DPWT - Highway Maintenance: Leaf Vacuuming:

The Leaf Collection Program will be conducted for approximately 6 to 8 weeks, and includes postings for 2 scheduled pick-ups. We will post green signs throughout the work areas several days before our crews' arrival. We will attempt to allow a weekend for residents to rake their leaves to the edge of the road for vacuum pick-up. Signs will be removed after our crews complete each street. The second and final fall collection will begin after Thanksgiving. The timing will depend on weather conditions. Red signs will indicate that this is the final collection. The same procedure of posting, collection, and sign removal is used for the final vacuum collection.

I saw people collecting leaves, I never saw any green signs...

Kearns, Detailed Name Information with Meaning & Origin at nameLab - FamilyEducation.com:

First name origins & meanings:

1. Celtic: Warrior
2. Gaelic: Dark

First name variations: Karney, Karny, Kerney, Kirney, Kearney, Curran, Kearn, Kearne, Kern

Last name origin & meaning:

Irish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Céirín 'descendant of Céirín', a personal name from a diminutive of ciar 'dark', 'black'. English patronymic -s has been added superfluously.

Kearns — Infoplease.com:

Kearns (kûrnz) [key], uninc. town (1990 pop. 28,874), Salt Lake co., N Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. Alfalfa and barley are grown and cattle and sheep are raised. There is copper mining nearby.

Like buying a new 50″ TV each year and tossing it in the dumpster. — CancelCable.com:

What if you could eliminate your gas bill and still drive 95% of the places you currently go? Or stop paying for heating by keeping your thermostat two degrees cooler? These aren’t possible, but you can stop paying for TV and still watch most of your favorite shows.

Budgets are tight. But most people are still reluctant to give up cable. Even when it may be financially crazy to keep it. Paying $95/month for cable? That’s over $1100 a year. Or enough to buy a 50″ HD Plasma TV each year.

Save the money or put it towards that new big screen TV. Then use free digital broadcast TV and avoid paying monthly cable tv fees. Save the money and earn interest on it. With a 6% rate of return…

• After 3 years you will have saved $3747
• After 5 years you will have saved $6648
• After 10 years you will have saved $15,621
• After 20 years you will have saved $44,083

Congratulations! You have now turned a major expense into an investment.

What are you missing? Not much. We did it and still watch all our favorite shows. Most were broadcast (Lost, 24, etc.) . Using a $16 digital antenna our picture quality is actually better than our old digital cable. Most of our favorite cable shows (Daily Show, Colbert Report) are available for free on the Internet. Our kids watch videos on Disney.com and Nick.com and we get current movies and HBO shows with a Netflix subscription.

Props: CancelCable.com via Washington Post via Lord Scarlet

UBI continues to deliver the love:

Not only does the game look stunning, but I could watch the demo to the official site a dozen times over. Now I know why I still have a PS3 (and, of course, replaying Ratchet & Clank since I had no backup of my game save...)

Props: FitzGerlad

When I got my T-Mobile G1 I couldn't find anywhere around here with street view. Thanks to Thayer Ave I now know that Silver Spring is full on robot street view, and Bethesda they're just getting started. Here's the back of my house:

View Larger Map

And I can't get enough of the "Graphic Novel" artwork style:

Check out:

ALIAmerica Home:

Arabic Language Institute of America (ALIAmerica) offers professional Arabic language teaching, training, and tutoring services for both adults and children in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Yes, this is a plug for a friend, but he's good, really really good...

Decided to trade in the Jetta, picked up a Mazda5. More seating room, lower monthly payment, not as good millage, but as much as I drive, it still won't be more than I'm saving a month on the payment, so I come out ahead. Basically it looks like this:

Mine is dark silver, though, and doesn't have fog lamps, or the cool honeycomb grill, or the roof things for luggage. So far so good. Drives real nice, and even with 4 cylendars it has quite a bit of zoom zoom...

Activision and Blizzard parent merge in $18 billion deal - Joystiq:

File this under "straight out of left field" -- Activision, the publishing powerhouse behind the Call of Duty and Tony Hawk series; and Vivendi Games, owner of Blizzard Entertainment, which you probably don't need us to tell you is behind the Warcraft and Starcraft series, are coming together to form "the world's most profitable games business," cleverly named Activision Blizzard.

So when is World of River Raid coming out?

Anyone who has lived in DC for a while knows that with each new administration, it means new restaurants. Bush Sr. liked Chinese. Clinton like Mickey-Ds and Dominoes, when W got here we got some Austin-style Tex-Mex. So what can we expect from the Obama camp?

Seems reports are he likes to cook Chili and serve it over rice. He also seems to like Pizza and comfort/soul food. I'm hoping it gets Rick Bayless to open a real Mexican place in the city. Chicago dogs? Kansas ribs? Hawaiian spam and poi? Doubt it means Kenyan or Indonesian food, but how great would that be? What are you hoping for?

Uh, what's happening CC?
They still call it the White House
But that's a temporary condition, too.
Can you dig it, CC?

...

There's a lot of chocolate cities, around
We've got Newark, we've got Gary
Somebody told me we got L.A.
And we're working on Atlanta
But you're the capital, CC

...

Hey, CC!
They say your jivin' game, it can't be changed
But on the positive side,
You're my piece of the rock
And I love you, CC.
Can you dig it?

Hey, uh, we didn't get our forty acres and a mule
But we did get you, CC, heh, yeah
Gainin' on ya
Movin' in and around ya
God bless CC and its vanilla suburbs

...

You don't need the bullet when you got the ballot
Are you up for the downstroke, CC?

...

And don't be surprised if Ali is in the White House
Reverend Ike, Secretary of the Treasure
Richard Pryor, Minister of Education
Stevie Wonder, Secretary of FINE arts
And Miss Aretha Franklin, the First Lady
Are you out there, CC?
A chocolate city is no dream
It's my piece of the rock and I dig you, CC
God bless Chocolate City and its (gainin' on ya!) vanilla suburbs

[ Chocolate City - Parliment ]

Seriously, though, let's start talking Obama's cabinet...

Some said it would never happen, I say it's about time:

2008 Election: Winners and Losers - The Fix:

All the talk that Obama's poll numbers were inflated as a result of the fact that voters did not feel comfortable telling pollsters they would not vote for him due to the color of his skin proved to be bunk.

In Harlem convenience store, an immigrant enclave - On the Scene: Witnessing History - msnbc.com:

“People will love the United States more than ever,” Barrie said. “Do you know why? Because we showed the world already that this is United States. … We are human beings, everybody is equal.”

Obama's victory caps struggles of previous generations - CNN.com:

Moses says he is amazed that Obama has helped lead the country through a racially transformative moment without anyone getting killed. Pivotal events in America's racial history -- the debate over slavery, the assault on segregation -- sparked widespread violence, Moses says. "I don't think people appreciate how delicate it is to move the society around these questions without descent into chaos or into pockets of chaos," he says.

Nation Finally [Crappy] Enough To Make Social Progress | The Onion - America's Finest News Source:

Although polls going into the final weeks of October showed Sen. Obama in the lead, it remained unclear whether the failing economy, dilapidated housing market, crumbling national infrastructure, health care crisis, energy crisis, and five-year-long disastrous war in Iraq had made the nation crappy enough to rise above 300 years of racial prejudice and make lasting change. (courtesy Grossberg)

NAACP:

Yesterday, we ushered in a new era. Yesterday, we destroyed the remnants of Jim Crow, abolished a one-color-fits-all definition of leadership, and declared that our nation would rise above the politics of the past. Yesterday, we witnessed the most inclusive election enjoyed by the largest best- informed, motivated electorate in our nation’s history. Yesterday, we elected an African-American man to President of the United States of America.

I pray that Obama does such a tremendous job that this is never an issue again, and we look forward to future presidents of all genders, races, religions, and socio-economic backgrounds!

French Revolution: The Wheel of Fortune:

Wagon Wheels with Sauce Roquefort

1 pound of wagon wheel pasta (recommended: Barilla Mini Wheels)
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of flour
2 cloves of garlic, smashed and left whole
Zest of half a lemon
1/3 pound of Roquefort, crumbled
2 cups of whole milk
2/3 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
1/3 cup parmesan, grated
1 ½ tablespoons of parsley

1. Cook the pasta to “al dente” in a large pot full of salted boiling water. Drain.
2. While the pasta is cooking, begin with a standard béchamel with garlic and lemon. Melt the butter at the bottom of a sauce pan over medium heat, and add in the whole smashed garlic cloves and the lemon zest, along with salt and pepper. Season well—milk sauces have a tendency to be bland.
3. Add in the flour, and cook for a minute. Whisk in the milk, raise the heat, and bring to a simmer.
4. Allow the sauce to cook until it thickens. The test is to dip a wooden spoon in the sauce, run your finger down the back, and if the sauce stays divided, the béchamel is done.
5. Add in the Roquefort, and stir until it is combined.
6. Toss the drained pasta with the Roquefort sauce, and pour into a large serving bowl.
7. Mix together the parmesan, walnuts, and parsley. Scatter over the top of the pasta.