Good morning, RVA! It's 44 °F right now, but the rest of today looks amazing! Expect sunshine, highs right around 70 °F, and tons of excited college kids sitting outside celebrating the end of the semester. The excellent weather (and vibes) continues through the next few days with highs on Sunday most likely topping out in the low 80s. Enjoy, and I hope you have an excellent, outdoor weekend.
Water cooler
WTVR reports that a person died after a fatal crash on W. Main Street and Madison Street. Police haven’t released any details yet, but WTVR says a vehicle “smashed into the side of a law firm building, which sits just across the street from the VCU School of Business” and that “a scooter was involved in the wreck.” I’m sure we’ll learn more details in the coming days but, 1) this part of Main Street is on Richmond’s High-Injury Street Network, we already know it’s too fast and too dangerous, and 2) this intersection is just a couple blocks from where a driver hit and killed a VCU student earlier this year.
Vice President Kamala Harris stopped by Scott’s Addition yesterday, and Michael Martz at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the report. Sounds like Republicans’ drunken dance on the edge of the debt-ceiling cliff was a major topic of conversation.
Friday Cheers opens its outdoor summer concert series on Brown’s Island tonight (the 38th season!). Tonight’s show features Snail Mail, Water From Your Eyes, and Dazy. After listening to a few tracks, I think you’re in for a smooth, chill, indie rock-filled evening. Doors open at 6:00 PM, and tickets are $10.
On this, the first official weekend of RVA Bike Month, you’ve got an embarrassment of bike-related riches from which to fill your calendar—there’s almost certainly something for everyone! Tonight, you can join Carytown Bicycles for a vintage mountain bike ride; tomorrow you’ve got a cargo bike meet up and group ride, an intro to bikepacking, a challenging route out in La Crosse, and a ride with the Richmond Area Bicycling Association; and then on Sunday a 100-mile mountain bike ride (!?), a “BBQ ride” (which sounds lovely), and, finally, a group ride for e-bike lovers. Sounds great, right?
It’s not just bike events this weekend, either. Tomorrow at 2:00 PM, RVA Rapid Transit will host a Beer and Buses tour of the Pulse and adjacent breweries with special guest Scudder Wagg. Wagg works for Jarrett Walker + Associates, helping cities across the world make their bus systems more efficient. He was elbows deep in Richmond’s bus network redesign and will definitely be able to answer any and all questions you may have about why our buses work the way they do. The event is free, the beer is not! Go ahead and register over on the Eventbrite, though.
If you need even more suggestions on how to spend your weekend, Karri Peifer at Axios Richmond has put together a nice Richmonder’s Guide to Richmond. I like looking over this sort of thing, because, after a few years of weathering the pandemic, I’ve developed a pretty nice routine of curling up on my couch and watching many season of Survivor while eating ice cream out of a coffee mug. It’s nice to remember that Richmond is filled with great things to do, and, as Peifer points out, many of them free!
This morning's longread
Inside the Chaotic World of Kids Trying to Play Video Games on School Laptops
Life / “kids trying to play video games in class” finds a way! I loved this story, and I love the creative and smart solutions kids come up with to stay one step ahead of their teachers and school district IT staff. While things have come a long way from Drug Wars) on a TI-82, I’m glad to see that some things haven’t changed at all.
“I don't feel too bad,” said Kapalka. “It feels like continuing the long tradition of kids goofing off when they can on school devices.” To be fair, the developers of Shell Shockers are doing a little more than just catering. They regularly register new proxy websites where kids can play, until they’re inevitably banned. The proxies are listed on the Shell Shockers website, and currently include real bangers like mathdrills.life and yolk.rocks. The game has a rollicking Discord with more than 150,000 members, which is where the new proxies are often distributed first and then spread. “We get a few [teachers] that are charming in their naivete, I guess,” he said. “‘My kids are playing the game when they're supposed to be studying, can you please give me a list of all your proxies so I can block them?’ Well, that was a very straightforward request. But no.”
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Picture of the Day
I got really in to Kevin’s Quality Clothespins, and, no joke, I think they will change your life. They’ll at least make you recoil in disgust every time you use a “normal” clothespin.
