In this week’s Date Lab, she says: “I’ve also dated guys who haven’t been so nice, but I’m really good at making excuses for people.”

He says: “Quickly insecurity evolves into a web of mistrust and accusations.”

If the DL team was looking for an epic mind battle of tears and fears in this week’s edition, the duo’s questionnaire answers set them up for success. Despite the inauspicious beginning, though, they’re both attracted and things seem to be going well. She offers him her number, and they both rate the date a 4.

When he tries to follow up, though, she gives him a total brush-off when she meets someone else (not returning his calls, then explaining why in the Post interview.) For someone who accuses other people of not being nice, would it have killed her to send him a thanks-but-no-thanks text? Yeah, it’s a little uncomfortable, but man up.

Rating: 3. The daters are pretty generic and uninteresting, and rejection always sucks. The comments are pretty wild, though.

Chances of Success: 0. Once you’ve been turned down in a major newspaper, it’s pretty safe to say that’s the end.

With free food, live music, T-shirt giveaways, and even a moonbounce, the Corp’s Summer Day 2008 has all the key ingredients of the April original. Except, maybe, enough people to make it feel like an actual party, since campus is significantly less populous in the summer. Get drunk and it won’t bother you.

12-5 pm, Saturday, Copley Lawn.

City Paper is hosting a Funniest College Video Contest, which sounds like a good idea until you learn that they’re co-hosting it with the inane American Pie/Old School rip-off College, and that the grand prize is 4 tickets to see Carlos Mencia live. At least the first 50 entries get free t-shirts. But seriously, CP? I thought you were cool.

Interesting Carlos Mencia aside: you probably know he’s accused of stealing jokes, but did you know people call him Carlos Menstealia for it? Exactly the kind of person I want to win tickets to see.

I always thought the “representation” part would come before the “no taxation” part on DC’s license plate, but the 2008 Sales Tax Holiday, which kicks off at midnight tonight and runs until the 10th, suggests otherwise.

All clothes, shoes, accessories, and school supplies under $100 per item are eligible for exemption from the District’s 5.75% sales tax. The exemption is well-timed to give locals a break on back-to-school shopping, but there’s no reason you can’t take advantage of it, too.

Local gossip sites can’t get enough of these “hottest fill-in-the-blank” contests. The Hill just published its annual rundown of the 50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill, and incoming first-year law student Laura Swett made the list.

The 23 year-old Republican works for Georgetown law alum Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who tried to stir up trouble last spring about a Saudi donation to Georgetown that was vetted three years ago (the Editorial Board told him off). Since Swett rolls with someone who ignores available information, here’s an out-of-context quote from her Hill profile:

“I use my office as guinea pigs,” she said.

Shocking. At least she’s single. DCeiver has more coverage of who’s sexy, who doesn’t merit a second look, and who’s delousing.

If love really is a battlefield, then the guy in this week’s Date Lab went thermonuclear in his questionnaire. He manages to be both funny and insightful, saying that the TV show of his dating life would be “like “Temptation Island” but without the dignity and restraint.”

Meanwhile, she lists Pilates as one of her desert island DVDs and thinks that one of her brag-worthy traits is that “she can provide you with the Democratic agenda without even looking at talking points.” Aside from not being that unusual in DC, is that really the best she can do?

She must be better in person, or he must be considerably worse, because the date is a hit. Dinner goes well, and they end up chilling by the Capitol fountain, and maybe more, as the Post is all too eager to point out with the article’s subhead (”Is it a euphemism when he says they ‘hung out’ in her car?”)

This is irritating because:

• Duh, it is
• They’re on a date! There’s nothing wrong with that, and I’m not sure why the DL team is being so middle school about it
• They totally gave away the ending

Rating: 3. This is a solid DL, but not spectacular. The dude wasn’t nearly as funny in the interviews as he was in the questionnaire, and she’s a bore, but everyone needs someone.

Chances of Success: 4. The follow-up at the end of the article says they went on a second date, but the real proof? He’s already defending her on the Post’s comment board.

The items that show up in your Facebook news feed fall into one of three categories: interesting (your ex’s relationship status changes), sort of interesting (your housemate posts new photos), and not at all interesting (someone you knew in high school leaves a group.) But even the most mundane entry is still good because it’s not work.

Until now. Blackboard Sync is a new application that will link announcements, grades, discussion boards, and other Blackboard features with Facebook:

You can find out if you have a new assignment, grade, new forum posts, etc., without having to leave Facebook. Blackboard Sync also cross-references your courses’ Rosters with Facebook to make it easier to connect with your classmates through Facebook.

Northwestern is signing on, but we can only hope that UIS’ documented ineptitude will for once work to our advantage and keep Blackboard out of your downtime.

Via Uwire.

 Metro map with proposed silver and purple lines

University of Maryland-College Park students have formed a new campus organization in hopes of drumming up support for the Purple Line, a proposed Metro line that would connect the Red, Green, and Orange Lines and keep suburbanites from ever having to enter the dirty District:

Student government president Jonathan S. Sachs, said the “Terps for the Purple Line” coalition is “one of the broadest we’ve seen.” It includes the campus NAACP chapter, Black Student Union, Latino Student Union, Hispanic Heritage Coalition, Graduate Student Government and the campus chapter of the Maryland Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).

It’s not surprising that such a diverse array of student groups has signed on (who wouldn’t want to cut down on travel time?), but it’s a strange cause for short-sighted college students in general, since the Maryland Transit Administration fact sheet (PDF) says that the construction would begin at the absolute earliest in 2012 (between friends: 2020.)

Metro map by Eric Fidler

After seeing Stuff White People Like’s Christian Lander read from his new book, I’m still not sold on his writing, but I have to admit that the guy is a little funnier and more chill than I would have expected. Reading aloud from his gifted children post, he interrupted himself to say, “Just so you know, I picked Reseda, California because of the Karate Kid. That’s where the Karate Kid was from. But his girlfriend was from Encino, she was like rich or something.”

Lander responded to the criticism that his blog is actually about yuppies, rather than white people, by saying that while in grad school he noticed that “These people weren’t just in urban centers. They were in college towns, and they were hating everyone around them.”

But being a transplanted yuppie who ends up in the Midwest for school doesn’t make you not a yuppie (not to be confused with a coastie).

The book contains new material, so I felt a little scammed that he read all old posts: gifted children, awareness, having two last names, knowing what’s best for poor people, and unpaid internships (which got one of the evening’s biggest laughs) Another, more surprising big laugh was his admission that SWPL got slammed by The New Republic. I’m sure this left a lot of Timbuktu-carrying, Nalgene-swilling people in the room confused about which side to root for.

After four sexual assaults in the last two weeks in the neighborhood around American University, DCist reports that “Officials from all universities in the area, including Georgetown, George Washington, UDC and American, have been briefed by police to put their students on alert.”

If that’s the case, why hasn’t Georgetown’s DPS sent out an alert? Students should be finding about crime risks from their university police, not from city-wide blogs. The sexual assaults weren’t at Georgetown, but if MPD thinks there is a reason to believe Georgetown students should be alerted, we should know.

Public Safety’s reticence is especially embarrassing after the University was chastised for being slow to tell students about 2007’s hate crime. Georgetown spokesperson Julie Green Bataille hasn’t responded to a request for comment.
Update: Spokesperson Julie Green Bataille responds via email:

Georgetown was notified of the incidents as part of regular conversations with MPD but was not asked to notify our community related to these incidents. Consistent with our public safety alert process if there was reason to believe there was an ongoing threat to members of our community we would issue a notification. In this case there are no current plans to do so.

We’re looking deeper into this.