There’s a few housekeeping things I thought I should bring to everyone’s attention, so here they are:

More Stuff in the DCist Shop: Earlier this week we launched our Official DCist Merchandise Shop, where you can get yourself all types of goodies and from which all the proceeds will benefit Bread for the City. We’ve added a few new products, including a baseball cap, knit cap and baby onesie. If you have trouble finding the store — it’s here — look no further than the left sidebar along the main page, where we’ve got a handy image directing you straight there.

For the Provincial-Minded Amongst You, a Local-Only Option: Recently, the Gothamist network of which DCist is a member started syndicating big stories. If something newsworthy happens in San Francisco, you may have noticed, it could well appear on DCist. Given that this is a local site, the move towards limited national syndication has irked some readers — and we’ve listened. From now, if you want nothing but the local news, view the site in Blog format (as opposed to Pretty) and from there look in the upper right-hand corner of the frame and select whether you want national news included or not. This filter only works in Blog format; the Pretty view will include some national news. Fear not, though — syndication is a work in progress, and we’re still fine-tuning what type of news from other cities might be of interest to our local audience. I’ve stood my ground on this one — no Lindsay Lohan stories need appear on DCist, unless she goes on a local bender. (We can only hope, right?)

Feel free to contact me at martin at dcist dot com if you’ve got any questions or complaints. Thanks!