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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!