After extolling the virtues of the U.S. $1 coin, U.S. Mint director Ed Moy — with the assistance of Metro Chief Financial Officer Carol Kissal — inserts a $5 bill and gets some gold jingle in return. From now on, getting change from a Metro pass dispenser won’t feel quite so much like hitting the jackpot on the slots, as Metro machines now exhange in dollar coins instead of showers of quarters. What you don’t see in the video — and what is almost certainly indicated by the cut and edit at 3:24 — is the part where Moy has to keep smoothing out the dollar-note like 12 times and switch it out for other bills before the machine accepts his g-d money.

It’s a nice change for Metro (ba-dum). But the video, you know, leaves something to be desired. I expected Moy to insert a Sacagawea and see Metro Center explode into some kind of Baltimorean bacchanal. Mint video courtesy of Infosnack Headquarters, who suggests something even wilder: two-dollar coins.

» “Dalmations Survive Saudi Arabia”: Wow, that headline makes it sound like these guys had one alien strain of mange. But no. The dogs were abandoned over in the Middle East, put in a kennel for 2 years, and scheduled to be put to sleep. I am not familiar with all the tenets of Wahhabism but I believe the Arabic term for this treatment is “They were sent to the pound.” Good on the U.S. oil worker who picked up her new pets at Dulles and all, but what’s wrong with our domestic dalmatians? In any case: It is a weird sort of Oriental fearmongering that invokes pound puppies, NBC4. “Survive Saudi Arabia” — sheesh.

» Good news if you are a poor hopeless slob journalist: D.C. home prices keep falling, sez the Washington Business Journal! Suppose that’s bad news for homeowners. My heart sings out to you from the hovel of a rowhouse rental out from which I one day hope to climb.

» Good news for those who applaud the unabated march of progress: TV goes totally digital in under two months’ time. Sucks for those of you whose boob tubes are still tethered to the antenna. The Washington Post reports that you have just 2 days to order your government coupon for a converter box. Of course, this is all a Skrull plot, so if you miss the deadline, you may take some small comfort in the fact that you’ll be among the first to organize a plucky neighborhood resistance squad. Without television, what else are you going to do?

» Interstates 395 and 66 were added to the list of inside-the-Beltway lanes that will likely be closed to traffic during the inauguration — a list that already includes the 14th Street, Memorial, and Roosevelt bridges, NBC4 reports. Perhaps it’s time to appeal to the Fentys for a citywide group discount at Fleet Feet.