Elmore Leonard, Still Delighting Readers – and Interviewers

My good friend and 630 WMAL's morning anchor, Bill Thompson, has been interviewing authors in his spare time for over twenty six years. Teaching himself how to code websites, along the way he created EYEONBOOKS, a resource dedicated to housing this vast pool of these one-on-ones.

Well for the first time ever, he let me take the reins and posted an interview I did with Elmore Leonard. So making me EYEONBOOKS debut:

Elmore Leonard, Still Delighting Readers – and Interviewers

By The Numbers

Crystal City Summer Screen on The Green films are out! Mark your calendars - and your wine bottles! Action happens at the courtyard of 1800 South Bell Street, Arlington, VA 22202 (near Crystal City Metro)
June 6, 2011 Air Force One
June 13, 2011 Four Weddings and a Funeral
June 20, 2011 The Sixth Sense
June 27, 2011 District 9
July 11, 2011 10 Things I Hate About You
July 18, 2011 Oceans 11
July 25, 2011 Apollo 13
August 1, 2011 16 Candles
August 8, 2011 The 40-Year-Old Virgin
August 15, 2011 50 First Dates
August 22, 2011 (500) Days of Summer
August 29, 2011 2001: A Space Odyssey

For All Us Crystal City Peeps - Spread The Word

Looking to ditch that old tv or last decades' lap top? I know we've got a tv that will be headed towards the great bulb in the sky.

Crystal City (Arlington, VA) – Old electronics can be diverted from landfills and sensitive paperwork kept out of the hands of identity thieves when brought to the Crystal City Business Improvement District’s (BID) Power Purge & Shred on Wednesday, April 27th from 7 AM to 7 PM. The annual event has safely recycled almost 90 tons of electronics over the course of the past three years including monitors, printers, CPUs, servers, cables, batteries, and more. Added for the first time last year, the Shred securely recycled more than four tons of paper.

The event is conveniently located in the surface parking lot located at the intersection of 20th Street and S. Bell Street, directly adjacent to 220 Twentieth Street. Owned by Vornado/Charles E. Smith, use of the parking lot is donated to the Crystal City BID to help promote this key green initiative. For more information on Crystal Green and other Crystal City events, visit www.crystalcity.org.

The April Fool Elves Have Hit Us At Work

Programming Directors Office!

One of the perks of working in news is getting to work before most are even out of bed. But these elves beat us all to the office to play a little April Fools mischief.  Luckily they did the dirty work because I don't have the guts to do any of this....

Need a few more ideas? Here are a few to make you giggle from the WASHINGTON POST:

Geektastic April Fools’ Day pranks By Hayley Tsukayama
April Fools’ Day is all about harmless fun, so if you have access to a victim ... er ... friend’s computer, here are some light-hearted prank ideas with a techy twist that we’ve found floating around the Internet:
1. Push some buttons: It’s pretty easy to switch the primary and secondary buttons on a friend’s mouse. Head into Windows’ System Preferences mouse control pad and — bam! — one-click prank accomplished. Just be sure to tell your victim how to switch it back before he or she goes insane.

2. Feeling blue: The Blue Screen of Death is one of the most-feared sites in all of techdom. Strike some good-natured fear into the hearts of those you love with the BSoD screensaver. Microsoft is willing to help you out on this one; you can download the screensaver from the Microsoft site.

3. Screenshot wallpaper: Set someone’s wallpaper to a screenshot of their normal desktop and then use the “Arrange Icons By” menu to hide all the desktop icons. After that, just sit back and enjoy the frantic clicking.

The old bathroom sign switcheroo!

4. Tricky linguistics: Google offers several interface languages to make search easy for everyone — including Klingons, Elmer Fudd and the Swedish Chef Muppet. Head up to the search settings menu on any Google search. Other options include 1337 and Esperanto.

5. Too many mice: If your victim uses a wireless mouse, switch out his receiver and watch him like a hawk. When he’s moving his mouse, send the one on-screen in an entirely different direction. Those particularly good at stifling their giggles can probably keep the prank going for quite a while.
These are all pretty low-tech pranks that require almost no technological prowess.