The Sweetlife Festival, sponsored by good-natured salad-makers Sweetgreen, announced the lineup for its 2012 edition today. The leafy vegetables might be locally sourced; the indie rock and hip-hop acts listed today for the April 28 concert are anything but. more ›

Sure, they might be making life difficult for our local indie rock bands. But to the country's credit, Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is posting adorable cat videos to YouTube. more ›

What better place to have a little summer fun than the carnival? The D.C. Summer Carnival, which recently took up residence at the RFK Stadium Festival Grounds (also known as the parking lot), provided District residents with all the Tilt-A-Whirling and fried Oero-eating they could handle. The carnival's over for the year, but the color always makes for some memorable photography. more ›

Much like planking, I don't claim to understand tarp-surfing. I just know that reader Andy Rothwell videotaped these people are doing it in the District of Columbia, and it looks like the kind of whimsical fun we should all be having instead of having to work on a Monday afternoon. more ›

Well, you kind of knew that this news would be coming, didn't you? In what has become somewhat of a Washington wintertime tradition, a mass snowball fight has been scheduled to take place inside Dupont Circle at 8 p.m. tonight. more ›

That's right: it's the complete set of National Zoo lion cub collectible identification cards! more ›

Here's something awesome we just had to share: Julia Lovett, a student at Georgetown University, took a ride around the District on her bicycle last fall with the intention to capture a photograph of every state-named roadway in the District proper. She then took the time to mold those images into a map of the U.S., placing each street sign into the appropriate state. more ›

Sunday's weather forecast? Sunny, but only with a high of 38 and winds gusting at 19 miles per hour. Not that the cold will stop a bunch of dedicated people from stripping down to their skivvies outside: the 2011 No Pants Metro Ride will take place this Sunday, the fourth year that a large group of Washingtonians will head to a local park, take off their pants, then hit the Metro system and pretend like they aren't half-naked. more ›

Yours truly was doing a little perusing of the offerings on the ol' YouTube last night, when I stumbled over the glorious video above. Seems innocuous enough, right? It's just Freewayjim -- a person who drives around the country with a camera strapped to the dash of his car to record the drive for posterity, or something -- taking a ride around the highways of northern Virginia and the District. But hammering down what makes this video so great is no small feat. more ›

The Awesome Foundation, an organization dedicated to "forwarding the interest of Awesome in the universe" though monthly $1,000 grants, officially launched its D.C. chapter earlier this week. The Foundation, which currently boasts chapters in nine other cities and a generic "food" branch, is already accepting applications for its first D.C. grant. more ›

I suppose we can file this under "this has nothing to do with D.C., but is still a massively fun way to waste time at work, which is very important to D.C. office workers." Friend of DCist Laura Olin passed along a link to Globe Genie, which appears to be a product of one Joe McMichael, and is hosted under an MIT web address. The site allows its users to jump randomly to one Google Street View around the world -- you can select any combination of continents (including Antarctica!), hit "Teleport" and see where you end up. more ›

Not everyone was thrilled when the new contraflow bike lanes at the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue, U and 16th Streets NW were unveiled earlier this month. If only there was a Starman, then we'd really be in business. more ›

There are really only two types of Craiglist ads that pique our interest anymore: ones that rant vociferously -- and at length -- about Metro, the Washington dating scene, the sad state of D.C. politics or whatever, and incredibly creative/terrifyingly nerdy housing classifieds. more ›

How could we not highlight this? Eric Nuzum, one of DCist's favorite "recovering pop culture critics" and the author of The Dead Travel Fast, took a road trip to the Lexington, Virginia area to interview Mark Cline, who has fostered a reputation for himself as a bit of a roadside attraction impresario. We'll let Nuzum take it from there: more ›

Yeah, we know that Fredericksburg is a good hour and a half drive from Washington. And sure, we see these kinds of stories all of the time. But it's that mid-ish period of July when the Council goes on recess, it's miserably humid outside and things are generally slow. There's really not much else to do during the day but sit inside and watch YouTube videos all day, like this one, of a mockingbird going absolutely nuts on some poor sap who decided to park his car close to its nest. Enjoy! more ›

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WTOP's Mark Segraves got a hold of a partial list of the folks who've been receiving tickets to use the city's free luxury box in the Verizon Center -- the one that the D.C. Council is so miffed they're being boxed out of -- and there's some fun tidbits he discovered.

Most of those invited to D.C.'s Luxury Suite at the Verizon Center by Fenty either contributed the maximum $2,000 to Fenty's campaign or worked on the campaign. The rest of the tickets, with only a few exceptions, went to friends, family and the mayor's senior staffers of the mayor.

>> It wasn't too far from here -- just a couple hours south in Midlothian, VA, where Aimee Mann got her start. Now the guitar playing song weaver is a bonafide modern music legend. She's treating The Birchmere to her 2nd Annual Christmas Show, and it's not something you should miss. $45.50, 7:30 p.m. more ›

Our Pilgrim cousins to the north have been having all the wintry fun of late. While we sit here in the mid-Atlantic frantically wondering if we'll get snow instead of an annoying, ice-cold spritz, Boston gets about eight inches of commute-snarling precip. Why do they get all the snow AND all the good sports teams? more ›

I doubt anyone is at the "Gilbert Who?" stage yet, but anyone who's been watching the Washington Wizards play since Agent Zero went down would be hard pressed to deny that the team has been just plain fun to watch these last few weeks - perhaps because with the big gun out, they are playing like a team. Last night three players had double-doubles and a total of six players scored in double figures... more ›

The Air Force Memorial has a certain architectural elegance that makes it almost hard not to photograph well, but some certainly stand far above the others, and we especially like Flickr user mosely.brian's crisp version here. Did you miss our announcement on Wednesday? The DCist Exposed Photography Show contest is open and accepting entries for our 2008 exhibition. Not only might you get to show your original work on a real gallery wall at... more ›

Last year we were blown away by how many folks participated in our very first DCist Exposed Photography Show. What we hoped would be a fun event for our faithful photography contributors turned into a full-blown gallery event packed to the gills with supporters. Many of the selected 2007 photographers -- most of whom had never even framed their work prior to the show -- have continued to sell their prints and some even... more ›

MONDAY >> Those looking to kick the month off with a bang might be out of luck, as it looks like there's not a whole lot going down tonight. Still, it's not a total wash, as all the usual suspects — the Black Cat, DC9, the Velvet Lounge and the Rock and Roll Hotel — will have their bars open and waiting for the District's disillusioned masses. >> DJ Jahsonic has a new Monday night... more ›

Good news in time for Christmas this year; the Warehouse Theater will continue to operate through next summer, according to the institution. The venue is currently hosting Scena Theater's The Maids and will have new shows in February and March. That also means it remains a venue for next year's Fringe Festival. The Warehouse is still looking for a new home. Despite the usual winter doldrums that December brings, there are still a number of... more ›

Last April I sold my elderly car for a few hundred dollars. I was tired of the expense of repairs, gas and insurance, no longer needed a vehicle for work, and the wide availability of car-sharing services in the D.C. metro area made the switch to no longer owning my own car seem easy and obvious. I hadn't regretted my decision for a minute -- until I got the following press release in my inbox... more ›

Have you followed Eddie Argos' instructions and formed a band? Have you been looking, but just not finding, the perfect way to celebrate Hannukah this year? Are you free on December 8? The Eight, a concert presented by JDub Records, and Taglit-birthright Israel, is a worldwide Hannukah party happening simultaneously in 9 cities: D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Rio and Moscow. JDub, home to bands such as Balkan Beat Box,... more ›

Happy Thanksgiving, Washington. The streets are quiet this morning in the capital; one cab driver remarked to this writer that it was his favorite day to drive in the city -- no traffic, no tourists, and everyone he picks up tends to be cheery and a big tipper. The forecast in D.C. today is calling for an unseasonably warm high of 72 degrees, with a solid chance of afternoon showers and gastrointestinal distress. What's the... more ›

We missed this when it happened a couple of weeks ago, but is it really ever too late to point and laugh at New Yorkers? We didn't think so. So, people are probably aware that Five Guys franchises are proliferating across the Eastern U.S. like nuclear weapons in central Asia. The greasy, peanut-laden fingers of our locally born burger stand have spread as far as Delafield, Wisconsin; Nashville, Tennessee; and Miami, Florida. They've even broken... more ›