Watergate: The Video Game
Journalists: It’s the game you’ve always wanted to play. Forget finding Carmen Sandiego. In Watergate: The Video Game, you’re on the hunt to expose Richard Nixon’s corruption. Here, the real sleuthing happens through interviews, document acquisition and hard-hitting reporting. This is the best way to celebrate the Pulitzer Prize that the Washington Post received 40 years ago today for its coverage of the Watergate scandal.
FJP: I like the 8-bit glory of it all. — Michael
If we’re a little bleary-eyed tomorrow, it’s because we’ve spent all night investigating Watergate.
If you hit “no”, you’re resigned to listening to the police scanner for the rest of your life.
Fifteen seconds before this train reached the station, this guy jumped on the tracks. Someone managed to snap a photo of the incident … but here’s the crazy part. The train stopped. The guy wasn’t hurt. Though it could have been quite the scary moment. I used to get off at this stop every single day for work. (via BuzzFeed)
» SFB says: (Warning: I’m about to get passionate about local coffee.) I’ve been to most of these places, and a lot of them only get the coffee part right. The part they get wrong is the experience part. There’s this trend in DC of local shops rebelling against wi-fi users, which is stupid because it turns away potential regular customers. Filter, for example, has good coffee but it’s not a good spot to sit and work because it’s very small and always packed (and its Foggy Bottom location offers no wireless). Among the local chains that get the combination right are Bourbon Coffee near Foggy Bottom (which is an international chain, kinda, as it also has locations in NYC and Rwanda), Firehook Bakery in Cleveland Park, Tynan Coffee in Columbia Heights, Sova if you’re willing to go all the way to H Street, and Pound the Hill and Ebeneezer’s — both in Capitol Hill. There’s nothing downtown that’s as good as any of the shops I mentioned, and most of them close before like 9pm, alas. (Murky in Arlington used to be a good local option, but they closed and the owner opened Chinatown Coffee, which is OK.) — Ernie @ SFB
EDIT: I knew I was forgetting one; Big Bear Cafe in Bloomingdale is nice. Thanks foxwithsocks.
SECOND EDIT: This is 100% on the money. It’s not that I want somewhere with wi-fi, though that helps. It’s that I want somewhere that has a good neighborhood vibe on the side of the coffee. DC doesn’t have that.
Asking for a friend. More details:
Fans of Caribou Coffee might want to start loading up on caffeine now, as the Minnesota-based company confirmed today that it’s closing down 88 locations around the U.S. A further 80 will undergo a rebranding makeover and re-emerge as Peet’s Coffee & Tea sometime in the next year or so.
“Over the past few months, we at Caribou have revisited our business strategy, including closely evaluating our performance by market to make decisions that best position us for long-term growth,” the company said in a written statement, via KARE News.
The 88 under-performing stores will be going away quite soon — April 14 is D-Day for those stores, but there’s no list identifying which locations will be shuttered.
Stores getting a makeover are scattered across Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Illinois and Eastern Wisconsin.
It’s worth noting that a ton of people will lose their jobs over this, some of whom are taking to the company’s Facebook page to rip the chain. While I’ll be disappointed about my loss of a coffee chain that was good for writing SFB posts even if their coffee was only “OK” (DC is loaded with chains, and good local shops are hard to come by), my minor frustration is nothing compared to the folks who are about to lose their jobs.
Man billed after father dies waiting for ambulance
(Photo: NBCWashington.com)
Durand Ford, Jr. says the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Service Department has sent him a $780.85 bill for an ambulance that he called for his father early on the morning of Jan. 1.
Ford tells News4 that his father died waiting for that ambulance, after it took more than 30 minutes to arrive.
This sounds like something that happens in D.C. It’s awful and it deserves to be called out by the press.
Spotted in D.C. today: A DJ, busking for donations. I wonder if this is how Skrillex got his start. The stuff you see on inauguration weekend … — Ernie @ SFB
EDIT: From the comments: “albertis said: Skrillex got his start being the front man of a band named From First to Last.” Thanks for taking my snark seriously, pal.
The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department is investigating whether any city laws were violated when NBC’s David Gregory displayed what appeared to be a 30-round gun magazine on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, a spokesman confirmed to POLITICO.
hahahahahahahaha.
Meet the depressed.
Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg visited Washington DC joined by Senator Charles Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to ask for fiscal help from the federal government for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.
In New York City, the public and private losses caused by Hurricane Sandy, which were not covered by private insurance come to $15.2 billion. New York City’s recovery is vital to America’s continued economic recovery and growth.
Read the Mayor’s remarks delivered yesterday at the U.S Capitol Building at http://on.nyc.gov/UdLnVc.
Highlight from the remarks: “We haven’t waited for the help that we hope to get from Washington to come, but given the scale and the impact of the storm, Federal assistance is clearly warranted.”
Here’s the official Million Puppet March route map! See you in DC on 11/3
So this is apparently happening right now.
All Monday Metro service, both rail and bus, has been cancelled, Metro officials said Sunday night.
In explanation, the officials cited the expected high winds, the likelihood of widespread power outages, and the closing of the federal government.
On Sunday night, the system was to remain in operation until the normal close of service.
As for Monday’s Metro closure, officials said said no decision had yet been made about when rail service would be restored. The announcement said bus service would be suspended Monday “until further notice.”
Officials said service would be restored only “when it is safe to do so.”
Well, that’s no good.
The differences in the two scenarios are most significant for the Maryland and Delaware beaches, where the exact storm track will have a big impact on the severity of coastal flooding. For inland areas (including Washington, D.C. and Baltimore), because this storm is so large, we will experience heavy rain amounts and strong winds in either case. It doesn’t matter if the storm first crosses land in central New Jersey or Chincoteague.Capital Weather Gang’s Jason Samenow • Discussing the scenarios for more-inland residents dealing with Hurricane Sandy, including those in Baltimore and Washington, DC, whether the scenario is “very bad” (a near-direct hit in northern Delaware and southern New Jersey — 70 percent chance) or “worst case” (a direct hit in Delaware and northern Maryland — 30 percent chance) as far as a hurricane hit. Both will bring flooding and damage. One will bring worse flooding and damage than the other, and temperatures will dip as low as the 30s in some spots — which is unseasonably cool for the region.
There you have it: Per Capital Weather Gang, this year is the warmest on record for DC:
2012 continues to be the warmest year on record. With the September data, we now find DCA running 1.6F warmer than the second place tied years of 1991 and 2010. Here are the latest rankings:
We could’ve told you this by walking outside.
D.C. residents: Innovative crime journalism project needs help to keep going
A pitch for some friends and a public service: Laura Amico and her husband Chris have put a lot of energy into a great project in the Washington DC area — a site, Homicide Watch, that quite literally tracks every reported homicide in the District. It’s grown into a public service that’s drawn hundreds of thousands of pageviews per month and helped keep people aware of stories that would’ve gotten ignored by a traditional newspaper. Unfortunately, a deal with a local media outlet to keep the service alive fell though at the last minute, which (due to its founder receiving a prominent fellowship at Harvard) will force the site into hiatus. All is not lost, however — a Kickstarter project to help keep the site going for another year is showing early signs of success; the project has raised a fifth of its desired $40,000 goal in a single day. It’s a smart project and one that the DC community needs. Read up here to find out more.
Just an update: With three days to go, Homicide Watch has just over $1,000 to go before it reaches its funding goal. Here’s a bump to help it get over its goal. If you need a little extra push beyond that, check out this piece digital supergenius Clay Shirky wrote explaining how important this project is.
EDIT: Thanks to a little help from one David Carr, who wrote a piece about Homicide Watch for the New York Times, they just surpassed their Kickstarter goal. Great news!
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