Results tagged “halloween”

An armed robber wearing a creepy skeleton mask got away with a bag of cash on Tuesday morning from the SunTrust bank branch located at 8510 Connecticut Ave., in Chevy Chase. Montgomery County police say the suspect fled in a white sedan driven by another person, and that the two later switched to a black Mercedes Benz.

So President Barack Obama and First lady Michelle Obama opened up the White House to trick-or-treaters on Saturday, which is pretty cool. Kids from 11 D.C. area schools were invited to come by and meet the first couple as they handed out this administration's version of a Halloween treat: White House M&Ms, a sugar cookie, and ... you guessed it, dried fruit. Talk about boo.

              

I think two things about making a gallery of pictures of jack-o'-lanterns. One: This is exactly the sort of task I'm up to on a November 1. I tend to enjoy my sweets in the four of bourbon for Halloween, and as a result November 1 is a hangover to rival January 1. In stumbling around the house groaning for advil and wondering how I stubbed my presently lame big toe, I present a more convincing zombie than any you saw in Georgetown last night. Two: Something about taking pictures of pumpkins makes people go nuts with the photoshop. How is it that photos of orange gourds look so green?

Last year, we had a laugh or two about the signs that Maryland required registered sex offenders to post during last year's trick-or-treating hours, in order to let parents know which houses to avoid. We even had deeply offensive musical accompaniment! But despite last year's positive results, the signs were not required this year, according to WTOP. Why's that? "[T]he sign was confusing because it had a pumpkin," said the coordinator of the sex offender registry for the county sheriff's office. So confusing that you'd miss the large, green "NO CANDY AT THIS RESIDENCE" text which lies directly on top of the pumpkin's face?

For those who anxiously refresh DCist in anticipation of the next [food item]pocolypse, your patience has paid off! Empty stomachs in search of sustenance before an evening of waddling around in costume, take note: Chipotle is definitely doing their annual "dress like a burrito -- or you know, just throw a whole bunch of random bits of foil on your person and we'll be so busy that we won't even care -- and you'll get a free burrito" Halloween promotion. (Personally, I'm a fan of the "Mega Man" strategy of covering the forearms with burrito-wrap, but don't let me tell you how to express your own inner burrito.) You'll be hard-pressed to find an easier giveaway all year -- just grab whatever foil is sitting around in your kitchen drawers and hit up one of the numerous local Chipotles after 6 tonight.

Happy Halloween, ye fellow denizens of Zombieton, D.C. I suppose that some of you are spending the precious daylight of All Hallow's Eve running around, paralyzed with the realization that your utter lack of costume ingenuity has finally come back to bite you. (Note: we hear the Columbia Heights Target is already out of white sheets, so there goes that idea.)

Georgetown is, as always, one of the biggest destinations for Halloween revelers, and the District Department of Transportation has sent out the following advisory for road closures and parking restrictions for the weekend. The roads marked in orange below will be closed to through traffic from 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 31 until 4 a.m. on Sunday, November 1. Only motorists who are residents and employees of businesses within these areas will be granted access during this time. Also keep in mind that additional streets may be closed and/or opened at the direction of D.C. police. Drivers must present proof of residency or work identification to access the closed streets.

After countless adaptations and revisions, what does the story of Dracula continue to bring to the table? Is it a cautionary tale? Case study of a haunting figure? An excuse for oozing sexuality? An almost comical villain at this point?

No, you cannot be Balloon Boy.

     

A Peeps store at National Harbor sounded pretty absurd on its face. What does a Peeps store do once Easter is over and the Post's uploaded its last Peeps Show image?

Sure, everyone had a good laugh about them. One intrepid reader even wrote a song about them. And - I'm sure like many others - I was the victim of some friendly ribbing by office colleagues who felt it appropriate to paste them on my door with specific instructions not to answer the door.

          

We thought we'd take a minute to share some of the DCist staff's best and/or most ridiculous costumes from this past weekend. If you've got Halloween costume photos you'd like to share, tag them on Flickr with "dcist" and "halloween."

              

Time to get in the proper holiday spirit with some fancy pumpkin carving, yes? We found these images taken by our Flickr contributors over the last week as people prepared for the big night. This one, by RSchley, is our favorite -- some Washington National's pride (because it's terrifying?) and a classic black cat waiting for unlucky victims to come into its path. Naturally, it's time for the every-four-years political stencil carvings, and folks around D.C. have made a pretty strong Pumpkins for Obama effort (a wicked lobby, indeed), as well as a Gourd Out the Vote groundswell ... okay, that one was bad. Enjoy the carvings below, and if you have more, tag them "dcist" and "pumpkin" and check them out here.

It may be Halloween, but since the shenanigans won't get started until tonight, we don't have much actually in the way of ghoul-related overheards. Unless you kind of stretch it...

Halloween-themed events and activities abound for the rest of the week. Here's just a few of the spooky upcoming goings on we've heard about that sound like they might actually be fun for adults. Add your suggestions in the comments.

Reader Justin Enright enjoyed the story we pointed out last week about how Maryland was requiring convicted sex offenders to post signs on their homes that read, "No Candy at this Residence" in big, capital letters over a scary jack-o-lantern. He enjoyed it so much, in fact, that he wrote and recorded a little song about it. It's a sad ballad from the point of the view of the sex offender. The lyrics are deeply offensive and pretty entertaining, so we figured it was the perfect thing to share with DCist readers. Don't miss killer rhymes like, "Modern laws aren't fair/I'm banned from child care" and "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, even if the one you love is younger than you." Bravo, Justin.

Really want to scare the bejesus out of your neighbors this Halloween? Consider posting the sign at right, which the Washington Times reports was recently sent in the mail to all registered sex offenders in Maryland.

The paper signs began arriving last week in the mailboxes of the roughly 1,200 violent and child-sex offenders across the state with a letter explaining how they are to comport themselves on Oct. 31.

Continue reading "Maryland Sex Offenders Must Post 'No Candy' Signs"

It's D.C. in October in an election year, which means you're going to hear a lot about politics. That's not necessarily a bad thing, there are probably a lot of educated conversations going on around town from folks not involved at all in the horse race. And then there's this guy, who apparently supports either a higher birth rate or venereal disease.

The Associated Press is reporting, via the Examiner, that a Department of Homeland Security employee has been placed on leave after wearing a Halloween costume that was racially insensitive - even though it won "most original" in the agency costume contest. Deciding what costume to wear for Halloween can be tricky enough, but deciding what to wear to an office Halloween costume party in D.C. is tough business. You certainly wouldn't want to wear the...

It’s been a few years since the Pope of Mope has graced the District with his presence—four three to be exact—and in the meantime, many of us have managed to see him play in other nearby locales. As a matter of fact, a few DCist staffers caught the Moz’s Halloween show in Baltimore, at the relatively intimate Ram’s Head Live—a date that was rescheduled due to Morrissey’s string of cancellations this past July. While...

Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without an operator provoking a response from the transport authorities. Elsewhere, London's answer to Central Station is about to open for business, and Londonist got a sneak preview. Meanwhile, spooky goings-on beneath London Bridge, where a cache of skeletons provided an apt story for Hallowe'en....

Orange Line to AAHHH!!!!!! So we've posted a lot of neat Halloween shots, but we couldn't overlook this one by James Calder. It's like a still from a zombie movie set in Washington. Metro's trademark darkness makes it a little spookier, and amusingly, the guy to to left doesn't seem to be too worried about the undead invasion. And the photo has funny tags too: "what do we want - brains. when do we...

Moms are great. Aside from birthing us, they wipe our mouths when we dribble food, wrap us up warm when it gets cold out, and give us Jell-O and ice cream when we're sick. For many years it seemed like mom and dad were the smartest people in the world, an Encyclopedia Familica. Usually they give us advice like cover your mouth when you cough, wash your hands after using the bathroom and useful stuff...

With the surprising lack of Halloween aftermath photos in the DCist pool today, we did a little browsing back through the past week and found this interesting shot by Flickr user chapulin colorado. Using a fake tilt shift, he turned this photo of real life visitors at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History into a diorama you might find in an exhibit of the museum. Tilt-shifting distorts the focus so that viewers believe they're...

Good morning, Washington. Have a good Halloween? We have to admit, this year's midweek scheduling kind of put a damper on the holiday's opportunities for costumed revelry. It didn't stop us from eating a ridiculous amount of candy, though. Naturally, we feel that the children are to blame: if more kids had stopped by we wouldn't be stuck with this glut of chocolate and dearth of willpower. Perhaps this is why our childhood neighbors...

Ten hours in to the 24-hour D.C. taxi strike, it's looking like a large percentage of drivers in fact stayed home. As people make their way out of offices to head home and tend to children anxious to begin trick or treating, what will they find? Based on streets we've seen around town virtually devoid of D.C. cabs, we'd say that if you have your own car, your drive will most likely be a lot...

>> It's Halloween! Spooky, Scary! Despite the taxi strike, SoberRide is still offering free taxi rides for people who have had too much to drink celebrating the holiday: If you need a ride home between 8 p.m. tonight and 4 a.m. tomorrow morning, call 1-800-200-TAXI and you should be able to get a free ride home of up to $50. How long you'll have to wait for that ride is an open question, but...

Happy Halloween, Washington! From the looks of things, Mayor Adrian Fenty is in a festive mood for the holiday, and had a great time right alongside everyone else at last night's 17th Street High Heel Race. The Examiner isn't so sure Fenty's high spirits will last though, as members of the D.C. Council are ticked off at the Mayor for snubbing their hearings by not sending a representative from his office to attend them. Hopefully...

Good Morning, Washington. Birds may finally be heading south for the winter now that overnight temperatures are dipping down towards freezing, but if you can believe it or not it's actually looking like Wednesday is going to be warm again, with temperatures predicted to be back up in the 70s. Well, at least if it's going to be tough to find a cab tomorrow, it'll be pleasant enough to walk or bike. CapitalWeather.com points out...

There seems to be some healthy skepticism about the planned taxicab driver strike on Wednesday, which is set to commence at 6 a.m. on Halloween morning and last for 24 hours. How many drivers will really strike? Could it actually change Mayor Adrian Fenty's mind about switching to time and distance meters? Is the fact that it's planned for Halloween going to impact the number of drunk drivers out on the road? If D.C. taxi...