Rugby fans, rejoice! This Sunday, the Embassy of New Zealand presents the Tenth Annual Ambassador’s Shield Match at Trinity College. When it comes to rugby, the Kiwis represent: the New Zealand All-Blacks, currently the top-ranked team in the world, is the game’s most legendary team. Maria Vastola, the Manager of the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union (MARFU) Women’s Select Side, tells us point blank that the Shield Match is “highest quality rugby you will get in…

Over the last few weeks we’ve been highlighting some of the proposals coming into the Solving D.C. Problems website, an initiative launched by the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice earlier this month to encourage residents to identify local problems and propose solutions. Today we focus on two ways to make the District a more entertaining city. The first proposes that the city invest in its own climbing wall: The city owns the historic…

One of our favorite scenes in the movie “Barcelona” is toward the beginning when Ted Boynton takes his Navy officer cousin Fred on a night-time driving tour of Barcelona and says the city’s Avenida Diagonal is like Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. Then when approaching Las Ramblas (at left), changes his mind, saying that it is more like Chicago’s celebrated retail corridor. Fred nods off and then gets riled up over anti-NATO sentiment in Spain. We think…

Our friends at Chicagoist point out that the Billy Goat Tavern, that Chicago institution parodied in Saturday Night Live’s “Olympia Restaurant” sketches in the 70s, is planning on coming to D.C. This news may have many Chicagoans a little miffed, as the Billy Goat is a unique Chicago experiences akin to walking the Magnificent Mile or catching a game at Wrigley. Moving the restaurant to another time zone seems an odd decision for a restaurant…

Lots of automated traffic enforcement news! The Post is reporting that Virginia’s experiment with red light cameras has come to an end after a state House committee killed Senate measures that would have done away with the experimenting period’s expiration date. Do we hear cheering coming from across the Potomac? And commuters who use MacArthur Boulevard, 16th Street NW, Michigan Avenue or Benning Road: Beware. The District’s new permanent speed camera enforcement zones are now…

Watch out D.C. drivers, the District is deploying four new photo radar cameras for “final testing.” That means that while the cameras will flash and take your photo if you are speeding, you will not be issued a ticket. Here are the locations, according to the Metropolitan Police Department: — 5400 block of 16th Street NW — 100 block of Michigan Avenue NE — 2800 block of Benning Road NE — And up in the…

Though the D.C. Department of Health is a bit slow to post its listings of health code violations, we came across its report summaries on its website. The most current listings are for Sept. 27-Oct. 3, where the Avondale Coffee Shop on Michigan Avenue NE was cited for “[b]asic inadequate sanitation,” among other violations; Pen-Mar Liquors on I Street near 19th Street NW was closed for lacking hot water; and the Kantouri Fried Chicken on…