Photo by Flickr user cracklow's faux toes

Happy Tuesday, Washingtonians! Got any burning food-related questions? Head over today at 11 AM to Kliman Online, where Todd will be answering all of them.  

Sadly, it seems, we won't be getting an Apple Georgetown anytime soon, if ever, reports the Current (via City Paper). Not even Steve Jobs could convince the powers-that-be.

Could Chicago schools be a model for DC ones? That might be the case, reports the Post, if Arne Duncan has anything to say about it. The Chicago city schools chief executive was tapped by Obama to be education secretary and may bring some of his Chicago lessons along with him. 

DCist points us to this sad question: Is DC the suckiest sports team in the country?  

The DCeiver muses that the official Congressional Inaugural Committee advisory on inauguration preparation might basically be one long plea asking folks to not come to DC.

It’s midweek in early December, an incoming president is assembling his government, and it’s Al Kamen’s job to chronicle the changes. He’s writing his In the Loop column for the paper five days a week, he’s sending daily dispatches to Washingtonpost.com, he’s preparing to start his own blog on the Post’s Web site.

“The interest is so intense,” he says. “People are fascinated by who’s coming in and who’s going out.”

Kamen’s column has become a must-read within the Post. If you want to find out the most likely candidates for secretary of Agriculture or ambassador to Rome or a crucial but midlevel budget job, you’re likely to find it first in In the Loop. Kamen has become the Oracle.

The Loop was born after Bill Clinton’s presidential win. Covering the incoming administration, Kamen started writing a column slugged In Transition. When Clinton took office in 1993, the column was renamed the New Regime. That April it became In the Loop, which stuck.

“It was supposed to be a temporary column for appointments until the transition finished,” he says. “It never did."

President-elect Obama made hay on the campaign trail about ecofriendly vehicles. After criticism of his personal car, a gas-guzzling Chrysler 300, he traded it in for a hybrid Ford Escape. But after he takes office, the new president, code-named Renegade, will ride in a vehicle that gets only slightly better mileage than the M1A1 battle tank’s half mile to the gallon.

Spy photos show the secret testing of a new Cadillac-based presidential limo, presumably to be rolled out around the inaugural—as was the current version of the presidential limo, which first carried President Bush at his 2005 inaugural.

Presidents once rode around in unarmored vehicles that were mostly identical to regular luxury cars. Then in 1933 Giuseppe Zangara tried to shoot Franklin Roosevelt in Miami, and the Secret Service began to armor the presidential limos.

Want to see the Obamas during the inauguration? Head to one of the 10 inaugural balls they're slated to attend.

Here's what eight chefs would cook the Obamas for an inaugural dinner.  

Obama will be sworn in on the Lincoln Bible. But what verse will he emphasize?

Ella Mae Johnson will celebrate her 105th birthday by attending the inauguration. 

>> All Washingtonian.com inauguration news

More>> Capital Comment Blog | News & Politics | Society Photos

Photo by Flickr user blipars

Welcome back from your holiday break, Washington—we hope it was fun-filled and relaxing, and you got all the loot you might have wished for. New Year's Eve is in just a couple of days—have you made plans? We've got a full-on NYE guide, with info on parties, restaurants, and lots more. 

The Redskins ended their ultimately disappointing season yesterday with another disappointing loss to the 49ers. Hey, at least that Dallas thrubbing was nice to watch, eh?  

14th and You has some fun with Google Street View in DC. 

This local man acted pretty much the hero in foiling two robbers' plans to kidnap him and his family and rob a bank.

What's the deal with Chinese food in DC? Matthew Yglesias argues that "The issue with Chinese food and DC isn’t that there’s no good stuff, it’s that there’s an extraordinary quantity of bad stuff."

Want to get an inside look at the DC public school system? Try out this new DC education blog, Harry Potter and the  Urban School Nightmare. 

The Vermont-based organic-cheese maker Laini Fondiller has a knack for naming cheese. One of her most popular concoctions: a Barack Obama-inspired cheese.

Fondiller likes to keep on top of current news, so it’s no surprise that a few of her cheeses have turned out with politically inspired titles. Her Filibuster cheese, for example, is a delightfully gooey creation made from raw cow’s milk and vegetable rennet. Fondiller even named one of her goats—her Lazy Lady Farm has 25 registered Alpine goats on the premises—after George W. Bush’s former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

Meet our daters: Mark Drapeau | Dana Neill | Sally Colson Cline | Michael Amesquita | Kate Searby | Max Schwartz | Lucas Wall 

Editor’s note: In an effort to protect the privacy of our diarists’ dates, our updates are on a slight time delay.

When last we checked in with our daters, one had said hello to a new boyfriend. Today we say goodbye to one of our diarists.

Last week, Max Schwartz told a woman he’d gone out with a few times about Dating Diaries, and so far she’s “not running for the exit.” Max did finally hear from the law student who had gone missing. She called out of the blue, and “it was kind of a weird conversation.” The law student told Max she’d been busy and would be for the next few weeks, but perhaps they could get together after that. “I told her if she had time that week that she should give me a call, and until then I’m going to go back to not thinking about it.”