“You really think so?” Joan Nathan asks this earnestly when I use the words ‘food world luminary’ to describe her.

DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Foreign: 2007 Washington Jewish Film Festival The Washington D.C. Jewish Community Center’s annual film festival has become one of the largest and longest running of the local festivals. This year’s program encompasses over 40 films, from 11 countries. Nearly half of the selections are films from Israel, in recognition of the nation’s 60th year. The event…

If you’re anything like us, you’ve been experiencing major geek covetousness ever since Google Maps launched its Street View functionality late last month. The feature (which may seem similar to past users of Amazon’s A9.com) shows street-level photos of locations. Users can move smoothly from spot to spot, rotating their view and taking in the sights. Unfortunately, Google Maps’ coverage of D.C. doesn’t feature any of the blue outlines that signify Street View-equipped roads. But…

>> Vandals armed only with a U-shaped bicycle lock and a sense of irony managed to trap about 40 commuters on the Virginia Railway Express Monday near Woodbridge, when they locked the metal gates from the pedestrian bridge at the Rippon station. The gates, which the VRE removed Tuesday, were originally put there to keep vandals out of the station. [AP via NBC4] >> Post columnist Courtland Milloy makes a compelling case for abolishing…

FRIDAY: >> Attention all nerds: This is like our Lollapalooza or something. First Person: Stories from the Edge of the World is an event being held tonight by National Geographic Live, which features some sort of “collaboration” between NPR’s Neal Conan and Liane Hansen, the Celtic/early music crossover group Ensemble Galilei, and actor Bill Pullman. Together this crew will narrate excerpts from the journals of great explorers such as Jacques Cousteau, George Mallory, and Charles…

Though we usually feature our Flickr photogs here, this one was too good to pass up. This morning at National Geographic downtown, folks from their Kids magazine went for broke — setting the Guinness World Record for number of stuffed animals gathered in one place. Two-thousand, three hundred and four, to be exact. Preciousness rose to new highs in the room lined on every wall with teddy bears and smiling gorillas, as the record verification…

Washington is about to be overrun by film festivals, so get your comedies and dramas, your Hollywood actors and local wannabes, your serious documentaries and hilarious animations starting tonight. Well, not tonight. Tonight you’ll be at Unbuckled. But the rest of the weekend is your film reel playground! The DC Shorts Film Festival is playing 94 movies by independent filmmakers from all over the world. Most of the festival, which runs until September 21, will…

I know it’s asking a lot, but let’s assume the National Geographic Society has some pretty good photographers on its payroll. Then you know that in their current show by photographer Reza, One World One Tribe, you’ll find some fantastic examples of photojournalism, which is enough of a reason to check it out. However, what makes this exhibit fascinating are Reza’s insights into the nature and purpose of war photography. Each photograph is accompanied by…

FRIDAY: Odds are good you will be imbibing a beer or 12 this evening in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, so please write down this number in big, bold letters and stick it in your wallet right now: 1-800-200-TAXI. That’s the number for SoberRide, which will be in operation from 4 p.m. today until 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. If you’re over 21, the SoberRide program will pay for a taxi (up to $50) to pick…

TUESDAY Tonight: a major opportunity for baseball buffs. Join Lawrence D. Hogan, author of the new National Geographic book Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball, for a lecture with Hall of Famer Monte Irvin and current Negro League Baseball Players Association President Stanley Glenn. At the Grosvenor Auditorium of the National Geographic Society, 1600 M Street, NW. For tickets and pricing, head here. For literary snooty-pants types, two highfalutin…