Briefly noted, Wednesday;

It's 9/9/09, the day of the upside-down devil. Look out, and don't do any headstands today.

Lovely weather, as well. Nothing gets you in the mood for the rest of the week like a wet, grey and humid morning. Looks like it'll rain for much of the day.

Water taxi service begins to Nationals Park. $20 round-trip to ride a boat from Alexandria to a Nats game. Add in the price to park in Alexandria, and the whole boat adventure turns out to cost about 5x as much as riding on the Metro. Seems demand is initially low for the boat service, which at $20 is more of a gimmick than mass transportation.

Summer jobs program for 2009 cost $41 million. The Post takes a look at this year's program for DC teens, which at best had mixed success. Fenty loves this program, and it's cost more than doubled on his watch. Last year the program cost over $55 million as a result of Fenty's promise to give every teen a job who wanted one. Next year the budget is capped at $20 million. Still too much? Too little? Perhaps the problem is with bad planning and management. I remember having to hire a summer jobs participant in 2008. One bad apple perhaps, but it seemed there was little motivation for him to do a good job, and there was little oversight. He came in, goofed off and collected a paycheck. A pretty decent paycheck, too.

Strange sex abuse scandal involving former U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay. WJLA-TV reaches new heights of poorly written web stories with this one. Court documents paint a picture of an alleged drugging and sexual assault, with the addition of some handguns, a machete, and Starbucks. The accused is Amb. Timothy Towell.

The accuser told police that Towell made him a drink before going to dinner that made him stumble and feel light headed, according to court records.

After returning from dinner about 10 p.m., the accuser agreed to spend the night to avoid driving back to the suburbs, court records indicated. Towell showed the young man a machete and a handgun, a black Colt revolver that the accuser held, according to court records. The accuser told police he was frightened by the weapons.

Too strange for words. Towell denies all charges.

Whatever happened with... ? I'm going to start maintaining a list of all of those news stories that left us hanging, and then dropped of the mainstream media's radar. I'll poke and prod and try to find out more, and provide updates. Here's what I'm tracking now:

• The stabbing murder in Bloomingdale. Amanda Hess at the City Paper took a good look at the botching of the gender information. There's been no update from police about the case and whether it's being investigated as a hate crime.
• A July 2 report from WJLA-TV that Metro knew about a failing circuit between Fort Totten and Takoma before the crash.
• What merchants asked that the Alice Swanson ghost bike be removed? I'm working on this one.
• Was the bus driver at fault in last week's Metrobus versus pedestrian accident? Police are still investigating.
• What else? Send me an email if you'd like to add a story to the forgotten pile.