Morning Roundup: Mixed Emotions Edition

It's cold out there, eh Washington? But apparently not cold enough to stop the notorious Vienna Pants Grabber, who NBC4 is reporting may be branching out from his favorite Metro stop to area apartment complexes. Freaky. Can everyone take good look at those two composite sketches so we can get this jackass off the streets? Thank you.

WMATA Jealous of DCist: Clearly recognizing the sheer genius of our very own Last Call SMS Feature, which gives you metro arrival times, plus movie, restaurant and concert information via text message right to your phone, WMATA has announced its own version of wireless access to its bus and train arrival information. And yeah, in some ways WMATA's new system is better than ours. To start with, the new information available on their web site is real time, as opposed to Last Call which is only able to access their published train schedule — but just as soon at Metro makes the real time data feed available to the public, we should be able to have that for you too! Then again, WMATA's also got bus information in their service, which is frankly awesome and potentially beyond our capabilities. BUT! You have to have one of those fancy Blackberries or Sidekicks or other mobile devices that can access the Internet to use it when you're out. We still like our SMS version a lot better, if only because nearly anyone can access it at any time. We're keeping it real, yo. All of this said, please do try out WMATA's new mobile feature and let us know what you think.

Heating Oil from Chavez Headed to D.C.: Thousands of low-income families in D.C., Maryland and Virginia will have help from heating their homes this winter from, of all places, Venezuela. Last year notorious Bush-basher Hugo Chavez, who recently called the President "the devil", started selling heating oil at reduced prices in some areas of the country. This year District residents will benefit as well, if they choose to accept hand-outs from the anti-U.S. dictatorship. Look at it this way, at least it will be warm in "the devil('s)" domain.

Briefly Noted: City's exurbs shifting party allegiances ... SE public housing complex tries to pick up the pieces after so many murders ... The possible demise of crabcakes? Say it ain't so ... Woman killed by co-worker at Landover Mall Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg.

This Day in DCist: In 2005 we welcomed back Karaoke to the Galaxy Hut, and in 2004 we warned you about a metro train collision on the Red line.

Photo by amishah.