Capitol Skyline - Vegas in DC downgrades to Atlantic City

10 I Street SW

Last year the pool was overflowing, the cameras were filming, the burger's were satisfying - Capitol Skyline pool on Sunday's was a hit. What I loved so much about Sundays at the Skyline was that I could hang out with beautiful people, listen to great music, get some sun and to top it off - have a damn good burger - all for only $10 bucks (actually the most exciting thing about the beautiful people was that when you see everyone in bikinis and swim shorts - you realize that you're not that bad looking. It's quite an ego booster!).

But let's focus this discussion on what really matters - the two white bread buns surrounding an ungodly hunk of bland ground beef. In its hay day, the Spike Mendelsohn burger you would get for free with admission at the Skyline was hot off the grill, juicy, filled with flavor and dripping with cheese. The guy at the grill would hop that burger patty onto your plate straight off the fire. You'd dress it up with all the fixins and dig in and be mightily impressed. Well, the burgers at the Skyline in the year 2010 are a totally different story. Instead of walking up to the grill to claim your patty, you walked right past it to find an orgy of burger patty's sitting in an aluminum bin covered in American cheese. They looked like they were crying, all alone in that bin with no bun to comfort them, quickly losing heat and covered in consolation American cheese (not even melted). The cheese unfortunately tastes like air - pure nothingness - no texture, no flavor, nothing. You mine as well not put the cheese on there! I don't need an aesthetically pleasing burger if the flavor is totally absent. Dressing my burger up was depressing, no ketchup for miles. All I had was plain french's mustard and a bag of Lay's potato chips on the side.

No Real World filming resulting in random spurts of group dancing, no men with footballs in their hands for no particular reason walking around in hopes of getting on tape. We can't even find "Dreamboat Ken" around this summer - where was he? I mean, we need our eye candy people! You look around now and all you see is orderly roped off lines, too many speedos for your own good, sponsor promotions, bad club music and the occasional weird drunk girl giving the whole world a dance show (OK, I think that is hilarious, no complaints there). Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up hope and I don't dislike the place - I'm still going to frequent the Skyline as much as possible this summer to get my pool time on and to be amongst good looking people - it's like oxygen to me. It's a sure good time, I'm just not as impressed as I was last year - that is if being impressed means good food and people whoring themselves out to be on national television.