipster/hipster single person's paradise? I've never been. Not saying I'm a hipster.

I've had the window smashed on my car (U St) and that was annoying but there were regularly smashed car windows on that block all the time (don't leave stuff in your car parked on the street around there, duh..) What I did mind was Petworth someone totally busted up the car door lock, I got mugged, and I also heard gunshots sometimes. Not cool. My friends were always like "oh, it's not that bad around here.." Sure, it's fine, except I worry about having a gun pulled on me again every time I walk out the fucking door!

I guess the degree of annoying stuff you'll have in Logan Circle is one thing but that walk in the dark uphill past Florida Ave is not one I want to be doing all the time, is my sense of it. Right by U St metro and a bit south is OK just because there are tons of people around all the time and especially late on the weekends.

Thanks for the offer re: PO Box, I'm driving back for a couple days this weekend to see a few places and take care of some stuff, I'll just do it then.

i'm feeling a lot of enthusiasm for this bleakness.

black cat dance nights are best entered into with good friends, a great amount of alcohol and a minimum of self consciousness. i don't know that anything in DC is a hipster/single person's paradise. i don't know that anything in DC is EITHER a hipster's paradise OR a single person's paradise.

this is the first time in a long time that i'm not coexisting in both cities, which might be another reason i'm gravitating towards this thread.