I know it’s only Wednesday.  But Wednesday is the day before Thursday, which, as the guy outside the Metro one day yelled to me, is Friday Junior.  And Friday is the day before H Street Festival!

This will be the Seventh Annual H Street Festival.  This year, with even more new restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and the like open or about to open, the scene is sure to be chock full of visual and gastronomical excitement.

The H Street Corridor has developed at a frenetic pace this last year.  After the advent of Sticky Rice and its flocks of fans who cannot now reserve a table in advance, other places just kept coming–Liberty Tree, Star and Shamrock, Sova, Toyland, H Street Country Club, Granville Moore’s, and on and on.  All these venues will have their doors open (this is how I discovered Little Miss Whiskey’s last year) and be running what, in DC, are specials, and in other parts of the country are still fancy-pants prices.

Besides all the drankin’ opportunities, there will also be a fashion show, an art car/ArtCar exhibit, and two live stages set up by Rock and Roll Hotel.  And for you planners, there will be free health screenings.

Also, there will be a pie-eating contest, a tattoo contest, and (wait for it…) speed chess.  Why all the competitions?  Well, H Street can only hold so many people, and with a lineup like this one and the reputation it has garnered for hip aloofness, these challenges serve as ways of ferreting out those who really don’t belong.  If you cannot eat your weight in Dangerously Delicious pie, you should just take the H Street Shuttle back to Chinatown.

It leaves every half hour.