By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
Friday, April 14, 2006

A regular person gets together with friends for a movie and beers. A Redskins star gets together with friends -- and goes shopping for discount diamonds.

Santana Moss , Clinton Portis and Sean Taylor invited 200 pals to buy bling at "special reduced prices" last night at Mervis Diamond Importers in Tysons Corner. The shopping spree was that classic celebrity quid pro quo: The players and their friends were supposed to get bargains, and owner Ronnie Mervis ("business is promotion, promotion is business") would get a crowd and promised to donate a whopping 5 percent of all sales to the Santana Moss Foundation and the Clinton Portis Foundation. See how it works?

We peered at glass cases full of earrings, necklaces, watches and at amateur models in evening gowns and thought "senior prom in Vegas." Salesclerks and reporters stood around waiting for something to happen.

Portis and Moss rolled in -- no Taylor or the aforementioned potential buyers -- clowned around and posed for pictures. Portis was sporting his own five-carat, princess-cut stud earrings -- "square, not round, top of the line." Moss was wearing his own 30-carat diamond necklace. "It's, like, amazing for a guy," whispered one saleswoman.

We watched a blonde slip a $500,000 yellow diamond ring on her middle finger and pointedly pose for pictures.

Funny thing, though, hardly anyone was buying.

"I might," said Moss. "I'm looking," said Portis.

Then it hit us. This was like children playing dress-up -- but it don't mean a thing if they don't buy that bling.

Rep. Patrick Kennedy got hit in the mouth by a hammer Wednesday. No, not by Tom "The Hammer" DeLay (wouldn't that have been something?) -- but an actual hammer!

It happened quite by accident in the Rhode Island Democrat's district office as he watched a rather lively presentation by a Wisconsin manufacturer who is thinking about opening a factory in the state.

Matt Kriesel says he was trying to show off his shock-absorbing Impact Gel, used in protective vests, shoe inserts, horse saddles and other things. He couldn't carry his own hammer onto his flight, so he borrowed one from Kennedy's staff. First he folded M&M's into a gel pad and pounded away -- no breaks! Then he placed the pad onto the congressman's glass-topped desk and took a swing. The hammer's head flew off and struck Kennedy in the face. Blood everywhere . Kennedy was rushed to the hospital to get six stitches in his lip.

The congressman canceled appearances yesterday. "He's kind of on the mend," said press secretary Robin Costello . "The injury is right to the bottom lip, so it's a little tough to talk." The famed Kennedy teeth, however, were uninjured.

So does this make the red-faced Kriesel more or less likely to move to Rhode Island? "Definitely more likely," he said. "At the end of the day he was really gracious."

Spring cleaning at the Metropolitan Club? General Manager Edward "Chip" Brennan , assistant GM Thomas Rodebaugh and chef Thomas Hayes all resigned abruptly from the exclusive private club last week. "It's a personnel issue," said Robin Martin , president of the club's Board of Governors.

The three men were responsible for day-to-day operations of the 143-year-old mansion on H Street NW and the care and feeding of the club's 2,000 members, which include a bipartisan list of Washington VIPs. Brennan and Rodebaugh did not return calls for comment, and Hayes could not be located.

Martin, who declined to elaborate on the reason for the resignations, said the board has formed a search committee to replace the employees: "We will move expeditiously and cautiously to make sure the fit of skills and talent are right for the club."

"Yeah, she did the whole stick test; I think she just touched the box and they all turned blue."

-- Tom Cruise , on discovering fiancee Katie Holmes was pregnant, in the May issue of GQ magazine.