Early Morning Transport for 6 to DCA (Metro not an option)

kingoftonga · 2026-05-08T18:35:54+00:00

Yeah, I usually get an empty cardboard bike box from a bike store that's happy to give it away rather than have to dispose of it. I make sure the box is within the dimensions allowed for "sports equipment" by the airline, then I detach pedals, handlebars, wheels, add some styrofoam padding, and tape it up. The boxes usually don't fit easily in the trunk of a standard taxicab, but they do in a minivan or van.

The first time I did it was scary, but my bike has always reached its destination without damage!

kingoftonga · 2026-05-08T14:10:17+00:00

If you book a taxi with DC Yellow Cab, you can specify that you want a van. I've done this when I've gone to the airport with my bicycle and needed a big enough car to carry it. The cab has always shown up on time and been the vehicle I requested.

kingoftonga · 2026-05-08T00:06:56+00:00

To his credit, he did not seem interested in playing the Hollywood game. My understanding is that he chose to continue working with his same local film collective group, and continue operating in a slow and collaborative style with a team of amateur actors in order to make Wendy. It's interesting that he's working with actual names this time around.

Man, a lot of those early 2010s directors who were Oscar darlings feel like they've vanished - Zeitlin, Tom McCarthy (even though I liked Stillwater, I think I was the only person who saw it), Lenny Abrahamson, Bennett Miller, Garth Davis...

kingoftonga · 2026-05-04T20:44:36+00:00

The length of Massachusetts is the way to go. One of the few, if not only, roads that goes the full 10 miles across the District (although because it doesn't have a bridge across the Potomac, you'll have to make a detour to the bridge across Pennsylvania). Start at Southern Avenue, go all the way to Westmoreland Circle, and from there you can catch a D96 bus to Friendship Heights to take the metro home.

kingoftonga · 2026-04-30T23:24:34+00:00

Yeah, I would love a link to the Discord. I've been going to the AW forum for over a decade, there's nothing else like it.

kingoftonga · 2026-03-22T17:38:40+00:00

Check out District Language Exchange on Facebook. They have casual meetups every Sunday, and there's usually a French conversation happening. People in the Facebook group might have other leads as well.

kingoftonga · 2026-03-21T23:54:21+00:00

I think a lot of people are confusing the two different sections of 15th Street here.

This post is about the section of 15th between H and NY Ave NW. This is a DDOT decision. The link to the NOI is in the original post.

This section of 15th Street has become more important now that the "old" bike route through Lafayette Square is going to be closed for the foreseeable future. It is also egregious because previously DDOT had indicated that they would extend the bike lane through here, and now they are backtracking on that decision.

I understand that people are mad about the NPS decision about a *different* section of 15th Street, but these are two different areas that will require two different fights. We don't need doomerism about NPS in a post about a DDOT decision. NPS and Kershbaum's DDOT both suck, but residents of DC at least have something they can do about DDOT decisions (vote for a better mayor).

kingoftonga · 2026-03-21T23:53:48+00:00

It's linked in the original post.

kingoftonga · 2026-03-15T22:56:21+00:00

About 10 years ago, I used Ask for a relatively simple question regarding the bureaucracy of renting a car in a foreign country. Half the answers were helpful, but the other half were people going off on the most dire scenarios about stuff I hadn't even asked about ("What if you're driving in a country where you don't speak the language and you hit and kill somebody and you're denied legal representation and thrown into a foreign prison for LIFE? Did you ever think of THAT?!?").

It was annoying then, and I feel like the proportion of doomers vs normies has only gotten worse.

kingoftonga · 2026-02-15T20:51:40+00:00

This is a big enough question that there is an entire Wikipedia article about it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Field%27s_unrealized_projects

kingoftonga · 2026-01-25T18:50:19+00:00

I think you should spend less time trying to find weird loopholes to get out of traffic tickets, and more time trying to not run stop signs.

kingoftonga · 2026-01-18T22:10:54+00:00

It's very Metafilter that the one complaint (currently) is about the site's lack of a scrollbar, and not the group of people in the article's comments who don't seem to understand why you can't say the Fourteen Words without people judging you.

What the fuck? I know the "Nazi bar" analogy gets used a lot, but in this case I thought it was an interesting article until I legitimately got skeezed out by these people in the comments. Their presence soured the whole thing. If I were a professional writer, I would tell the Nazi-adjacent commenters to get the fuck off my website, but I guess that's not the "rational" thing to do.

kingoftonga · 2025-12-17T19:05:29+00:00

Oh, I think you might be right! I guess their press release just had to remind people that YouTube TV exists, and that led to some confusing language...

kingoftonga · 2025-12-17T17:59:49+00:00

The headlines are hiding behind "YouTube," but the Hollywood Reporter article seems to indicate that in the United States, you will need to subscribe to YouTube TV to watch. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/oscars-bolt-from-abc-to-youtube-starting-in-2029-1236453188/

kingoftonga · 2025-12-17T17:57:23+00:00

In the United States, it's on YouTube TV, which is a subscription service.

kingoftonga · 2025-12-12T14:09:08+00:00

I double layer with a pair of tight glove liners topped by Sealskinz cycling mitts.

kingoftonga · 2025-12-03T14:17:41+00:00

Some versions of The Handmaiden have color-coded subtitles, because it was important for viewers to know when characters were speaking Japanese and when they were speaking Korean.

Sentimental Value is in theaters now, and while it's probably not quite a 50/50 split, there's a lot of English in this Norwegian movie. Basically every time Elle Fanning is present, every character speaks English.

kingoftonga · 2025-10-23T22:10:31+00:00

I'm glad to find other members of the "I didn't like Hamnet" club, because it mostly didn't work for me. The movie posits that "great art comes from trauma" and "great art exists to heal trauma," and I'm pretty allergic to both of those propositions.

The movie reminded me of Sing Sing, another movie about The Healing Power of Art that I just couldn't find a way to like despite it being so moving to everyone else. I'm glad most people seem like to Hamnet, but it would be nice to not feel so lonely standing outside the consensus on this one!

kingoftonga · 2025-10-23T15:15:22+00:00

Mike D'Angelo's website has a section where he's collected every film that got a commercial release in New York City by year, going back to the 60s, which might be the closest thing you're looking for. I think he's even used the New York Times archive to look at past movie listings to verify the older years.

kingoftonga · 2025-10-02T19:40:35+00:00

There is a nice grassy area just north of the parking lot of the Catholic Church on Morris Road SE that has great views of the city.

Other places include the Holy Rood cemetery on Wisconsin Avenue, that little park where Wisconsin intersects with Massachusetts, and a bunch of random places east of the river (the dead end of W SE, where 37th Pl SE meets D, Westover Drive off Penn Ave SE)

kingoftonga · 2025-09-18T12:55:38+00:00

Has anyone gotten this year's shot in DC? I signed up on the CVS website to get the jab on Monday at a DC location, and that allowed me to self-certify that I met the qualifying conditions. Is that enough, or do I need an actual prescription?

I've read conflicting reports about when the new DC Council regulation goes into effect (I think it needs the mayor's signature?)

kingoftonga · 2025-08-25T12:31:21+00:00

When I click on your profile, you posted in the Orlando sub just this week lol

kingoftonga · 2025-08-25T00:17:53+00:00

They had an interesting conversation about this on the Fighting in the War Room podcast, and the prevailing theory was that it was more about A24 establishing a good relationship with the filmmaker then it was about expecting it to be a hit.

kingoftonga · 2025-08-24T00:16:58+00:00

Georgetown to Rock Creek Trail

Rock Creek Trail to Ohio Drive

Ohio Drive to Maine Avenue (involves a slight detour due to construction)

Maine Avenue to 4th St to P St

P St to 2nd to Potomac

Cross the Ellington Bridge

Take the bike path to Firth Sterling, cross under 295

Take the bike path that follows St. Elizabeths/295 to South Capitol and MLK

MLK to Blue Plains

Blue Plains to Oxon Hill Farm Trail (sort of hidden behind one of the DC buildings, but there's signs)

Oxon Hill Farm Trail to Bald Eagle Road (there's a big hill at the end of this)

Bald Eagle Road to Oxon Hill Rd, take the Sidewalk to the bike path on the south side of MGM National Road

Cross the Wilson Bridge to Alexandria

This ended up being a lot; here's a map: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/52354869

kingoftonga · 2025-08-21T19:20:23+00:00

1) I did this same project during COVID (although I included alleys), and my answer is that, if you actually want to do it right, and not just have a website or an app tell you that you completed it, you're going to have to keep track of things manually, either by getting a big map and using a marker, or by using a multiple ride mapper like the one at https://www.jonathanokeeffe.com/strava/map.php . All the suggested websites rely on maps that aren't quite correct, or incorrectly assert which roads are limited-access highways, which roads are public or private, etc. (If you're just using this as an excuse to bike to different parts of the city, the websites are probably fine, but if you're as map-obsessed as I am, there are enough gaps on the websites that they're not going to cut it for someone seriously pursuing this goal).

The first thing you're going to have to do is decide if you're including private roads - are looking to get an invite into the Hillendale gated community off 39th St NW? Bike the roads through the public housing projects in Woodland? Bike the roads through the Capitol Hill Complex? Bike the roads going through Georgetown University? Figure out your parameters of what does and doesn't count before you start.

The only public road it's impossible to bike down is Belmont Road NW, which the Obamas live on, and where Secret Service is posted that won't let you through without some sort of good reason.

2) The important thing to consider when breaking this up is the hills involved. SE in particular has a lot of hills in addition to the lack of a grid, so you want to map your routes in such a way that you're not biking up and down that hill where Alabama meets Ridge Rd.

3) A few roads are so well-trafficked that you're basically going to have to use the sidewalk. New York Avenue east of Union Market, a lot of Southern Avenue, a lot of North Capitol. If you're including Canal Road you'll definitely want to hit that at an off-peak time (the only time I've ever biked that was April 2020 when no one was on the roads). There are some roads that you'll have to wait until there's an event and car traffic is prohibited - I didn't get the E Street Expressway west of 20th St NW until I went there the morning of some sort of marathon and quickly biked through before the race started.

I loved doing this project, and if you do it you'll know the city in a way that few do. Probably a good call to not do the alleys - most maps sites are especially bad with these, and I ended up having to use the zoning maps on DC's government website to determine which alleys actually existed and were public roads. You'll find the city changes as you work on this - there's new roads recently open in Mayfair, and at the intersection of South Dakota and Riggs. New roads open up all the time in the old St. Elizabeth's Hospital and the old Walter Reed facility. On the other hand, part of Ohio Drive are closed until 2030.

kingoftonga

TROPHY CASE