tadcranky

2009-05-05T13:31:00.009-04:00

Kentucky Derby Thud at Rosecroft Raceway
I'm not a big player of the horses, but I like to go the Rosecroft Raceway to bet on the Triple Crown races. For as close as it is to downtown DC (10 miles, maybe), once you get there, you are worlds away, which is a big part of the lure for me. (Also, gas is cheaper out there.) I tradionally get there well before the feature race of the day, place some bets for friends, and place a couple of bets for myself on the day's particular feature race, as well as anything else that might catch my eye. I return home in time to watch the race on TV, although now I have to do this after sneaking away from my dog, who seems to think the horses are in our living room and if he wiggles around, whining and barking, they'll play with him.

Things were different this year, though. For reasons that I still don't fully understand, the track had lost their Simulcast signal. Not "lost" in the way that you lose a radio station when you're driving in your car, but "lost" in the way that someone comes to your house and takes your car -- radio and all -- if you stop making payments. Rosecroft had protested this action, and, according to frequent announcments over the intercom, was making its case before a federal court, with the hope that things would be settled and people would be able to vote on the Derby.

I figured I'd wait things out for a while. I stopped by the bar, and got a canned Corona from the great bartender (named Rose!) who has been there for as long as I can remember, and still appears genuniely surprised when you give her a tip. I stopped by the snack bar for a chilli dog. I'm not big on chilli with beans, but they do it right here. Then I found the one TV, of hundreds, that had the hockey game on it, which I watched while I ate and drank and listened to people bitch about having lost their shot at financial independence.

I was at the track from roughly 2:00PM to 4:20PM. They said they'd have word from the court by 4:00PM, which was about the time that the frequent announcements on the intercom suddenly ended. I guessed that meant they lost. So I headed to my car, drove to Smoke Shack to pick up ribs, and went home. I looked at the whole episode as unfortunate, but one that would ultimately save me money, as I know it did for the people I was supposed to place bets for. But everyone else was certain that this was costing them the opportunity to make a big score. They were unhappy. I felt bad for people like Rose and the other workers at the track, who had probably been looking forward to one of their biggest days, and instead gotten their worst day. That's never fun.

Later during the weekend, I saw this on their website, so I guess you were eventually able to bet, although I'm not sure if I believe anything from such a poorly run outfit. I checked the website Friday evening, and there was no mention of the controversy, just marketing material about coming to join them to bet on the Kentucky Derby. Maybe a good way to make amends to the hundreds of people that journeyed out to beautiful Ft. Washington, MD, might be to update the website to show an apology or explanation. Instead, though, they've chosen to ignore the issue, showing the contempt for their customer which is ultimately going to doom this place. Which is a shame.

2009-04-30T22:33:00.003-04:00

Self-Absorbed Chatter of the Year Award
I was reading Tom Boswell's Washington Post chat this afternoon and came across this gem:

Help Please! From Ashburn: Tom, I will be celebrating a good friend's 50th birthday tomorrow at Nationals Park. So I'll be recording the Caps game at home. Is there any way to let the Nationals staff know to PLEASE not give Caps updates on the board or over the loudspeaker during the game?? It will be much less fun if I know the final score (or even the winner or loser) before I watch the game.

Tom Boswell: I'll be interested to see how they handle this.

Even if I'm taping a game (and heaven knows I tape enough of them), I still want to know the score as it happens. I figure most people do. Besides, the roar (or groan) when the score goes up is a fun part of the game.

But maybe the Nats will respect your point of view. We'l see.

First, the Caps don't even play Friday, and there was never any discussion of it. I heard Caps radio announcers get into it after the game Tuesday, when one suggested that the NHL had said that the Caps next series would start next Tuesday, and another one said that he was full of it. Nobody ever said anything about Friday, though. (I hope Mr. Ashburn set his Betamax for the wrong day.)

Second, what the hell? I know that DC is full of pompous, thoughtless a-holes, but I never thought that a guy from Ashburn would suggest that a columnist should ask the executives of a MLB team to withhold information from a crowd of, hopefully, 30,000 people just so he can enjoy his 50-year old friends' birthday party.

To quote Jeff Spicoli from the classic film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, "What a dick!"

2009-04-29T14:06:00.004-04:00

Sorry State of DC Sports Radio in the Morning
You would think that a city like Washington would have some good sports radio that you could listen to as you go to work. Or any localized sports radio at all.

Last night was a big night in DC, the Caps won a seventh game. I know that the sports station formerly known at WTEM (WESPNDCDANSNYDER or something now) doesn't have a morning show, they run the syndicated Mike and Mike show. Sometimes they'll run localized programming for special events, like evaluating the NFL draft. What's more important -- the latest batch of non-offensive lineman and liars that the Redskins draft, or the only good team in town winning a play-off series? I guess the draft, because when I tried 980 this morning, it was those two dolts, Mike and Mike.

I figured, maybe I'm wrong on Mike and Mike, so I thought I'd listen for a while. That lasted roughly two minutes, until I realized that their big story for the day was for Golic to have his back waxed, on the air. Not sure who the target market is there, but I switched stations as fast as my fingers could handle it.

The Junkies used to be the Sports Junkies, but they still sometimes talk about sports. They're on the Caps station, and seem to like hockey. So I thought I'd give them a try. They had some women in studio with them, I suspect future bikini contest women or Junkettes or whatever. Their presence inspired one Junkie to take his shirt off and another to take his shoes off, so that the girls could decide which was most disgusting, one's gut or the other's foot. The foot won in a landslide, evidently EB has hammertoe. I don't know what that is, and I again changed stations. And I still don't really get why people are supposed to be interested in good-looking women ON THE RADIO, but I guess it worked for Howard Stern.

At this point, I knew I wasn't going to come across any talk about the Caps greatness. So I went to XM 175, the baseball station. Up until this year, they had a morning show called Buck and the Big Chair. Buck was Buck Martinez, and the Big Chair was Mark Patrick. I never really understood the Big Chair nickname, but, nonetheless, it was an enjoyable and interesting show. They had great chemistry. Buck tends to blather sometimes and his Kermit the Frog-style voice takes some getting used to, but Patrick really brought out the best in him. Patrick was funny and quick, and their morning shows recapped previous night's games. They were great.

In November, though, Patrick evidently got canned. I went through the whole Internet this morning, and can't find any rationale for that or any sign of where he's resurfaced. But he's not on XM 175 anymore. His replacement, Scott Graham, a former Phillies announcer, has no sense of humor; he's cheerfully bland in that annoying Bob Carpenter style, which makes me wonder how he survived in Philly. There is no chemistry at all between Graham and Martinez, their broadcasts are filled with pauses and lulls and I picture them each on telephones in different cities, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes at each other. It is often painful to listen to, as it was this morning, when I gave up on morning sports radio, and listened to Only Life, by the Feelies, which is always great.

2009-04-23T13:15:00.004-04:00

Esquire's Future May Be Short
The folks at The Big Lead directed me to this article the other day, which notes 12 major brands that could disappear, Circuit City-style, sometime soon. It's a pretty interesting list, it includes Borders (I've spent many a lunch-hour at the L St., N.W., branch, and still remember when it opened and will be sad if it closes), Saturn (I owned one three or four cars ago) and Crocs (nicely done, Mr. Cank).

It also includes Esquire, a magazine I've subscribed to for quite a while, that puzzles me more with each issue. It seems that at least every other issue is devoted to some kind of theme, like the All-American Issue or the Extremes of Men's Fashion Issue (I don't even know, or care, what that means). The May issue is themed How To Be a Man. The cover is the creation of some crazed art director -- there are head shots of George Clooney, Justin Timberlake and President Obama. These are on consecutive pages, each page has two perforations, which allows you to combine, say, Clooney's eyes with Timberlake's nose with the president's lips. Which would be fun, if you were, like, six years old.

Also, are there any men out there who really even care about Justin Timberlake? He's a guy who struck it rich by being in a boy band, and now he's a gazillionaire. The end. George Clooney, while probably a little closer to the demographic of the magazine's readers, is still kind of a stretch. I've been a guy my whole life, and I don't care about George Clooney, and I've never had a conversation with any other guy about him. I know my sister liked him when he was in ER, that's fine. He makes some decent movies, and he seems like a nice enough guy. He cares about Darfur and the environment, that's cool. But I don't know any guy who's going to purchase a magazine because he's on the cover, and he certainly doesn't define manhood. That's silly.

Once you get in the magazine, they actually provide you with instructions on How To Be a Man: how to parallel park, how to make eggs, how to change a tire. Who doesn't know how to do these things? Tom Chiarella writes a ridiculous paragraph on how to bet the horses -- basically pick a horse and bet $20 on it to win, and then bet an exacta. Gee, thanks, that's brilliant. We're told that a good way to get a bartender's attention is to tip well. Ya think?

Stuff like this makes me wonder who Esquire is aimed at. I suspect that it's the crazed art director and a few of his friends. Another brilliant idea they came up with is the Sexiest Woman Alive, where they show a different body part of a woman each issue for some period of time and then they assemble all the body parts and we find that there's been a six month build-up to Halle Berry winning the honor. That's stunning news, I know, the tension was difficult to handle.

The sad thing about this is that, amidst the crap, there's a decent magazine. The May issue included articles about Todd Palin and Todd Marinovich (maybe it should have been The Todd Issue) that were both interesting reading. If you can find them, there are often good tips about music, books and, uh, booze.

Esquire's demise is predicted due, of course, to falling ad revenues. That's not too surprising. While there are ads for cars and beer and tequila, there are also those smelly ads for cologne, as well as high-end watches, cigars, clothing that you might be able to fit into if you're 16, and other crap. Stuff no real guys care about. All these products were initially geared to the super rich, then when our culture started crumbling and people that weren't wealthy thought they should at least act like they were wealthy, they'd max out their credit cards to pay for $9000 watches. Then they couldn't pay their credit card bills or their mortgages, and they stopped making these stupid purchases, and couldn't even afford to make more sensible purchases, so now the economy is screwed and the companies that make $9000 watches find out that they have to cut their advertising budget. And a formerly good magazine bites the dust. And Justin Timberlake and George Clooney are doing just fine.

2009-04-17T13:29:00.002-04:00

Marley and Me and Family Guy
Not to get all Marley and Me-ish, but my dog Willie and I have recently finished our first shot at obedience training. Willie is a very high-spirited young dog, so I wasn't quite sure how this was going to work.

It turned out he was either great at things (the name game, getting in a down position, running pell-mell across the training room when I called him) or just really not interested (everything else). The first thing you learn at such training is that it's all based on food rewards. About 45 minutes into the hour-long sessions, Willie's attention span would be shot, and he'd be so full of treats that they had no appeal whatsoever to him, and I'd start to be feeling a little nauseous myself from walking around with pockets full of chopped up hot dogs and dehydrated liver. My main goal was to keep both of us from throwing up before we left the class.

At obedience training graduation, we were to have our dogs do a trick. I set my goal for this low, unlike some better-trained pups that I am aware of. We would do a "gimme five," a "gimme ten," and hit the graduation parties. We worked on it for a couple of weeks. Willie caught on fast, and seemed to remember it from one time to the next. I hadn't felt so good about a final exam in a while.

When it was time for our performance, Willie and I marched to the middle of the room, his tail wagging excitably at the attention of all of his classmates. You start out both "gimme five" and "gimme ten" from a sitting position. Which is a position that Willie would not get into at that particular moment. He was aware that I had treats, and he went through his whole repertoire of treat-earning moves. Except for "gimme five" and "gimme ten." He did this in a charming manner, though, so he still got a nice round of applause as we left the spotlight, with me mumbling about how great he did this when he was at home in our kitchen. The instructors found it in their hearts to let us both graduate, though.

Of course, as soon as we got home he gave me five AND ten until we both collapsed on the couch in exhaustion. We're on home study now, and we're working on some new tricks. I've made him watch this video time after time, so he truly will understand the magic of a high five. Eventually, I'll be in the Cleveland role, and Willie will be Peter.

2009-04-14T10:13:00.006-04:00

Nats Begin Home Losing Streak
Yesterday was the Nats home opener, and, overall, kind of a strange day.

As we made our way to the stadium, we heard that legendary Phillies announcer and voice of NFL Films Harry Kalas died, as he was preparing for the game. After the game, I read that legendary pitcher and character Mark "Bird" Fidrych died during the day. I remember the days of Fidrych Fever; if you saw him pitch, you'd never forget him, he was the closest thing in baseball to a real-life Sid Finch.

The game was strange, too. Daniel Cabrera was on and off, and certainly not helped by his defense. Anderson Hernandez, who appears to the be latest in a long list of lousy second basemen for the Nats, didn't help by commiting two errors. Adam Dunn didn't field very well either, but that is to be expected.

The good news for the Nats, though, is that their offense appears much impoved. Guys in the heart of the order -- Zimmerman, Dunn, Dukes -- all have the ability to crush the ball, which they each displayed by homering yesterday. Nick Johnson hasn't done much yet, but he'll either warm up or get injured soon. Hopefully, he'll get heated. Christian Guzman is a singles machine. Unfortunately, yesterday he became the third Nat this year to hurt himself running to first base (along with Willie Harris, and Hernandez). Hopefully he'll be back soon.

There were a lot of home runs, a lot of errors, some actual good catches by Milledge and Dukes, a lot of hit batsman in a row (well, two, but you never really see that), and some questionable managing decisions by Manny Acta, who I expect to be fired any moment.

For me, though, the bottom line was that it was fun. The stadium was packed. I didn't notice a higher percentage of Phillies fans than at any other Phillies/Nats games. I actually was amused by the people that criticized Stan Kasten for inviting, last week, Phillies fans to the game. Kasten can't win. Anybody who's ever been to previous Nats/Phillies games, or Skins/Eagles games, or Caps/Flyers games knows that people in Philadelphia know how to get to Washington, and always make their presence known. Believe me, these folks had bought their tickets and made their plans long ago; I'd be surprised if even one person bought tickets because of Kasten's remarks.

Metro, unsurprisingly, let me down yesterday; we got to L'Enfant Plaza to make the transfer to the green line, and it didn't look like there were any more trains than on a usual weekday afternoon. So we caught a cab. There were long lines in some of the concessions, and I'm sure all of the city's great Nats fans have chimed in on that in various forums. But you could find shorter lines if you walked a little bit, or, you know, just try to go a few hours without eating junk food. Nats' management finally caught on to what every other stadium does, and gave their beer vendors bright yellow shirts so that they could be picked out in the crowd.

I'm not sure that it adds anything to the gameday experience to have two crappy bands playing in the stadium. Both played so loudly that you couldn't have a conversation if you were close to them, which resulted in the band by the Porch not having anyone within 30 feet of them. I guess that and the fact that at one point they were playing the theme from Cheers. (I think they were being ironic -- kids these days.) People standing in various food lines just kind of looked at them and looked at their watches, with a "Isn't it about time for them to break?," look in their eyes. I'd lean to bagging bands at the stadium altogether, although it would be awful cool if a band like the Nighthawks were playing as you walked into the stadium.

On the field, I think the Nats need to make some moves. They need to fire Acta, who doesn't even really seem like he'd mind. They need to do something with Lastings Milledge, I'm not sure that sending him to the minors is going to help his fielding. See if someone will take him in a trade, and hope he doesn't become the next Emilio Bonifacio. Get rid of Kearns. I was encouraged by the massive home run he hit last week, but he was back to his old self by Sunday, grounding into two double plays ("Kearnsies," as I like to call them). Put Dukes in center, give poor Josh Willingham a chance in right, and keep it that way for a while. Keep Willie Harris out of the infield. And see what happens.

I'm hoping that this stretch of poor pitching will end soon. Maybe call up Bergmann and Zimmermann and anybody else with two n's at the end of their name that seems like they may be able to help. Give them a shot, if they can't do the job, get someone else. I hear Nick Swisher may be available.

What I hope, is that at the end of the season, we'll be saying, "Well, it was a decent year, and it would have been even better if not for our poor start." But that will only happen if they win soon. Tomorrow would be nice.

2009-04-01T10:54:00.006-04:00

Say It Ain't So, Wily Mo
The Nationals did everyone not related to him a favor by releasing punchless outfielder Wily Mo Pena yesterday. Wily Mo had surpisingly nice power numbers as a very young man in 2004 and 2005. By 2007, he was with the Nationals, and each day he was with the team the luster of his potential lessened until it was all gone, and it became worthwhile for the Nats to give him $2 million to get out and stay out -- not for nuthin' did his mama call him Wily. Add him to the list of Jim Bowden projects that are over with.

Everyone has their own special memories of Wily Mo, I know I sure do. Last May I was at a game, sitting pretty close to the Nationals' dugout, a few rows in front of a few drunkenly enthusiastic young ladies who were apparently pretty big Nationals fans, and were trying to get the attention of the players. Most of the players appeared not to notice, a couple gave a quick glance. They got Wily's full attention, though, as he spent a good part of several innings looking away from the field, in the direction of the ladies. Wily's success with these ladies was equal to his success on the field, though, as it soon became evident that the gals were asking him to get Ryan Zimmerman's attention for them. And he tried, but Zim professionally kept his eyes field-forward.

Good for Zim, bad for Wily, who never really seemed like he was in it for anything other than the money. And, he had hoped, the ladies.

2009-03-24T09:46:00.004-04:00

Paging Sports Illustrated
I've subscribed to Sports Illustrated for about 15 years now. I generally try to get one of those deals where you get savings of Up to 75% and Up to 12 issues and a gift -- FREE with paid renewal. I subscribe for as long as I can, because I absolutely cannot stand the renewal process. Last week, I got an Important Notice About My Account that encouraged me to renew my subscription by replying to this notice by April 10, 2009. This made me wonder when my subscription actually expired. Sports Illustrated was nice enough to tell me that my subscription doesn't expire until July 27, 2009, a time which is roughly four months from now.

Basically, what they're telling me is that I need to renew and start paying them now, otherwise I have four more months of Annoying Mail From Them, which includes many suspicious claims that they are offering me the Best Possible Deal, when I really suspect that they're offering me the Same Old Damn Deal, whether I renew now or on July 26.

So I checked the box for three years (and 12 Bonus Issues). Free gift-wise, I think I'll go for the SI Toiletry Kit, which I will give to my dog. He can just chew it up, or use it for travel.

2009-03-17T11:16:00.004-04:00

St. Patrick's Day, The Pogues and Joe Strummer
Normally, I'd be disinclined to run a video of The Pogues without Shane MacGowan (who is, as of this moment, still alive). I would make an exception for The Pogues with Joe Strummer doing London Calling, in London, on St. Patrick's Day, 1988, which is what this is.

Have a good St. Patrick's Day. Go Siena.

2009-03-16T10:06:00.007-04:00

Me and the Dancing Prilosec Woman
I watched a lot of college basketball and World Baseball Classic on TV this weekend. Damn that Felipe Lopez.

Evidently, Prilosec is a big sponsor of sports on TV, because I feel like I saw this commercial during every break.

What the hell? I acknowledge criticism of commercials is about the lowest form of humor, but I can't get this out of my head. So I'll take a shot at it, Larry King USA Today column stream-of-consciousness style:

What kind of club is this, anyway?...This is how white people dance when there's no music...Wow, huge hair flip by that woman in the back who looks like she needs a stripper pole...I guess she's dancing like nobody's watching...I sure wish I wasn't...But I can't turn away...This is a joke, right?...Elaine from Seinfeld...She's so happy because now -- thanks to Prilosec -- she can drink at a club without suffering excruciating heartburn...I recommend tequila shots...Katie's no kid, she's gotta be pushing 40, who goes to a club and dances like that at that age?...So the one guy looks like he might get lucky tonight...The finger point, I am speechless...She's gotta be on more than Prilosec...Maybe somebody dosed her white zinfandel...I suspect the stripper chick...So, umm, Brian, how's the book coming along?...Now that she's on Prilosec, she can go to IHOP after the clubs close and eat a corned beef hash omlette and pancakes...Get Katie on Dancing with the Stars.

2009-03-11T09:30:00.006-04:00

This Might Not Work Out So Well
It appears that President Obama will appoint Seattle Police Chief Richard “Gil” Kerlikowske to be the country's Drug Czar, which I always thought was the coolest title for a member of the Executive Branch.

This appointment is not without controversy. Kerlikowske has some kind of son (he's been referred to as "stepson," "adopted son," and "son from a previous marriage" -- by the time confirmation hearings start, he'll be known as the Chief's third cousin twice removed on his great uncle's side) who's had some rough patches with the law, including some drug arrests. He's also been in trouble for "cruelty to animals," which is particularly despicable and a quality that he shares with most psychopaths. I understand the fact that all families have their issues, but I think you'd want the leader of the war on drugs to at least be able to lead his own family away from drugs. (Maybe the cruelty to animals part while you're at it, too.) Also, didn't anyone in the Administration think of Traffic when they were considering this appointment?

Perhaps more troubling to me is that, on December 26, 2004, Chief Kerkilowke had his gun stolen from his unmarked police car, while he and his wife were shopping at the Pacific Place shopping mall in downtown Seattle. The couple parked at 10:30AM, and returned about 3:30PM to find that the gun, which had been stashed in that great hiding place, under the driver's seat, was gone. That's completely humiliating -- what kind of a guy is going to spend five hours at a mall on the day after Christmas? Was his cable out or something? Even giving them an hour for lunch, hopefully with some drinks, that's still four more hours than anyone should spend at a mall on that day. (Although it probably is a good idea to limit your access to weapons if you must spend that day at the mall.)

Maybe Chief Kerkilowke is the right man for the job, who knows. I'm sure it helps him that there's not exactly a long history of successful drug policy in this country, so the bar is low. For now, the Chief is excited about the possibilities, and also because he's heard there's great shopping in DC.

2009-03-02T15:52:00.008-05:00

Nats Get New Mascot, Kind Of

So the Nats have somewhat of a new mascot. Sure, it's the same old Screech. But he's different. He's older, as the Nats pr folks and that guy Clint explained at the unveiling today (as reported by D.C. Sports Bog hero Dan Steinberg). He's like a teenager, so he'll be cooler and everything. And his hat is removable, which will be a relief to that one guy who, in any Washington Post Nats-related chat, chimes in about how disrespectful it is that the old Screech's hat was affixed to his head, which made it impossible to hold his hand over his heart during the National Anthem. I hope I never meet that guy.

Anyway, you'll note that the new Screech is tall and thin.

That's Smiley Gonzalez in there!

2009-02-26T17:31:00.002-05:00

Soul Food in Phoenix
Lots of people head to Phoenix this time of the year to enjoy the warmer weather and play golf. Not us. We went and, after I worked each morning, visited the soul food restaurants of Phoenix.

First we went to Mrs. White's Golden Rule Cafe, which is in downtown Phoenix, not far from the baseball stadium, but somewhat confusing to get to due to the fact that they've recently (at least since last time I was there) put a light-rail system in downtown Phoenix, which makes things like turning a little more challenging.

Mrs. White's is a tiny place, with about a dozen tables and a bar (for eating, not drinking). You pick a meat, and two sides. I had chicken-fried steak, which was pretty much batter fried goodness surrounding a tender, not dried out, steak. It was wonderful. I combined it with some macaroni and cheese, which wasn't particularly memorable, and some greens, which were good, and had a great meal for less than $20. No booze, but they sell sweet-tea and lemonade. The service is friendly. It takes a while to get your food, but that's because they're cooking it up right there. So have another sweet-tea, enjoy the atmosphere and, if you have a sharpie with you, sign your name on the wall.

The next day we went to Restaurant 28, in Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix that gets made fun of a lot, I'm not really sure why. The Arizona Cardinals play there, but I don't think that's the reason. Restaurant 28 is the biggest of the three soul food establishments we visited, and it looks more like a traditional (casual) restaurant than the other two, which are converted houses with not a lot of space. It's run by a guy named George, who is from North Carolina. On our visit, George walked into the restaurant, trailing a cart of barbecued meat, and asked us all how we were doin'. The place is called Restaurant 28, commemorating the fact that he and his eventual wife went 28 years without seeing each other before they were reunited and married. His wife was from Arizona, they re-met in North Carolina and, the next thing you know, George packed up his barbecue equipment and headed out west.

Restaurant 28 has a huge menu. And they serve chittlings every day, which is apparently a pretty big thing. It was a big thing to my girlfriend, as we seem to always show up at these restaurants the day after chittling day. But at Restaurant 28, every day is Chittling Day! And they were good, my girlfriend said, although not as good as those of her cousin, who, unfortunately, doesn't have a restaurant.

I'm not much of a chittling eater, so I opted for some of George's barbecue -- chopped brisket. You generally get your brisket sliced, but chopped is much better. You don't have to do so much chewing, and there's more surface space for George's great sauces, most of which I was unaware of until George was telling us about them and I had finished eating. I also enjoyed some fried okra, which I munched on as my girlfriend made her way through her chittlings. Based on the quality and variety of the food, and the friendliness of George and his colleagues, I could eat at Restaurant 28 every day. If I lived in Arizona, at least. And I guess I'd eat there every day for about three years, at which point my arteries would be as hard as concrete and I'd drop dead.

Oh, and you can get beer there, too, which is always nice.

Day Three took us to Lo-Lo's Chicken and Waffles (if you follow this link, check out the pictures section where you'll see a photo of Matt Leinert wearing a stylized Nationals' cap). Like Mrs. White's, this is downtown and in a coverted house. It's run by Larry "Lo-Lo" White, who is Mrs. White's grandson. Of course he is!

I'm certainly familiar with the whole chicken and waffle concept, but I was never quite sure if I got it, and was a little bit afraid to ask. After experiencing it, I'm still not sure that I get it. It is, indeed, chicken AND waffles (I thought maybe you ordered chicken or you ordered waffles). At Lo-Lo's, you get a plate filled up with fried chicken, eggs, grits and a couple of waffles. The fried chicken was very good, crisp on the outside, juicy on the inside. Big pieces. I'm not much of a waffle-eater, but the waffles didn't really seem exceptional, and I'm still unclear as to why chicken and waffles is such a famous combination. But who am I to arguewith the likes of E40 and Cassidy, who, apparently, are hip hop musicians that are big fans of Lo-Lo's? The eggs were good, and the grits were good, and it tasted all right when you just kind of mixed everything up and sopped it up with a waffle. But the chicken was the best part, and I just wanted to pick that up and eat it, not messing with any waffles or anything else.

No beer here, you can have lemonade or fruit punch Kool-Aid, served in Mason jars.

Unfortunately, I was not up to the task of dessert, which featured a red velvet cake, that has been deemed "the best" by none other than ex-Sun and noted red velvet cake expert Shawn Marion. Marion actually majored in Red Velvet Cake during his days at UNLV. So he should know. It was also noted that the Arizona Cardinals considered Lo-Lo's their "good luck" charm during their improbable run to the Super Bowl. (Note to Dan Snyder: Open a Lo-Lo's Washington branch out by the stadium. I'm sure it won't give the Redskins good luck, but it would be a good place to go get chicken.)

Lo-Lo's was just as friendly as the other restaurants. It's even smaller than Mrs. White's, though, and when it fills up it can get loud and a little hectic. Part of the experience I guess.

The soul food tour was a good way to get a feel for Phoenix, beyond the $250 greens fees and fancy sports cars zooming down Camelback Road that I associate with the city. There are many other soul food restaurants in Phoenix (thanks, Google), I actually think they have more there than in DC. Which is interesting when you realize that Arizona has never been blazing the trail in making black people feel welcome, as famously illustrated by their reluctance to accept Martin Luther King Day as a holiday, despite the pleas of Ronald Reagan, and despite the fact that the NFL moved a Super Bowl elsewhere to protest this reluctance. I'm glad things have changed.

2009-02-18T10:26:00.002-05:00

Who's Smiling Now?
So remember that kid "Smiley" Gonzalez that the Nationals signed when he was 16? A little over two years ago Smiley inspired people, like Todd Jacobson of the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star (I didn't even know Lance Star was in prison.), to gush:

Esmailyn Gonzalez drives his gleaming white Cadillac Escalade through the narrow and pock-marked streets of Pizarrete, stopping often. He is 16 years old, he is almost a millionaire, and he's a celebrity.

Townspeople wave from storefront bars and fruit stands, approaching the driver's side window to offer handshakes and greetings. He picks up one woman and gives her a ride to the bus stop.

And when he pulls into the small plot of land on the edge of sugar cane fields that has served as home for the last 16 years, his sport utility vehicle sticks out like a bulldozer in a cornfield.

What an inspirational story, I remember that I teared up at the time.

Turns out, Smiley is really Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo (that's right -- Carl Lugo!), and he's now 23, not 19, which is how old he would have been if he really was 16 back in December of 2006. Evidently, a key part of the scam was that he figured that no one would ever suspect a guy named Smiley of lying about stuff. Sure fooled the Nationals, who gave him $1.4 million dollars. His next most aggressive suitor, the brilliant minds at the Texas Rangers, were thinking more like $700,000.

Smiley had a great year last year in the Gulf Coast League. A great year if he was 18, but not such a great year when you figure he was four years older than the kids he was playing with.

They really saw Jim Bowden coming on this one.

2009-02-06T11:16:00.002-05:00

Nationals Promote Conformism
Nationals' brass have come up with a slogan, and a marketing theme, intended to stir up the apathetic masses and create some real excitement about their crummy team. Nats Town! is apparently the place to be, and we're supposed to Get Your Red On, and wear red to the games. That should work!

You know what I hate? Being told what I have to wear, what I have to say, or how I have to act at ball games. I went to a college where you were expected to go to football games in khakis and, sometimes, a tie, sing a song when the team did good, and drink as much bourbon as you could. I was at least able to semi-conform to this, as I compensated for my poor wardrobe choices by drinking extra bourbon; and the singing was directly related to the bourbon consumption.

I hate when you're ready to go to a baskeball game or something, and you remember at the last minute that it's going to be a "white-out," so you have to scramble to find something white, and you realize the only white shirt you have is the white dress shirt that you just wore to work that day. So you get out of whatever comfortable shirt you wanted, and put the work shirt back on. That's dumb.

I can deal with the National Anthem. But are we really living "o'er the land of the free," if we have to stand up and wave our hands during The Wave? While wearing red? Can't we just watch the game? I even find myself getting a little self-conscious before the 7th inning stretch, as I'm sure the people behind me have never been to a game before and are going to yell at the big guy standing in front of them.

I think the Nationals need to work a little on their record before they start telling us what to wear to the game.

2009-02-02T10:48:00.004-05:00

A Sad Story
Yesterday, the Washington Post Magazine published a story about the tragic episode last summer where Prince George's County cops busted into the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights, and killed his two dogs. A rather large package of pot had been delivered to the home of the mayor, his wife and mother-in-law. Not taking into account that drug dealers aren't brazen enough to have the drugs actually sent to their home, so they send their packages to other homes and then take them from the porch, the cops assumed the residents were drug dealers. They didn't even take a moment to Google the name of the homeowner, so they were not aware that he was the mayor. A SWAT team stormed the house, scared the hell out of the mother-in-law, and shot and killed the dogs. The dogs were non-aggressive; they were labs, one of them was trying to run away when he was shot. The cops quickly realized their mistake, but it was too late. They don't even seem to really feel bad about it.

My dog, who turned one year old yesterday, slept across my lap as I read this, and it was really too horrible to read in one sitting. It seems like the "war on drugs" has been going on since I've been old enough to read about it, and nothing has changed. Precious financial resources disappear into thin air, and -- even worse -- things like this happen, which make you wonder if the combatants remember who they're fighting for.

2009-01-28T13:38:00.003-05:00

John Updike
Yesterday, amidst the hoopla of the Rob Dibble announcement, something of true significance happened. The great writer John Updike died. When I was in college, I had this bad habit of going to the library to actually study for my classes, but instead ending up roaming the fiction aisles, and reading novels. That's how I discovered John Updike (so it turns out, it wasn't such a bad habit).

When I heard that he had died, I immediately stopped everything I was doing to find the clip of his appearance in The Simpsons. I think he was Krusty's biographer, and I remember reading that he was disappointed he didn't get as much screen time as Stephen King and Amy Tan.

I never found the clip, but I was reading Henry Allen's story in the Washington Post today, and he mentioned something I had read before, but forgotten -- Updike's story about Ted Williams' last game in Boston. It's great stuff.

2009-01-27T16:15:00.003-05:00

Mr. Dibble Goes to Washington; Mr. Cranky Throws Up a Little in His Mouth
God. I don't know how much more of this I can take. MASN, the Nationals' supposed network, has announced that they've said farewell to arrogant, poodle-headed blowhard announcer Don Sutton, and welcomed, well, dumb-ass Rob Dibble to their television crew. Surprisingly, he used to play for the Cincinnati Reds. He was one of the Nasty Boys, as he'll be telling us every ten seconds. He was also a world class hot head. He reminds me of one of those big dumb guys that you go to high school with, who's constantly on the verge of snapping and hurting people. I guess on the positive side, I think there's a decent chance that he and Ray Knight will mix it up at some point during the course of the season.

This news comes right after yesterday's big news that the Nats have signed a contract with some pitcher named Gary "G-Love" Glover. Thanks guys. Since you're not going to add any player of significance, how about throwing me a bone and just firing Austin Kearns. Obviously, nobody wants him. Just cut him. Chalk the financial loss up to the money that you saved by not getting any free agents. I'm not entirely sure of what Chubby Dmitri Young's status is now, but sever ties with him, too. Do something. Please.

2009-01-23T23:48:00.004-05:00

Bigger Stronger Faster Dumber
I watched the documentary Bigger Stronger Faster a couple of weeks ago. It's by a guy named Chris Bell. He's from New Jersey; he and his two brothers became hooked on, to varying degrees, sports, bodybuilding and pro wrestling. As kids, they wanted to be like Arnold, pre-politics.

Chris' movie is a look into the steroid culture, which both of his brothers are a part of (sadly, his brother Mike died last month). He has some tough conversations with his brothers and his parents, goes to a lot of gyms, and talks to people, several of whom question the whole steroid panic. He decides to visit his Congressman, who happens to be Rep. Henry Waxman, who led the congressional steroid hearings of a few years back, where a bunch of high profile baseball players came to DC, saw the sights and told made-up stories to Congress.

I expected Waxman to be a pretty sharp guy. He's not. Of all the people in this film, he comes out looking the worst, as you can see for yourself.

2009-01-21T14:06:00.005-05:00

Surviving the Inauguration

Turns out, I did so just fine. I pretty much ignored all the advice, and did what I normally do on a weekend, which doesn't involve too much, mostly sports and movie-watching. I ventured out to go to a show on Friday night, and to take care of my errands throughout the weekend, without incident.

Comcast celebrated the Inauguration by not providing me with television service for a 24-hour period from Monday morning to Tuesday morning. Service was randomly restored, however, just before 10:00AM on Tuesday morning. Thanks, President Obama! Comcast, watch your back.

My girlfriend had to be at work at noon on Tuesday, so I listened to the swearing-in on the radio in my car. At about 12:05PM I was in my car, on 395 South from the Pentagon. At that particular moment, there may have been less traffic on 395 than at any other moment in history. It was cool. I felt like Will Smith in I Am Legend, and was tempted to stop in the middle of the road and hit some golf balls. (I didn't want to stir up the zombies, though.)

I had an excellent inaugural lunch at my sister's house, where I'm sure the food was better than at the Capitol. The menu had a Chicago theme, and I paid tribute to the new president's midwestern roots by drinking quite a few Leinenkugel's 1888 Bocks. I know Leienkugel's is from Wisconsin, but the only Chicago beer I'm familiar with is Old Style, and, if you've ever had one, I think you can respect my decision. Anyway, the lunch was great. And there were no seizures, except for a brief period when my dog seized a stuffed panda bear that wasn't a dog toy. He relinquished it, without incident, and then started eating some straws. Good boy!

My girlfriend and I watched/snoozed through the coverage of the night-time inaugural events; I think we went to bed when the President was at Ball #7. This morning I got up when it was still dark, and made my way back into the city. I fully expected Metro to be shut-down this morning, complete with Out of Order signs in front of the entrances. I was pleasantly surprised that it was working just fine. My train was uncrowded, so I sat down and happily considered how nice it was to be entering DC with the knowledge that George Bush no longer lives there.

2009-01-18T19:02:00.012-05:00

Elaine From Seinfeld Starts Term as New American Idol Judge

I'm sometimes a little clueless about American Idol, so I may have this wrong. But it appears that they decided to add a new judge this year, who is actually a character played by Julia-Louis Dreyfus, best known as Elaine from Seinfeld. This is an unusual move. It would have been cool if they changed the judges to Elaine, Jerry, George and pre-racist Kramer, but I'm not sure if I get just adding Elaine, and keeping the other judges.

They've evidently given Julia-Louis her choice of clothing and accessories from Paula Abdul's wardrobe, including those really huge rings that look like they came out of a gumball machine, but probably cost more than my college education. They've tried to funny her up. They've given her a name, Kara DioGuardi, that's completely unpronounceable (nobody can even pronounce her first name). Her musical "cred" includes working with Hilary Duff, Ashlee Simpson and the Pussycat Dolls (now, that's funny). And she's engaged to a teacher-turned-bodybuilder. But that's about it. Mostly, she's just kind of bitchy. On the show I saw, she turned on a girl who has serious enough psychological problems that she thought it was appropriate to wear a bikini to the audition. The girl wasn't a bad singer, but Julia-Louis/Elaine/Kara went after her like she had stolen her bodybuilder husband.

I know Julia-Louis has had a hard time finding a good gig, post-Seinfeld. But I don't think this is going to work either. We shall see.

2009-01-18T15:01:00.005-05:00

Mike Wise Thinks Mark is a Funny Name

I don't really get Mike Wise's column in the Washington Post this morning. The article is about yesterday's loss by Georgetown against Duke, at Cameron Indoor Stadium. There were a lot of heckling Dukies, and an apparently wrong, and costly, technical foul against Georgetown. While it doesn't seem like a particularly great column, and, frankly, it's just not that interesting to me, the puzzling part is when he refers to Duke kids caked in blue paint with names like Taylor and Mark. Huh? Is he saying that Mark is a particularly prepped out name? Like Rogers Chapstick or James Bottomtooth IV? What the hell? I think most of the kids that I hung out with in elementary school were named Mark. And I went to elementary school at Pine Springs in Falls Church, which is hardly Sidwell Friends.

I don't get it. Maybe it's just an editing mistake.

2009-01-16T09:06:00.008-05:00

It's Smithereens Day!
I'm going to see the Smithereens tonight at the State Theater in Falls Church. Accordingly, here's a fairly recent clip of them doing Room Without a View, at a club in Austin. Austin makes me think of this place. (I'll try to be home fairly early, so as not to clog up the roads for out of towners here for the inauguration.)

2009-01-14T12:47:00.007-05:00

Pacino and DeNiro Combine for Awful Movie Promo

I have not seen Righteous Kill, the big deal of which was that Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino were in a movie together, which they hadn't been in since Heat, in which they shared only one scene. But I know that it's been heavily criticized, and the only person that really seemed to like it was Larry King, which tells you something.

If Larry King's praise isn't enough to scare me off from this movie, the commercial that they're now running on TV certainly is. DeNiro and Pacino are sitting in a car, and Pacino says to DeNiro something like "You don't believe in miracles?" DeNiro responds "You pick up the check some time, I'll believe in miracles." Thud. Someone that's making a movie has both those guys in it, and comes up with dialogue like that? Making matters worse, DeNiro plays a character named Turk and Pacino goes by Rooster.

Speaking of old guy actors who are pretty much just phoning it in these days, another movie that I haven't seen is Gran Torino. Apparently, it's one of the best movies ever, and Clint Eastwood is amazing. When I see the clips, I think, hey, so Clint Eastwood is playing a gruff old guy with one facial expression -- menacing. Just like all his other movies. I think Clint Eastwood is OK and everything, but I think that people that gush about every single thing that he does need to remember that he made two movies with a monkey. And they weren't comedies, he didn't even crack a smile.

2009-01-11T21:08:00.007-05:00

Helpful Tips for the New Depression

I love all the experts who are coming out of the woodwork to advise us on how to deal with various aspects of the New Depression (N.D.). I heard one of them this evening, on a local all news radio station that I keep on in my dog's room to keep him company. It's a good station; their business reporter, in particular, is an excellent fellow.

This evening we were treated to an expert with advice for the poor people who lose their jobs, and, consequently, their insurance. The healthcare situation in this country was ridiculous even before the N.D., I hate to even think about how much worse it will get. We will find out, though.

Anyway, this woman had some simply brilliant advice for people that have lost their insurance:

If you have a spouse that has insurance, see if you can get in on his or her plan. That's some great insight there.
Get another job that comes with health benefits, even if it's part time. Pure genius.
Finally, you could always just go to an insurance company and buy an individual policy from them. I guess with all that money you're not making from the job that you no longer have. Thanks for that.

My dog kind of cocked his head and gave me a funny look when this was over. Now he's in his crate, busily studying up on healthcare. By Thursday, I think he'll be ready to be on CNN.

2009-01-09T09:36:00.011-05:00

Northern Virginians to be Sent to Guantanamo for Inauguration

It was just announced that, in order to not inconvenience the wealthy, politically connected individuals that will be descending upon the DC-area to celebrate the inauguration of President Obama, all Northern Virginians will be transported to Guantanamo from January 16-21.

The U.S. Secret Service and other top officials had previously announced that bridges from Virginia to DC would be closed, and had recommended that residents stay in their homes for the long weekend. After further consideration, it was determined that this next step was necessary. An unnamed Secret Service spokesman noted that, "If Northern Virginians were permitted to remain in their homes, they would still be consuming resources that should be diverted to the inaugural celebration. Electricity, gas, water, bandwith, food, alcohol -- we cannot risk the possibility of a shortage of these resources for the wealthiest of Americans who will be participating in the festivities. Many of these guests have spent the last 20 years destroying the U.S. economy, and it is important that they are able to celebrate without being hindered by citizens pursuing their everyday, mundane lifestyles. And Guantanamo is actually pretty nice this time of year. There will be no waterboarding, and it's not that bad if you're not being waterboarded. It's similar to Tijuana."

The federal government has contracted with AirTran to have Northern Virginians flown to Guantanamo, which raises the possibility that many residents will end up spending five days in an airport, waiting for their plane, with no updates whatsoever from the gate agents. Or they could end up in cheap hotels outside of Atlanta.

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine worked with federal authorities in developing the plan. He noted that there are still some problems that need to be resolved. "Many Northern Virginians are very active on eBay, selling many of their personal belongings in order to survive the oncoming Depression. We are working to have some type of internet access available at Camp Guantanamo. We don't want this plan to result in the people of Virginia getting bad eBay feedback."

This move also seems to be a precursor to another rumored aspect of the inauguration. An anonymous U.S. Treasury Department official has suggested that at different points during the inauguration, federal bailout money is going to be dropped from helicopters hovering over various inaugural events. "This whole plan," the official noted, "was developed as a way to transfer tax dollars from rank and file Americans to the elite, who have lost billions in the recent economic crisis. Without this injection, many of them would not be able to pass on contributions to the politicians that they must influence. Also, ski season is here, and skiing is an expensive sport. Like golf, but in the winter. If Northern Virginians were allowed to remain in the area, no doubt they would attempt to participate in these cash drops, as many of them are desperate to pay their mortgages."

In coming days, more details of the Guatanamo weekend will be released. Officials are currently in negotiations with Huey Lewis and the News to provide some musical entertainment, and there has been discussion about a three on three basketball tournament.

2009-01-07T09:42:00.006-05:00

New Gourds

My favorite band, The Gourds, released a new disk yesterday, it's called Haymaker. I listened to part of it on my iPod while walking to the subway yesterday. Though it was cool, I was suprised at how long the first song was. Then I realized I had my iPod on repeat. Oops. So I haven't heard much more than the first song on the disk. But I'm sure the whole thing is great.

In celebration, here is them playing Lower 48. Not only is the musicianship excellent, but there is some great dancing by Kevin Russell, which further illustrates how he was robbed when he got beat out, by deadbeat Redskin Jason Taylor, in Dancing With the Stars. I think Kevin could have also had more than 3.5 sacks this year. He's big, but quick and crafty.

2009-01-04T10:15:00.006-05:00

Good Thing I Don't Gamble

About that Chargers game last night. Oops. The hottest team in the NFL and the MVP of the league played poorly and should have lost in regulation. The Colts' best play was in the second quarter, when Manning caught the Chargers' defense unaware, and did that play that's caused so many arguments among 12 year olds in the backyards and vacant lots of America, as he took the snap before the defense was ready and passed to Reggie Wayne for an easy touchdown. Norv Turner's request for a "do-over" was denied. Unfortunately for them, the Colts continued to play like 12 year olds for the rest of the game. The Chargers didn't play much better, but Darren Sproles (about the size of the average 12 year old football player) was unstoppable. Sproles' had a bigger than usual role for the Chargers, as their star, LaDainian Tomlinson didn't play much because his groin had apparently become detached from the rest of his body. That hurts, I guess, and I can understand why he didn't want to talk to Andrea Kramer about it.

2009-01-01T18:11:00.005-05:00

My Gold Star Lock of the Week, For Free

I don't bet on sports. There's a grey area there, I guess, because of my fantasy baseball team, fantasy football team (that's actually charity -- I give money to other guys in my league), weekly NFL pool, the NCAA basketball tournament pool that my friend invented and various NCAA basketball tournament grids that I participate in.

Maybe a more accurate statement would be that I don't bet on NFL games anymore. If I did, though, I would bet all that I could afford on the Indianapolis Colts over the San Diego Chargers on Saturday. The game is currently pick 'em. The Colts have won nine games in a row. The Chargers, though playing at home, were 8-8. Norv Turner, who seems like a perfectly nice guy, is their coach. The Colts are relatively healthy, and I think Peyton Manning is sick of his little brother getting all the attention. If you have a mortgage, bet it on the Colts.

2008-12-29T10:59:00.003-05:00

Sam Huff, Meet Donovan McNabb
I listened to the end of the Redskins game yesterday on the radio. Campbell ran in for the touchdown with a little over a minute left, the extra point tied the game.

Sam Huff then observed that this game will end in a tie. Sonny Jurgensen asked him what he was talking about; Sam said, in effect, "There's a minute left, and it's tied, this will be a tie game." Sonny then reminded him about overtime. "We'll see," said Sam, who I think was trying to make us think that he was saying that the 49ers wouldn't score in the final minute, then neither team would score in overtime. When we were really thinking that he had forgotten about overtime.

It's been another rough season for all of us, Sam included, I guess.

2008-12-26T17:23:00.004-05:00

Holiday Sports Radio's Anti-Gift
I freely admit I have a sports radio compulsion. I have formerly XM, now XM/Sirius or whatever, in my car, and instead of listening to any of the great music stations that existed before the merger, I usually listened to sports talk. Since the merger, the good music stations are either gone or someplace that I can't find, yet the sports stations are the same. So I can find them. I'm partial to the baseball station, but during the holiday they run old stuff.

Consequently, I listen to Fox Sports Radio. Which is a mistake. That whole strategy of getting the dumbest former NFL players (James Washington, Lincoln Kennedy, Ray Buchanan) makes it a hard listen, at best. But things at Fox Sports Radio get worse every year about this time. When the first string guys are home for the holidays, Fox brings in a guy named Bruce Jacobs, who is the worst sports talk show host ever.

Jacobs' schtick is this: He loves the New York Jets and hates everything that has to do with the Miami Dolphins. His hatred for the Dolphins outweighs his love for the Jets, so what you end up with is a radio show with a guy with one of those modified Wolfman Jack/NYC Shock Jock voices insulting Miami, with all the sophistication of the dumbest kid on the second grade playground. Dolphins fans are Stupid! They're Ugly! They're Unsophisticated! And I don't like them! That's it. However long his show is, that's what you get.

This afternoon, he was on with Buchanan, who was talking about what a nice season the Falcons have had. Such discussion didn't involve praising the Jets or bashing Miami, so Jacobs burst in to ask how many game the Falcons won last year -- 4 -- and how many games they've won this year -- 10. "That's a turnaround of 14 games," Jacobs ranted. "The Jets won 4 games last year and 9 games this year. That's a turnaround of 13, you should be talking about them, too!"

I think that would have been a turnaround of 5 games, Bruce, and when you were in second grade instead of making fun of Dolphins fans in your class, you should have been paying attention to math.

2008-12-24T11:25:00.003-05:00

Yankees Panic Unfounded
Christmas has taken a back seat to Yankee-related panic, following yesterday's announcement that they signed slugger without a known personality Mark Texeira for a zillion dollars over eight years. They had previously signed two pitchers that many considered the cream of the free agent crop -- C.C. Sabathia and A. J. Burnett.

According to some, this means that the Yankess will win the World Series each year for the forseeable future.

I don't think so. Let's go back to the off-season prior to 2005. It was a magical time. The Yankees emptied their wallets to sign Randy Johnson, who was getting old, but had just completed a season where he pitched 245 innings to the tune of a 2.60 ERA. That's nice. They also signed young Carl Pavano, who had just completed his break-out year.

Randy Johnson had pretty decent seasons in 2005 and 2006, pitching over 200 innings and winning 17 games in each. He got pounded in the play-offs, although not to the extent that Sabathia has in recent years. Pavano, as everyone knows, had a lot of girlfriend-related issues and was a huge bust, only pitching 145 innings for the Yankees.

So I'm comparing the current situation to 2005, when it also appears as if the Yankees signed the two best free agent pitchers in baseball. It's different now, though, because of Mark Teixera. In 2005, though, the Yankees had their own Mark Teixera, his name was Jason Giambi and they committed themselves to paying him millions and millions of dollars before 2002. Giambi played well back then. You would think that the Yankees were pretty well set going into 2005. Yet they haven't won a play-off series since then.

It's possible that Sabathia, Burnett and Teixera give the Yankees what they need to reestablish their dominance. It's also possible that Sabathia starts hanging out at clubs with the Giants, that Burnett never again has a season as good as last year, and that Teixera does the same workmanlike job that he did while not leading the Rangers, Braves or Angels to post-season victories. And it's a certainty that Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera will show diminished skills and a more likelihood of injury as they continue to age, and that Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera will show that they're not too good. So don't panic.

2008-02-13T19:35:00.004-05:00

Be Nice to Your Election Workers

I was a poll worker during Tuesday's primary in Virginia. Anyone registered to vote in the state could vote in either primary, they just had to make a decision once they got to the polling place. This caused some logistical issues for the people that administered the election. In Arlington, each precinct had two identical polling books; as voters got to the front of the line, they would announce their name, and workers with both books would look up the name, and ask which primary they'd like to vote in. Workers would put a mark by their name in the book corresponding to the selected primary. Both books had to be available and checked when every single person checked in to avoid someone voting in both primaries.

This was disastrous. It was a big election, and by 7:00AM there was a long line of early morning voters, puzzled by the fact that we could only help one person at a time, and figuring that it had something to do with the idiocy of the workers, like me, who were doing exactly what they were told. So they'd finally get to the front of the line, and suggest other ways for us to do this, apparently thinking that we had some say over the broad election policy. There is nothing more annoying than being told by some ridiculous 25-year old Capitol Hill staffer that you're running an inept operation and you're making him late for work. My tongue was bleeding, from all the biting.

Things got more manageable later in the morning and through the afternoon. But then the ice came. Which caused traffic jams, which, of course, interfered with voters' plans, which then caused them to act like complete assholes. There was the guy who just barely made it, but was on his cell phone talking to his friends who were stuck in traffic and wouldn't make it. "You all need to keep the polls open," he told the woman working next to me. Who was a senior in high school. That guy eventually asked for the telephone number of the county election office. I'm sure that'll be a great intellectual discussion.

We closed down, as we were legally supposed to, at 7:00PM precisely, at which point we had to run the results and complete an amount of paperwork that probably would have been easily done under reasonable circumstances, but always gets a little tricky when you've been working since 5:00AM. A couple people showed up to vote shortly after 7:00PM. They were gracious about the fact that we had to turn them away. Graciousness met its death, suddenly, at about 7:45PM, when Queen Bitch showed up.

She burst into our part of the community center, and announced that she was there to vote.

Precinct captain: "I'm sorry, but you can't, we closed at 7:00PM."

Queen Bitch: "I was stuck in traffic, are you aware of the ice storm out there?"

We were "aware" of it to the extent that we had been told about it, and realized that our cars were encased in ice, but we were prohibited from leaving the windowless room for the past 14 hours, and we couldn't watch tv or listen to a radio.

PC: "I understand, but we have to run this election based on the instructions we get from the county."

QB: "In Maryland, they extended the polls, there's no excuse for that not to be done here."

PC: "Ma'm, we have been given no instructions to extend voting hours."

Me, in my head: "Maybe you should move your ass to Maryland. Or maybe you should have taken your broom to work, instead of driving today."

QB: "So you're telling me that YOU are denying me my right to vote?"

With the YOU, she dramatically moved her arms in a sweeping gesture, implicating us all -- high school students, kindly retired grandmothers, sporadic bloggers. That's right, we were all involved in this conspiracy to prevent this jerk who lives in Arlington and works in Reston from voting.

PC: "Ma'm, I'm just telling you how we've been instructed to do things."

The Queen then stormed out. I was watching my colleagues during this exchange, and it was a sad sight to see the looks on the faces of the workers, who had volunteered for a job that is not a lot of fun, and were being yelled at by some self-important asshole.

Our shell-shocked, exhausted crew finished the job at about 8:30PM, then skated, literally, to our cars. We helped each other chip away the ice that totally encompassed our cars, and headed back home, a long day of tedious work and being abused by idiots completed.

So when you vote in November, please be extra nice to the poll workers. And hope for some good weather.

2007-12-03T05:15:00.000-05:00

Redskins Continue to be Mystified by Time-Outs
The Redskins have been haunted all year by poor clock management, which has left them without time-outs in crucial late game situations. Redskin Coach Joe Gibbs performed a variation on this theme yesterday, though, when he managed to get to the final seconds of the game with time-outs in hand. That's the good news, the bad new is that he tried to call two in a row at the game's very end, and the second one resulted in a 15 yard penalty that changed a Bills field goal attempt from challenging to a chip shot. Coach Gibbs found another excruciating way to lose a home game to a poor team, on a day when the whole Redskins organization wanted desperately to win for their murdered teammate and friend, Sean Taylor. Talk about painful to watch.

Prior to last Sundays game, an observer would have to think that it can't really get any worse. Wrong. Then post-game was even worse than the game. Everybody wants Coach Gibbs to succeed. During the press conference, reporters tried to extract something from Gibbs that would mean that, well, it really wasn't his fault. Gibbs stood firm, though, and said yes, it would have been nice if the official would have correctly answered his question about whether he could call a time out, but he still should have known the rule. It was a hard moment, for the reporters at the press conference, and for people like me who have Joe Gibbs on a pedestal. He knew the rule, he said, he just forgot it in the heat of the moment. Stuff like that happens to regular people. But this is Joe Gibbs.

It's hard to say why Gibbs' second regime is such a failure. But he definitely lost something during the years he spent away from the game at NASCAR, playing daddy to a bunch of jockey-sized richboy hotheads. Maybe the fumes destroyed too many brain cells. I hope that's not the case.

I do know, though, that it is time for Gibbs II to end. This season is as bad as it can be, play it out, figure out a plan to get Coach Gibbs into retirement gracefully, and try something new.

2007-07-30T05:50:00.000-04:00

AFLAC Trivia Gone Whacky
I was watching the Braves-Diamondbacks game Friday night. About halfway through, it was time for the AFLAC Trivia Question, always a highlight for me. On a good night scanning through Extra Innings, I might hit five different AFLAC Trivia Questions. Great stuff. Until Friday. We were asked to "name nine players who were not All-Stars in their MVP Seasons."

What the hell? A nine-part question? That was the best they could come up with? That's like winning a pick six at the horse races. I think AFLAC's getting tired, they've been running that Yogi Berra ad for about six years now. It was funny most of the first year, just kind of annoying now. I still don't have any idea what AFLAC does. Anyway, the announcers were Sean Sutton and Mark Grace. Mark Grace immediately drawled that he couldn't name one. I had to agree with Grace, despite the fact that I think he's a non-power hitting first baseman who's just kind of used his "aw, shucks" Carolina country boy act to charm major media types into thinking he may be the, gulp, next Tim McCarver.

The next inning, they listed the nine players. I wasn't quick enough to get them down, but I remember that Chipper Jones and Justin Morneau were among them.

2007-07-17T07:29:00.000-04:00

Death of the Page Number
Sunday I had a pretty calm day. Moving was close enough to being over that I could suspend it for a day or so. I've got a hole in my shin, so I was supposed to be taking it easy, anyway. I hung out on my patio, waiting to welcome birds to my new birdfeeder, and reading the Sunday Washington Post. I got to The Washington Post Magazine, which I try to read pretty regularly, but usually end up just reading the restaurant review, and skimming over the Editor's Query, sometimes checking out the disastrous Date Lab (starting from the Update at the bottom, which is always a variation of, uh, this isn't gonna work out at all).

This week, I had some time, though, and noticed some interesting articles. An article about Simeon Booker, a journalist, began on page 20. Except there was no page 20. There was a page 5, and a page 6 and 8, but then no more page numbers until 33, which was followed by 34 and 35. Then 37 through 40. That's it. A 44-page publication with 10 page numbers. What the hell?

Of course, I was able to find the Booker article, and was able to follow along when it was continued on page 32, which, you know, kind of didn't exist, but I was able to tell that I was there when I came across the page that said on the top that it was continued from page 25, which is I guess where I had been, and, hey, thanks for letting me know about that.

There's got to be a reason for this, right? I've been involved enough in publishing that it would be a pretty big oversight to let something go to press without page numbers. I guess it could have been a trimming error, but if that's the case, I wouldn't think there would have been any page numbers at all. So I have to assume that it was done intentionally. Is it the publisher's way of making the reader go through the magazine page by page, so you see every ad? Clever. But still kind of insulting. It's only 44 pages, don't most people that read it go through virtually the whole thing anyway? Why even have page numbers on the Table of Contents, directing you to a page number that's not there? That's just mean.

This isn't the first time I've been frustrated by page numbers. Try finding an article in one of those really big editions of Vanity Fair (Yeah, Vanity Fair, I know. But it's not just about people with rich parents -- this month there was an article about The Simpsons! And Sly Stone!). Try even finding the Table of Contents, actually. I know that the Vanity Fair people are trying to force you to look at their ads, most featuring ridiculous looking models promoting stuff that, if you can figure out what it is, is affordable primarily to people who are too busy making money to care about The Simpsons or Sly Stone.

Maybe publishers in 2007 are just too cool for page numbers. Is wanting to be able to navigate your way through a magazine too controlling, is it not hip?

If that's the case, then I apologize.

2007-07-09T09:57:00.000-04:00

So I Moved
I've been gone for a while, because I moved. I'm glad to be resettled, but it was an intense couple of weeks. Once I actually found a new place, arranged for financing, made moving arrangements and went through settlement, I thought the hardest parts would be over. But I was wrong. Buying a new home is not nearly as complex as transferring your Comcast account. This is no exaggeration. To get cable tv and internet set up in my new home involved 15 telephone calls, three faxes, two two-hour visits from a technician, two trips to the building management office, one totally unnecessary trip to the Comcast offices and one threatening letter. But it's over now. I hope.

There have been other things to adjust to. I used to live in Arlington, now I live in Alexandria. I moved less than 10 miles. In Arlington, there are 7-11s everywhere. Which is great if you need to grab a soda or a newspaper or the finishing touches for dinner that you should have purchased at the grocery store but forgot (usually something like flour or eggs). There's the 7-11 at Wilson and N. Lincoln, which I grew up at, stopping for RC Colas in the middle of my paper route. The 7-11 on Lee Highway off of Spout Run was closest to my last apartment. The one on Lee Highway at Quincy St. was always a good place to stop for Gatorade and beers after basketball. The one on Washington Blvd. as you're heading to 395 had challenging parking and sometimes smelled bad, but it was always good for water on the way to and from softball fields.

Where I live now, the options are limited. There's one, in this lousy little strip center called Seminary Plaza. There's a Magruder's there that I like so far; other than that, not much. There's a CVS that closes at 10:00PM. The people that work there seem pretty nice, though, and it's good to get away from the scary guy with the Scottish accent who works at the Lyon Village CVS. The parking lot is littered with broken glass. There are guys hanging out outside the stores literally all day. And they're not amusing Silent Bob and Jay type guys. I'm not sure what these guys are doing, except for when they're staring at my girlfriend. There seems to be a big problem with grocery cart theft, as they've erected these barriers -- they're like jersey walls for grocery carts -- that prevent you from taking the carts to your car. Which is not too great if you're lugging two cases of bottled water around, and don't want to leave your grocery-laden cart by itself while you pull up your car, for fear of the guy that's been standing outside of the store for the past two days, who may be just waiting for an opportunity to steal someone's chorizos.

Seminary Plaza also hosts a 7-11, which is at one end of the mall, stuck between a Quizno's and a pizza place. It has one aisle! It doesn't really sell anything except for candy and sodas. There's always a line of at least five people, which usually moves something like this:

First guy in line wants to buy chewing tobacco, spends five minutes directing the clerk to the box of chewing tobacco and trying to explain to her how to open the box and extract an individual carton. This doesn't work well, because the woman doesn't understand English, and can't comprehend the motions that he's going through, mimicking how you open the box. She finally gets a colleague, who comes and opens the box for her in about two seconds, and looks at her like she's from Mars.

Second guy in line is about 12 and wants to buy cigarettes. He gets carded, says that they're not for him, but the clerk still refuses to sell him cigarettes. He curses and heads back out in front of the store, where he's likely to remain for the next 24 hours or so.

Third person in line is a woman. Five members of her family are also in the store, they're running around while she stands in line. The clerk calls next, she stands there vacantly, with no indication that she knows why she's even standing there. The clerk calls next again, I, right behind her, say "Hey," to get her attention, but by then a guy just walking in the store walks straight to the clerk calling next, and asks for something like blueberry scented cigars. The vacant woman looks at me and smiles. I scowl. The clerk spends five minutes trying to find these crazy cigars.

Ten minutes later, I'm buying my newspaper and a soda. I walk out, and notice a transaction between the blueberry-scented cigar guy and the under-age cigarette buying kid. Welcome to Seminary Plaza!

2007-06-21T19:14:00.000-04:00

Remembering the Federals

This weekend, the old USFL is celebrating it's 25th anniversary. Ah, the memories.

The USFL got going just as my college days were ending --1983, which was also a year that the Redskins had just won a Super Bowl championship. So people were excited about football (pretty much the opposite of the current situation, where people just kind of nervously wait for something disappointing to happen), and it was exciting to know that, even though the NFL was over, the USFL's Washington Federals would soon be storming RFK. Despite the fact that I didn't have, like, an income, a friend and I figured that it would be a brilliant idea to buy season tickets, as, surely, some day soon, seats for the Feds would be as coveted as Redskins tickets, and our brilliance would be recognized. We were so stupid back then, obviously college hadn't work that much for me.

The 1983 Federals were led by Ray Jauch, head coach and and vice president. Jauch had been a big success in the CFL, with the Edmonton Eskimos and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, two teams that, in addition to having cool names, were successful. Though evidently not having any input on the lame name (what, Bureaucrats was taken?), surely Jauch would be able to mold the Feds into the Redskins of the USFL. Not so much.

Current over caffeinated ESPN talking head Craig James was their first draft pick. A guy named Mike Hohensee was their quarterback. Both of them got injured a lot. They played their first game against the George Allen-coached Chicago Blitz, and lost 28-7. They went through a lot of kickers (a strategy that, crazily, has been picked up by the Dan Snyder-era Redskins), including Obed Ariri, who had a cool name, and was good when he was at Clemson. The Feds finished 4-14, and drew an average of 13,850 to RFK Stadum. I think I went to most of the home games, I really don't remember too much except for the fact that the couple with seats next to us was very nice, and I fell asleep at one game, after being up all night celebrating a Caps play-off victory, back in the days when the Caps played against teams from places like New York and Philadelphia. Generally, they still lost, but the series' were exciting, and it was better than losing to teams from places like Columbus and Charlotte.

Next season, well, it was even worse. They lost their opener to the Jacksonville Bulls, 53-14. Ray Jauch was fired and replaced by Dick Bielski, who would go on to become, uh, another pretty unsuccessful coach of the Feds. Ray Jauch was last seen coaching the team at my old high school, which sounds crazy, but is true. I used to drive home from work on those early August evenings, and there he'd be, teaching about 30 kids football in 100 degree heat, and, presumably, hating himself for leaving Canada. The 1984 Feds were 3-15, and drew an average of 7,694, despite trying some rather revolutionary marketing ideas, including the one that I remember the most -- Free Beer. It's true, they'd have beer trucks in the RFK parking lot, and people would just get tanked. God bless the 80s. It was a great party, I don't know how many people actually made it to the game. Innovations like that made Feds games pretty much a must for my friends, which is funny when you consider how few people actually were there. The crowds were so sparse, I remember being at my seat during one of Craig James' more serious injuries, and actually seeing his poor wife's reaction as she ran from her seat down to the field. You didn't notice that stuff at Redskins games.

At the end of the 1984 season, the Feds were sold to someone who moved the team to Orlando. Talk about a slap in the face. My dreams of spending springs and early summers at RFK cheering on the dynastic Federals disappeared. I think that was about the last time I got a free beer in Washington, too.

2007-06-18T10:48:00.001-04:00

Nats Reveal Nook Logan/Dave Chappelle Hoax

The puzzle that has been Nook Logan's career as an outfielder for the Washington Nationals has finally been solved. Turns out "Nook Logan" is really famed comedian Dave Chappelle, and Washington Nationals' management has been part of Chappelle's latest breakthrough television project, called Chappelle Goes National, where he plays a character named Nook Logan, who attempts to make a career for himself in Major League Baseball.

Many Nats fans have been puzzled by management's dedication to Logan, who was handed the starting centerfield job in spring training, despite not really displaying any baseball skills, other than a couple of good catches last season. 2007 has been little more than an injury, miscommunications in the outfield, and a bunch of strike outs, by a player who looks like he would be overmatched by a stiff wind, not to mention major leagues pitchers. He seems to have no real instincts in the outfield, although he is a really fast runner.

The emergence of Nationals' farmhand Brandon Watson, who is currently one of the hottest hitters in the universe yet remains in the minor leagues while Logan flails at pitch after pitch, has led to increased scrutiny of Logan's presence on the team, which is probably why the Nationals have chosen to end the experiment. Nats General Manager Jim Bowden said, "We were having a laugh. Dave Chappelle is a very funny man, with some DC roots. When he approached us with this project, we thought it would be a good way to give back to the community. We've all had some fun, and we'll all get a lot of exposure on the TV show, but now it's time to get serious. We wish Nook/Dave the best."

Chappelle was unavailable for comment, having immediately left DC for an unknown destination in Africa. Or Ohio.

2007-06-15T11:31:00.000-04:00

The Joys of a Consumer
So I'm moving in a couple of weeks. After an embarassingly long time at an apartment building that has really gone downhill in recent years (I'll save a final farewell for another post), I'm out of there by the end of the month.

My old bachelor furniture is not really worth moving, and it would be depressing to see it in my new place. So we need furniture. My girlfriend and I spent some time on Memorial Day weekend looking around. It did not go well. I think I said "Two thousand dollars for a couch?" about 10 times. So we regrouped, and by using the internet we determined that you don't really get the most for your money from a high-rent department store. Lower overhead means lower prices. Now I get it.

After doing our homework, last Sunday we headed to a furniture store in a rather tired shopping center that shall remain nameless but is located in, uh, the Seven Corners area. We had received a promotional thing in our e-mail. As we entered the store, we were given a new sales leaflet that advertised similar deals to the e-mail, but not exactly the same. The salesperson didn't really seem to understand the internet. Great.

We continued on. And we actually found something that we liked. The salesperson told us of the great deal that was going on this weekend, that involved no payments or interest for a year. That would be nice, at this particular point in my life postponing debt, interest-free, is appealing. The salesperson led me to the finance office, which was comprised of three young women in burkas in the back of the store. One of them took my information, and said that I'd be paged momentarily.

I was paged and returned to the office. It was explained to me that there are actually two deals out there now, the one that I was aware of, and another one, that involved actually making 12 monthly payments for the furniture, with interest of 24%. At the end of 12 months, you get the interest that you paid back. And this is the only deal that I was eligible for. What the hell?

Several things pissed me off about this: the whole bait and switch, the fact that since I've just bought a home I'm well aware of what my credit rating it (good!) and the part about 24% interest. I mentioned all of these to the woman, and said that this was a deal killer. There's a chance I'd still buy the stuff by paying cash, I said, but I needed to think about it. I managed to have the whole converation without using the word "bullshit," which was difficult.

I told the salesperson, sorry, but I think the finance people are trying to pull a fast one on me. She asked if I wanted to talk to the manager, I said no. However the manager intercepted me on the way out, and asked me how my experience was. Not so good, I said, telling him, among other things, that an interest rate of 24% was unconscionable. He played dumb, and asked if we could talk about it. I kept moving, and said that I was leaving, he had my phone number if something else developed.

We did some other errands in the center. I was kind of in shock, and envisioning a new home filled with pillows, with no furniture at all. That would be preferable to ever having to spend another moment in a furniture store.

About that time my cell phone rang. It was the manager. They'd made a mistake! Turns out, I am, indeed, eligible for the original deal. And because of their mistake, they'd actually give me no payments or interest for two years! As much as I felt like hanging up on him, well, we liked the furniture, the pillow idea wasn't getting much support from my girlfriend and if I agreed to this, we were through with furniture shopping. I told him I'd think about it during lunch, and stop back by the store if interested.

For lunch we stopped at the Chinese restaurant in the parking lot of the mall, which I think is great, though every person that I've been there with doesn't seem to agree. Weird. In addition to good food, they also have good mai tais, several of which I enjoyed. We figured we'd go ahead with the deal, and move on to other things.

So I returned to the store, and was warmly greeted by the manager (who actually was a very nice guy) and the salesperson (same with her). I went back to the finance office, and the burka women seemed happy to see me, which made me suspicious. I finished some paperwork with one of them, while the other two engaged in a conversation using that language that girls in junior high school use when the don't want people to understand them -- not pig latin, but similar, it seems to involve saying something like "to the gee" or "to the gaw" after every sentence. Very professional. I don't think they were talking about me based on their occasional interjections in english, but it was still a little off-putting.

So that was it, I scheduled a delivery and got out of there.

I hope this furniture lasts a long, long time.

2007-06-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

Rumsfeld on L
I just walked past Don Rumsfeld, who was standing on the corner of Connecticut and L Streets, getting ready to cross Connecticut. He was gladhanding passers-by, and yukking it up with his two companions, two fancy haircut guys in suits who looked like they were about the same age as guys that are getting killed or maimed every day in Iraq.

Rumsfeld looked well-rested, it doesn't look like he's losing much sleep.

2007-06-08T08:56:00.000-04:00

Crime in My Neighborhood
I realized something was going on in my neighborhood at about 3:30AM on Thursday morning, as I was driving around trying to find a place to park a U-Haul van (that's a whole different story). There were police cars all over the place, they seemed to be concentrated at the 7-11 at N. Cleveland St. and Lee Highway. Apparently, none of them thought it was strange for a guy to be driving a rental truck around cruising for parking spaces at this time of night, as none of them gave me a second look, even after I parked and walked back to my building.

Three hours later (not exactly a good night's sleep), I was up again, retrieving the truck. By then the area was teeming with media types, complete with those trucks with those huge, skyward reaching antennas that, in earlier times, used to signal that Monica Lewinsky was in the vicinity.

I went on with my day, and didn't give it much thought. After work, I was at the 7-11. There was still a presence. I asked the guy at 7-11 what those three huge trucks were doing across the street. He hadn't noticed. As I left 7-11, I drove through the center of activity. There were reporters standing on the sidewalk. I rolled down my window and asked WTTG reporter Bob Barnard what was going on. He was very nice (unlike Channel 4 reporter Jackie Bensen -- the one who always looks like she's in the middle of a hurricane -- who once acted like I was invisible during a similar inquiry), and asked me if I had heard about the plastic-bag predator, and said that he had struck there the previous night. Wow. I got back home in time to get the scoop on the 6 o'clock news.

Apparently, the guy knocked on a woman's door at about 1:30AM. For some reason she opened the door, saw him and his plastic bag, screamed and shut the door. The guy fled, and the police looked for him. They thought they found him, but they later released the suspect, although it sounds like they still think it might be him.

Later last night, I watched WTTG news, and poor Bob Barnard was still standing on the corner, where he did a live report. He interviewed a woman with distracting eyebrows who was clearly very excited that she'd be able to share her personality with the world via TV, and tell everyone that she was taking a self-defense class. Great.

Here's an article about it in the Washington Post, which is pretty half-assed, as in the second paragraph it refers to the event as happening "near Lee Highway and Cleveland Street in Rosslyn." Lee Highway and North Cleveland Street is not in Rosslyn, Joe Holley. Rosslyn is that area across Key Bridge with all the big buildings.

In any case, it was very exciting for our generally dull neighborhood. I had a more traditional morning this morning, which didn't involve rental trucks, so I didn't notice anything unusual. Be careful out there.

2007-06-01T15:27:00.001-04:00

The Return of Pizza Pantry, This Blog
It's been a while, I know. A crazy confluence of softball, Nats games, work and some other complications have kept me blog-free for a while. Not that there hasn't been plenty to whine about.

But I'm back. And I'm not whining, I'm here to report that the best pizza in Arlington -- Pizza Pantry -- is also back! For those that don't know, Pizza Pantry was a small storefront pizza place on Walter Reed Drive, right off of Columbia Pike (923 S. Walter Reed Dr.). Up until a couple of years ago, it had been there since 1957 -- my parents went there when they were younger, as a kid, I used to stop by on my bike, often after a trek to Giant Music, rummaging through their bins of $3.99 records. In addition to having great pizza, Pizza Pantry produced something called a Filmore, which is a huge meatball sub, smothered in provolone and tangy sauce, with a perfectly crisped bun.

So it was a sad day when I found out that they were closing. Actually, I remember, it was a sad night. It changed to one of those fly-by-night chains, and I had no interest in checking it out. It seemed to change names once or twice. Still, not interested. Last weekend, for some reason, I was reading one of those advertising magazines that trash up your mailbox. Amongst the ads for carpeting and blinds, I spotted a picture of The Famous Miss Louise, the mastermind behind Pizza Pantry! She's back, the ad said, along with the famous Filmore sandwich and their original homemade square pizza. It's now called Salvo's Bistro and Buffet, but I can't see myself ever saying that. Sorry, Salvo.

So I stopped by last night. Miss Louise was, indeed, back, running things by herself. She said she'd been back since December. I ordered two pizzas. Still awesome. The highlight of Pizza Pantry pizza is a thin, crispy crust. I think I could just eat a whole pie of nothing but crust. The pizzas are square, so I hog the corner pieces. There's not an overabundance of cheese or tomato sauce, and the tomato sauce is perfectly tangy. My topping of choice is sausage -- you get a blob of sausage on each slice. And you end up with a perfect pizza. A large pizza isn't really that large, in my younger days I could easily eat a whole pie. And they're cheap -- last night, two larges, each with one topping (the pepperoni is OK, but I'd stick to sausage), for under $18. I protested that I didn't think that was enough, but Miss Louise assured me she had it right. Soon, I'll be back for a Filmore, which is equally delectable (and also cheap, at $5.99).

So check it out. They're not open late, so give them a call at 703/920-9110, which is a number I just plugged into my phone, after I deleted Ledo's.

Who knows, maybe The Keyhole Inn will re-open next.

2007-05-10T09:22:00.000-04:00

Stan Kasten Thinks We're Stupid
Wow, I need to stop reading the newspaper in the morning. The Nats' losses are bad enough, but some of the remarks associated with them are just breathtakingly stupid.

This morning, Washington Post baseball whiz Tom Boswell takes on the Nationals, Stan Kasten and the Plan. It's the usual stuff. Kasten, we know, thinks he's a genius, look at what he did with the Braves. In today's column, Boswell quotes Kasten, in defense of his plan, saying "I know you don't understand the concept 'Money once spent is gone forever,' but it is true, nonetheless. If you waste millions now then you don't have it later when it can help win a pennant." Oh boy.

I guess this is news only to Stan, but we do understand that concept. And it works both ways -- the money that we spend supporting a team that he has chosen to make non-competitive is gone forever. We got some joy out of it, but also a lot of unnecessary frustration. A concept that he might try to understand is "Just because you have a new stadium with a lot of fancy features, the main attraction is the team, and people aren't going to come to games if the team is no good and there's a feeling that team management is taking the fans' support -- emotional and financial -- for granted."

I'll stop there. Tonight I'm going to try not to think about the Nats, and I'll be at The Birchmere enjoying the Gourds, which is about my favorite thing to do. The money I spend at the show will be gone forever, I understand, but it will be well worth it.

2007-05-09T09:00:00.000-04:00

Nats' King Gets Fired Up and Other Bad Nats News
Not such a great day for the Nats yesterday, as they lost their seventh straight game and suffered through another pathetic offensive performance. Which I guess is understandable, given the offensive capabilities of the players they had out there. Batting sixth - Brian Schneider, who had two hits which raised his average to .216. Batting seventh - Robert Fick, whose two hits raised his average to .194. Batting eighth - Nook Logan, who got no hits and is hitting .167. Pitcher Jason Simontacchi brought of the rear, and he, of course, is batting .000.

Interestingly, Brewers' starter Dave Bush was 0-2 last night, and he's still hitting .214. So when you pitch against the Nationals, not only do you get a break when you face the pitcher. You get a break for pretty much the last half of the order.

Jason Simontacchi pitched decently, for a chronically injured journeyman who it's not fair to have any expecations of. I was listening to WTEM Tuesday afternoon, and they (DC's sports radio station!) have so little interest in baseball or the Nationals (they were able to squeeze in a segment on peer pressure and office happy hours, though, based on an article in the Post on April 22) that the guy who does the sports updates during the Sports Reporters couldn't even be bothered to figure out how to pronounce Simontacchi's name, repeatedly calling him Simeontacchi. Jeez.

The Nats' roster was shaken up somewhat yesterday. Chad Cordero went on bereavement leave to be with his dying grandmother. That's good for the Chief, and that really is sad.

Josh Wilson, he of the Little League-like error to assist ratio, was sent to the minors. Hopefully we'll never see him again. And Tony Batista was called up. I can't really think of anything to say about him. He'd be easy to bash, but, given this team, well, it's worth a shot.

To me, the most interesting thing about yesterday was the Nats' decision to ban alcohol in the home and visiting clubhouses at RFK, as well as in the visiting clubhouse when they're on the road. Nats' brass was able to turn the death of Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock into a way to save them a couple of thousand dollars over the season! Great move!

While I'm cynical about the teams' motives, such a ban is not unusual in the major leagues, and several teams (like the Yankees, who we know are clearly not pinching pennies) have recently changed their policies. Which is why the reaction of rotund Nationals' pitcher Ray King is so moronic. The Post's Barry Svrluga reported that this move was met with eye-rolling by some Nats. The move really got the goat of Ray Ray, who presumably is on the team, in part, for veteran leadership (he and his 9.95 ERA would be pretty easy to replace). King goes 6-1, 240, and for those of you who may just be casual baseball fans, he's one of several Nationals who you look at and say "Wait, that guy's a professional athlete?" Yes he is, sports fans, and he makes $850,000 a year. And he's pissed that there's no longer free (light?) beer in the locker room. Bob Cohn and Mark Zuckerman, of the Washington Times, reported that King said "It's really becoming a mockery to where you hate the accident had to happen, but the accident didn't come from him coming out of the clubhouse. It wasn't because he was drunk in the clubhouse. ... How many stadiums can you walk out of and walk to a bar?" He also blathered "Most of the time when we're on the road and we leave the clubhouse, we're getting on the bus or in a taxi. I just think it's a situation where they're trying to do way too much. We don't have a salary cap, but they can do whatever else they want." Yeah, you know, they can do anything, like tell you not to drink at work.

Sometimes you'll read a profile of a particularly high-achieving player and his great work habits, and you'll find out that after a game, he lifts weights or does cardio. Or if he's Gilbert Arenas he shoots 10,000 jump shots. Not Ray Ray. He wants his beer, he wants it as soon as the game ends, and he doesn't want to have to pay for it.

This team is driving even the players to drink, evidently.

2007-05-07T05:30:00.000-04:00

Smokers Support Avon Walk for Breast Cancer
Yesterday evening, I was driving around Pentagon City, listening to Chad Cordero give away another Nationals' victory. The car in front of me was festooned with various pink ribbons and other decorations about the fight against breast cancer. This reminded me that the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer was Sunday, and it also reminded me that I'd be owing a couple of people in my office money this morning (and happy about it).

I manuevered my car around the presumed Avon Walker, and pulled up next to her at the stoplight. I glanced over, and she was dressed all in bright pink, with a pink hat, decorated with all kinds of pins and ribbons. She was definitely a crusader in the fight against breast cancer, great for her.

As I admired her adornments she fired up a cigarette. She took a big drag, smiled and hung her cigarette-holding arm out the window. Nothing like your first cigarette after the breast cancer walk, I guess.

2007-05-03T07:00:00.000-04:00

Nats Add (Yawn) Another Guy Named Ryan
Watching the Red Sox/A's game last night, I couldn't help but notice the hurting situation of the A's outfield -- starting were Danny Putnam, along with the newly acquired Ryan Langerhans and the veteran Shannon Stewart. Putnam has about 40 major league AB's, Langerhans was just traded from the Braves to the A's(for a player to be named later) because his batting average began with .0, and Shannon Stewart is, well, Shannon Stewart. Travis Buck has also spent a lot of time in the A's outfield, and they're so desperate that they're anxious for the return of Bobby Kielty.

In the fourth inning, Langerhans committed a ridiculous error, he completely muffed an easy fly ball, which ultimately resulted in a run for the Red Sox. The Red Sox announcers noted that it was uncharacteristic of Langerhans, known for his defense (good thing, considering his batting average), who had only committed two previous errors in his career.

A couple of hours later, I had the Nationals' game on. I was away from the tv for a while, when I returned Debbi Taylor appeared to be ready to interview a guy who, for a moment, I thought was the late Steve Irwin, crocodile hunter, at the game with two women who were a bit over-dressed for a baseball game, and who seemed to think it was hilarious that they were on TV. I soon realized that it wasn't Steve Irwin, it was Jim Bowden, with two, uh, over-dressed women, one of whom appeared to have a small fox around her neck.

It got crazier when I realized that Jim Bowden was being interviewed about the Nats having traded Chris Snelling for, you guessed it, Ryan Langerhans. They're both left-handed hitters, Langerhans is a couple of years older. Bowden seemed to think that the significance of the deal was that it upgraded the Nats' defense in the outfield. That's one problem I didn't realize that we had, at least when the starters are in. In the Post on-line, Barry Svrluga quotes Bowden as saying how great a defensive outfield Kearns, Logan and Langerhans would be. Yeah, that would be great, too bad neither Logan nor Langerhans appear have the ability to hit. So this seems to me another way to take a shot at Ryan Church, who's been the Nats' most consistent player. One of these days we'll find out why Ryan Church gets treated this way. Probably after he's had a season where he's hit 30 home runs, for a team other than the Nationals.

So with Langerhans instead of Snelling, we get a little older, a little better defensively, a little less Australian, and the Nats save at least $40,000, as Langerhans' base salary is lower than Snelling. That's $40,000 more for the cherry tree fund! On with The Plan!

2007-04-30T09:53:00.000-04:00

One Great Quarter Isn't Enough for the Wiz
Saturday evening, I went to the Wizards game. I know, but I had made the commitment to go well before the whole injury thing. And, looking back, it was still a better option than going to a four-hour Nationals loss, complete with drunken Mets fans and a Chad Cordero blown save. And it sure beat driving out to Raljon to celebrate the drafting of LaRon Landry. Which I actually think is a pretty good pick, despite the fact that he's a duplicate of Sean Taylor. I can't figure out how long Sean Taylor's contract is, but there is absolutely no chance that he'll re-sign with the Redskins. His reaction to the fact that Landry is going to be making more money than him should be interesting. I was puzzled by early reports that the Redskins wanted to make a deal so they could draft wide receiver Calvin Johnson. Yeah, that's what they need, another high profile offensive player who will complain about not getting enough touches. Right.

But this post is about the Wizards. I have to say that the game was fun, the Wizards do a great job of making big games like this an event. (Of course, this is from a guy who went to many many Bullets games at the Capital Centre, which was like going to a game in somebody's basement.) It's fun to walk around the concourse before the game, and check everybody out. Unfortunately, we kept running into Danny Ferry. It's easy to get relatively good food, and you don't have to stand in crazy lines and wait for fancy extras, like hot dog buns.

After the warm-ups, the lights were turned down, and Caron Butler came out to get the crowd fired up. Then the players were introduced, and Gilbert came out to an ovation. He wasn't limping that badly, not as bad as the last time I saw Nick Johnson, actually.

Then the game started, and things quickly went downhill. Pretty quickly, the Wiz put themselves into a hole. LeBron James can be pretty deceptive, he looks like he's just standing around the three-point line, but he'll kind of lull you to sleep and suddenly make a ferocious drive to the basket, or a pass that catches everyone off guard. He's good, and at half-time the Cavs had a 17 point lead.

Things got crazy at the beginning of the second half. Led by an inspired Antawn Jamison, the Wizards closed a 17-point gap in less than six minutes. The crowd went nuts, momentum changed and it looked like the Wizards could win. But they couldn't keep it up. Faced with an opportunity to take a lead, inevitably they'd miss a shot, and someone like Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who was usually unguarded, would make a shot. The Wizards fought hard, but just didn't have enough juice. They scored 31 points in the third quarter, and 17 points in the fourth quarter, and they lost, 98-92.

What this play-off series has shown me is that someone on the Wizards has done a poor job with the bench. It's either that Ernie Grunfeld has not gotten players that are capable of contributing, or the players are fine, Eddie Jordan just can't get anything from them. Given that the Wizards are missing their two best players, I think it's logical to think that they'd have to go deeper on their bench in this series than usual, and deeper than other teams. I read a couple of articles where it was suggested that, hey, this is a lost cause, give some guys a chance to show what they've got. Guys like Andray Blatche, who played four minutes in game one, and hasn't gotten off the bench since. That, I don't understand.

In fact, compared to the vast majority of other teams in the play-offs, all of which are healthier than the Wizards, the Wizards get fewer minutes from their bench. On Saturday, Wizards subs logged 43 minutes, Cavs subs logged 51. Here are the other teams that played Saturday, and the minutes they got from their reserves: Denver - 41, Detroit - 50, Houston - 61, Orlando - 75, San Antonio - 84 and Utah - 87. That doesn't make sense to me. Either the Wizards don't have enough horses, or the coach doesn't know how to ride them. That's a problem, whether you've got Arenas and Butler or not, and the Wizards won't get much better until it's addressed.

2007-04-27T09:13:00.000-04:00

Nice Week for O's MASN Crew
On Wednesday night, Orioles' MASN announcer Gary Thorne said that Red Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli told him that the "blood" on Curt Schilling's sock during Game 6 of the 2004 play-offs was fake, just "p.r." Since it's not true, and Mirabelli says he's never even spoken to Thorne, it generated a big controversy, which Schilling addresses in his blog (38 Pitches) this morning. Whether you like Curt Schilling or not, he was a huge pitcher for the Red Sox in 2004, and without him, they'd still be World Championship-less. And his blog is pretty cool. To suggest that before that particular game, someone with the Red Sox would have said, "Hey, you know what we should do? Put some fake blood on Curt's ankle," is just moronic. But there are people out there that think Bill Clinton has been a cocaine dealer, too, so what other people think is never too shocking to me.

Last night, I turned on the O's pre-game show, thinking they might address the issue. Maybe do something like make an apology, who knows. If that happened, I missed it. Apparently Thorne now says that he "overheard" Mirabelli saying this. Whatever. If that was the case, Mirabelli was kidding.

What I did hear last night was that Under Armour -- the company that makes clothes that just wick the sweat away from your body! -- had 900 people at the game. To celebrate this, O's sideline reporter Amber Theoharis got herself amidst the Under Armour folks, greeted them, and asked one of them if they were having a good time at the game. He replied that "We're having a great fuckin' time!" If Under Armour made a product that could wick the embarassment away from her face, Amber could have used it, as she strode swiftly away from the Under Armour folks. She tossed it back up to Jim Hunter and Rick Dempsey, and Jim Hunter said that he'd see us at the post-game show. If they were still around.

Nice week, MASN. Stay classy, B-town!

2007-04-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

Driving While Completely Insane
Saturday night, I was walking to my car, parked in the West End area of DC. I heard a car hitting another car, and brakes screeching, when I looked in that direction I saw a driver doing what looked like a bad job of parallel parking. As I got closer, I saw that there was a guy in a car that was in the first spot on the block -- there was no car ahead of him, which made his parking problems particularly strange. I saw that he had backed into the car parked behind him -- a nice Volvo -- but there didn't seem to be much damage. But he wasn't through.

As I stood on the sidewalk watching this guy, he gunned the car forward, through the stoplight at the corner. Then he threw it in reverse, and slammed into the Volvo, which then hit the car behind it. Then the guy got out of the driver's seat, and hopped into the back seat of the car, never acknowledging that there was a guy there -- me -- watching this whole thing. I didn't have my cell phone with me (as usual, when something interesting happens), but by this time a couple of other guys had shown up, and a guy who turned out to be an off-duty Prince George's County police officer was on his cell phone talking to the police, who it seemed were asking him a million questions.

Next, a guy emerges from the darkness, looks at the car that's done all the damage, and exclaims "My car." I tell him what happened, he sees the guy in the back seat, who, it turns out, was his brother, who had been given the keys and told to sit in the car and wait for him. So he starts yelling at the driver brother, who then gets out of the car and utters some nonsense, and starts running. Non-driver brother chases after him. Still no police, it's been about 15 minutes since the incident, and the Prince George's County officer is still being interrogated on his cell phone. Finally a police car comes down the street and we flag it down. The off-duty officer explains things to the DC officers, who don't really seem to phased by the whole thing, and make no effort whatsoever to find the madman on the loose and/or his brother.

The DC police seem to have no interest in talking to me, which is fine with me. About the time the Prince George's County officer leaves, the driver of the Volvo shows up. He's just a kid, and he's with his friends. He's shocked, and he's even more shocked when I explain to him what happened. I give him my card, if he needs a witness or anything, and move on to my car, so that I can pick up my girlfriend, who's been waiting for me all this time. I pick her up and explain to her what happened, and we stop by the scene so that I can show her. By this time, some of the Volvo kid's friends are there, and I'm asked to tell them the whole story. The DC police are still on the scene, talking to each other, I'm not really sure what they're doing. Then up pulls the off-duty Prince George's County officer. He looks at me and says "Guess who I've got in the car?" Out steps the non-driving brother! The DC cops are very impressed. Non-driving brother is very apologetic to everyone, and then gets questioned by the DC police.

Just a regular Saturday night in DC.

2007-04-20T21:16:00.000-04:00

Nats Win, I Think

This evening, I was multitasking. I watched some of the Red Sox/Yankees game, and some of the Nats/Marlins game. Then I was driving around, and scanning between several games on XM Radio. I got disgusted with the Nats when Chad Cordero blew another save, and gave up on them. I listened to the Red Sox come back against the Yankees. I got home, and checked the good old Washington Post website for the Nats score, fearing the worst, and saw the box to the left. Damn. There was no article, but I linked to the summary, which said that Jason Wood hit a home run in the bottom of the 12th to win it for the Marlins.

A little bit later, I was on CBS Sportsline, checking my fantasy team. The guys at CBS said the Nats won! Hmm. According to CBS,Chris Snelling drove in a run in the top of the 14th, and the Marlins didn't score in their half. Jason Wood's supposed game winning home run was a fly out.

I'm not complaining, really, I know the folks at the Post have had a busy week. Besides, it made the victory that much sweeter.

I'm going to bed, and I hope, in the morning, that the Nats are still the winners.

2007-04-20T07:24:00.000-04:00

Thursday Afternoon at RFK
I took the afternoon off yesterday, and went to the Nationals/Phillies game. Despite the less than ideal weather, and the Nats' less than ideal hitting, it was a much better way to spend a weekday afternoon than usual.

Staff "ace" John Patterson took the mound, and struggled again. He consistently let the first batter of the inning on base. By the fifth inning, when he was removed, he had absolutely nothing. His fast balls don't seem as fast as they did back when he was good. He topped out at 88 mph on the scoreboard gun. I think he's hurt. He was relieved by Levale Speigner and Saul Rivera, who both pitched well, as pretty much all of the relievers do these days, with the exception of Chad Cordero (now that Ray King is on the DL). I hope Cordero turns things around soon.

I got to the game a little early, and decided to grab some lunch on the Terrace, which was pretty unpopulated about 45 minutes before game time. That's too bad. I felt bad for the guys in the chicken stand, who didn't even look like they anticipated enough business to fire up their deep fryers. I scouted around, and chose to get something from the hot dog stand, which is called something like DC Dawgs. They'll sell you two corndogs, doused with nacho cheese and chilli sauce, with a bag of chips, for $12. Considering plain old hot dogs cost $5.50 from Aramark, this is actually a decent deal. And it covers all of the basic ballpark food groups: hot dogs/sausages, nacho cheese, fried stuff. Jackpot! I was a little wary when I saw how the thing looked, and it was a little messy. But it was damn good. And, unlike everything else that has to do with the Nationals, it was something that I hadn't seen at a million ball games before. So, whatever this is called (and I'll be able to tell you after the next game I go to), I hereby deem that this is the Nationals' signature food. Forget half smokes.

The crowd was about 16,000, most of whom were sitting right behind me, chatting away and not paying attention to the game at all. I guess you can't expect much more for a weekday afternoon game when the weather is not so great. It was truly a dull game, until the ninth inning when the Nationals mounted a comeback. That was about the time that they decided to do that thing where they show no originality whatsoever, and play Sweet Caroline over the PA, with a cheesy Neil Diamond video and everything. That sucked. Sweet Caroline ended and, shortly thereafter, so did the comeback, when Chris Snelling watched strike three with the tying runs in scoring position. At least they made it interesting.

It would have been a nice game to win, before going to Florida with a reasonable possibility of overtaking the Marlins for third place. Which still could happen, especially since Patterson won't be pitching in that series.

2007-04-16T18:40:00.000-04:00

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie Experience
Yesterday afternoon, I somehow convinced my girlfriend that it would be a good idea to go see Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. She hadn't been feeling well, so I think I got her at a moment when she was loopy from medication.

Given the nature of Washington, and the fact that it was the first weekend of this important film, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised about the celebrity sightings at the theater. Someone that looked like Tony Kornheiser was in front of us in line, surrounded by what I presume were Washington Post interns with notebooks and recording devices, poised to record their subject's every utterance, I guess so they could maybe cobble together a column. The guy behind me said that earlier there was a little incident at the ticket booth, where a guy claiming to be King of Homeland Security for Prince George's County pulled a gun on the ticket taker, who he accused of making fun of his mustache. Scary, I'm glad I missed that.

As we got into the theater, there was a couple that could have been Paul Wolfowitz and his girlfriend, Ali Riza, you know, the one who works for the State Department and makes more money than the Secretary of State. If it was them, they certainly prove the line about Washington being Hollywood for, uh, not so pretty people. The man's hair was a mess, and he was on his cell phone, yelling something about changing the name of the World Bank to the Wolfowitz Bank. Thankfully, he piped down as the movie started.

Things began with what looked to be the usual old-timey cartoon characters in a little conga line, reminding us to be good movie viewers, and not to disturb our neighbors. Soon, these lovable characters were shouted off the screen by an animated heavy metal band, singing/shouting a song about what they'll do with our cell phones or crying babies if either were to go off during the movie. This was very funny. In fact, it was the highlight of the movie.

Once the movie started, the regular characters -- Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad -- appeared, and then went on a mission to, I think, get some kind of exercise machine repaired. They were joined in this pursuit by all of the usual characters -- Carl, their neighbor; Dr. Weird and Steve; Emory and Ogelthorpe, and, of course, Ignignokt and Err, who famously held Boston hostage earlier in the year.

Eventually, they get the exercise machine rolling, and Carl gives it a test spin, which results in the machine morphing into a bigger machine that then threatens all of civilization. I think.

After they get the machine under control, and save civilization, the ATHF-ers go on a quest for Frylock's parents. Or all of their parents. Something like that. Then an eight layer bean burrito appears, and the movie is over.

Sadly, I had been looking forward to this movie for a while. While it was great to see the ATHF gang on the big screen, I was otherwise disappointed. Too much of Dr. Weird, Steve, Emory and Ogelthorpe, and that robot character with the mohawk, and not enough Ignignokt and Err.

As we walked out of the theater, I noticed the Post interns collecting the discarded snack wrappers from Mr. Tony's row. So look for some kind of collage in a future edition.

2007-04-13T22:13:00.000-04:00

Chicken on Board
I left my apartment this morning about 9:00AM to run some errands, at the shopping center at Spout Run and Lee Highway. I had a relatively efficient trip to CVS, and returned to my car to drive over to the Giant. As I was loading my car up, I glanced at the car parked next to me, and noticed what looked like a snow white chicken hopping around in the passenger's seat. I looked away, gathered myself, gave myself a sobriety test (I passed!) and looked again. Indeed it was a chicken, who by this time had noticed me, and was hopping around excitedly just like a puppy dog.

It was a pretty chicken, I guess. It was clean and bright white with red trim around it's face, and seemed very friendly. I looked in the car, and there was chicken feed spread around, though it wasn't really messy. The car looked as neat as a car containing a live chicken and chicken feed could be. I, of course, fumbled to take a picture with my cell phone, which, of course, didn't work, or you'd be looking at it by now. As I was fumbling with the phone, I noticed a guy walking towards the car. He was looking at me, not in an unfriendly way, but I did feel kind of odd thinking it was probably his car, and what would his reaction be to a guy taking a picture of the chicken inside.

His reaction was a friendly: "Chicken pictures, huh?"
Me, articulate as usual: "Yeah, uh, it seems like a nice chicken!"

I put the phone back in my pocket, and we both got in our cars. I noticed that the chicken jumped in his owner's lap as soon as he got in. Just like a puppy!

2007-04-13T07:15:00.000-04:00

Nats Win! TV Announcers Lose!
It was nice to see the Nats break out of their losing streak last night. Jason Bergmann pitched pretty well, saving himself a trip to the minors. There was some nice clutch hitting and major league level fielding. And Cardiac Chad Cordero worked his magic, and provided the drama, in the ninth inning as he got his first save.

I've watched several games on MASN by now, enough to have some thoughts on the broadcast. Bob Carpenter and Don Sutton do absolutely nothing for me. They are boring and humorless and they never shut up. I've had the MLB Extra Innings package for the past five seasons or so, so I've heard all kinds of announcers. Some of them actually have personalities. These two do not. Some of them are funny. I'm not talking Dave Chappelle funny, and I'm sure not asking for Bob Uecker, but there are some announcers out there (Jerry Remy, even Daron Sutton) who are able to enhance the enjoyment of watching the game with some humor. These guys are dry, dry, dry.

Some examples of the wit of Bob Carpenter: During one of the slumping Brian Schneider's at bats last night, Carpenter noted that Schneider was "due." He was so "due," that if this was a library, he'd owe us some money. Ha. He also suggested, during a ridiculous conversation about how dark it was in the catcher's, uh, crotch area, making it difficult for the pitcher to pick up signs, that maybe they should add some runway lights. Good one, Bob.

Sutton, who I was shocked to see still sporting that Mark Moseley-esque perm, takes himself altogether too seriously, it's like he's giving a lesson on Baseball 101. One of the things I liked about Ron Darling two years ago was that he was able to express his insight and opinions, as a former high level player, in a low-key and interesting manner. Don Sutton seems to think he invented baseball. He's so smart that he has the ability to foresee where players will hit balls, as last night he implored us all to watch Brian McCann drive a ball to right to advance a runner. McCann hit a hot shot to Ryan Zimmerman, which, Sutton said, was a result of great pitching by Bergmann. Alrighty. I guess it didn't have anything to do with that big hole on the left side of the infield.

Also, they just never shut up. Via Extra Innings, I get to listen to Vin Scully sometimes. He has the great ability to let the game speak for itself. I know these early games haven't been saying much, but these guys seem to have had way to much coffee. There's a feature where you can send them a question through the MASN website. Look for "Tadcranky from Arlington asks 'Can you guys shut up for 30 seconds?'" I listened to the end of last night's game on the radio last night, and the radio guys (who are great) talk less than Carpenter and Sutton.

I've seen bits and pieces of the pre- and post-game shows with Ray Knight and Johnny Holliday up until last night, when I saw all of the post-game show. Ray Knight seems to not know what to do with his hands. Johnny Holliday, with all due respect, seems to not be at his best. Last night he stumbled over whether John Smoltz (who it sounded like he was calling Schmoltz a couple of times) was the losing pitcher of record. Once he determined that he was, he made a big thing about how the Nationals had handed him his first loss of the season. Uh, Johnny, it's April 12. Smoltz is now 1-1. Settle down.

The weirdest thing about the post-game show is when they go to what seems to be called Ray's Roundtable, which involves Knight going to the other side of the set. Then we get a camera angle from behind Knight, where we see mostly his back, and we see a wee Johnny Holliday across the set. Then they talk to each other, just like they did before when they were standing next to each other. I pray that one day Johnny will cup his hands around his mouth and yell "Red Rover, Red Rover, send Ray Knight over."

I know it's early and everything, and at least we can actually watch the games. But, as with everything else Nats-related these days, there's a lot of room for improvement.

2007-04-10T05:08:00.000-04:00

What The Nats Need
I picked up the Post this morning, and a headline across the top of Sports said Nats Need a Leader With a Powerful Bat. That was good news to me, as I figured it must signify that they've solved their pitching woes. Not quite the case, as it turned out.

Barry Svrluga admits that, yeah, the pitching sucks, but "Moreover, observers wonder who is the real threat, the man who will make pitchers cower each time up." Uh, Ryan Zimmerman? Maybe Austin Kearns? Who else would it be? If you tell me Kory Casto, I'm going to take a leap right out of this blog.

He says that "the offensive struggles -- and, indeed, the overall performance -- is putting focus on the club's young leadership group of catcher Brian Schneider, Zimmerman, Kearns and infielder Felipe Lopex, the players singled out to help hold things together in the clubhouse. Will that group be able to convey how to handle these struggles?" Dude, they're the ones that are struggling! There's no one else, unless, like Frank Robinson, you're going to blame Ryan Church for this. Soriano is gone, remember? Stan the Plan gave him up, and decided to spend the money on cherry trees, which will result in tens of thousands of previously disinterested Washingtonians becoming avid baseball fans and spending their evenings and their cash in Southeast DC, gazing at cherry trees and a fancy scoreboard.

I think the offense will get better. They've been playing from behind in, literally, every at bat. And it's been like 30 degrees out there most of the time, unfortunately their opponents have the huge advantage of getting to hit against Nationals' pitchers. Mark Zuckerman, in the Washington Times, points out that the Nats "became the first team in the modern era to trail at least 4-0 in each of its first six games." That's a problem.

Here's what I'd like to see this week: Cory Kasto hitting a cut-off man, Jason Bergmann walking fewer than one batter per inning, something positive for us to cling to from Matt Chico, and a quality start by Jerome Williams. And I'd like to see Dmitri Young go another week without the inevitable injury that will result in Robert Fick ending up playing first base. While all that may seem wildly optimistic, I think it's a little more realistic that waiting for the second coming of Cal Ripken to suddenly appear in a Nationals' uniform.

2007-04-06T18:09:00.000-04:00

SI Version of Red Sox Nats Trade Talks
The Nationals get a substantial amount of attention in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated. In the SI Players section, Nook Logan gets The Questions. Nothing really interesting, though. If he wasn't playing baseball, he'd be playing basketball, he says. And if he were commissioner for the day, he'd let kids come to games free. Which, you know, they pretty much do, in that kids at games aren't generally paying for their tickets. But I know what he's saying. Maybe he can establish Nook's Nook, and buy some tickets for kids. He can actually sit up there with them, too, for the time being at least.

The big photo leading off Inside This Week in Sports is Ryan Zimmerman sliding into third on Opening Day. It's a great shot, you see the ball, and him on his way to beating the ball. But it also makes you realize that one of these days Ryan's going to suffer a hand injury sliding like that. And the way things have been going in Washington these days, it could be pretty soon.

But the most interesting Nats mention, in Inside Baseball by John Heyman, is that, before the Sox decided to return Jonathan Papelbon to the bullpen, Chad Cordero was their "best trade option." Except, in exchange, the Nats wanted Clay Buchholz, Craig Hansen (both 2005 first round picks) and Jon Lester (a 2002 second round pick). Right. Maybe they would have thrown Manny in, too. I love Chad Cordero and everything, but that seems a little steep. Not too many players have started out in the bullpen and had long, successful careers as closers. Gregg Olson had about four good years for the O's, if I remember correctly. Needless to say, Boston deemed the move "ridiculous." Apparently they're not completely sold on "The Plan" either.

2007-04-04T12:11:00.000-04:00

Nats Play Down to Their Potential
The Nats are two games into their season, and things look pretty scary. Going into the season, two of the biggest question marks, from a non-pitching standpoint, were Nook Logan and Christian Guzman, who both immediately got hurt in Game #1. That's bad luck. After the game, when it was suggested to him that he might be moving back to shortstop, Felipe Lopez, the ultimate team guy, said, as reported by Barry Svrugla in the Washington Post, that "I'm playing second. I don't want to switch. I don't want to start all over again. My mind is set for second base." By game time yesterday, Lopez had apparently changed his story. On the MASN broadcast, Bob Carpenter (maybe it was Don Sutton) said that Lopez had misunderstood the question, and he'd be happily playing shortstop starting on Wednesday. Which is good, because I don't really want to ever see Josh Wilson play shortstop again, after yesterday's debacle.

As far as replacing Nook, Kory Casto was called up, and even had a hit yesterday. Casto had a good spring, and now he has a chance to show off his stuff. Let's hope that he does better than previous young Nationals outfielders.

It was difficult to fully guage Shawn Hill's performance last night, as he got no help from his fielders, and had a very long first inning. After that, he settled down somewhat, and I suppose there is some room to be hopeful, although maybe not quite as hopeful as Carpenter and Sutton were, who seem to be unable to utter anything negative.

In an hour or so, Matt Chico toes the mound for his major league debut. I hope that he doesn't get discouraged, and that he, uh, "can lend a helping hand."

2007-03-28T08:55:00.000-04:00

Boswell Gets a Jump on April Fool's Day
Washington Post sports columnist Tom Boswell shows off his sly wit in a column this morning, by predicting mind-blowingly great things from the post-2007 Nationals who, he says "will have resources that surpass any team in Los Angeles, Boston or Chicago and may equal the Yankees in their ability to land a free agent." Right, and wasn't it great for Joe Gibbs to come out of retirement to return the Redskins to their glory days?

Boswell attributes the Nats' $36 million dollar payroll (third lowest in baseball, he says) to the genius of Stan Kasten. I attribute it to cheapness. They're saving money so they can spend it on stadium enhancements (cherry trees and a scoreboard is mostly what I hear about, how exciting!), and be poised to, in the future, "sign several of the best players in baseball," which they can do, because they'll be rich when the new ballpark opens next year.

The Nats will be just like the Tigers, who leveraged a new park into a league championship, by developing young players and spending $40.6 million on free agents Magglio Ordonez, Ivan Rodriguez, Kenny Rogers and Todd Jones. I don't argue that the Tigers got great value and great contributions from those guys. But I think it had less to do with genius than luck. Ordonez had been injured most of the two previous years. People weren't exactly pounding the door down for IRod or Kenny Rogers, for several reasons. And anytime you get a good performance from Todd Jones, consider yourself lucky. Things aligned perfectly for the Tigers last year, and that's not likely to happen again, for the Nats or for any other team, anytime soon.

Boswell doesn't mention the Brewers or the Pirates, two teams that have new stadiums and that continue to not be very competitive.

I hate to be this negative about a team that I'll spend the summer following, live and on MASN, as soon as I find it. But things don't look so rosy to me, especially when I read in the very same edition of the Post that only 30,000 seats have been sold for opening day. Opening day! How many people are going to show up for the Nats/Marlins showdown the next day? I don't think the intrigue of the season debut of number two starter Sean Hill is going to fill many seats.

So the plan for this season is this: Emotionally and financially support a team that did absolutely nothing to improve itself this off-season, that features a starting rotation of an injury-prone "ace" and four minor leaguers, and that includes a probable starting first baseman who seems to be a little unbalanced mentally, significantly overweight physically and can't field or run, because we need to trust the genius of Stan Kasten and company (who can't seem to figure out how to do some pretty simple things, like mail season tickets or distribute cheap MP3 players to season ticket holders in a timely manner), and believe that when the new stadium is built people who can't be bothered coming to opening day this year will be presenting Kasten and the Lerners with boatloads of cash that can be used to outbid the Yankees for free agents.

If you believe that, I've got a Damien Jackson autographed bat that I'd like to sell you (for $350). But I hope I'm wrong, and I'll be sitting in section 212 hoping for the best.

2007-03-21T19:59:00.000-04:00

Tadcranky Does Northern California
I've been in Northern California since last Saturday, when I arrived at a hotel in a place called Half Moon Bay, which is 22 miles south of San Francisco, and which I had never heard of until a few months ago, when I booked a meeting there. It's a breathtakingly beautiful place, and it's also breathtakingly expensive, so it was fortunate that I was on my company's tab. Not a lot do do there but play golf and marvel at the coastline and, in my case, work, but I guess it's a nice enough place to be for a few days, even if you have to work.

My work ended this afternoon, though, and we headed to San Francisco for a few days of non-work. We're staying at a neat hotel, called the Hotel Diva, which is very cool, and very reasonable (about $140, including parking!). We got here about 2:00PM, and were warmly greeted by a guy named David, who helped us to our room and showed us around, and exhibited more humanity than any of the overly trained kids that worked at the hotel we stayed at in Half Moon Bay showed during my four days there. Not that they all weren't highly competent. They were just dull, and the poor parking attendants had to wear some very embarassing outfits.

We went to dinner at a soul food restaurant down the street, called farmer brown. I was a little skeptical as we entered, given that the only black person that I saw was my girlfriend, and that the drinking water on the table was spiked with slices of cucumber. It worked out fine, though, as my girlfriend was able to enjoy some ox tail, and I had fried chicken. The ox tail was good, though not as good as that made by my girlfriend. The chicken was very good, though, and I'd have to say that it was better than at our favorite Arlington soul food establishment, Flavors. No offense to the people at Flavors, we still love you.

We walked back to our hotel, dodging the highly aggressive homeless people. I always figured DC was the big leagues for the homeless, but I was wrong. Earlier this afternoon when we were in a cab, I was looking out my window, and accidentally made eye contact with a homeless woman who swiftly strode up to my window, and, fairly politely, asked for a dollar. My girlfriend gave her one, and the woman gave her a big smile, and said, honest to god, "Now I can go buy some crack." This was confirmed by the cab driver, who said "At least she didn't lie."

Tomorrow will be another day of exploring and eating, though I'm most excited about not having to get up at a time that begins with 5 or 6, for the first time in about a week.

2007-03-14T08:58:00.000-04:00

Wednesday Video: Rockpile, from the Early Days of MTV

Here's Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe and the rest of Rockpile, doing Elvis Costello's Girls Talk. I actually remember watching this in college, during a study break in a lounge that had a big TV that was tuned into some new thing called MTV.

2007-03-09T02:30:00.000-05:00

Bob Dupuy Hates Baseball Fans; Loves Money, Bud, Meals

Yesterday, Major League Baseball entered into a deal with DirecTV, that, as far as I can tell, grants exclusivity of its Extra Innings package to DirecTV, with a caveat that, technically, could allow cable television to still distribute the package, but, in reality, won't.

It was late January when it became public that MLB was ready to fully sell-out its non-DirecTV having fans by agreeing to an exclusive contract with DirecTV. This generated what I would consider a high degree of agitation among baseball fans, especially ones like me that live in apartments without balconies, which makes getting DirecTV impossible. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, though, publicly said (according to Scott Miller of cbssportsline.com) that he hadn't heard much criticism of the deal, showing the tone deafness that has characterized his tenure and made him widely despised.

MLB President and Selig henchman Bob DuPuy (the jowly guy on the right in the above pic, kind of looks like the love child of Dick Cheney and Austin Powers' Fat Bastard) evidently spent the time between the revelation of the potential deal and the recent announcement trying to come up with a way to go ahead with the deal, while diverting fan's wrath away from MLB. Because, you know, baseball fans are stupid and contemptible and all. Hey, everybody hates their cable company, how hard can it be to blame them for this?

According to the AP, "the deal contains a provision that allows its 'Extra Innings' package of out-of-market games to remain on cable television if the other incumbent providers agree to match the terms." I'm not entirely sure what this means, which I'm sure is their intention, but I'd think that if the "incumbent providers" were able to match the terms, they would have already done so. Robert Johnson, president of former provider iN Demand, quickly said that his company couldn't agree to these new terms, and called the agreement a "de facto exclusive deal."

I figured that this was going to play out this way. But MLB has added insult to injury by attempting to shift the blame from themselves to the cable companies. This we know, because DuPuy flat out said "In response to the concerns of our fans, baseball has negotiated with DirecTV to offer the package to incumbents. I hope that those fans who have been directing their concerns to us over the last several weeks will now encourage their cable carriers to in fact enlist for this package. Because I just do not give a fuck." Right, because we know how responsive monopolies like cable companies are to their customers. And, yes, I made up that last sentence.

Any time I think Bob DuPuy cannot get any more disgusting or arrogant, he surprises me. Nationals' fans remember that it was DuPuy who, prior to the 2006 season, said, with a straight, puffy face, that the Nationals weren't at all hindered by not having an owner, which he and his daddy Bud had said they would name by the 2005 All Star game. Then the play-offs. Then, basically, whenever the hell they wanted to. Last winter, at the height of renewed controversy about the Nats' new stadium, DuPuy wrote a condescending editorial in the Washington Post, saying that people in Washington should just shut up and do what he and Bud and the gang wanted them to do. He seemed to think it was important to remind us that the Senators left, 30 years previously, to go to a place where there was better fan and governmental support, without mentioning what a lousy owner Bob Short was, and how, other than the monuments, Washington in the 2000s had nothing in common with Washington in the 1970s. He also noted that, in expansions in 1990 and 1995, "Washington's desire to secure a team was easily outmatched by the enthusiasm and commitment of Florida, Colorado, Arizona and Tampa Bay." Right, Bob, those Florida franchises are really strong, nice job there.

So it looks like I'll have a couple hundred extra dollars this spring. Maybe I should send Bob and Bud some chocolates. Doughnuts, maybe.

2007-03-07T08:15:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Video: The President, as a Chimpunk

An SNL TV Funhouse cartoon, by the great Robert Smigel, where Bush (and Cheney and The Sopranos) convert to chipmunkism.

2007-03-02T05:45:00.000-05:00

Bigfoot on the Bay
The authors of Game of Shadows, the book that, they say, "served to crystallize [Barry] Bonds as a systematic drug cheat" have written a new epilogue. It includes some astounding information, from the Giants equipment manager:

Since joining the Giants, Bonds had gone from a size 42 to a size 52 jersey; from size 10 1/2 to size 13 cleats; and from a size 7 1/8 to size 7 3/4 cap, even though he had taken to shaving his head.

What the hell? So his feet , as an adult, grew by almost 25%? He experienced the growth of a teenage boy when he was in his 30's? That's cartoon-like, it's like that episode of The Simpsons when Ken Griffey, Jr., had gargantuanism.

All I know about steroids is what I read, but I had always kind of thought that, given the mentality of a high level athlete where even the slightest physical edge is key, maybe a player using steroids would be able to be 1% stronger, which would result in him hitting the ball maybe .5% harder, which would probably still be significant. But this guy's head has gotten 9% bigger? He's like a science experiment, how much bigger can he get?

This is made more extraodinary by the fact that he's undergone such steroid-induced growth under such crazy scrutiny. Are there low profile juicers out there who don't have to worry about the media or the general public, who can juice their hearts out, that experience even greater growth than Bonds? How could there be, how much can a person grow their feet?

In a few months, Barry will be the Home Run King. Seems like he already is the Steroid King.

2007-02-28T11:07:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Video: The Smithereens Do the Beatles, Bobblehead-style

This speaks for itself.

2007-02-23T08:22:00.000-05:00

Friday Video: Mr. Magoo, Baseball and Beer

So baseball has started, kind of, which is a great opportunity to run a clip of Mr. Magoo doing beer commercials related to baseball.

2007-02-19T16:48:00.000-05:00

Bad Movie Experience
I just got back from a pretty disastrous trip to the movies, thanks to the good folks at Regal Cinemas Ballston Commons 12. I know that expecting to see a movie at 2:10 on a holiday is a bad idea, but we thought we'd give it a try. We made it to Ballston Commons at about 1:50, which I knew was a little risky. We would have had no problem getting a ticket if theater management had an amount of ticket sellers that you would expect to have in the middle of a holiday, at a complex with 12 theaters. I'm no expert in these things, but I think this amount is a number higher than one. This feeling was confirmed by the 40 people in line. We usually go to Regal Cinemas Potomac Yard, where you can buy a ticket from an ATM-like machine, that you see as soon as you walk into the building. As we stood in line, it dawned on me that, since it was the same chain, it would make sense that there'd be such a machine here. My girlfriend held our spot in line, and I looked around. I found two machines, tucked around a corner. I would have felt stupid about not finding them sooner, but there were only two people in line (one of the machines didn't work), so I guess we were all stupid. Everybody has ATM cards now, so the only reason to explain the shortness of the line was that people didn't know the machine was there. Which worked out fine for me.

So my girlfriend left the line, and joined me at the machine, and we bought our tickets. The ticket taker very cheerfully took our tickets and said something completely unintelligible. We got in one of the two lines for concessions. Which barely moved at all. I noticed some anger at the front of the line, and I also noticed that people weren't walking away with popcorn. There were about six people working behind the concession counter, including a guy who was apparently some kind of manager who kept speaking into a microphone that was clipped onto his shirt. Clearly he thought that what he was saying into the mike was going straight into someone's ear, and not being broadcast to everyone in the concession area, which it was. Pretty humorously, I might add. I hope he took that off when he went to the bathroom.

As we got closer to the front of the line, more people were realizing there was a popcorn problem. The guy with the mike was asked when popcorn would be available. "When the machine heats up," he not so helpfully responded.

This was kind of a key issue, because people waiting in line for popcorn were wasting their time, and missing the beginning of their movies. Not exactly the perfect movie experience. A woman in a fur coat halfway down the line loudly asked if popcorn was available. "Not yet," said the manager. "Then why don't you make an announcement, so people know that before they wait in line." "I just did," he muttered, still not realizing that everyone could hear him. Then he instructed someone else to make such an announcement. "People waiting for something besides popcorn should step to the front of the line," the announcement-maker shouted, to the confusion of everyone standing in line. By this time, though, I was at the front of the line.

I ordered two nacho combos. They seemed to have nachos, and they seemed to have sodas, although it took about five minutes to retrieve both. I asked for peppers for the nachos, and was told they didn't have them. Which was the last straw for my girlfriend, who, $22 into my two nacho combo commitment, told me that she didn't want nachos without peppers, and then walked away from the line. Which left me at the front of the line, with two hands and two huge sodas and two nachos to carry, seriously rethinking why I even got out of bed this morning. Well, actually, one nachos, as I just left hers on the counter and mumbled something to the cashier. I balanced my nachos on the two cokes (which was impressive to some of the folks behind me in line) and caught up with my girlfriend, who had calmed down and took pity on me, and relieved me of a soda, spill-free.

At this point it was 2:25. We'd be sitting in the first row, I was guessing. As we walked into the movie theater, I prayed a quick one to the god of excessive movie previews. Amazingly, the theater wasn't crowded, which I attribute to the facts that most everybody was still in line, and that, well, word was out about Norbit. So we got a seat. And the movie hadn't started yet. After that, things went as well as could be expected. Thankfully (kind of), Norbit's the kind of movie that you don't have to worry about the plot getting too complicated, which I appreciated an hour into the movie as I leisurely headed out of the theater to check the popcorn situation. Plenty of corn, no lines.

Norbit actually gets better towards the end. Tadcranky says "The pimps are pretty funny in the wedding scene," is what they could put in the ad, if anyone really cared what I thought. You still kind of wonder what Eddie Murray is thinking, with all these movies where he doesn't look like Eddie Murray. As we left the complex, everyone else was turning their cell phones back on as I took my brain out of my pocket and stuck it back in my head. I noticed that there were four people working the ticket sales windows. And nobody in line...

2007-02-18T14:42:00.000-05:00

Nick Johnson Status: Bad
This links to a video of Nick Johnson at Nats' spring training. Things get started by an intrepid reporter asking Nick if he feels that it's important for him to be here with his teammates, even though he's, ahem, not quite ready to play. Surprisingly, Nick says yes! What a great revealing moment in sports!

I know that Nick being in camp is the right thing to happen, but I'm sure it's not doing great things for the pysche of Austin Kearns, who was involved in the awful collision. Kearns needs to see Nick playing, not limping around and speculating.

The overall interview is certainly not very uplifting. Nick starts out seeming kind of depressed, and he's not very convincing at all when he says he thinks he'll be back by June. I think he's more likely to miss the whole season than to be back by June. Towards the end of the interview, he lightens up a little, which is good. But at the conclusion of the interview, we're given a close-up of him hobbling down the dugout stairs. As I said, not so uplifting.

2007-02-15T10:15:00.000-05:00

Endless Highway: The Music of The Band
This is a cd I've been waiting for for a long time. Yesterday, when everyone else in my office was supposedly "snowed in" I had some time to give it a good listen and make some notes. Here goes, track by track:

This Wheel's on Fire, by Guster: Guster is a band that seems to be successful, and gets a lot of attention, for reasons I don't really understand. They continue to leave me unimpressed with their dirge-like version of a song that deserves a lot more life. There are some cool banjo moments, but that's about it. In The Band's version, Levon Helm attacks his snare drum; in this version, the Guster drummer gives some gentle nudges. I prefer the attack.

King Harvest, by Bruce Hornsby: Hornsby bebops his way through an otherwise jam-bandish version of another great song. This also suffers from the lack of the aggressive drumming that contributed to The Band's greatness.

Makes No Difference, by My Morning Jacket: MMJ is a younger band that I like, even though sometimes I get them mixed up with Kings of Leon. I like this version, it does a great job of capturing the spirit of The Band, in part because of the multiple vocalists. This was recorded at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock.

I Shall Be Released, by Jack Johnson: Pretty much the low point, as Jack Johnson whispers his way through a song that I don't think is meant to be whispered through.

The Weight, by Lee Ann Womack: I really can't stand commercial country music, but I like authentic country, and I wasn't quite sure which category Womack fit into, as I know she's a high profile artist. Based on this, she's the real thing, though, as she gives a sweet version of the song. Initially, I was also struck by how great the back-up vocals were. On review, they were provided by Buddy and Julie Miller, which explains the greatness. If you can't have the Staples Singers singing back-up, the Millers are pretty fine.

Chest Fever, by Widespread Panic: Unsurprisingly, this is my favorite track, as it's one of my favorite songs by The Band, and I also love Panic. John Hermann's keyboards are similar to Garth Hudson's originals, with some cool variations. They're joined by a horn section, including Randall Bramblett (who I'm remiss for not having blogged about his most recent great recording, Rich Someday, which has been in heavy rotation for me for about four months), and showcase new gutarist, and former Allman and friend of Phil Lesh, Jimmy Herring. Widespread Panic seems to have the rare ability to put just the right amount of jamming into their songs. Listening to this song, you realize what a great lyricist Robbie Robertson was: She's stoned said the swede, and the moon calf agreed, I'm like a viper in shock, with my eyes on the clock. I don't know what the hell that means, but I know it's great and I want to listen to it over and over.

Up on Cripple Creek, by Gomez: Gomez is a roots band from the UK. I haven't listened to a lot of their music, but everything I've heard I like. And I like this, too.

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, by the Allman Brothers Band: This is recorded live, and I'd heard it live before. As much as I want to really love it, Greg Allman's vocals are a little too world weary. There are some great guitar moments, though, and, unlike some of the other tracks on this collection, the drumming does Levon Helm proud.

Stage Fright, by Steve Reynolds: I'd never heard of Steve Reynolds before. His website describes him as "mercurial," and a "Canadian expat troubadour." Alrighty. Rick Danko firmly established ownership of this song, so this is a tough task, and Reynolds falls short in this raspy, slowed-down version, that doesn't really capture an emotion, unless you consider whininess an emotion. They both may be Canadian, but Reynolds is no Rick Danko.

Raga Mama Rag, by Blues Traveler: Blues Traveler makes this sound like a post-Lowell George Little Feat song, with, surprise, a big harmonica solo. Pass.

Whispering Pines, by Jakob Dylan: This is a beautiful song, and Jakob Dylan does it justice, no doubt helped out by Jim Keltner on guitar and the production of Joe Henry. There are a lot of nice little instrumental things going on, that makes it something you want to listen to often.

Acadian Driftwood, by The Roches: The Roches clearly "get" The Band, and they do a nice version of this song. Lisa Morsberger plays whistles, which adds to the old-timey sound of the track.

The Unfaithful Servant, by Roseanne Cash: On its own, this is a perfectly fine song, but it doesn't hold up well compared to the original. It's a slow song to begin with, and it's slowed down even more, which appears to be a recurring theme throughout the collection.

When I Paint My Masterpiece, by Josh Turner: Like Lee Ann Womack, Josh Turner is apparently a big name in country music, which made me nervous. But this is good, he's got a nice deep, no frills voice. Combine the voice, which sounds similar to Kevin Russell's, and the banjo and mandolin, it almost sounds more like Turner's doing a Gourds version of a song by The Band. But that's OK by me.

Life is a Carnival, by Trevor Hall: Hall, a 19-year old from South Carolina, provides another minimalist version of a song that was made great by it's intricacies. His voice is what they say is full of character, which in this case isn't really a good thing.

Look Out Cleveland, by Jackie Greene: This is an earnest effort, I guess, and it sticks pretty close to the original. If you tied one of Levon Helm's arms behind his back.

Rockin' Chair, by Death Cab for Cutie: I've never really gotten this band, and the only word I can come up with to describe this version is "sleepy." There's really nothing special about it, I don't even know why they bothered. The cleverness of having unusually long pauses at the end of phrases eludes me.

There you have it. So there are six songs I really don't like, and a couple that I can take or leave. And some great ones. As a set, it shows how great The Band was, just a rare combination of great songwriting and overall musicianship. Their retirement seemed heroic at the time, but in its aftermath, it just seems sad. Richard Manuel and Rick Danko, whose post-Last Waltz recordings with Eric Andersen and Jonas Fjeld were great, are both gone. Garth Hudson is 70 years old, and presumably still making some keyboards sing somewhere. And Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson hate each other. That hurts.

2007-02-14T09:36:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Video: HBO's Extras

This is a clip from Ricky Gervais' HBO series Extras. This particular clip is about the funniest thing I've seen on TV since episode 4 of the original (BBC) The Office, which was also by Ricky Gervais. In this clip, three dorks showcase their womanizing skills. Be patient, things peak during the seltzer water incident.

2007-02-10T11:28:00.000-05:00

Mooninites Killed Anna Nicole

While the official word is that the autopsy of Anna Nicole Smith, by the Florida firm I Can't Believe I'm a Medical Examiner, doesn't give any clues as to the gold-digging reality star's demise, fingers are starting to point at the two Mooninites -- Ignigknot, the haughty, green one, and Err, the smaller, purple, irascible one -- who recently held the city of Boston hostage. The Mooninites are one-dimensional cartoon characters from the Moon, convinced of the superiority of their people, and determined to establish world domination. To further this goal, sources say that they wanted to procreate with a multi-dimensional being, to create a new race with the intellect of the Mooninites, yet with some more meat on their backsides. The buxom Anna Nicole Smith was selected to be the mother of this new generation, and sources say that Ignigknot was the father of her baby.

The unstable and highly irritable Err, it is reported, grew despondent over the relationship between Ignigknot and Smith, a despondency that reached it's peak on Thurday, when he exclaimed "Eat this," and shot Smith with a Mooninite death ray. In all previous cases, targets of the slow-moving death ray have been able to avoid harm by just stepping away from it. But the heavily medicated Smith did not notice the ray, and took a full-on hit. This would explain why, when the lifeless Smith was discovered, there was no "physical injury, such as blunt force trauma, gunshot wound, stab wounds or asphyxia," according to the medical examiner, who also said that no illegal drugs were found in her room, only Valium and antibiotics. Nor were pills "visible to the naked eye" found in her body. There were "weird track marks" on the carpeting in her room, which were probably from the space ship that Err used to flee the scene. The whereabouts of Err and Ignigknot are unknown.

2007-02-04T15:20:00.000-05:00

Travels with Dummy
It was 8:00AM on Friday, and my girlfriend and I had just gotten out of a cab at Reagan, and were giving our bags to a curbside attendant, in plenty of time for our 10:00AM flight. I noticed the attendant gave me a funny look when I told him our ultimate destination was San Diego. He looked at my Expedia print-out, circled something, gave it back to me and pronounced that our flight left from Dulles. Oops.

We hustled to the lower level, and got in the cab line, always a mystery to me. We told the attendant our destination, then about 10 cabs later a cab was waved over that was considered worthy of driving us to Dulles. I told the driver our plight, and I admitted to being stupid. He said we'd make it, no problem. He zoomed down the parkway, to the exit to the beltway. And we hit a standstill. At this point, the driver was as agitated as I was, as I mentally considered our options, and the price of each, if we miss the flight. Then the much anticipated "wintry mix" started. Great. Fortunately, it amounted to about five minutes of freezing rain. (Another nice job, weather folks!) About the time the rain stopped, the traffic broke up, and we soon zoomed past an Acura that looked like it had caught fire. And I thought I was having a bad morning.

By the time we got to the toll road, we were cruising along, the cabbie was up to about 80. At 9:00AM, I saw a sign that said we were eight miles from the airport, and I figured we were OK. Unless something else dumb occurred. We made it the eight miles pretty fast, thanked and tipped our cabbie profusely, and went through cubside checkout, this time without a hitch. The security lines were reasonable, and neither of us got selected for special attention. We shuttled to our gate. It was 9:30AM. We had time to grab some pretzels, and then boarded, wedging ourselves into our seats on the crowded plane. I remember when I used to travel, pretty often I'd be on a plane that was less than half-full. That doesn't happen anymore.

So we made it. I mentally calculated the money I had saved by not missing the plane, and tried to take a nap. Six hours later and a quick stop in Chicago, we were in San Diego. Another crisis averted.

2007-01-29T10:25:00.000-05:00

Michael Wilbon Clears Up the MLB/DirecTV Deal
Major League Baseball's Extra Innings package has been one of the joys of my life. Most every night during baseball season, the package gives you eight to ten games. You can watch ridiculous amounts of baseball, for something like $190. And I do. Well, I did.

It seems that MLB, in its zeal to squeeze every possible penny that it can out of its product, is making a deal with DirecTV, whereby you can only get Extra Innings if you have DirecTV. People like me, who live in crappy apartments without balconies, can't get DirecTV, because it involves a dish that has to be mounted somewhere. So millions of baseball fans, and me, are out of luck, and baseball owners will get a couple of million dollars extra a year, which will allow them to do stuff like further overpay sorry pitchers like Gil Meche and Jason Marquis. I guess the Nationals will use the money to, I don't know, further upgrade the quality of the concessions at RFK, since they don't like to spend money on stuff like players.

There has been a lot of outrage about this, and it was addressed in Michael Wilbon's chat today. Michael Wilbon is a pretty big deal these days, Disney/ESPN just signed him to a new contract for a zillion dollars, and he's going to be doing the NBA on ABC, as well as some NFL. Unlike his colleague Tony Kornheiser, he even finds time to write a newspaper column, and he regularly appears in a Washington Post chat, which is usually interesting, sometimes angry, and sometimes incomprehensible. Here's the exchange:

Dulles, Va.: Any comments on MLB's proposed sellout to DirecTV? As one of many in this region that root for a team out of the area -- Bronx Bombers all the way, this deal stinks. It's one more body shot to the loyal fan. Seven hundred million dollars is a lot to walk from, but maybe MLB will do something in the interest of the game, for once.
Michael Wilbon: You'll still be able to see the Nats locally. What are you talking about? You think because MLB goes exclusively to DirecTV people won't be able to see their teams locally? That's wrong. The NFL has an exclusive deal with DirecTV, Sunday Ticket, that is the model for the MLB agreement, I'm sure. But that doesn't mean you can't watch the Redskins locally. What those of us who have DirecTV can do is go to a bank of channels, say 765-775, and watch any game, every game. I'll pay something like $229 a year and be able to see every single game of the MLB schedule that isn't on national TV already...You need to find out more about what you'll be able to see over the air or on local cable...don't despair just yet. Now, if you don't get DirecTV and that MLB package you won't be able to see the Yankees or Cubs or Angels or Mariners...whatever...But you can't see them now anyway...

Uh, thanks, Michael, that makes me feel much better. I guess that kind of insight is why he's pulling in the big bucks.

2007-01-26T04:40:00.000-05:00

I Shot My Movers

(Based on a true story, and with apologies to J. Hendrix)

Hey-ay, Mr. Homeland Security
A-where you goin’ wit that gun a-yos?
Hey-ay, Mr. Homeland Security
I said where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?
All-right
I’m goin’ down to shoot the movers
You know I don’t like that new bedroom set

Yeah!

I’m goin’ down to shoot the Marlo movers
They been bangin’ up my paint with my new bedroom set
Huh! That ain’t too cool

A-hey-ay, Mr. Homeland Security
I heard you shot those movers down
You shot ‘em down

Hey-ay, Mr. Homeland Security
I heard you shot the movers down
They’re goin’ downtown

Yeah!

Yes I did, I shot ‘em
My ol’ lady doesn’t like all those dings in our walls

A-yes I did, I shot ‘em both
I told ‘em I know the County Executive
And then I gave ‘em the gun
I shot ‘em

Mr. Homeland Security, where you goin’?
Alright!
Go get a new bedroom set,
Maybe wait for Presidents' Day sales

Yeah!
Ooh, dig this!

Ah! Alright!

Ooo-oo-ooo Mr. Homeland Security, where you gonna shop now
Hey-ay Mr. Homeland Security, look out!
Where you gonna find movers, now?
Where you gonna find, movers now?

Well, dig this
(Hey-ay-ay-ay-ay, Mr. Homeland Security)
I’m going way down south
Way down to North Carolina way
They got some outlets there, outlets there

(Hey-ay-ay Joe, where you gonna go now)
I’m goin’ way down south
I’ll just rent a U-Haul
Move the bedroom set my own damn self
Hire some guys hangin’ outside 7-11, outside 7-11

(Hey-ay, Mr. Homeland Security where you gonna go)
A-ain’t no Marlo movers comin’ for me
They ain’t getting near my stuff

You better believe, right now

I gotta go now

Hey-hey-hey, Mr. Homeland Security
You better head on down
Goodbye ev’rybody

2007-01-24T09:03:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Video: Fred Flintstone as Tony Soprano

This is the beginning of an episode of the Adult Swim cartoon, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, where Harvey has to defend The Dabba Don, who happens to be Fred Flintstone. I know it sounds crazy. I highly recommend the entire episode.

2007-01-23T14:13:00.000-05:00

Crazy College Kids, UNC-Style
While on a teleconference this morning, I was breezing through The Daily Tarheel, and came across the following letter to the editor:

Student disappointed in the conduct of a few fans

TO THE EDITOR:

I was very upset about the conduct of a few of our fans at the Georgia Tech game. I am not a big basketball person, but I got some tickets and gave it a chance.I was far behind on homework, but I went anyway, and took my books with me. I was heckled by surrounding fans, and some even purposefully screamed so loud that I could not concentrate.I had to leave early so that I could finish my work and still get to bed at a reasonable hour.I am not condemning all Tar Heel fans, I'm just disappointed that a few had to tarnish the reputation of everyone
else.

Andrew Noland
Freshman
Undecided

This, of course, is a joke. Right? Some further investigation led me to find that some of the more rabid Carolina fans think that some of their classmates aren't demonstrative enough at games. Given my recollection of my college days and the fact that UNC has one of the best college basketball programs in the country (to my chagrin), I find this hard to believe. But there are many things about today's youth that puzzle me (like what's with guys and those hairstyles where the front goes straight up?). So I think Andrew is poking fun at some of his calmer classmates, which is a bold move for a freshman. It seems obvious to me, but it doesn't seem obvious to other readers, who chime in with their attacks on young Andrew. Some just think he's an "odd kid." I guess the moral of the story is that if you want to indulge in satire (or sarcasm, in the case of a commenter named Laura) at UNC, you need to label it as such.

Good luck, Andrew.

2007-01-22T10:57:00.000-05:00

Live from the Nationals Winter Caravan
I just returned from an extended lunch, spent at the downtown ESPN Zone, one of the first stops of the Nationals Winter Caravan. Manager Manny Acta, pitcher Mike O'Connor and outfielder Nook Logan were there, along with announcers Charlie Slowes and David Jageler, mascot Screech, and assorted p.r. and sales types.

I hadn't participated in previous such Caravans. My understanding was that this would be an autograph session only, so I expected to get to the ESPN Zone and stand in a line. It was much more civilized that this, though. They had a room set up for the session, and people were scattered at tables, having lunch and waiting for the festivities. I took a seat and ordered a burger.

I shared a table with a couple of other fans, both very enthusiastic about the Nats. They shared my excitement about the new stadium, along with my trepidation about formerly poodle-headed Don Sutton. I tried to start a movement to draft John Lowenstein, but that received blank gazes from my new friends. The crowd wasn't big, maybe 60 people, including some kids who were, I guess, enjoying a snow day. The kids flipped out for Screech, of course. My tablemates and I talked about how popular Screech is with kids, and they agreed with me that they don't really get the adults who indulge in Screech-bashing, particularly the guy who always participates in the Post's on-line chats, whining about the fact that Screech doesn't remove his hat, which seems to be sewn to his head, during the national anthem. Get another crusade.

About 2:00PM, the diminutive Charlie Slowes greeted the audience, and reviewed what was going to happen (one autograph only! -- which I guess was bad news to the hardcore autograph dealers planning to finance their kids' educations by selling Nook Logan's signature), and said they had time for some questions. Mike O'Connor was asked, if he had a free pass to give one hitter, who would he give it to. Like me, Mike didn't really understand the question, but he went with it, and said that he thought Miguel Cabrera would be one guy he'd rather walk than pitch to. Manny Acta was asked what the Nats rotation was shaping up to be. He responded that the Nats had petitioned the league to only play once a week, so John Patterson could pitch every game. That got a big laugh, even from projected starter Mike O'Connor, sitting next to his manager. I presume they had met before. I decided that it would be detrimental to the festive mood of the Caravan to follow-up that question by pointing out that even if they played weekly, they'd be screwed after week #3, which is when Patterson is projected to go on the DL. In any case, Manny was very entertaining, it's almost like they set out to get a new manager who was the anti-Frank Robinson.

After a woman proposed that Nook Logan should race her young son (Nook didn't look so thrilled) and, of course, right after my burger arrived, we were told to line up for autographs. As we went through the line, we were each given a red, white and blue Nats hats (with Bud Light logos on the back). Manny and the players were gracious, the kids in line in front of me posed for pictures with all three of them. Neither Logan or O'Connor are physically imposing guys, I think if he needs to keep them in line, Manny could easily put either one in a headlock. Nook Logan looks a little like Dave Chapelle.

Everything went smoothly, I was able to finish the rest of my burger and get back to the office before anyone knew I was missing. Next week at the ESPN Zone, there's some kind of cook-off involving O'Connor, Ryan Zimmerman and Screech. Screech is going to fire up some of his famous wings.

2007-01-20T18:32:00.000-05:00

Me and the Fire Department
A week or so ago, I got home from work a little early, and decided to get a jump on dinner before I went to pick my girlfriend up from her job. I had two pots going on burners, I was cooking rice in one pot, and stewing chicken in another pot. (I think I was stewing chicken. I had chicken broth in a pot and I was using the hot broth to cook the chicken. Stewing, right?)

Things boiled and/or stewed along nicely, then it was time for me to leave. I got myself together, and took some trash to the trash room, which is right across the hall from my apartment. My apartment door closed behind me. I needed to return briefly to the apartment, to turn the burners off. I put my key in the doorknob, and instead of doing what it had to do to let me in, the whole doorknob rotated. It's hard to describe, but the upshot of it was that the lock was broken. The more I tried to manipulate it, the more it broke. I wasn't getting in.

This was a quandary. It was 7:15PM, the building management office was closed. In one of many tenant-friendly policies, they've recently instituted a policy whereby if you are locked out when the office is closed, you're basically out of luck. You need to call a locksmith. Though I wasn't locked out (this will be a recurring theme), I thought it was logical to assume that management wasn't going to do much to help me in this situation, I didn't even know how I'd be able to reach them. And I was concerned, because two burners were on, which could possibly lead to a fire. Maybe this would take hours, maybe it would take 15 minutes. I didn't know.

I knew if I called a locksmith, it would take a while, and god knows what would happen with the stove. After trying the lock one more time, I dialed 411 on my cell phone and asked for the non-emergency fire department number. A fireman answered, and I explained my problem. He said I should hang up and call 911. So that's what I did. In the meantime, I found the "emergency" number for my building, and called that. That connected me to a guy in someplace like Bethesda, who never really could hear what I was saying, and didn't really seem to grasp the situation. I basically said, "I can't get into my apartment, the lock is broken, I've got the oven on and don't want to start a fire, and I've called the Fire Department."

Then I waited. Within 10 minutes or so, the firemen arrived. I told them what was up. I gave them my keys. They agreed -- the lock was broken. They then started using their various tools to try to pop the lock. They seemed to be having a harder time than they had expected, but I think they were starting to get into the challenge of it. All this time, I'm feeling particulary idiotic, because I know other people in my building are seeing what's going on and thinking that some idiot has called the Fire Department because he locked himself out of his apartment. People were walking down the hallway, saying "You're locked out?" "No," I'd reply, holding my keys up, "The lock's broken. And I've got burners on."

Then a building maintenance guy materialized. He waved a big ring of keys in the air. The firemen look at him and immediately said, "He's not locked out, the lock's broken." They understood! Then the building manager showed up. We have a long history of disliking each other, because she is completely incompetent. Two summers ago, I realized in early May that my air conditioning didn't work. I told her about this weekly for about six weeks. She sent a maintenance man up, always when I wasn't home, and would say that it would be fixed. That never happened. Finally, in late June, on a morning when the temperature in my apartment reached 90 degrees, I told her I would not leave the office until she came up to my apartment. As soon as she walked in, she said, "God, it's hot in here. We need to move you to another apartment." She said the building would pay for the movers. The movers, who she selected and booked, showed up, did their job, and told me how much they were owed. I sent them to the management office. It was a Friday morning, and the office, inexplicably, was closed. The movers weren't going anywhere until they got paid. I didn't blame them. So I gave them my credit card. By the afternoon, the office was open. I told the manager what happend, and, instead of thanking me for paying and telling me how to get reimbursed, she actually ridiculed me for paying them. Shows what kind of person she is. A bad one. There's also the incident where she refused to get the lifeguard an umbrella, which one of my neighbors suggested as a way to help prevent the poor guy from getting skin cancer. But that's another digression.

So the firemen were still trying to get in the door, and she showed up. She immediately looked at me, and said, "I can't believe you called the Fire Department because you locked yourself out!" "The lock is broken," I, and two of the fireman, yelled. I proceed to go off, explaining to her the situation, and telling her that I did what I did because I was concerned about a fire breaking out. "Well, no one's blaming you," she said. "You just were," I pointed out, as my face turned brighter shades of red, and the firemen laughed.

A few minutes later, by using, basically, increasingly bigger hammers, the lock was popped. The firemen quickly left, I thanked them and asked if I had to sign anything. I thought they might want to go into the apartment, to make sure there was no fire, but no. I think they just wanted to get away from the manager. I checked on the pots, they were simmering away, no problem. Shortly thereafter, my girlfriend and I were enjoying chicken and rice, as the maintenance guy installed a new lock.

So the Arlington Fire Department is high on my list. They managed to take care of the problem, kindly and efficiently and without making me feel like a jerk. And my building manager is even lower on my list. I took the whole episode as some kind of sign -- I need to move.

2007-01-17T09:03:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Video: Da Bears

I'm thinking the Bears will be playing their last game of the season this weekend. But don't tell these guys. From an SNL back in one of the eras where the writing was not at its best. Still a classic skit, though.

2007-01-14T08:37:00.000-05:00

The Flight 90 Crash and Nils Lofgren
Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Air Florida Flight 90 hitting the 14th St. Bridge, killing 74 passengers and four people who were on the bridge. I remember that day well. It was snowy, I was home from college for Christmas break. I generally worked during those breaks, taking crazy temporary jobs with Manpower. But I was home that day, I think it was the last day before I returned to school. I remember spending a lot of time watching the aftermath of the crash on tv. Occasionally, I'd go outside and check out the snow, sometimes you'd hear the wail of emergency vehicles heading to or from the crash site, sometimes you could hear the rhythm of rescue helicopters. It was a sad situation.

That night, me and a couple of my friends (let's call them Shortstop and Celtics Fan) had tickets to see Nils Lofgren at the Bayou. This was supposed to be our last night out together before going back to school, we were looking forward to that, and, of course, to seeing Nils. Due to the snow, and the fact that because of the crash traffic was screwed up, we figured the show would be cancelled. We called the Bayou every hour, and finally got somebody who answered, and said that the show was still on. Actually, both shows were still on, he was doing an early one and a later one. So if we didn't go, we would be out the cost of the ticket (probably $12 or so back then). And besides, we really wanted to go. SS and I knew that we weren't going to be getting to use the family vehicles, I didn't even think that the roads were cleared enough to get into or out of my neighborhood. But CF lived only a block or so from Washington Blvd., which would have been plowed, and he had his own car and he was tenacious and wasn't going to be stopped by a near blizzard. So we devised a plan, where SS and I would walk to the Surplus Center, on Washington Blvd., where we would meet CF in his car. I'm still not quite sure on how I sold my parents on the fact that this was a good idea.

The plan worked. SS and I met outside of Surplus Center, and were soon joined by CF. Wilson Blvd. was plowed, so we were able to make it to Key Bridge. I don't recall how we made it through Georgetown, but we did. Due to everything that happened that day, it was a small crowd. The show was great. I remember being in the back of the balcony at the Bayou, where you couldn't see the stage but you could see Nils apparently jumping higher and higher in the air, he seemed super-human. Once I moved up, I could see that he was using a mini-tramp. Impressive.

We were able to stay for the second show, so we got a great dose of Nils. Afterwards, since we were 20 and everything, we thought we'd try to see how close we could get to the 14th St. Bridge. We decided on making an approach from the 9th St. Tunnel (I think, it was some tunnel, and I can't think of any other one that it could be). We didn't make it that close to the bridge before we were stopped by one of a zillion cops. He asked us what we were doing, we said we were just coming back from a concert. He suggested we go home, good advice that we took.

That was a long time ago, I feel like I've gone back and forth on that bridge a million times since then. It doesn't really snow here anymore, I think yesterday it got as high as 70. Nils has achieved a different kind of fame, as Springsteen's guitarist. The Bayou has been closed for too long a time. I still have a lot of great times with Shortstop, but, sadly, Celtics Fan hasn't been around for a long time.

2007-01-10T22:27:00.000-05:00

Piola Blah
Wednesday evening, my girlfriend and I continued our accidental Restaurant Week tradition of going to a restaurant not participating in Restaurant Week by going to Piola, a relatively new restaurant in Rosslyn. Piola is a pizzeria that got its start 20 years ago in Treviso, Italy. Since then, according to its website, "Piola's quality is now sought after by discriminating and trend-setting international clientele in the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Chile." After eating there, I'm not quite sure why.

There was a pretty big buzz when Piola opened. It sounded cool, looked interesting from the outside, and I was looking forward to trying it. I braced myself to compete with the "discriminating and trend-setting" masses, when we arrived there at about 7:00PM. We had back-up plans, but we didn't have to worry, as the restaurant was more than half empty. There must have been something even trendier going on somewhere else. Maybe a coffee cupping (I'm kidding!). We started out with bruschetta. It was OK, the bread was good enough, the tomatoes tasted fresh. It could have used some more garlic.

My girlfriend had milanesine piola, described as "breaded beef cutlets, on a mixed green's bed, cherry tomatoes and sauteed potatoes." It was OK, the cutlets tasted, well, decent. I'm not sure what type of meat is used for such a thing, but it tasted like the same kind of cut that's used for Steak-Umms. The potatoes were good. This cost $12.95.

There are almost 50 different kinds of pizza available; many of them are similar, and they all have Italian names that really don't mean too much to me. Like chieti (tomato sauce, mozzarella, chicken and arugola) or grenoble (tomato sauce, mozzarella, brie and fresh tomatoes). After deliberation, I went with the modena (tomato sauce, mozzarella and parma ham), which was $11.95 for a pretty big pizza, more than enough for one hungry blogger. I guess the thing with Piola's pizza is that the crust is supposedly more authentically Italian -- very thin and crispy. Normally, that's fine by me. It loses it's appeal, though, when there are spots on the bottom of the pizza that are burned. Maybe that's part of the authenticity, who knows. Other than the burnt spots, the pizza was all right. The ham was good, the cheese and tomato, while sparse, tasted fresh. Mostly it reminded me of those frozen thin crust Wolfgang Puck pizzas that you can buy at the grocery store for $6.00. Except, uh, those were better, and I'm able to cook them in my oven without burning them. (I recommend the white pizza with spinach.)

We each had dessert, she had that Italian classic torta di mele and gelato (apple pie and vanilla ice cream). I had the torta nera and gelato (chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream). I guess "torta" means cake and pie in Italian. Makes things easier, I guess. My girlfriend liked her pie, and I thought the cake was great, it made up a little for the pizza.

Pizza-wise, I'd say the whole concept of Piola's is a lot of hype about nothing really that special. Even though the great Pizza Pantry is closed, I don't have much difficulty getting a pretty good pizza in this town, and next time I feel the urge, I'll probably go to Luigi's.

As we left the still mostly-empty restaurant, we looked wistfully at Cafe Asia next door, which was packed with people looking like they were enjoying their spicy Chinese ravioli, General Tao shrimp, lime chicken and mojitos. We'll make a better choice next time.

2007-01-10T13:12:00.000-05:00

The Coffee People
I was reading the Post as I was waiting for the subway this morning (no crazy delays, derailments, or deaths -- good job, guys!), and I noticed that the front page of the Food section featured a big picture of an unshaven guy sticking his nose into a glass of amber liquid. This, of course, got my attention. Turns out, the liquid was coffee and the unshaven guy was part of what they call a "cupping," which the article describes as "a formalized way to evaluate bean characteristics." That would be coffee beans. I'm not a big coffee guy (even so, my feelings are kind of hurt about never being invited to a cupping), but this whole process, and the article describing it, just struck me as comical. Nicholas Cho, the owner of Murky Coffee, and a guy with a good p.r. person, led the cupping, which apparently was done for the Post. Cho seems like quite a character. As participants bring a spoon full of coffee to their lips, he tells them that "You want to spray the coffee across the palate. Be careful not to burn your mouth." After the cuppers apparently swish the spoonful of coffee around their mouth for a while, they then spit it into a plastic cup.

It gets better (or worse). In another article in today's Food section, Cho (I told you he had a good p.r. guy) enlightens us on the hot chocolate that he serves at his shop. It costs $5, and he instructs his baristas not to answer customers' questions about the drink (like how big it is, or why it would cost $5, I guess). He claims this is because it's a "social experiment." (I told you he was quite a character.) Apparently he's trying to say something about the hot chocolate, maybe justify the mystery or the high cost of it, when he says, "If you were forced to jump once, it sticks with you, and you're part of the club." I have no idea what that means, but I think I'll pass on being part of that club.

2007-01-10T09:08:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Video: It's Smithereens Week In Washington!

The next week is a big one for the Smithereens, as they get ready for the release next Tuesday of Meet the Smithereens, a Beatles tribute recording. On Friday, they'll be at the State Theatre in Falls Church, as will I, where they'll be playing the whole disk (12 songs, 28 minutes, is what the Beatles' version was), as well as the usual Smithereens rockage, probably including this, Blood and Roses , from their first album Especially for You, which came out in, gulp, 1986, and was produced by the great Don Dixon, who I mention because he does that great song, Praying Mantis, that's been running through my head now for about 20 years.

See you Friday.

2007-01-07T15:26:00.001-05:00

January 8 Sports Illustrated in Review: Wrap-Ups, Previews and Pistol Pete
It's the first week of the NFL playoffs, and who would have thought that Jeff Garcia is on the cover. Insane. He's wearing some crazy-looking shoes, and it appears as if he has a sweatband around his left ankle. Don't tell Scott Skiles.

And on the inside:

Leading Off - Ohio State hoopster Mike Conley, Jr. shows the family athletic ability that made his father a champion triple-jumper by trying to fly over a guy from Florida, who probably regretted trying to take that charge. A montage of bowl game shots. A picture of Gerald Ford, who evidently played footbal before they had helmets, along with a nice tribute to him, by Richard Hoffer. I remember reading that when Ford first met Chevy Chase, he said, "Nice to meet you, you're a very funny suburb." I don't know why I remember that, I guess because I think it's pretty funny.

Letters - A guy from Beavercreek, Ohio, seems to think Tony Romo might be the next Tom Brady. Someone has a website called tigerwoodsisgod.com. Good way to drive traffic to his site, I guess.

Air and Space - Steve Rushin says Florida dominates sports. I guess. Then something about a "female jockstrap" that someone sent to his wife. I try not to think about that.

Scorecard - There's a double standard about steroids -- baseball people care about it, football people don't. I can't really figure this out either. I guess it's because baseball statistics and records somehow seem more sacred than football. Something like that. A column about Donnie Woods, the Maryland football player that plans to forego his last year of eligibility to become a soldier. He's 6'3", 289, and he has to lose 60 pounds to meet the Army's requirements. So if they had a draft, could you just pig out to get out of it? Bobby Knight sets the record, Mike Tyson gets busted, Darrent Wiliams gets shot, stuff we already know. Brett Hull's going to be the Charles Barkley of NHL announcing, which, apparently, means that there are going to be nationally televised hockey games again. I'm sure those'll go great. Carrie Underwood, American Idol, is the gratuitous babe shot. Eh. Chris Weber is better at hip hop than Ron Artest.

SI Players - Marques Colston seems like a good guy. Let's hope he doesn't get shot. The Sixers haven't scored 100 points in a game in a month. That's not so good. Gerald Green makes one of his irregular diary entries. He's averaged almost 16 points in his last five games. He was worried about being involved in a trade for Iverson, he's glad to be staying witht he Celtics. Nate Burleson has a special outfit for every opponent that the Seahawks play. Some folks just have too much money. Stanford has 7' twins playing basketball for them. Damn.

NFL Playoffs - Here they string a few articles related to the playoffs together. Despite being on the cover, there's really not too much about Jeff Garcia. SI thinks that the Eagles and the Jets are good underdogs. I hope the Jets never win a game, and I think this way because sometimes I end up listening to JT the Brick on his stupid XM Radio show. I heard him last week after the Jets beat the Dolphins, and he spent a half hour just calling the Dolphins names, not even clever ones -- Nick Satan, crap like that. It was about the worst sports radio I'd heard in a while, and that's saying something, since I'm in DC and listen to WTEM. They talk about Marvin Harrison, who is apparently publicity shy and definitely not too interesting. Although he is great. A Colts cheeerleader in the background of a photo of him has a nice smile. Paul Zimmerman gives us his All-Pro team. Drew Brees is his MVP, but Peyton Manning is his All-Pro quarterback, in a "Look at me, I'm controversial" pick, that nobody will even notice. His punter is Brian Moorman of the Bills, who I know nothing about, but when I was watching the Cowboys game, they just said that their punter had the best average in 43 years.

Next was have a Bowl Roundup. USC, especially Kyle Williams, would really like to have that UCLA game back. But he's read parts of The Inner Game of Tennis, and he's OK now. They wrap up the bowls, and gives bowl teams an up arrow or a down arrow, based on how the teams will look in 2007. Nifty. Colt Brennan is a beast. Then an article about Florida, Urban Meyer and Chris Leak. It seems like Urban Meyer, who's named after a pope (Pope Urban?), seems like the real deal, although it doesn't seem like he's real sure about TJ Joiner's name. Hey, just like Steve Spurrier, maybe that's a Florida thing.

Some NBA. AI likes it in Denver, although all that snow is pretty crazy. He's playing pretty well, but the team isn't. That sounds familiar. Other coaches fear J.R. Smith, although he's also considered an "unwilling defender." That's funny.

Wisconsin's Alando Tucker, he's the guy with the mask during last year's NCAA playoffs, is a great guy, in addition to being a great player. He wants to build recreation centers for poor people. Wisconsin plays Ohio State on Tuesday, should be good.

A short article (one page picture, and one page text, there's several of these this issue) on new Blackhawks coach Dennis Savard. He was an improvisitional player, he's all business as a coach, and so far it's working.

The highlight of this issue is without a doubt an excerpt from Mark Kriegel's forthcoming book on Pete Maravich, Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich. All kinds of great stories here, and I'll definitely read to the book. I remember when Maravich used to do those commercials for some kind of hair product, and he was spinning a ball all around him, and his hair remained perfect. He was cool. Read the book.

Rick Reilly does a column about Carmelo Anthony, the point of which I think I miss. I guess that poor Carmelo's confused. He's suspended, his team just got AI, he's misunderstood, whatever. He's a moron.

Overall Grade- Nothing particularly interesting, except for the Maravich excerpt, which is kind of cheating, since it's an excerpt from a book. Overall Grade - C.

2007-01-07T12:33:00.000-05:00

Jesus, Hold on to the Ball
It's been a bad few weeks for Tony Romo. First, he realized that the woman he's dating, Carrie Underwood, was responsible for the musical abomination, Jesus, Take the Wheel. And he had already thrown out Jessica Simpson's phone number! Then, last night. Last night was the kind of game that made me remember why I used to really love football. It's what I love about sports, when things happen that had previously been beyond the realm of your wildest imagination. Sometimes, like last night, right after another.

I feel bad for Tony Romo, I guess, and I'll admit to thinking about him this morning when I saw the last part of an ESPN crawler that said something about "found at the bottom of a cliff." Catching a snap and planting it seems like it would be a lot easier than fielding that grounder that Buckner missed. I'm just sayin'.

I seem to remember teams in similar situations as the Cowboys were at the end of this game deciding to go for the field goal on third down, in case something went wrong on the snap. It never did, which is maybe why coaches don't do it anymore. It seems like it would have been an especially good idea for the Cowboys, as they were dealing with Hands of Stone Romo, and Martin Grammatica is not exactly the most reliable of guys. I know the Cowboys were trying to kill as much time as they could, but what's more likely, that something like what Romo did would happen, or that that extra 15 seconds would be the difference and allow Seattle to score a last second field goal?

I hope Carrie Underwood is being supportive to Romo now, and not at work at a new single called, Jesus, You Screwed up Everything.

2007-01-06T17:15:00.000-05:00

Nats Stadium Update, Part 2

Last week, my nephew Andy and I visited the site of the new stadium. We tried to get Andy positioned at the same place he was during our visit in September, and I think we pretty much got it. But you can't see much, except for a big wall that wasn't there last time. So we'll have to position him some place different next time.

Anyway, there's been a huge amount of progress, which you can observe better from this:

And this:

Kind of looks like a stadium, huh? It was very impressive, we walked around the whole thing. The surrounding neighborhood doesn't appear to have changed that much yet, Andy and I both thought it would have been cool to already have a bar or a restaurant set up. Andy also thought it would be cool if there were signs on the site, telling us what we're looking at.

We were both very impressed, though, and look forward to our next trip. And really look forward to April of 2008.

In other Nats new, I've been checking out a blog called Nats320, which is put together by some Nats fans in, you guessed it, section 320. They always have interesting stuff, and today there's a great post about one of the guys going to Memorial Stadium to see Frank Howard the year after the Senators moved to Texas. It brings back a lot of memories about trips to Memorial Stadium as a kid, and it's just a great read. So check it out. And Nats320, a tip of the hat (blue, not red) from section 212.

2007-01-04T19:19:00.000-05:00

The Year's First Subway Fiasco
I assess Metro delays the same way floods are assessed. This evening, I participated in a subway glitch unlike any I'd been in in a couple of years, so it was a two-year delay.

That it wasn't going to be the usual commute didn't dawn on me until I had descended into the system and had parked myself on the platform at the Farragut West station, ready to head towards Virginia. There was a packed orange line train at the station. And it didn't move. As it didn't move, the platform got more and more packed. Metro people stopped commuters on the mezzanine, preventing them from moving down to the overcrowded platform. And the scoreboard on the platform noted that what we were experiencing was "residual delays."

As the train continued to not move, the platform got even more crowded. A Metro person walked up and down the edge of the platform, screaming from one end of the platform to people trying to come down from the mezzanine on the other side of the platform. So if, as they told us, the platform was 600 feet long, she was yelling at people more than 300 feet away. They didn't hear her. We got announcement over announcement, often interrupting each other, basically telling us, sorry, keep waiting. And using the word "residual" a lot.

The train eventually moved, but there was no hope of boarding a Virginia-bound orange line train anytime soon, and I hate having to compete with other commuters just to get into a damned train. So I moved to the opposite side of the platform, and did some backtracking. I got off at Federal Triangle, and immediately got on a relatively uncrowded train back towards Virginia. I got a seat, and braced myself as the train went towards the more crowded stations. Within two stops, the train was jammed full of people. And this was before we got to Farragut West.

We arrive at Farragut West -- a platform full of tired, pissed off people, faced with a train with no room on it. As the door opened, I braced for confrontation:

Tired-looking ponytailed woman by the door, as people tried to squeeze in: "There's no room."
Irritating-voiced 25-year old guy, in cheap suit, the kind of guy that gives all guys in DC a bad reputation: "Sure there is."
Ponytailed woman, and about 10 other passengers: "No there isn't."
Irritating-voiced guy: "If you could all move in just a little."
Nobody moved. They couldn't.
Irritating-voiced guy, to ponytailed woman: "When you got on, I'm sure people moved so you could fit, but no, you won't return the favor, that would be un-American..."
Ponytailed woman: "You know, DC has a whole system of taxi cabs, if you're in such a hurry."
Me, silently: "Yay, ponytailed woman."

The door closed, with irritating-voiced guy never having made any progress. We made it through Foggy Bottom and Rosslyn without further incident. As I squeezed my way out at Courthouse, I gave a nod to ponytailed woman.

2007-01-03T09:10:00.001-05:00

Wednesday Video: Dana Carvey as Tom Brokaw

This is a 1996 edition of SNL, where Dana Carvey is Tom Brokaw making some tape just in case Gerald Ford dies during Brokaw's vacation.

2007-01-02T11:18:00.000-05:00

VHI Announces Mora and Mora
The day after the firing of former Atlanta Falcons coach Jim L. Mora, VH1 announced the production of a new show, Mora and Mora. According to a VHI news release, "Mora and Mora will be the cornerstone of VH1's new pyschosportscelebreality lineup. In an approach that's part The Larry David Show, and part Flavor of Love, the father and son team will play themselves, as they team up to avenge the firing of young Jim Mora, by proving that Michael Vick is, indeed, a coach killer. The duo will also attempt to separate University of Washington coach Ty Willingham from his job, so that young Jim can succeed him, in what he has described as his 'dream job.'"

Jim L. (the son) and Jim E. (the father) will travel the country, investigating deaths of any coaches ever involved with Michael Vick, to try to uncover evidence of Vick's involvement. Simultaneously, they will employ different techniques to try to end Winningham's career as the Washington coach. In addition to trying to get Willingham fired, the duo will try to convince Notre Dame to fire Charlie Weiss and re-hire Willingham. An ideal scenario would be for the two to successfully encourage Michael Vick to kill Winningham, which would simultaneously prove the senior Mora correct in his assessment of Vick and open the door for the younger Mora to replace Willingham.

Viewers will see firsthand the marble-mouthed Jim E. Mora's explosive temper and tendency to blurt out whatever crazy thought comes into his head, as he drives his slow-witted son around the country, and the two try to reconcile their strained relationship. A sub-plot of the show will involve a pursuit of Pamela Lee Anderson, who Jim L. Mora has recently described as the "woman of his dreams." VH1 has so far been unsuccessful in getting Vick and Willingham to participate in the show. Accordingly, VH1 has cast Snoop Dogg to play Ty Willingham, and will rely on the network's biggest star, Flava Flav, to play Michael Vick. VH1 is also pursuing the possibility of getting both of the Moras involved in the next edition of The Surreal Life, which Jim L. has always described as his "dream job."

2006-12-31T18:41:00.000-05:00

Last Redskins Comments for 2006
I watched as much of the Redskins game last night as I could stomach. But I saw more than enough to offer some comments.

First, Chris Collingsworth, who I don't really like very much as an announcer but who I admire somewhat because he actually played in the NFL despite the handicap of not having any shoulders, clearly didn't watch the Redskins very much early in the season, as he suggested, when Campbell went down, that the Giants would probably prefer to play against Campbell than Brunell. That's just moronic, and it strikes me as the kind of comment that someone would make because he thinks an old white guy is going to be better than a young black guy. Anyone that's watched both of them play this year realizes that Campbell is much better, and that the Redskins would have been better off if Campbell had played all the games this season.

Second, at one point in the first half, Collingsworth said that the Redskins' only hope was if their offense got really hot. I think Chris has inhaled too many fumes from his hair care products. If there was one consistent theme this year with the Redskins, it's that their defense, well...IT. CAN'T. STOP. ANYBODY. So even if the Redskins' offense scored every time they had the ball, they'd lose, because opponents' offenses just march down the field. Going into the game, they know who they need to stop (Tiki, Mark Bulger, Steven Jackson), and these guys end up having the best games of their careers. Pathetic.

Third, for next year, don't screw around with the offense in the off-season. Maybe get a little deeper on the offensive line, and see if you can ditch Jacobs and James Thrash (seriously, what's with him?), but don't mess with anything else.

Fourth, on defense, you have to look at it like this. Gregg Williams surely deserves to be fired. Seldom has a defense deteriorated so quickly from one season to the next, and I hold him responsible. So you can fire him and hire someone else, who will bring a whole new scheme, new opinions, new thoughts on players. The decision that has to be made, though, is who is more likely to succeed next year -- a (hopefully) more humble Gregg Williams that realizes that his career is truly on the line, or a new guy, who, knowing the Redskins' luck, isn't likely to be much better than Williams. That's a hard decision to make, and as much as I don't like Williams, I think, for next year, the Skins may be better off with him.

Fifth, Jason Campbell is good. I didn't hear the announcers say this, with the belching and all, but Campbell looked much more like Peyton Manning than Eli did. Just think how good he'd be if he'd been playing instead of watching Brunell throw balls sideways for a season and a half. I hope nobody screws him up.

Finally, is there a way to trim some of the jerks from this team? I don't know what the "braintrust" was thinking last year when they signed Brandon Jacobs, but a good rule is not to sign a guy who's involved in a rap career. Joe Gibbs, as we all know, is a religious man. I've always understood humility to be a big part of religion, which is why I'm puzzled as to why all these Redskins, who Gibbs repeatedly says he personally likes, exhibit no humility whatsoever. The Redskins' first offensive series last night, we were treated to Mike Sellers making a big show with his first-down sign, and then Santana Moss spinning the ball after his first catch. Hey, you guys have won five games, and you're not going to win this game. Put the ball down and go back to the huddle. Geez, and Sellers and Moss are two of the more mature guys on the team. And stop with the personal fouls. That's just poor discipline, and thugishness. Nobody on this team is good enough for that kind of crap to be tolerated.

It's been a long, disappointing year. I can't even really say that I look forward to next year, because, realistically, there's no reason to think that it will be much better than this one. Which is sad...

2006-12-28T09:11:00.000-05:00

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes
Last night, I had tickets to see Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, along with John Eddie, at The Birchmere. Unfortunately, I didn't bring the tickets with me. The deal at The Birchmere (in Alexandria, Virginia, a great place to see music, if you don't already know that) is you get there at some point after 5:00PM, and you're given a number as you enter. Then you drink outside the concert hall until 6:00PM, when they start calling numbers, which allows people to proceed to seats in the concert hall in a fairly civilized manner. My number was 66, when they got to about 60 I pulled the tickets out of my pocket. And realized I had mistakenly grabbed tickets that I had gotten my girlfriend for Christmas for a Tyler Perry play. Oops.

I hustled over to the box office, and was told that the show was not sold out. When I explained what had happened and that I needed to buy another set of tickets, the woman at the box office charitably said that this "happens all the time," and then gave me replacement tickets and said I could bring the forgotten tickets by in the next couple of days and she wouldn't charge my credit card. Her name was Kay, and she is my hero!

So then the show. John Eddie is a Richmond, VA-born 46-year old, who's been around for a while. His favorite adjective is "fucken" and he, and his songs, are funny and self-effacing. Though in his younger days, he was supposed to be the next Springsteen, he reminded me more of John Hiatt or Steve Earle. He's got a strong voice and a tight band, and he was one of the best openers that I've seen for Southside, who sometimes makes some odd selections there. (I'd say he wasn't quite as good as Rick Derringer at the Capital Centre in 1980, but way better than most others, particularly the comedian at the Bayou at some point in mid-80s. That guy sucked.)

After about a two Dominion Ale break, the woman that had been sitting two seats down from me mysteriously appeared on stage and introduced Southside and his Jukes, who then stormed the stage and charged through a heavy dose of the Southside classics (Paris, Take it Inside, Broke Down Piece of a Man), giving ample time to the Jukes to show off their skills. Southside's usually perfect voice was a little ragged at parts, but, hey, it's the holidays, and he's fucken' 58 and his enthusiasm more than compensated. A James Brown tribute featured vocals by keyboardist Jeff Kazee and guitar hero Bobby Bandiera (who has the James Brown growl down). Bandiera also did a great version of Summer Wind. As things reached, well, a fevered pitch, John Eddie came to the stage for The Fever, and added his vocals, at least for the parts of the song that he knew the lyrics for. They played two encores, and the show ran until shortly after 10:30, which is late for The Birchmere. I can't pretend to be objective about a band I've been going to see since I was 18, but it was a blast, and I'll be happy to see them next time they're in town.

2006-12-27T09:09:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Video: James Brown and Alfred Hitchcock

Here's a clip from The Mike Douglas Show where an earnest James Brown asks Alfred Hitchock a question about a movie that Hitchcock didn't make. Hey, I would have guessed that it was a Hitchcock film, too. Also notice Joan Rivers, before hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery.

2006-12-25T12:02:00.000-05:00

RIP James Brown
Evidently James Brown wasn't feeling that great, as he the Godfather of Soul passed at 1:45AM this Christmas morning. He was hospitalized on Sunday, with pneumonia. Here are some good words, including a clip of him in the Blue Brothers movie. Here is an excellent recent Rolling Stone feature on The Godfather of Soul, which gives some insight on a musical genius, who was also a complicated and troubled man. Like so many other musical geniuses...

Thanks for the music, Godfather.

2006-12-20T08:37:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Video: Nuthin' Wrong With James Brown

I didn't know that Nancy Reagan ever interviewed James Brown, but here it is. The picture quality isn't great, but it's still worth it, and the sound quality is fine, so you get a full taste of the insanity that is James Brown.

2006-12-16T19:50:00.000-05:00

December 18 Sports Illustrated in Review: Wonderlic, Schmonderlic
Titan Vince Young is on the cover this week. Somehow, I don't think they're going to get into the whole Wonderlic thing, and how the vast majority of sports media latched onto the story of Young only getting a 6 on the Wonderlic test, which clearly meant that he would suck as a pro. ArmchairGM.com, which just got bought by Wikipedia, had an assessment of Young that was fairly typical -- "Vince Young is dumb as a brick, and isn't ready to start in the NFL yet, so I seriously hope they are pursuing Kerry Collins, because if they don't, they could be pushed by Houston for third place." Kerry Collins, ha, good one. Had anybody asked me, I would have said not to put too much faith in a test with as dumb a name as "Wonderlic." It's a good fish name, though.

We proceed:

Leading Off - Cool shot of the Bird's Nest, which is a stadium being built in China for the 2008 Summer Games. Astonishingly, it was built by eight guys, who are shown walking home after a rough day at work. Another shot of bodybuilders from the Asian Games, short guys with greased up muscles. If that's your thing, I guess.

Letters - Not much here, this Ohio State/Michigan stuff will never end. Next week we'll get the Sportsman of the Year protests.

Air and Space - Steve Rushin talks about how great the NBA League Pass is. He's right, it is great. I used to have it, but it contributed to excessive couch-surfing, and I need to save up my chits for baseball. Rushin likes that you get the regional commercials, and I agree with him, those are a hoot. I also like that you get to get a look at what kind of fast food people in other regions are wolfing down. The local announcers are cool, too. They've also got a channel that shows up to eight games on the screen at one time. Excellent. I hope they do that with the baseball package.

Scorecard - They love AI in Philly, but everyone knows he's got to go. Damn, he was great in the 2001 NBA Finals. Maurice Taylor appears to enjoy the ganja. Or something. But probably weed. Josh Hamilton, repeated MLB substance abuse policy violater, has been signed by the Reds. I'm drafting him for my fantasy team. So bid him up. Pacman Jones bought his own car back at a policy auction. What a character. Another arrested Bengal. Terrell Owens has a big birthday party for himself. That's something I don't really get, these rich people throwing really huge and expensive parties for themselves, and then publicizing them. Look at me! Macy Gray, who sang Happy Birthday to Owens, is the gratuitous babe shot. Only not so much. Without my glasses on, she looks like Hendrix.

The Year in Sports Media - Here they recap stuff that already happened. Like Emmett Smith winning that dancing show. That happened, what, a month ago? Thanks for the memories. We Are Marshall should be good, though Matthew McConaughey seems kind of goofy in the clips. Rocky's back. I think the new Rocky just opened this weekend, and the Marshall movie isn't even out yet. So between that and Emmett Smith's dancing, they're really recapping things this year that just happened, or haven't even happened yet. Short memories, I guess. They talk about books, most of which were featured in SI, or published by SI. I need to read that Clemente book, though. I can't read anymore about Monday Night Football, sorry. Eric Byrnes, they say, has a promising TV career. Just what we need. They talk about how bad Dave O'Brien was doing World Cup. I just realize that he was the Nats radio announcer in 2006. He was pretty good at that, actually.

Fantasy Plus - The more I read this column, the more I realize that you'd do just as well flipping a coin. Seriously. They review some lessons that we should have learned this year. Drew Brees, Steve Smith and Javon Walker were all great pick-ups, as they rebounded well from injuries. In my league, I had Brees (maybe I mentioned this before) and Walker. My early picks were busts, though -- James, Lewis, Hasselbeck. I suck. How could I have passed on those guys, though. They say if I were smart, I would have dumped James in September. Well, that would have worked if I was in a league of morons. Speaking of Hasselbeck, they say to start him. Which turned out not so great. Artose Pinner has no fantasy value, they say, so he should have a good game. Don't start Vince Young, they say. Or Santana Moss. They say to sit Kellen Winslow, that's my pick for bad SI advice of the week.

Let's talk Fantasy Basketball. Look out for Andrea Bargnani, set aside your rule about not having guys named Andrea. He's good. Pau Gasol is coming back. Gilbert Arenas plays better at home.

Finally a feature. Vince Young is on the cover, but they only give him three pages, one of which is a photo. He's no Tony Romo. Vince isn't exactly loquacious, I guess, he doesn't have much to say. He does what it takes to win, he says. Can't argue with that. His mom's happy. Sure thing. That's it, not exactly an in-depth profile by Jeffri Chadiha, who got his name smack dab in the middle of the cover for this weak effort.

Greg Oden's playing, and he's as good as they thought. He had a nice game against Cincinnati today, actually. Grant Wahl is able to bring out some of Oden's personality, and he seems like a good guy. He thinks it's funny that people think he's 40. He likes being in college, cooking on his George Foreman grill. Whenever he goes pro, probably next draft, he'll be number one. Sonny Vaccaro of Reebok says that he'll get the biggest shoe contract ever for a big man. That's great, I always want to see how these guys fit into the shoe contract puzzle.

Yay, baseball. Tom Verducci reviews the free agent insanity. I'm with him on this. Here are the two deals that I really don't get. The Royals give Gil Meche $55 million over 5 years. What? If you're the Royals, and you finally spend some bucks, why Meche? And why would anyone even want to go to the Royals? But that's still not as bad as the $20 million over 3 years that the Cubs are giving Jason Marquis. What the hell? Marquis played for the Cardinals, the Cardinals won the World Series. But without Marquis. Not because he was hurt, but because he had pitched so poorly that he wasn't on their post-season roster. They didn't even want to keep him around in the bullpen. Why? Because he's no good.

If you're wondering why things got so crazy with baseball free agents, Verducci tells us it's "being driven by record crowds..., growth in revenues from traditional and new media, revenue sharing and labor stability." XM Radio and international business, too.

Karl Taro Greenfield has a big old article on Tiki Barber. He's definitely going to retire, and he's going to become a media giant. Look for him on Good Morning America, or 20/20. Evidently he's lost his passion for the game and is ready for the next chapter in his life. Greenfield talks about how Tiki and his twin brother Rhonde's mom worked her ass off to make life good for her boys, and to expose them to a big slice of life. Good for her, I hope she's reaping the benefits now. Tiki says that Matt Lauer is his hero, which kind of gives us an idea of what kind of newsman he's going to be. That's unfortunate. Greenfield gets about halfway through the article before he uses the word "articulate" to describe Tiki. It'll be interesting to watch Tiki, though I figure it's still 50-50 that he'll end up playing next year. We all know how these things go.

This Week in Sports Inside starts out with a picture of John Wooden. Man, he's old. All these years, and he still hasn't cracked a smile. Darrren Collison may lead UCLA to an NCAA championship. I remember their last championship, which was also the peak of my gambling career. Good times. How did Wichita State get so good?

Julian Peterson predicts that his Seahawks will win the Super Bowl. How about beat the 49ers first, Julian? Falcons owner Arthur Blank expects his team to do better than just make the play-offs. Jim Mora's job is pretty safe, though, they say. Unless there are complications from foot in mouth disease. What's with these Moras? It looks like the Falcons are going to lose tonight (though I'm watching the NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship, which is cool). Should be a nice Christmas for the Mora family.

Rick Reilly goes to the Word Series of Video Games, and finds out that dorks with names like XiT Woundz and LiL Poison are making bucks playing video games, and think they're pretty hot stuff. Not really that interesting, Rick.

Overall Grade- Eh, not so great. I'm glad they covered baseball. Their heart didn't really seem to be into the Vince Young thing. I think Jeffri Chadiha just couldn't get fired up about a guy that got a 6 on the Wonderlic. Nothing really new about Tiki Barber. The Greg Oden article was good, I'm glad I read that. Nothing great, though. Overall Grade - C.

2006-12-13T08:16:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Video: Wilco's Jeff Tweedy Punches an Interloper

At an October show in Springfield, Illinois, Jeff Tweedy and his Wilco cohorts are just getting into an encore edition of Airline to Heaven, when an overly enthusiastic fan hops on the stage. After the usual waving to his friends, he touches Tweedy in the face, which results in Jeff giving the guy a brief rendition of Wilco's new song, I Am Going to Punch You in the Face. There's another clip of right after this, where the famously troubled and self-loathing Tweedy self-loathes for a while ("I feel terrible, nobody wants to punch a guy in the face..."). I don't blame him. While I'm sure the interloper was no more dangerous than the Soy Bomb guy, who knows. As slim a possibility as it was, the guy could have been a representative of one of Tweedy's arch-enemies Jay Farrar or Jay Bennett, with who knows what kind of intentions.

2006-12-11T17:23:00.000-05:00

ACC Hoops Venues To Be Renamed After Bassists
Insides sources have revealed that ACC officials are on the verge of announcing a new ruling that would require ACC basketball venues to immediately be renamed after rock and roll bass players. This move follows the resounding success that the University of Virginia has had with it's new baskeball venue, John Paul Jones Arena. Sources say that a top secret taskforce has made this recommendation, and such a move would have been made sooner except for it took the taskforce a while to determine which schools are now members of the diluted, yet profitable, conference.

ACC officials had monitored the Unversity of Virginia move, which was not without controversy. Current Virginia students, and some younger alumni, favored Stefan Lessard Arena, while some much older alumni actively lobbied for Charlie Pastorfield Arena. The move to name the new arena after John Paul Jones was considered a compromise, found acceptable by both groups.

After closely watching the process at Virginia, ACC officials secretly put a taskforce together to consider making a similar change, conference-wide. There was a great deal of controversy within the taskforce. Special permission was given to Duke University, after much debate, to be allowed to retain the word "Indoor" as part of the name of its venue. University officials successfully argued that, otherwise, the name would be confusing to students. Another controversy involved the University of Miami taskforce representative, who was adamant that the Miami facility be named after the bass player for 2 Live Crew. The representative initially refused to believe that such a musical ensemble would not have a bass player. The school's second choice, Meshell Ndegeocello Field House, was also rejected, as it would have been impossible for Dick Vitale to pronounce.

Basketball venues at ACC universities will be renamed as follows:

Boston College - Tom Hamilton Hall
Clemson - Littletommy Caldwell Coliseum
Duke - Corey Parks Indoor Stadium
Florida State - Lamar Williams Memorial Arena
Georgia Tech - Mike Mills Municipal Center
Maryland - Tina Weymouth Field House
Miami - Bootsy Collins Civic Center
North Carolina - Flea Hall
North Carolina State - Faye Hunter Auditorium
Virginia Tech - Les Claypool Gymnasium
Wake Forest University - Phil Lesh Center

2006-12-09T18:34:00.000-05:00

Sports Illustrated in Review: December 11
This week's SI is the Sportsman of the Year edition. And the winner is....Dwyane Wade of the champion Miami Heat. This seems to be a pretty controversial selection, and I'm sure they'll be a zillion letters to SI next week telling them how wrong they are. I was skeptical at first, but after reading S.L. Price's piece, I'm on board.

Here's how this issue goes:

Leading Off - Great pic of a jumpshot shooting Yao Ming. He's having a great year. There's a picture of a Sepak Takraw match during the Asia Games. I think I had Sepak Takraw at Urban Thai the other day. That and one of those Thai ginger iced teas that they have. Those things are great.

Letters - No big arguments going on this week. Benihana sponsors Hideki Matsui's first at bat at each Yankee game. A teacher and her fourth grade class correct Steve Rushin's history of Michigan.

From the Editor - Stuff about Dwyane Wade. He's from the bad part of Chicago. Then, SI's offering customizable webpages for those that would be interested in such things, which does not include me.

Air and Space - Chis Ballard, a guy with a Deadhead beard, sits in for Steve Rushin. Pretty good column, about how NFL pre-game shows have degenerated into a lot of guys who are not very funny, acting like not very funny guys who think they're funny. TV suits think that this is what viewers want. This is a good article, and timely, as I've still got that image from a few weeks of Jimmy Johnson and Terry Bradshaw dancing seared into my mind. Who wants to see that? I googled Terry Bradshaw Fanclub, and there isn't one. But then I googled Terry Bradshaw Fan Club, and there is one. But it seems like really a front to sell stuff autographed by him. There's nothing about people wanting to see him dance.

Scorecard - Stuff about Mark McGwire and voting for him for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Tom Verducci isn't going to do it. He admires Ken Caminiti for going public about the steroids thing. But he's not going to vote for him, either. Speaking of steroids, Justin Gatlin tried out for the Houston Texans. They're not going to sign him, though it doesn't have anything to do with the steroids. A blind 94-year-old lady bowled a perfect game. Matsuzaka isn't the only baseball player in Japan. I think I had heard that, even before Japan won the World Baseball Championship. Here's something crazy: former tennis hotshot Andrea Jaeger is now a nun. There's a picture of her in her habit. She likes to help kids. She sounds cool. The Beat mentions Jessica Simpson, but this week's gratuitous babe picture is of Mia Hamm. She's having twins. Sometimes people play polo on elephants.

SI Players - Dr. James Andrews is a busy guy, working on Daunte Culpepper and Donovan McNabb. He did a great job with Drew Brees, only those with keen fantasy football, playoff history aside, would have known to draft Brees. NFL players aren't so unlike you and me, they also find TO annoying. They find Doug Johnson fifth most annoying. He must be really really annoying, since he rarely plays. Monta Ellis of the Warriors reads SI every other day. I'm not sure what that means. Stuff about kickers. More high school football players. They're all going to USC or Florida. Lots of young Somalian guys run cross country in Minnesota.

The first big article is about Dwyane Wade. I hate to say it, but his trip to where he is today is pretty inspriational. He's overcome a lot of crap to become such a great player, and he still seems like he's a pretty good guy. He's married to his high school sweetheart, his mom's had a great comeback from drug problems, he's tight with his sister. He's not afraid of Gary Payton. And, you have to admit, he pretty much dominated the NBA playoffs. So I'm on the Dwyane bandwagon, good for him, though the spelling of his first name kind of bugs me. I'm glad that horse doctor didn't win.

Next, Fantasy. No apologies about the Jamal Lewis thing from last week. That's OK, I'm kind of glad fantasy is over for me. Expect Reggie Bush to go nuts. Sounds plausible. Take a flier on Arnaz Battle of the Packers who will "have a field day." I doubt it. Next week, play Jamal Lewis. Have they seen any Ravens games this year? In week 16, expect to see Cedric Benson play for the Bears, as they'll rest Thomas Jones. Benson is the guy his teammates hate. That might be interesting. They think Randy Moss will have a good game next week. It's part of that, "well, he has to have a good game eventually" strategy. That's a flawed strategy. Edgerin James. Brett Favre might not be a good choice. Thanks.

Then a feature on Tony Romo. Coming into this, I knew that Tony Romo was a former Division 1-AA quarterback that had stuck around a while with the Cowboys, longer than some over-hyped baseball players, and when Drew Bledsoe played bad there was a groundswell to start Romo. Parcells finally gave in, and the Cowboys have played well since. I was ready to dislike this guy, but he seems OK. He's a scrappy guy, a hard worker and dedicated, he's spent hours after practice trying to prepare himself for any possible throw he'd have to make. Sounds good, I hope Jason Campbell does the same thing. Despite the whole Jessica Simpson thing, he seems like he's pretty level-headed. So I hope that the Cowboys lose the rest of their games, but I can't really muster a hatred of Tony Romo. Maybe after he starts pounding the Redskins.

Then we have the inevitable article on the BCS. For those of you that don't know, it's controversial. For a number of years, people that care about college football advocated a playoff system. Several years ago, NCAA authorities, instead, started the BCS system. Which then resulted in the invention of sports talk radio. Or at least you'd think. Anyway, most people, including the guy who wrote this article, still thinks a playoff system would be better.

Here comes some college basketball. Michael Jordan loves Chase Budinger of Arizona, who's also a great volleyball player. Arizona has lost to Virginia, by the way. I'm just saying. It was Virginia's first game at John Paul Jones Arena. I listened to Houses of the Holy today.

It's starting to get cold, so we get some coverage of skiing. The Olympics are over, and Bode Miller is back. Him and his damn RV.

Mike Modano, may be the best American hockey forward ever. He's good. He dates Willa Ford, who apparently is a pop star. Got me. She looks OK, though. He lost $5 million in a bad business deal. Yikes. He was fired as team captain during training camp. That hurts, he's trying to be big about it, but you can tell he's pissed.

Now it's This Week in Sporst Inside. More stuff about Ben Wallace's headband. Vince Young, the real deal. Forget about his weird arm angle and his poor test scores. Jason Taylor's not big on Bob Kuechenberg. Peter King thinks Caleb Miller plays like Ray Lewis, and J.P. Losman may be OK afer all. Teflon Matt Millen. Dr Z picks the Giants over the Saints. I go with the Saints. Dr. Z's 49-47 for the year. Flip a coin.

Rick Reilly writes about Rick Barry shooting free throws underhanded. This article has been written before. The usual stuff -- Barry's way definitely is better, but none of the NBA's non-foul shooting stars will give it a try. Bye Rick.

Overall Grade- I thought this issue was pretty good. I learned things in the Wade and Romo articles. And Andrea Jaeger's a nun. Could have used some baseball, weren't the winter meetings going on? I guess that'll be next week. Overall Grade - B.

2006-12-07T10:55:00.000-05:00

Rock Bottom Redskins: How Low Can You Go?
In this morning's Washington Post, Michael Wilbon's column about the Redskins, with a secondary headline of They've Hit Rock Bottom, and That Starts at the Top, hits the nail on the head with his assessment of the Redskins' problems. It made me think, though, that the Redskins have spent a lot of time in the post-Joe Gibbs I days at rock bottom. I think what we have here is what is known as a "recurring theme."

So, thanks to Google, here's a chronological history of the Rock Bottom Redskins:

December 5, 1994
In an article by Jim Ducibella of The Virginian-Pilot, Norv Turner said, “I told the team five weeks ago that we’d hit rock bottom. It wasn’t. This is as low as you can get.” The Redskins lost to Tampa Bay 26-21, with the Redskins running game gaining 10 yards on 12 carries. Nice.

December 18, 1994
The Newport News Daily Press observed that “Every time Washington Redskins coach Norv Turner thinks he and the Redskins have hit rock bottom, it seems his sneakers sink a few more feet…After losing 17-14 to Tampa Bay on Sunday in RFK Stadium, Turner is finding that this disastrous 1994 season is a bottomless pit. Seven weeks ago, Turner said he thought the Redskins had bottomed out. Two weeks ago, he changed his mind and said a 26-21 loss to the Bucs was the real low point. Sunday, the Redskins dropped a peg lower.” Hey, at least they only have to play the Bucs once this year…

October 19, 1998
In a Post article, Redskins Hit 'Rock Bottom' with 41-7 Loss, Norv Turner called the team’s offense “totally inept.”

October 29, 1998
In an article headlined Redskins Crash, Hit Rock Bottom, Post writer Mark Maske wrote that “The calendar hasn’t turned to October and already the Washington Redskins’ season of high hopes appears to be slipping away. Even without quarterback John Elway, the defending Super Bowl Champion Denver Broncos raced to an early lead on a steamy afternoon yesterday at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium and never looked back, defeating the Redskins, 38-16.” The Skins were booed off the field. After the game, Leslie Shepherd suggested, “It’s rock bottom.” I remember that game. I was at my cousin's wedding reception that Saturday evening, which was at the same hotel that the Broncos were staying. The Broncos kept trying to crash it.

September 1, 2000
Adam Kamans of the Tufts Daily News took a break from his studies and weighed in that things had hit rock bottom after a 16-15 defeat by the Arizona Cardinals. Those Cardinals losses were always painful.

October 17, 2001
Clay Fowler of the Daily Texan took a break from whatever they do at the University of Texas to correctly note that “the only reason the Cowboys haven’t hit rock bottom was because the Redskins were there to break their fall.”

December 21, 2003
Mark Zuckerman of the Washington Times wrote that “Things hit rock bottom last week. Quarterback Tim Hasselback suffered through a nightmare of an afternoon…posting an embarrassing 0.0 rating.”

October 4, 2004
Mark Zuckerman of the Washington Times wrote that, after the Gibbs II-era began with a victory followed by three losses, "the Redskins have hit rock bottom."

November 14, 2004
After a 17-10 loss to the Bengals, the USA Today noted that “It took 10 weeks for Joe Gibbs’ comeback to hit rock bottom.” As if... In this game, Gibbs finally benched an ineffective (1 for 8 for six yards, with one interception) Mark Brunell at halftime and replaced him with then-quarterback of the future Patrick Ramsay. Talk about recurring themes. This move, poor Mark Zuckerman of the Washington Times noted, signaled Gibbs' acknowledgement that things had hit rock bottom.

November 29, 2004
Jim Rodenbush of the Pittsburgh Tribune wrote that “The Washington Redskins thought they had hit rock bottom with their offensive struggles when they gained just 213 net yards in their 28-6 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles last week… But that was before they ran into the No. 1 defense in the NFL.” That would be the Steelers, who held the Skins to 156 yards, beating them 16-7.

November 13, 2006
After a 27-3 loss to the Eagles, Rick Snider of the Philadelphia Examiner suggested that the Redskins add yet another consultant, Leslie Shepherd to teach players to say “rock bottom.” Good one, Rick.

There we have it. It's not a pretty cycle -- bad individual losses, bad strings of losses, confounded coaches and bad quarterbacks, who often had the benefit of some awfully misguided loyalty. I can't say I'm expecting things to improve anytime soon.

2006-12-06T09:27:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Video: A Carvel Christmas (And Chanuka)

That crazy Jim Carvel dressed up Fudgie the Whale as Santa, and gave Cookiepuss a makeover, too. Now available at Mario's...