The Flaming Lips To Headline National Mall Concert

The Flaming Lips will be headlining the Green Apple Festival this Sunday on the National Mall.

The festival is in honor of earth day, and starts at noon. In addition to the Flaming Lips, the festival also features emcee Chevy Case, Los Lobos, and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA).

Prior to the Green Apple Festival, hundreds of volunteers will be participating in environmentally focused service projects. Nine other cities, from Austin to Seattle, will have their own Green Apple Festival.

Are you a Flaming Lips fan? Will you be heading to the concert?

Storm of the Day (or, "Speaking of dramatic, watch me call out every GW student who has ever complained about snow.")

This is a kind of overly sarcastic (but well-meaning) rebuttal to Daniel Wolman's post earlier about his Angeleno take on local complaints about weather.

Dear Daniel (and the west coast/southern GW population as a whole):

I think I see your problem. You're hanging out with too many weaksauce New Englanders. The way I can tell this is that they allowed themselves to be "snowed in," as if that's a real thing that actually happens to people. When the roads aren't clear enough for motor travel, those are your prime fort-building/snowball-fighting/sledding/general-winter-frolicking hours. Feeling lazy? Well, if you're in New England, and it's winter, and you didn't stock up on hot chocolate and firewood beforehand, you have no one but yourself to blame. Point is, you can't waste your heavy-snowfall time with complaining, though I guess there's no way for an LA kid to know that. You probably don't even understand why I've been checking the two-week weather forecast for back home, hoping for below-freezing temperatures over spring break. It's called skiing, and it's awesome.* (side note: Okemo and Stowe are looking reasonably promising, though Mad River is probably pretty much done for the year.)

The truth is, you don't even have weather in Southern California. You just have "warm" and "hot." Coming from the humid, sweaty, polluted armpit of America as you do, though, I wouldn't expect you to know that in normal places, we have, what's the word, seasons. 65 degree days in December aren't so great; in fact, they're useless. I get plenty of those in the spring and fall. Plus... when do you ski?

In Western Massachusetts, most people get excited about the first snow, and are disappointed if the weather warms again and it melts away. Yeah. We get sad if the weather rises above 32 degrees. How is this possible? It's called "layering," and only some situations call for it - maybe this will help you put in context the snide comments you may hear from us northeasterners about you and your over-tanned brethren as you all brave nearly 40 degree temperatures with nothing but a thick down jacket, a heavy sweater, and big black waterproof boots to protect you from an inch of slush on the almost 2-block journey from dorm to classroom. Also: in winter 1996, I was 6 years old, and about four feet tall. We got 5 and a half feet of snow. Did your childhood at any point feature freaking awesome snow tunnels to everywhere, that you could travel through standing straight?


(Also, as a final note, I think you may have mistaken the nature of the complaint of your friend and my fellow Western Massachusettsian: the problem with DC snow is that it's too freaking WARM here for it to be enjoyable. See, when snowfall is immediately preceded by t-shirt weather, it melts on contact with the unfrozen ground. Hence, "disgusting, cold, wet white crap.")


*You know, even if you're kind of mediocre at it, like me.

Win $15,000 from CommercialPitch.com for a Creative Idea

There are some pretty bad commercials on TV. Between those Head-On ads, the SalesGenie.com ones from the Super Bowl, and every local car dealership with a Dealin' Dave screaming at you, there's a lot of crappy, crappy ads.

Think you can do better? I stumbled across a new contest open to college students and Grad students from CommercialPitch.com. Basically, you submit a pitch for a commercial, and the best one wins $15,000. When was the last time a school project paid you that much? Not to mention the resume fodder.

Other cool points:

• There's money for second place and third place
• You can submit your ideas in written, storyboard, or video format
  

It doesn't look like anyone from GW has entered, yet, probably because there are so few intelligent students here.

BUT, if you are one of GW's elite (and even if you aren't), you should click here to enter.

Commercials can start with a super simple idea like guys saying "WAAAZZZZUUP" and turn into a huge success. If you can write something more creative than "apply directly to the forehead", then click here to sign up to take you chance.

C'mon GW, I know someone here can do better than this:

Do You Like Coffee a...Latte?

Do you like coffee a...latte? (bad pun INTENDED)

In under a minute, you can GREATLY help me with my marketing final project. Please take my quick, 10 multiple choice survey here.

It takes almost no time, and I will love you forever (sort of).

Thanks in advance!

Oh, and, in case you were worried, all results are completely confidential and we will be using only the numbers in our presentation.

Click here to take it.

Thanks to tonx for the photo.

GWBLOGSPOT XCLUSIVE!!! CRANES ARE AWESOME!!!

no duh.

Those who know me know two things: 1- I appreciate fine denim 2- I think cranes are awesome (no duh).

I appreciate cranes to a nearly comical degree (though there is nothing funny about cranes, they are just awesome (no duh)) my room is even adorned with a children's crane toy-cum-lamp. Upon learning of my steadfast devotion to cranes a friend of mine told me that kids actually climb the crane at 22 and F. Now, I am not one for GW things. I have never been to GWScene, I have never been to da club, I don't think Natty Ice tastes good, I have never been groped at Phi Sig, I cannot locate the basketball gym on a map... I literally have such a strong distaste that I do not even go into J Street to buy Diet Coca-Cola. But this? This crane climbing thing? This is almost as awesome as the cranes themselves.

On my way home tonight I went way out of my way to walk by this crane, hoping to find some dude brah freshman attempting to scale that marvel of human ingenuity and dominance over inorganic materials (ostensibly to impress some girl from a mixer but really only because cranes are awesome (no duh)). I was unsuccessful. However, I was so overwhelmed by the magnitude of cranes and how awesome they are (no duh) that I took some pictures and assembled the following notes for the whipper snapper (etymology note: whipper snapper is a derogatory term from the 1600's for lazy young men who would stand on street corners and snap whips to pass the time) with dreams of scaling that stunning monument to human power.

1- While there is barbed wire on the fence adjacent to the building at Square 80 the street side does not have any sort of protection.
2- There is a human sized hole at the bottom of the fence on the street side.
3- The back of the school without walls exists.
4- Cranes are awesome (no duh).

These are purely notes from a scene and I am in no way advocating climbing cranes (which happen to be awesome (no duh)) to witness the triumph of humans over the concept of vertical. However, should you be a crane climber with dreams of blogspot fame feel free to hit with an email or a post in the comments. Should you be planning on making a pilgrimage to that lot that empties out a 4 pm everyday I may just come. With a camera. And a note pad. And undying respect.

More pictures from my crane excursion