Cleveland Park news

- The Blockbuster Video next to Magruder's closed last week. Slightly disappointing, but no big deal.

- The Whatsa Bagel in the same strip as the Blockbuster also suddenly closed last week. Very disappointing and definitely a big deal. That was one of the places that really contributed to the character of the neighborhood. I thought having a locally owned and operated bagel joint was really special. Now we're stuck without a bagel shop. And to add insult to injury, I read somewhere that Cosi might open up a store in Cleveland Park. Barf. Why not just have a second Starbucks open up while we're at it???

- The Uptown is finally getting a "big" movie. 300 opens there on Friday. The early reviews are mixed. So far, it's right on the edge at Rotten Tomatoes with a 60%. Still, I'm excited just because the theater has been home to a seemingly neverending string of small screen movies after the last Star Wars film left theaters in mid-2005. Last year's two month run of Scary Movie 4 at the Uptown quickly comes to mind as a good example of what they've been wasting that huge screen on.

- Don't use the Cleveland Park CVS for photos. I took our disposable camera there after our Snowshoe trip and this is what I got back. That's the full-size, full-resolution image from the photo CD they gave me. I went back and tried to explain that a bunch of 10 to 15 kilobyte digital files could not even qualify as a "photo CD," but the photo tech there tried to tell me that the pictures were low quality because it was a disposable camera. Incredible. So I turned around and took the negatives down the street to Ritz and they did a fine job with them as you can see in the Snowshoe post below.