Come Sunday, a $1 bill will no longer give you a chance at winning millions. Photograph by Flickr user MoneyBlogNewz.

Win or lose, Powerball has long been a way to enjoy fantasies of how you’d spend those millions of dollars for just four quarters—at least, until the actual drawing happens.

This Saturday is the last time lottery players will be able to buy a Powerball ticket for $1. On Sunday, January 15, the price doubles, meaning next week the chance at millions will cost a whopping $2.

We’ve heard of the rent being too damned high, but what about the lottery? Sheesh.

The Powerball people claim this is a good thing, that it will ensure “bigger jackpots, better odds of winning, and more millionaires.” It may be cold comfort, but the Powerball Web site promises that “odds of winning the jackpot will improve from one in 195.2 million to one in 175.2 million.”

Oh, okay.

The last local Powerball jackpot win was Christmas Eve of 2011, in Maryland. The anonymous Pennsylvania couple won $128.8 million.

Andray Blatche, shown here with a sprained shoulder during a Wizards-Bucks game last March. Photograph by Flickr user Keith Allison.

If you squint hard, you can start to see what the 2014 Wizards will look like.

They’re an athletic and aggressive playoff team (stop laughing and squint, dammit) in the mold of their franchise point guard. They generate plenty of turnovers, and they like to get out and run. Trevor Booker, Chris Singleton, and Jan Vesely have developed into excellent complementary players alongside John Wall and the first pick of the 2012 draft. Meanwhile, Andray Blatche is nowhere to be seen.

And how could he be? Blatche—the recipient of a regrettable contract extension from Ernie Grunfeld at the outset of this rebuilding project—doesn’t have a place on a team like this. His presence runs contrary to everything these new Wizards are trying to become. His game, while oftentimes effective, is lethargic.

Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber. Photograph courtesy of Uber.

In December, a new for-hire chauffeured car company opened in Washington, but with a technologically advanced twist. Uber is an app. The cars are ordered, paid for, and tracked with the app. It’s been a popular service—almost too popular on New Year’s Eve, when some customers claim they were charged much higher rates than expected. The company said it was using “surge pricing,” the only way it could remain competitive on a night with typically epic demand for hired cars.

Travis Kalanick, the millionaire cofounder and CEO of Uber, called us from San Francisco to talk Uber, the Washington customer, and New Year’s Eve. At the same time, DC Taxicab Commissioner Ron Linton accused the service of operating illegally, and said he planned to do something about it. That’s where we started our conversation.

Jay Eizenstat joined McDermott Will & Emery from Miller & Chevalier. Photograph courtesy of McDermott Will & Emery.

Jacob Farber has joined Perkins Coie as of counsel in the firm’s licensing and technology practice. He was previously counsel at Dickstein Shapiro.

McDermott Will & Emery welcomed international trade specialist Jay Eizenstat as a partner in its regulatory practice from Miller & Chevalier.

Arent Fox has promoted three Washington lawyers to partner: Sarah Bruno in the intellectual property group, and Joshua Fowkes and Matthew Wright in the litigation group.

And Daniel Lopez was promoted to counsel in the firm’s real estate practice.

Miller & Chevalier has elected four lawyers as “new members”—the firm’s term for partners.

Layla Aksakal, who focuses on federal taxation matters.

Elizabeth Drake, who practices in employee benefits.

Lamia Matta, who focuses on litigation, anti-corruption, and global compliance

And Daniel Patrick Wendt, in the international trade practice.

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck made one new “shareholder”—its term for partner—in Washington: David Cohen, a member of the government relations, oversight and investigations, financial services, and homeland security groups.

Morrison & Foerster also made one new partner in its Washington office: Obrea Poindexter, a member of the financial services group.

Rendering of the new CityCenterDC. Illustration courtesy of Hines.

CityCenterDC, the big project under construction on the former site of the District's old convention center, is now little more than a huge hole in the ground. But come 2014, the ten acres will house shops, condos, apartments—and 515,000 square feet of office space. The obvious anchor tenant for that amount of space in the heart of DC would be a big law firm. But so far none have signed on.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom signed a letter of intent to lease 350,000 square feet at CityCenter in spring of 2010 but then backed out. Skadden would have been an ideal tenant because the firm is so prominent: It's one of the largest in Washington, with more than 300 lawyers based here, and also one of the richest—another requirement for any firm interested in moving to CityCenter. Dawn Marcus, communications manager for CityCenter's developer, Hines, says lease prices haven't been determined yet. However, a real-estate source says the office space will cost as much as $85 a square foot per year, so Skadden's annual rent would have been close to $30 million. That price isn't unheard of: Office space at 2200 Pennsylvania Avenue, a building that opened last year, costs in the same range. Two firms, Hunton & Williams and Vinson & Elkins, have moved in.

Now Arnold & Porter, also one of the District's largest and wealthiest law firms, is considering renting at CityCenter when the firm's current lease ends in 2015. Arnold & Porter would be an even bigger "get" than Skadden, as its Washington office houses 470 lawyers.

But if that deal doesn't work out, there aren't many other firms that would fit the bill for CityCenter.

Most of Washington's megafirms are stuck in their current offices until at least 2016, which would be too late to move into the new project. Covington & Burling, Latham & Watkins, and Sidley Austin all have DC leases that expire that year. Hogan Lovells, Steptoe & Johnson, and Patton Boggs are among the large firms with leases expiring in 2017.

One possible upside of moving to CityCenter: The firm's lawyers could live in the project's condos, within feet of their office. Less time commuting means more time billing.

This article appears in the January 2012 issue of The Washingtonian.

Here’s the thing. Having had no pre-premiere drinks or snacks, you sit through two hours and ten minutes of a film that is in Serbo-Croatian with subtitles, okay but not great, and above all unrelentingly dark and brutal, and the expectation is to maybe slip out of the after-party as quickly as possible. After all, both the screening and the party for In the Land of Blood and Honey are in the Holocaust Museum. How rockin’ can they be? And the featured attractions, director Angelina Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, are off at Charlie Palmer Steak having dinner. Jolie introduced the film and then they left, and they’re not back. It’s late. There’s a lot of looking at watches in the milling crowd, parked in a room that feels like Treblinka with candlelight and canapes. The ample buffet tables are laid with sweets and fruit. But there’s no sign of Brangelina.

But then there they are, side by side, positioned in the corner of the room. It’s 10:30 PM, and for the next hour or more two of the most famous movie stars in the world make themselves utterly available to every guest, every camera, every dopey accolade, inquiry, and comment. At one point Jolie is surrounded by such a thick swarm of men (and a few women) that only the top of her head appears above the pinstriped shoulders of her admirers. Boyden Gray inches his way to her and then hovers. Georgetown University president Jack DeGioia poses for a picture, thoughtfully including his wife. Jolie smiles, smiles, smiles, pulling people in, taking their hands with one of hers, cradling in the other what appears to be a glass of red wine.

The High Heel Drag Race is a popular annual event in Washington. Photograph by Dakota Fine.

Washington has been named the 16th “gayest” city in America by the Advocate, in a list that is remarkable because of what other cities did and didn’t make the cut. For example, on the list of 25 cities, New York is not mentioned, nor is Los Angeles. The “gayest city in America,” according to the list, is Salt Lake City, the nation’s Mormon capital. Should someone tell Mitt Romney?

The Advocate’s editors say they used a special formula to determine which places qualify as the “gayest.” Some of the criteria include the number of LGBT elected city officials, WNBA teams, International Mr. Leather competition semifinalists, LGBT bookstores, nude yoga, transgender protections, and “concerts by Gossip, the Cliks, and the Veronicas.” They call it their look at “per capita queernees.”

The list does not break down how Washington scored in those categories, because it is among the “honorable mentions.”