04.30 - rise and thrive
what’s going on in d.c.
Still need a vaccine (or know someone who does)? This is the first weekend D.C. is offering walk-up sites for vaccinations. The eleven sites across the city don’t require appointments - just show up, get your shot, and be on your way.
“Rise and Thrive” at Union Market over the next few weekends. The area is offering a month of wellness-related events, including fitness classes, mural tours, and plant pop-ups.
looking ahead: concerts are returning to the district this summer - Capital One Arena and Merriweather Post’s line-ups are available here (no JBiebs though - he just postponed his tour); Wolf Trap’s is here
let’s talk food and drinks
my weekly best bite: The tofu Laab at Columbia Height’s Thip Khao
Haven’t had a chance to check out Foxtrot yet? Foxtrot is offering MIDC readers new to Foxtrot this code for $10 to spend at either the Mt. Vernon or Georgetown market - my suggestion? Try the full recovery smoothie.
If you like the derby - or just hanging out in seersucker and drinking mint juleps - there are a bunch of restaurants hosting Kentucky Derby watch parties this Saturday (the race is scheduled for 6:57 PM)
A new restaurant and beer garden, The Comus Inn, opened in Dickerson, MD. The five-acre grounds is set against the backdrop of Sugarloaf Mountain and is filled with indoor and outdoor activities, as well as live music on weekends.
what’s on our minds?
The D.C. police department was the target of a massive ransomware attack this week, with Russian hackers claiming to have stolen 250 gigabites of extremely sensitive police data - including names of police informants. As a show of force, the group published extensive internal records for five officers on Wednesday. Although D.C. is declining to say if they’ve paid the hackers their ransom, the group suddenly backed down. Ransomware attacks, a major national security risk, are increasingly common in the U.S., with 151 attacks last year. Average payments are increasing too, with organizations paying an average of $312k to recover (and keep confidential) their own data.
Reaching for an ice pack to soothe a sore muscle after a tough workout feels as ingrained in sports culture as say, the importance of staying hydrated. Except it turns out icing might be making things worse. A breakthrough study in mice found that not only is icing muscles after strenuous exercise is ineffective, but that it is counterproductive and impedes recovery.
Cheesecake Factory, a ubiquitous option at many a suburban mall, is making a splash with its first D.C. location. According to the company’s CEO, the outpost near the White House pulled in over $230k in sales its first week.
Quick links to other weekly #goodreads:
TikTok and the Vibes Revival - per The New Yorker, “Increasingly, what we’re after on social media is not narrative or personality but moments of audiovisual eloquence…Vibes are a medium for feeling, the kind of abstract understanding that comes before words put a name to experience.”
Girl, Wash Your Timeline - per The New York Times, “Rachel Hollis, the best-selling author and motivational speaker, built a blockbuster business sharing her “authentic” self. Then things got a little too real.”
Dirty Dollars- per Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Accused money launderers left a path of bankrupt factories, unpaid taxes, shuttered buildings and hundreds of steelworkers out of jobs.”
The Climate Solution Actually Adding Millions of Tons of CO2 Into the Atmosphere - per ProPublica, “New research shows that California’s climate policy created up to 39 million carbon credits that aren’t achieving real carbon savings. But companies can buy these forest offsets to justify polluting more anyway.”
what are we watching/reading?
This won’t help for your Netflix scrolling this weekend, but the company knows it is facing an issue re: decision fatigue. Per Vulture’s article, Netflix is launching a new viewing mode - Play Something - that will autoplay an option that Netflix thinks you’ll like.
Wanting to catch up on any of last week’s Oscar winners? NYTimes compiled a guide for how to stream each flick.