Here's some adorableness for you on a chilly Friday. Flickr user maxedaperture just uploaded this image from last summer of these elephants snuggling in the sun at the National Zoo. If you think the warm months are the only good times to hit up the zoo, grab a jacket and your scarf and head down to see ZooLights, the annual nighttime holiday celebration. The show is open Wednesdays through Sundays until December 30, from......

It's starting to be winter, finally, after a long Indian summer of warm days and little rainfall. But lately it's been chillier and drizzlier and crummier outside. Most people prefer the sun; they don't have to wear big jackets or get soggy, and D.C. cold always seems to bite. That doesn't bother some folks. But they're probably looking at you because you're wearing Uggs. Quote of the Week At the Foggy Bottom Metro station: Girl......

Good morning, Washington. Make it to the polls yesterday? If so, we hope you did so before the sun went down — it got cold in a hurry last night, as the area rapidly moved from warmer-than-usual temps to colder-than-usual ones. CapitalWeather is saying that the weekend should be warmer, at least. Election 2007: The results are in, and it looks like it was a good night for Virginia's Democrats. The Dems picked up......

Nowadays, it seems like every place under the sun is producing wine. Indeed, it's probably because they are. Whenever someone says that they have a bottle from North Carolina or Mexico or China, there is no second guessing them anymore. Whether or not these odd regional wines are actually drinkable is another story. We've made it our mission to always give a bottle try- no matter where's it from- because you never know when or......

Editors Note: We enjoyed the tour diaries J. Tom Hnatow wrote for us as part of These United States' last tour, so we asked him if he wouldn't mind doing it again as the band embark on their first ever intercontinental tour of the UK and Europe. He graciously agreed. Look for his dispatches from the road abroad over the next few weeks. Tuesday, October 16, 2007 We walk (and walk and walk) from Baker......

I don't usually go into the DCist pool with any expectations, but on this humid, sticky, and soon to be stormy Friday, I wanted to post something that elicited a big smile. Though I was tempted by both the obvious and the silly, this photo by krisetya of these "aspiring" footballers and their Dr. Seuss socks wins out. The crime scene tape running through the middle of the field adds compelling questions about this......

Morning, Washington. We hope you were out enjoying the fantastic weather, especially since the environment has been front and center in the news this weekend. As you must have heard, our former Vice President turned Global Warming Guru had to shove over the Oscar on his mantle to make space for half of a Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe after the news you were inspired to go check out the 20 amazing houses built on the......

Welcome back to work, Washington. We don't know about you, but we spent an awfully long time in the sun this weekend consuming too much food at various street festivals, so forgive us if we're still groggily pondering Saturday's news in WaPo that the fare change about to be proposed by Metro General Manager John Catoe is an "average increase" of 45 cents. That kind of increase would theoretically raise the base fare of a......

Anyone who has a car and has had to renew their registration knows that one thing apart from death and taxes is an inevitable part of life -- fighting to remove the old registration stickers. So hard is it to pry an old one from a windshield that some drivers sport a number of expired ones alongside their current one, while others just try and find an excuse to change the whole damn windshield instead.......

Last night the sun set on another summer at Fort Reno, which always makes us a little wistful. We never make it out to quite as many shows as we want to at the beginning of the summer, and now it's all gone until next year. It also means that parents' options for taking their kids out to see cool music is once again limited. One of our favorite aspects of Fort Reno is......

Written by DCist contributor Eric Denman As summer lingers on, the average D.C. resident may be tempted to stay indoors, limit excursions, and camp out in front of the A/C unit with a tongue-numbingly cold, mass-produced lager. There is a better option! A nice Belgian beer can quench your thirst while also satisfying your palate. Although some Belgian styles may be a bit heavy for summer, many of them fit the bill perfectly (Witbier and......

In case you missed the news yesterday, the Washington Post has devoted an extraordinary amount of front page column inches to the record breaking temperatures D.C. saw yesterday. At 12:05 p.m. on Wednesday, the temperature hit 102 degrees at Reagan National Airport, according to the National Weather Service, breaking the previous all time high record for Aug. 8, of 101 degrees, set in 1930. The oppressive heat also had a number of other newsworthy......

Editor's Note: J. Tom Hnatow from These United States is writing a tour diary for DCist chronicling the band's latest national tour. Friday, August 3, 2007 Finally –- a day full of downtime. I restring guitars and work on my pedal steel and go over a few songs with Ben. (The glamorous and debauched life we lead.) Our host Megan makes us an amazing dinner. Then off to Johnny Brenda's, our favorite place to play......

Editor's Note: J. Tom Hnatow from These United States is writing a tour diary for DCist chronicling the band's latest national tour. July 26, 2007 We wake up, get ready, and go right back into rehearsing. Jason and Robby are champs…we're throwing songs and ideas at them left and right, and they're doing a great job of learning the material. Jesse and I are really lucky to know so many phenomenal musicians. At the level......

At first today's forecast just looked a little bit annoying: a 30 percent chance of thunderstorms in the late afternoon which, in the words of our esteemed pals at CapitalWeather.com, we'd venture to say "those odds are too low to go changing any plans yet, but high enough to keep an eye to the sky and on radar just in case." In other words, we're packing up to head to a barbecue right now, potential......

There were so many big events going on this weekend and it looks like our photographers covered all the bases. You could have dived into some amazing colors at the Caribbean Festival like Flickr user yolamak, or filled up on delicious meat dishes at the Safeway BBQ Festival, or taken a break from the sun on Sunday afternoon to join the DCist Photographer's Meet-Up. What did you do this gorgeous weekend? EXIF.......

The longest day of the year has just passed us by, the solstice bells have rung out, and far to the north they've seen the sun at midnight. Here in Washington, we brace for the brutal heat we've only just tasted up to now. There is some consolation for the misery mother nature heaps on D.C.'s coming dog days. For many lucky office drones, in summertime the living truly can be easy. That filing that's......

Though it's an open question as to whether D.C.'s rock scene has sacrificed quality for quantity, there is no denying a time when there were not that many places for a rock band to play in this city. "During college, the music scene was a bit struggling, especially in the Georgetown area," says The Bravery's guitarist and Georgetown University alum Michael Zakarin, "but I was at the Black Cat or the 9:30 every weekend. It's......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

With military recruitment numbers continuing to spiral downward, this week's quote of the week got us thinking. All the military really needs is better marketing. You can't really envy their task in trying to get people to sign up for an unpopular war. Maybe they need to play down the grim realities. Play up the softer side of the military. Use things like the volleyball montage from Top Gun to show that doing your duty......

Good Monday morning, D.C. Since we get up early to skim the day's headlines, we couldn't help but notice that today was one of the first days since we switched to Daylight Saving Time that the sun was up before we were. Not to mention that it's already staying light until 7 p.m. We love this time of year, when suddenly, as things get steadily warmer, we're filled with a desire to get outside and......

>> After a wet, gray day, we're happy to report the sun is peeking through and you can probably skip the "standing at the front door and debating whether to bring an umbrella" part of the evening. Enjoy! >> Apparently, being a crime scene investigator in Washington isn't all about having shiny shiny hair and zipping around town in a Hummer H-2. The city can't seem to hold on to their crime lab techs.......

Rain, cold and wind can spell out an early demise for any hopeful young cherry blossom. A look at the forecast for the next couple of days suggests that the best of the 2007 blooming may be behind us. That being the case, Flickr user mindgutter's shot of the sun setting on the blossoms at the National Basilica seems particularly appropriate. The lonely figure with buried head may be mourning the last of the......

When the afternoon's labor hangs about your neck like so many albatross carcasses, their limp beaks slicked with the sweat of eight hours' worth of futility, when the sun hangs low in the air like a thug-strewn rock on its downward trajectory into the skull of an unsuspecting bicyclist, when the administrative assistant two cubes down sashays off to happy hour, leaving you sick with the thoughts that such a treasured sixty-minute span might ne'er......

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ist's? Bostonist dug deep to uncover Barack Obama's unpaid parking tickets, their Governor's latest ethical lapse, and a plagarizing sports writer. Chicagoist had everything in twos: two views on having the Olympics, losing two members of their Super Bowl team, and two music festivals. DCist put their noses in legal books as they......

Jimmy Gnecco and his most recent set of edgy one word-monikered band mates are re-emerging this year with a new album (yet to be released) and a national tour. Kicking off this month, it included a stop last night at DC’s Rock and Roll Hotel. More than a decade ago, The Harmony Bandits transformed into the gothic tinged rock stylings of Ours, later achieving widespread recognition with their single, “Sometimes” off the 2001 album Distorted......

Our winter—which started in earnest only two weeks ago—has been particularly disappointing for all the schoolchildren in our region. Having become used to an irrational and debilitating fear of the slightest chance of snowfall on the part of school districts, kids in the D.C. area are hoping their little hearts out that this predicted weather system will move in and give us a nice blanketing. I mean, look at little Davy DCist in our picture......

Colby Caldwell, a local fave for the past decade or so, moves back into the realm of photography with his current show, small game, at Hemphill Fine Arts. After spending years working with Super 8 film, Caldwell has fully embraced photographic technique, moreso than the videos and photos themselves, as his art. Entering the gallery, the viewer is greeted by his best work in the show, the gestus pictures series. These large photographs feature individuals......

By DCist Contributor Mehan Jayasuriya Earlier this week, DCist reminded you that the Kennedy Center would be handing out free tickets to its 10th anniversary shows — including a performance by indie heartthrob Sufjan Stevens — on Saturday morning. At the time, 2300 tickets seemed like a lot and we reassured you that "there should be plenty of opportunity for those interested to grab a ticket." As it turns out, we here at DCist (along......

We couldn't help but ask ourselves a few questions after hearing that Matthew Fox would be in D.C. to promote his new movie, We Are Marshall. Did he finally get off the island for the interview, or were we just going to be in another one of his flashbacks? How would we get answers out of a man who spent days refusing to cooperate with "the others" in an old empty shark tank? Would it......