GQ's annual list of the "50 Most Powerful People in Washington" is, not surprisingly, made up of a bunch of federal types. And a couple of party planners. more ›

While we've previously focused our year-end efforts on recapping what shows we've seen and what local artists we've loved, the time honored tradition of choosing albums of the year has eluded us. No more. more ›

Georgetown University may be well known for being something of an establishment university, the sort of place where a young politician-to-be can begin to amass a sense of what it takes to be powerful and the types of friends required to get their. But it's also a great place for hipsters and vegans. more ›

Time's list of "the most influential people in the world" -- which we're betting is the only list to feature Aung San Suu Kyi, "muckraker" Julian Assange and the guy who designed Angry Birds in equal standing -- was released today, and former D.C. Public Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee (who, of course, once graced the magazine's cover sporting a broom) made the cut. more ›

2010 seemed, for a while, to be an underachieving year for the movies. Yet when I sat down and started making a list of the films that I really enjoyed this year, I quickly came up with a list that was thirty titles long. And whittling it down to 10 wasn't as easy as I expected. Hollywood struggled to combine quality with box office in a big way this year, so a look at the movies that were big was looking at a list of disappointments (Alice in Wonderland, for instance) and utterly awful failures (Clash of the Titans, Salt). Sure, there were notable exceptions like Inception and Toy Story 3, but many of the best films of the year weren't found in wide, or even mid-sized, release. It was the smaller indies, documentaries, and foreign films that were quietly released and had to be sought out that really shone. more ›

It's December, and the annual avalanche of year-end lists, best-ofs, and awards for music, movies, books, and anything else that anyone on the internet can think of to rate is getting underway. As is its habit, the National Board of Review kicked off the season for film, releasing its picks of the best of the year at the end of last week. The Washington Area Film Critics Association, a collection of TV, radio, print, and internet film critics in the area with 39 voting members (full disclosure: I'm one of those members), is usually second to the plate -- and this morning WAFCA released its nominees and award-winners. more ›

Ted Leonsis likes to make lists. Of 101 things. He's had this one for a while, his own personal bucket list. It includes goals like having a net worth of one hundred million dollars after taxes, owning a jet and inventing a board game -- all of which he's accomplished. (But he hasn't been to Alaska yet. Take that, Mr. Overachiever!) more ›

For the most part, Forbes' latest billionaire list is a who's who of New York's hedge fund managers and the West Coast's tech giants, with a few oil barons and other old-money types sprinkled in for good measure. But the D.C. area is actually home to two of the 25 richest Americans, and six of the 10 richest counties. more ›

Normally, we complain mightily when the District of Columbia is lumped in with the states in rankings of best or worst of whatever. Being entirely urban, D.C. just isn't suited to being included among lists of states that are a mix of urban, suburban and rural areas. Compare us to other cities, sure, but for the most part, results of state rankings that include the District end up painting a skewed picture of where we really stand. But The Daily Beast's new list of the most and least attractive looking states? Well, we'll take our No. 1 ranking and run. Washingtonians are used to being teased about being "Hollywood for ugly people," so being named the hottest of all the states, even with the obvious methodological issues at hand, is a lovely change of pace. more ›

The Daily Beast has compiled a new list of the worst commutes in the country, and the Capital Beltway, especially the Southbound area near Exit 2A-B, has come in at Number 3. Sounds about right. Only the Hollywood Freeway in Los Angeles and the Lunalilo Freeway in Honolulu rank as worse in terms of bottlenecks and hours per week of congestion. The order was based on the peak hour Travel Time Index for the metropolitan area each highway is in. more ›

Via a Wall Street Journal story we missed yesterday, it seems college grads in Washington, D.C. graduate with the most debt in the country, according to a new study from the Project on Student Debt. Like every list we see that compares the District to states, we take this distinction with a grain or two of salt, but given that D.C. is home to one of the most expensive universities in the country, this particular ranking isn't too hard to swallow. Factor in the large number of private universities located here with no high quality public school to compete with them, and you can understand why college students in Washington graduate with an average of $29,793 worth of debt, compared to $23,200 in the entire country. The WSJ also notes that the national average is way up compared to four years ago, when average college debt was at $18,650. more ›

The year isn't over yet, but Google has gone ahead and released its Year-End Zeitgeist lists of the most popular searches for 2009. This year, they included top searches by city, and D.C.'s most popular Google search terms are listed below. Most of them, we get. Others, consider us baffled. more ›

The American Institute for Economic Research put out its 2009-2010 college destination rankings today (hat tip to the Post), and D.C. was named fourth most desirable for college students on a list of large metropolitan areas in the country, ranked behind only New York, San Francisco and Boston. The news that D.C. is a top college destination comes as no big surprise to us. Not only does the area have a large number of desirable universities and a high percentage of college students compared to the overall population, it also has a large number desirable post-college jobs, making the city quite frankly (in our minds) a smarter choice than places like San Francisco or New York this particular year. more ›

At last, another list compiled by a giant industry with an agenda for us to argue over. Today the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America unveiled its 2008 Fall Allergy Capitals list, which is sponsored by the makers of allergy medicine Zyrtec. The list ranks the 100 worst American cities to live in for people (like me) with upper respiratory allergies during the fall. Greensboro, NC tops the list, with other Southern and Midwestern cities rounding out the top ten. This is apparently because there's a ton of ragweed floating around in these places, and ragweed is the thing most people with seasonal allergies are allergic to. more ›