For dance lovers looking to get into the holiday spirit, The Nutcracker is a must at this time of year. Thankfully, the Washington D.C. area has numerous performances of the beloved ballet from which to choose. While there’s over a dozen performances ranging in size from huge ballet troupes to small dance studios, here's a few that stand out among the rest. American Ballet Theater: Few companies can compete with the size and talents of......

Good morning, Washington. If you're the kind of person who delights in reading angry product reviews on consumer web sites, head over here and read some of the comments about the Presidential Inn on New York Ave. Highlights include "I have never been so disgusted with a place in all my life," "I can't even believe that it is running legally," and, tellingly, "upon my departure I noticed small red bumps all over my body."......

The Washington Post has their ear to the ground, listening for the news that D.C. really wants to hear: the next wave of super duper anti-rat technology. Or not, they add, but Joseph Dussich, inventor of the Repel-X trash bag, thinks he's found the key to Pied Piper the city's rats right out of town, or at least away from alley dumpsters. His trash bags use the aroma of eucalyptus and a few secret ingredients......

Good morning, Washington. We hope you had a relaxing weekend, and weren't one of the people inconvenienced by the brief closing of a number of Metro stations on Sunday. The story goes that a contractor mistakenly spread commercial-grade rat poisoning in the middle of the day around several stations in D.C. and Maryland. When dozens of birds started dropping dead at the Greenbelt, Anacostia, Naylor Road and Branch Avenue stations on the Green line......

Still no sight of any repairs having begun on the condemnded Shiloh Baptist Church properties today. The church has until May 31 to complete a list of repairs to four rowhouses on 9th St. NW before the city claims it will do the work on its own and place a lien on the properties to pay for them. There is however a truck belonging to the Dept. of Health's rat abatement program parked in......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

>> D.C.'s Rat Czar puts the city's war on rodents in perspective. Gerard Brown, program manager of the DOH's Rodent and Vector Control Division, tells the Examiner, "Rats are genius. They are going to be here after we leave." Is Stephen Hawking available for a little vermin abatement brainstorming? [Washington Examiner] >> Check out these simple steps to making politics funny. We'll see if President Bush can pull it off at tomorrow's White House......

Last week we checked out that hotbed of hard news, Inside Edition, as they visited our fair city and shined the bright light of truth on the District's rat problem. Today the Examiner reports from the front lines of the war on rodents and concludes that we're losing. From all four quadrants the perennial urban menaces -- sometimes the size of small dogs -- are scurrying about, causing various levels of disgust and panic. How......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In......

Run for your lives, Washington. Rats have taken over our fair city, and there is no hope of escaping their evil, rat-like ways. We shall flee to the suburbs and their clean, plastic, rat-free lifestyle. But wait! Inside Edition, long-time bastion of quality broadcast news, is here to save us. Thank God for Inside Edition's Rat Patrol. Let me start out by saying that Inside Edition is possibly the greatest news show on television. Not......

Marion Barry dances with Council member Carol Schwartz (R At-Large) at Adrian Fenty's inaugural ball Saturday. Thanks to Amy over the Post's Reliable Source for the tip, who also mentioned hearing that in a moment of brilliant editorial planning, Fox 5 News apparently broadcast the YouTube video directly after a story about Barry's latest court appearance.......

>> Yeah, you. You need to stay late tonight to make up for the crazy amount of time you're about to have off. That's right, those of us who do not work for the Federal Government are currently glaring up a storm at those of you who do, because the word from on high is now official: President Bush has declared January 2 as the official day of mourning for President Ford, which means Federal......

DCist reader David writes in with this important question: Where does one get kegs in D.C.? I've lived here around a year, and have no idea. Online price lists are a plus, as is a NW location. We hear you, David. Sure, we're not in college anymore, but sometimes when you're set to throw a really big par-tay, going with a keg can be the most cost effective and least messy (no bottles to clean......

Deep in the incestuous (professionally speaking) world of indie rock, there is Rilo Kiley. Based out of Los Angeles, it isn’t that much of a surprise that the band was founded by two former child stars, Jenny Lewis of Troop Beverly Hills fame, and Blake Sennett, aka Salute Your Shorts’ Ronnie Pinksy, aka Joseph 'Joey the Rat' Epstein from Boy Meets World. More interesting is the number of popular side projects on which these......

So suddenly it's chilly? Yesterday we were all sweaty messes, but today, with highs predicted to stay in the 60s, we're wearing sweaters. All this temperature-related confusion has led us to look longingly at the Southwest Airlines web site, since the airline finally began service from Dulles this morning. Cheap flights to Vegas are looking pretty sweet. And while we're of course very sad to be reminded of the demise of our hometown airline, we......

Thunderball may define their music in press releases as “cinematic, dub-laden compositions full of intrigue,” but their newest album on D.C.’s Eighteenth Street Lounge Music label, Cinescope, is a mess – a disorderly combination of too many benders while watching Rat Pack films and “Shaft in Africa” with some forgettable guest vocal tracks. The album doesn’t start out so cluttered, however. Openers “The Road to Benares” and “Electric Shaka” (with suitably electric vocals by Afrika......

After a brief summer hiatus, Opinionst is back. Please send DCist your thoughts, comments and critiques on almost all things related to our fair city. Bring it, guys! Today's opinion comes to us from 10-year D.C. resident Ian Buckwalter. Video Americain ended its tenure in D.C. last month, succumbing to high rent, diminishing business, and the factors that will likely doom most video stores: Netflix and video-on-demand. But when the Blockbuster on Columbia Road eventually......

Living in a city comes with benefits and annoyances. Though many a city-dweller may be within walking distance of nightlife and urban excitement, they're also subject to any number of rules and regulations that are part and parcel of living close together -- lot occupancy limits, historic codes, etc. And since summer is upon us, so too are the rules governing how District residents must maintain their lawns. From a press release from the Department......

It has been a light week here at Overheard in D.C.'s cramped quarters, but we understand that most sane people would rather be out enjoying this incredible weather than basking in the warmth of a computer monitor's glow, sending us emails. However, we were particularly tickled by an email sent in by a reader from the great metropolis to our north, pointing us to his blog entry recounting a recent conversation with a sobriety-challenged, directionally-challenged......

Every Sunday, DCist runs first person editorial pieces about life in this city of ours. If you've got something to say, we'd be happy to listen. This week, Ian Manheimer contributes his thoughts about living in DC. A couple weeks ago DCist asked blogger Matthew Yglesias a question that speaks to the way so many residents build conceptual framework for living in DC. From the interview: You're a New Yorker, and some people in D.C.......

The National Zoo has made great strides in its animal care since 2000. Between that year and 2005, the Zoo lost red pandas to rat poison, zebras to starvation and hypothermia, an oryx from neglect after delivering a baby, and a handful of other animals from various seemingly preventable causes. Just last year, the Zoo lost a healthy camel and was forced to euthanize a giraffe after unsuccessful surgery to remove a tumor. In recent......

These days, if you haven't seen Butterstick in the flesh, well, you may as well not even be alive. Ever since the District's favorite new celebrity was born just over six months ago, residents from across the region have watched as Butterstick grew from grotesque rat-looking thing to the mound of cuteness we see today. And ever since the National Zoo started handing out free tickets to see the 'stick, attendance at the Woodley Park......

Good morning, Washington. Today will be cloudy and cool with a 60 percent chance of rain in the afternoon. Today the National Zoo is releasing the first tickets to the general public to catch a glimpse of the baby panda - go to their website and get yours, if you can. If you work on the hill the AP is reporting the smoke which caused an evacuation of the Rayburn House Office Building this morning......

The Fair Trade Students Association at American University is currently pressuring their administration to fill a soon-to-be-vacant spot in the Mary Graydon Center with a Pura Vida Coffee Shop instead of Starbucks. Pura Vida supplies coffee for a number of other universities; if the FTSA succeeds, this will be the first such shop in the District. The FTSA at American was the first student organization in the United States devoted entirely to such coffee. From......

Any blogger worth their salt should know that the -ist family's executive editor, Jen Chung, loves pandas. So Jen, here you go. We know you can't see pandas at the Bronx Zoo (but there are red pandas there -- our red pandas here in D.C. died after eating rat poison buried in their enclosure), so here's the next best thing. We're sure pandas in their natural habitat don't have to deal with the construction......

A federal contractor was taken to the hospital yesterday with non-life threatening stab wounds after some sort of confrontation with another employee. The USDA complex at Independence Avenue and 14th Street SW was put on lockdown as the situation was brought under control. But the details behind the stabbing are still quite sketchy, the Post reports. Like many federal departments and agencies, security at Agriculture is farmed out to private security contractors, but is overseen......

The Smithsonian's National Zoological Park is seeking to increase the number and variety of animals on display after their collection has decreased by half since 1992, the AP is reporting. The change comes at a time when the Zoo has recently begun a director search, perhaps indicating that institution is turning over a new leaf in its history, after a number of notable animal deaths at the zoo from neglect, accidental poisoning or attacks from......