photo courtesy of JoCo

When I say TONIGHT I mean TONIGHT FRIDAY AUGUST 31, not Saturday, as yesterday’s Express claims. Tsk, Post editors, tsk!

Tonight Jonatan Coulton will be appearing at the Birchmere with Bob Paul & Storm, formerly of DaVinci’s Notebook. I’ve seen all of them perform a few times and it’s always fun. Bob Paul and Storm were recently on Metro Connection, where you can hear a bit of what their banter and music is like. They describe themselves as funny guys who do music, but Coulton as a great musician who happens to be funny.

Coulton was on the front of yesterday’s Express (no, I don’t read it either – he mentioned it on his website) with an interview on page 41. [pdf] The money quote, I think, is “The credit has to go to Sir Mix-a-lot, since not only is [baby got back] wickedly funny, there is an important message in there about body image.”

He’s speaking, of course, about his breakout hit, which you can listen to free here.

At $20 I think it’s a pretty good deal for a show at the Birchmere. I only recently went for the first time, and was quite happy with the experience. Go early so you don’t have to pay Ticketbastard’s silly fees.

UPDATE: Whoopsie! Thanks Gina, I don’t know why I got Bob stuck in my head – the only thing I can imagine is some random neuron in the back of my brain remembering DaVN’s multiple collaborations with The Bobs. Sorry Paul!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

For the first time in a while, my wife and I had a nice, fast, stress-free, seamless morning Metro commute to work. I think this is the first morning since two Fridays ago that there has not been a “we will hold here for two minutes” backup on the Red Line, “residual” delays on the Orange and Blue, or a jerky “train will move forward” series of stop-start arrivals at various stations.

It’s more than a bit sad that such flawless days on the Metro are becoming more the exception than the rule. Now I bet I’ve jinxed it and will have a hellish trip home tonight.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

More washer/dryer photos

Soon after assuming my half-million dollar mortgage, I started thinking on how to convert my basement to a livable space for friends and family.

The first step on the long path to add a kitchen is to sell the high capacity & heavy duty Kenmore washer dryer set that came with the house.

They are clean and modern, in perfect working order – just like new. As a Metroblogging DC special, I’m selling the washer and dryer for only $350, a ~60% savings from their retail prices.

You can see the current model equivalents here: washer: 02627542000 dryer: 02667422000.

I’m even offering free delivery in Petworth & Columbia Heights neighbourhoods of Washington DC. Or you can pick them up. I can also deliver them for $15-$50 elsewhere in the Metro area, depending on distance, but cash payment is required before delivery.

Email me now if you are interested or read more details after the jump…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs Continue reading →

photo courtesy of Mark Lorch

Well, our paper of record has decided that our local Christians are sufficiently thick-skinned to see one of their deceased whackos get some ribbing but that our local Muslims aren’t. You can see the pulled cartoon on Salon, where the management is apparently a little less chickenshit.

I look forward to the next time WaPo gets indignant over some lack of free speech or protection of reporters and their sources so we can remind them that “use it or lose it” is advice that covers a lot of ground.

The pulled cartoon is here. The one WaPo felt was okay is here. (You may be asked to view an ad before seeing the comic) Remember: mocking the dead is okay. Mocking live abstract radicals is not.

Update: I forgot to add – you can’t see the Opus that WaPo actually ran on Sunday since the radical Islamist one is what’s on their website. However they decided to forgo the comic with a subtle joke about celibacy (“anything else I won’t be getting?” “God willing”) to re-run an old one that makes repeated mention of marital infidelity. If anyone has a link to the comic that did run please post it in the comics comments, I think it’s illustrative of how whack this decision is.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Wayan’s DC Photos

WMATA is having more power problems today. There isn’t any rail service between Arlington Cemetery & Braddock Road – a shuttle service should be running now – and as you might imagine, expect delays yellow & blue line.

Add to that the Betrothed Butterbean reports there are masses of emergency vehicles around the U Street-Cardozo station. WMATA only tells us the cryptic:

Expect delays on the green line due to an emergency situation at U St. Cardozo there is no rail service between Georgia Ave & Shaw Howard.

She also says there is a MedStar helicopter headed to Washington Hospital Center – might that be related to the Metrorail emergency?

Anyone onsite to tell us the real deal?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Wayan’s DC Photos

What do you think of the new crosswalks around the Lincoln Memorial? Specifically this one that crosses 23rd Street NW and its twin on Henry Bacon Drive NW.

While I have to say they offer great pedestrian access to Daniel Chester French’s wonderful sculpture of the 16th President, they don’t look friendly to Virginia-bound traffic.

Every time I’ve biked or ran around the monument, there is a long backup of traffic to Constitution Avenue, especially on Henry Bacon Drive NW.

Drivers, what’s your feeling? Is your wait worth a safe and easy tourist experience.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I don’t drive. It’s a long story involving a dent in a parked car on a village road in Southeast Asia, but suffice it to say that I do so enjoy living in DC where I can take the Metro and walk places and not need to pay hundreds for insurance or parking or gas or maintenance. And my carbon footprint is tiny. The major disadvantage to my carless lifestyle, however, is limited travel options, so a peculiar challenge presented itself to me after my wedding two months ago: where to go for a nice, quick, cheap, outdoorsy DC-area weekend honeymoon using only those forms of mass public transportation immediately available to our downtown location?

My solution: Harpers Ferry. Is it possible? I found out:

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs Continue reading →

So there I was, headed through the security (ha!) line at Dulles, when I overheard a curious conversation between the TSA screeners.

“…and while I was getting the knife, he threw the ID to the other side. That’s how they got me.”

“For me, it was after lunch one day, I wasn’t paying attention… that’s how they got me?”

“You see what you have to look forward to, newbie?”

It took me a moment to realize that they were describing the last time TSA screening testers had come through- the people who figure out whether a particular cadre of TSA personnel are at all likely to notice a weapon coming through the screening area- apparently it’s a lot easier to get past TSA security after lunch. If you have food coma, the terr’rists win!

I feel safer, don’t you?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

AFI Silver has extended the run of the magnificent “Lawrence of Arabia” with daily showings at 3pm and 7:15pm from August 31 through September 13. That’s right, daily!

My viewing a few weeks ago reinforced my love for both a sublime film and theater experience. If you’ve been too lazy to catch it, then you really have no bloody excuse now – “HUT HUT HUT!!”

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

image courtesy of The Neo-Futurists

Metroblogging Chicago has been holding out on us. Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind came to Wooly Mammoth by way of the Chicago troupe The Neo-Futurists. Over at Chicago Metblogs there’s at least three different articles that Fuzzy has written about them and their projects.

I managed to get in to see their signature piece at Wooly at the last minute and was glad I did. Presenting thirty plays in sixty minutes, TMLMTBGB is a collection of shorts that are written by the people that are performing them. In this case it was Bilal Dardai, Dean Evans, Sharon Greene, Kristie Koehler, and Jay Torrence. When I got to speak to Sharon after the show I found out exactly what this means to the content of the show.

The neo-futurists are up-front about the way the show is conducted – a clothesline which has the numbers one through thirty hangs across the stage, just out of easy reach – and what hangs on that clothesline changes from show to show, as one or more shows come out of the rotation and are replaced by others. It’s performed by the person who wrote it and may include some or all of the rest of the ensemble.

What’s not obvious from the introduction or the handout is the fact that the neo-futurists are comprised of more than these five performers. Notably more, in fact, as when I asked Sharon about traveling shows or for-hires she said they had enough people to run one or two traveling shows and keep the weekly performances in Chicago running, all at once. Which means that not only does any show you wander into get changed between runs, it gets changed based on the potentially changing cast as well.

The really criminal thing here in this writeup is that I’ve made it to paragraph five before telling you that it was 100% awesome. Every performer was bursting with energy and clearly having a great time, something that made every single play fun even if I didn’t care for it. Not that there were many I didn’t find delightful, though some pieces like 26,558 were moving and powerful and completely delight-free. I’m going to be in Chicago next month, and #1 on my list of things to do is going to be to catch at least one show so I can share this fun with my darling girlfriend.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

In the interest of finally wrapping this up (not to mention getting a little more content up here today – I think we’re all just in shock that we somehow moved to Oregon and nobody told us), this is the quickest of my remaining Fringe writeups. It’s also the most eh of what I have left.

Petpourri was one of the most common of Fringe maladies, the cabaret show. My darling girlfriend and I went to this one with the expectation that it would be at worst a little treacle-y and and best amusing. We seemed to have been in the minority – a friend’s reaction was “you WENT to that?”

Were this the trainwreck that certain other shows had been I’d give them that as fair play, but it was fine, if not what we expected. The four person cast from the In Series acquitted themselves well enough, though I’d say Richard Tappen consistently performed an order of magnitude better than his costars. One lone song turned up the schmaltz to 11, with another a little heavy on the cheese but acceptable.

The biggest issue I had with it was I found the material uninspired and a little limp. I can hear you already: I decided to go to a cabaret show with a pet theme – what did I expect? Something a little more contemporary (half the material was depression era), maybe a little funnier if not ironic. Ah well. I found the performance and the players impressive enough that I’ll consider going to their upcoming shows, Moon / Dance or maybe Cole & Noel.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

awesome image from Sadly No

In other similar news, water is wet and fire hot. However the Machinist blog feels the need to discuss that Fishbowl DC’s July 30th Hottest media types results was a complete load of bunk, gamed by voting bots and multiple entries.

Well, okay.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pretty well prepared article and nicely linked to a bunch of related and supporting information. But I can’t be the only person who thinks he’s more likely to find a sober Kennedy than an accurate online poll, can I?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Every week I religiously read Tom Sietsema’s DC dining chat on Washington Post. It’s always entertaining, very often for reasons that have nothing to do with food. Unbelievable incidents of entitlement huffs and dining rage are reported constantly, and depending on my Wednesday mood barometer I either chortle or despair. Today was a despair day thanks to this tasty little item:

Washington, D.C.: Someone in your chat two weeks ago spoke of a “phantom” reservation taker at Matchbox, which does not take same-day reservations. I think I know what happened. They dialed the wrong number — probably forgot the 202 area code and they were calling from Virginia. I am also a phantom reservation taker. My cell phone number is the same number as a popular restaurant in Virginia (except with a 202 area code), and I get at least 1 call a day for it. I usually take a reservation. It’s easier than explaining they have the wrong number and hopefully it teaches them not to do it again.

Tom Sietsema: Please tell me you’re joking — and if you’re not, please consider the consequences. Do you realize how many special occasions your once-a-day reservation taking might ruin? Or how tough you might be making it for the staff at the front desk?

Apparently it doesn’t occur to them, Tom. All they can think about is their own misguided crusade to dispense twisted anti-etiquette lessons. Who the hell does this Reservation Robin Hood think they are, taking this kind of attitude? “Easier than explaining”?? How is that? And how would it “teach them not to do it again” if they have no idea they were taken advantage of like that?

I had a phone number once that was one number shy of a congressional office, and it never occured to me to chat with the incorrect dialer about policy issues. Gosh, maybe I should’ve. I’m really stunned, but then again, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of DJ Riel

Well, I’ve been pretty derelict in my posting the last few weeks. Sorry – I’ve been working on three fairly major life changes (no Wayan, none of those are my gender), one of which is a new place of employment. Between the stress and the short-timer’s disease it’s played hell with my productivity.

I’ve still got four Fringe shows to write up and tell you about. While that might seem a little pointless, all four were interesting in their content and were put on by local folks with more things to come. Several may show up again in another venue and besides, if I don’t tell you about one of them then how will you know where to go take trapeze lessons?

I will admit, however, that in none of these will I be able to tell you about any vacuums, dwarves, or dwarves’ penises. Edinburgh, the start of it all, continues to be farther out there than us. Thank grod.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well Dressed Burrito

Hungry at lunchtime I took Kate’s advice, and searched out the Well Dressed Burrito.

This is not an easy task. Located in an alley, with only a tiny sign and even smaller lunch-only hours, you’re lucky to find it, open or not. But do not let that make you think its unloved.

On the contrary, the day I was there it was packed. A line 20 people deep by the time of my arrival, it’s a beauty of efficiency. You order and money is taken before you realize it and you then wait for the Tex-Mex goodness.

Don’t despair, it’s worth the wait. The burritos are divine, the platters filling, and yet…

Do you really think the Well Dressed Burrito is worth the hype or the alley location?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Apparently, over the weekend, an 8 term Congressman from California was involved in an incident at Dulles Airport. The Congressman was fairly well upset with his delayed bag and managed to push his way past security and airline employees, who eventually pressed charges for misdemeanor assault and battery.

I mean, I understand get the frustration of the slow baggage claim, but there’s no reason to be a douchebag about it, Congressman…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs