Mayor Punctuates His New Blog With Silence

"It's like a fireside chat," Evans said. "What we're seeing is, people like to be touched and answered.

"In the computer age, when they get an e-mail from me or a podcast from me, it just reinforces in their minds that we're in touch," Evans said.

On the mayor's blog, the comments and questions started slowly but gathered steam:

"Mr. Mayor: I have seen you in the Whole Foods wine section. What is your favorite bottle of wine and where is it produced?" asked "timmi002."

Others lavished praise on Williams for his job as mayor and for the wisdom of starting a blog.

There were even two questions from writers who were interested in Williams's mentioning of ornithology and might want to go bird-watching with the mayor.

But, of course, it didn't take long for the irritated and unhappy to find the site.

Take this from "price":

"Tony, I live next door to a construction site for a Washington, D.C. public school project. Your contractor starts work at about 5:00 in the morning, and the noise wakes me up. Seriously, Tony, I am at my breaking point with it. Your city taxes the hell out of me, and I can barely afford to live in this over priced ghetto. Please tell your contractors to refrain from starting work at such an early hour."

In the mayor's second message, Williams admonished posters that there was no censorship of postings "as part of some conspiracy."

He asked people to call the city's complaint line with service requests. And hey, lay off the "expressive but not very helpful comment on ignorant public officials or employees."

Williams said a couple of messages have been memorable. For example, there was the woman who wrote that she didn't expect anybody to respond. "I'm going to talk to her today," Williams said.

Then there was the person who wrote that all city employees are "idiots." "Well, that's not very helpful," Williams said. "I can't help you if you say the whole city is going to hell in a hand basket."

Staff writer Lori Montgomery contributed to this report.

The mayor's blog can be found athttp://blog.mayor.dc.gov.