Welcome back to work, Washington. It's the Monday after a jam-packed weekend of fun for many of us, and we understand as well as you do that there's nothing so disheartening as reporting to your desk knowing that good times won't be in sight again for another five full days. It is therefore in the spirit of distraction that we present to you the weekend's funniest, and yet saddest headline for you to mull over while you wait for the coffee to kick in: Councilmember Laptop Stolen at Event to Encourage Responsibility. Kwame Brown's (D- At large) computer was taken from a table at the end of an event sponsored by D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton that was designed to encourage ex-offenders to take responsibility for their lives and futures. Do the Germans have a word for the feeling of not knowing whether to laugh or cry? Alternate joke: Was this why everyone was talking about "Street Sense" all weekend?

The Queen! She's Here! In Case You Didn't Notice: Though she just arrived in Washington early this morning to attend an official state dinner at the White House and have Laura Bush show her around the monuments, the media frenzy surrounding Queen Elizabeth II's visit to the region already has us a bit worn out. Every hour it feels like there's an update about what the Queen ate, who breathed air in the same room with her, and whether or not she farted and it still smelled like rose petals. Though we admit we could easily make room for a lengthy dissection of her fashion choices by Robin Givhan, something like the treatment she gave to Camilla Parker Bowles.

Mixed Messages from Metro: A story in this morning's WaPo says that Metro is hoping to hire more Metrobus drivers under the new budget proposal which will be discussed, at long last, this week. Just last week though, Metro began laying off some employees as part of the planned 220 job cuts that General Manager John B. Catoe said he would make to avoid an immediate rate hike. While the proposed idea of beefing up Metrobus service on heavily-used routes and hiring more street managers to help curb "bus bunching" sounds great, we're especially curious to see how all the budget negotiations -- which must be resolved by June -- shake out in terms of balancing improvements over cutting spending.

Briefly Noted: Toddler shot inside apartment in Northeast ... Elderly couple killed in Kensington house fire ... National Park Service to raise entrance fees.

Photo by Ronnie R