Welcome back to another edition of What's That You Say?, where the comments we feature are almost as good as the lunch at Eastern Market on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

We start not on the Hill, but on U Street. It really seems like there's few topics that get people's opinions going like the venerable Ben's Chili Bowl, celebrating its 50th birthday this month. And whether you find the restaurant indispensable or you want to pick holes in its rudimentary set-up, Ben's is a vital slice of the District of Columbia's character. So when we read mdove11's 50th anniversary toast, we had to award it our Comment of the Week:

Really? We are that jaded that we have to go after Ben's? I see Ben's as just what it is: a late night hot dog joint. It happens to be open late, which is something of a rarity in this city, especially prior to the last 4 years, so it did a lot of business. I'd say half the "mythic" reputation could have been attributed to just that. When I moved here, I lived on 13th and U and it was simply the only place to go late, so it became a go-to location. But to be honest, one of the main reasons I kept coming back was the super kind service. Service I don't think I or you could have mustered (no pun intended) in the face of the drunk-ass, d-bag clientele.

I lift my cherry milkshake to you, Ben Ali and Virginia: quite an achievement.

After the jump, all the rest from the week that was in the comments.

Photo by NCinDC

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Sure, we could focus on the LNS-fueled debate over the respective levels of douchebaggery in Georgetown versus Adams Morgan - but honestly, we don't have the energy. Here's the best of the rest:

somegirl should take the job as the reality show ombudsman:

Look, you should treat blogging about this show like an ansty, long-winded post-breakup email to your ex. It's fine to go ahead and write it. Just DON'T SEND IT.

Erm, well, I guess you could send an email to the producers, will585:

I think they should have a graphic in the upper right hand corner of the screen like they have in baseball that shows balls, strikes and outs but this one would track the DUIS and STDS the cast members accumulate.

Whereas stmove found it indicative of D.C.'s general malaise:

Oh DC, when will your image cease to be the cultural punching bag of the world? From riots and crack-smoking-mayors, to below-average homely slutty interns, now we give the world the LNS douchebags which will put all other douchebag sects to shame. I will finally have to get another set of license plates so when I leave town people will not know where I am from.

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McPherson Square was quite the scene on Thursday - trapping some commenters in their offices - all because of some harmless buckets.

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Like something out of a nightmare, a truck swerved off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and into the water below, killing the driver. But as usual, we can always depend on the commentariat to dig up the real story - the driver who caused the accident's suggestive MySpace page:

kelly5612 has the pertinent section of the profile:

For a 19-year old who, on Myspace, says she is looking for "someone who can handle my drinking habits," I'd looove to see those BAC results.

But hey, enjoy your 15 minutes.

Cranky also noted that she wasn't exactly the brightest for basically admitting fault:

Man, oh man! That 19 year old should really not have talked to the media. She just admitted to falling asleep at the wheel and causing the accident. That's a whole lotta money her insurance is going to be paying out to the family of the dead driver and the others injured in the accident.

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Well, we agree for the most part about the school, jen209, but don't take away The Say's Metro stop!

My friends and I always used to joke that we didn't believe UDC really existed anywhere but on the metro map. You never meet anyone that goes there, or is an alumnus. You really never hear anything about the school. And unless you know exactly where you're going in Van Ness, it's possible to completely miss the school. How the heck did it get it's own metro stop?

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Monkeyrotica managed to take a couple of days off at the end of the week - but no worries, we had plenty of material to fill his Magical World segment. Our topic: child leashing, as seen in the photo accompanying Monday's Morning Roundup:

Harnesses and leashes do nothing but lower a child's self-esteem and reinforce patriarchal power heirarchies and phallocentric hegemony. Children should be allowed to roam free, into heavy traffic and deep water. How else are the expected to learn how to dive for pearls, splint broken legs and arms, or appreciate the subtle nuances of Frogger?

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Now this is entertaining: DCist commenters share their apartment renting horror stories.

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The utter bungling of the city's summer youth jobs program caught the ire of Reid:

"I'm sure by next summer all the bugs will be worked out," [Barry] said.

By bugs, of course, he means all this pesky press attention on this relic of the Barry political machine. This sort of shoddy mafia-style no-show (and even no-resident or no-where-near-the-right-age) work program is unacceptable in a modern city, but Barry doesn't care. As long as his constituents (and their Maryland cousins) are "getting theirs" from the DC gov't petty cash drawer, he gets to keep his job. And trust me, he needs the job. There aren't too many 6 figure jobs out there for a geriatric ex-con who is still clearly using.

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Not without getting junkpunched, Henry Krinkle:

I wonder if you can get hot soy sauce over ice at Murky Coffee.

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Bethesdaist wondered (as we did) how Metro is attempting to curb the profundity of juvenile crime in the Metrorail system:

How exactly does Metro know that they've warned a kid three times before they take action? Do they keep log of this, or write a warning? Is it three warnings in a day, or a month? I know Metro got a ton of bad press on the french fry arrest, but this policy sounds like "we try to ignore the problem until it gets completely out of control."

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Good to see that you all are not missing chances to make "President Bob Barr" jokes.

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stancollins comes to the defense of D.C. United's less than impressive attendance figures:

You know, normally I'm not down with the namecalling, but it IS one of the most classic acts of internet douchebaggery around to post an outlandish claim/challenge ***that can neither be proven nor disproven*** and then defy everyone else to "prove me wrong."

Look, this is a second-tier tournament that has to be explained even to the average American soccer fan. It occurs on a weeknight, for a team that will be playing 45+ scheduled games already. Lastly, since it isn't even the PROPERTY of the league (rather, of the folks who run the national team), they have no incentive to promote it.

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Burleith, you mean other than the fact that his campaign has decided that every metal pole in Ward 2 is in desperate need of a campaign poster?

The only thing I know about Jack Evans is that the wind from his Crystler Sebring convertible is no match for his hair. I saw him a couple weeks ago rocking out to the Monkees while driving down Wisconsin around 11:30pm and that mop was an immovable force.

Well, that and his staff is incredibly rude.

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Award Time!

This week's Avatar Award for Achievement in the Field of Avatars goes to DcRat, who proudly shows off Bucky B. Katt of the comic strip Get Fuzzy. Of note: Bucky alone (not the entire strip, mind you) has more than 2,500 words written about him in Wikipedia - more than the entire game of poker. So, there's that. Oh, and good work, DcRat.

Honestly, how could we not give a Username of the Week award to llama_lliberation_lleague? It's clever - alliteration scores serious points - and prominently features everyone's favorite bucktoothed camelid.