This and That: A Random Fall Stroll Through Reston News

• The Reston Community Center is hosting Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Goldberger tonight. Goldberger, who will talk about architecture and Reston's Master Plan process, is the only Pulitzer Prize winner in recent memory to speak in Reston, though with false modesty set aside, the author of this filthy "web log" once came in third in a 2nd grade "Write Like Dr. Seuss" contest, which is almost exactly the same thing.
  
  
• Accenture's Reston-based unit won a contract with Social Security that could be worth up to $2.8 billion. Hopefully that will give the beleaguered office's employees a little job security of their own.
  
  
• Reston could be more supportive of its senior citizens if it adopts a "village" concept, which -- much to our surprise -- apparently doesn't have a whole lot to do with watching episodes of Murder, She Wrote on big screens set up in the Tall Oaks or Hunter Mill parking lots.
  
  
• Dear Leader Bob Simon apparently loves Al Gore! Like us, he's less enthusiastic about the strip mall redevelopment of the village centers or the Fake Downtown's architecture. But he really doesn't like it when you call Reston's pedestrian underpasses tunnels. Consider yourselves warned.
  
  
• Reston resident Cindy McConnell has asked the Reston Association Board to consider banning smoking on paths. We're not exactly sure why she went to the RA, which as an organization has no ability to overreach in people's lives, right?
  
  
• Reston-based Input was acquired by a neighbor, Herndon-based Deltek, for $60 million. And Raytheon Co. acquired Reston-based Technology Associates Inc. for an undisclosed sum to help bolster its cybersecurity work, which apparently involves... we don't know, maybe strapping flash drives to dolphins or something.
  
  
• Yay, South Lakes' own Alan Webb, who left Reston last year to train in Washington state, is now engaged. Too bad the elitist New York Times called it "Webb’s most significant victory in two years," though he recently came in fourth in the Berlin Marathon (stupid print media!) some race in New York City.
  
  
• Look out, Macaroni Grill! Vapiano, another midscale Italianesque chain, is coming to Reston in 2011.
  
  
• We've said it before, and we'll say it again: people love puppies.
  
  
• Reston-based test cribbing "social learning" site Koofers.com has won $5 million in venture capital, conclusively proving once and for all that the world is run by C students.
  
  
• Time to throw away those fancy iPhones with their outdated 3G technology, as capital venture firms and other investors have given Reston-based LightSquared a total of $2 billion in equity and debt to build out a 4G network. Pretty soon, you'll be able to read items on this filthy "web log" before we even write them.
  
  
• If you're into legitimate theater and Mae West, you're in luck! Two Reston residents -- Kathryn O'Sullivan and Paul Awad -- are involved in a play about the iconic figure at the Flashpoint Mead Theatre Lab, which apparently is in somewhere not-so Macaroni Grill-intensive in D.C.
  
  
• The Reston Chamber of Commerce is still looking for volunteers for this weekend's Oktoberfest festivities. Lederhosen is apparently not required, but it couldn't hurt.