Yearly Archives: 2009

Essential DC, The Daily Feed
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Extended Hours at Smithsonian

DSC_2616

Increasing revenue is the name of the game these days; even our free museums aren’t immune.

According to WaPo, the Smithsonian will be extending its hours into the evening during the summer. Tourists and residents alike can enjoy an extra two hours a day (until 7:30 p.m.) at the Natural Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History and the ever-popular National Air and Space Museum until Labor Day.

The Smithsonian has been challenged with cuts due to declining endowment revenue and is hoping the extra few hours will result in increased retail and donation streams.

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Preview: Greek Easter Festival @ Zaytinya

grape vodka cocktail at zaytinya

Easter Grape Cocktail at Zaytinya by flickr user Needlessspaces

Yesterday, before watching my Tar Heels snag our fifth Championship title (squee!),  I headed over to Zaytinya for a media preview of the Easter Menu.

While I’m still basking in the glow of my University of National Champions win, the Easter food and drink at Zaytinya certainly added to the wonderfulness of yesterday. So let me see if I can focus on food for a moment and tell you all about the Easter Festival headed our way… Continue reading →

Night Life, The Daily Feed, The District, WTF?!
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Kal Penn Coming to DC

Photo courtesy of
‘Kal Penn speaking at Inaugural Opening Ceremony’
courtesy of ‘JaneJGA’

Before catching 24 last night, we caught the last appearance of Kal Penn (famous for Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle) on House. As it turns out, Penn is coming to DC to work for the White House. He’ll be the associate director in the White House office of public liaison, with an office in the OEOB. Welcome to DC, Kal, we hope you love it here as much as we do.

Featured Photo
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Featured Photo

Meet Madame Lardofly by LaTur

Every year around this time, camera shutters from around the world open and close, capturing thousands and thousands of photos of our beloved cherry blossoms.  You see shots of the blossoms singled out against the brilliant blue sky, shots that show dense clusters of pink, blossomy goodness, shots of the hords of tourists that make their annual pilgrimage to the Tidal Basin, and even shots of clowns scaring the tourists away.  But how often do you see a pig with a mohawk, dressed in a pink cherry blossom dress and wearing pink tinted goggles?  For me the answer is simply, “Never.”

Fellow Flickrite, LaTur captured this unique photo of Madame Lardofly over the weekend, winning my pick as best National Cherry Blossom Festival photo.  I’ve lived in DC for about five years now, and while many area photographers never seem to get tired of taking cherry blossom photos, it has lost its luster with me.  That’s why it takes an unusual shot like this one to get my attention, even if I do end up feeling sorry for the pig.  I guess life could be worse.  After all, she could be sitting next to some eggs and home fries at the Florida Avenue Grill.

24 in DC, The Features
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24 in DC: Episode 15 (12:00 to 1:00a)

jack

Recap: So, who thinks Jack is good and who thinks he’s bad this hour?

12:00

Moss and Alameida whisper sweet nothings to each other while harassing Freckles for satellite imagery. Janis thinks “the subnet is crashing,” which are likely words strung together by people who’ve heard about networks on shows like this one. Surprise! They’re surrounded! Did you really need a satellite to tell you that? Continue reading →

Life in the Capital, News, Technology, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Maryland Students, Legislators Still Tussling over Film

Photo courtesy of
‘White Booby on Letterbox plateau’
courtesy of ‘drewavery’

I figured after the Maryland Legislature threatened not to fund U-MD for next year, the screening of Pirates 2 was all over but the crying (and the mopping, and the disinfecting), but that appears to not be the case. Apparently a group of students is intending to hold a screening anyway, and hold a free speech discussion before the movie. Of course, that means the legislators who threatened to withhold funding are doing so again.

I’ll give you one guess which party they belong to.

The Daily Feed
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Here Comes Gehry

Photo courtesy of
‘gerhy’s nightmares are better than mines’
courtesy of ‘[charlie cravero]’

While the post on DCMetroCentric may be dated April first, the award is real. Frank Gehry has been selected to design the Eisenhower Memorial in Eisenhower Square (in front of the Dept. of Education). Gehry’s last attempt at a DC structure was the extension to the Corcoran Gallery and School, which was very similar in feeling and shape to some of his more famous recent works, including the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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More Tourists, Not Much More Money

IMG_2148.JPG

Tourist season is here: you can feel it on the sidewalk, on the Mall, around the Tidal Basin, and especially on the left sides of downtown Metro escalators. Washington Post reports that DC tourism is up, but that hasn’t necessarily translated to increased revenue for local retail and hospitality businesses. DC, after all, is Freebie Tourism Central: free monuments, museums, parks, even the zoo. Proximity day-trippers account for a large part of the influx of travelers: people driving in from nearby, not staying at hotels overnight, or opting to crash in local relatives’ guest rooms.
Continue reading →

Adventures, Food and Drink, Fun & Games, Night Life, The DC 100
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DC Omnivore 100: #78 Snails

Photo courtesy of
‘Brasserie Beck’
courtesy of ‘webjedi’
Originally, this Omnivore update was for another topic, which was “Beer above 8%” (and will show up soon), but after taking a look at the menu at Brasserie Beck, the Belgian-styled gastropub downtown, I figured I’d better shift focus.

So you ask, “snails?”, what is the most joked about cuisine when you’re trying to gross-out friends doing as a willing entry here rather than on a dare. I have to honestly admit, if it weren’t for my wife, there would be a lot of things, cuisine-wise, I’d never have tried, and snails (not to be confused with their brethren, “escargot”) would not have been the highest on my list. But, figuring this is a top notch establishment, and an unlimited supply of good beer to wash everything down, I said “what the heck!”. For goodness sake, the meal and establishment share most of name (Gastropod vs. Gastropub).

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The Daily Feed
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DC Sex math

Photo courtesy of
‘Suggestive by composition’
courtesy of ‘primplan’

I’m a fan of XKCD and the other day he ran a comic based on a calculation of the likelyhood someone is having sex within X distance of you. I couldn’t resist, and ran the numbers for D.C. With a population of 591,833 (as of 7/1/08 according to the census bureau) and a size of 61.4 square miles of land, that’s 9232 people per square mile. Punching that into Randall’s formula and letting Google handle the units works out like this:

sqrt(2/(pi*(9232/mi^2)*(80/year)(30 minutes))) = someone is gettin busy within
197.836832 meters of you right now.

Of course that’s just residency numbers. There’s over a million people in the city during the workday, so you might not want to look to see what that noise is in the next cubicle.

Okay it just changes the result to 152m, but that was funny, dammit!

Fun & Games, The Daily Feed
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Baltimore: A Heartbeat Away from Being As Awesome As DC

Photo courtesy of
‘Opening Day Tickets’
courtesy of ‘charmcitygavin’

One of the cool things about DC is that it’s relatively easy to get the President of the United States to swing by and throw out the first pitch of your team’s baseball season. I happen to think it’s cool no matter what I think of the person occupying the office at the time. 

And it’s one of the things that gives me a little case of DC-superiority; the Nationals will have President Obama throwing out their first pitch a week from today at their home opener. The Baltimore Orioles’ home opener today, and they’ll be settling for Vice President Biden. So the guy in this picture will go through just as much security today as I will next week, but he’ll see the person whose Constitutional role consists of little more than, “That Other Guy on the Ticket.”  But it’s still a big deal- VP Biden will be the first sitting vice president to throw out a ceremonial first pitch (edited to add) at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. (Thanks for catching that one, mysterious anonymous commenter.)

Sports Fix, The Daily Feed
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Opening Day!

Row of Seats

I wait for this day, every year. Baseball sleeps deep in me each winter, and its return is one I celebrate like a friend who’s come home after a long sojourn. Today marks Opening Day, and I’ll spare you long speeches (but, if you want one, you can read mine) about the game, or its teams. The O’s and Nats both start their seasons today. The Nats play on the road at 4:10pm, today, against the Marlins in Florida, and The Orioles play their home opener (weather permitting…) against the Yankees at Camden at 4:05pm.

Welcome back, Baseball, glad you’re here.

The Features, Weekend Flashback
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Weekend Flashback: 4/3 – 4/5/09

Photo courtesy of base10
Macro Blossoms II/Washington DC, courtesy of base10

Did you get out to see the blossoms, like seemingly everyone else around here and along the East Coast? A gorgeous weekend – even with high wind bursts on Saturday – couldn’t damper the Cherry Blossom Festival and many blooms remained attached to their branches. Which meant they were still in place for area and tourist photographers to capture.

If you’re still hankering for more, check out the WeLoveDC flickr pool, as many of our “regular” contributors’ photos can be seen there. Just watch out – you might get so engrossed you may lose track of time like I did…

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Alexandria, Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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The Butcher’s Block Opens

Photo courtesy of
‘The Captain’
courtesy of ‘EssG’

The two foodie trends of Spring ’09 I’ve noticed? Brunch and raw meat. Not necessarily together, thank goodness, but still – breakfast and meat-eries are going strong this year. Adding to the line of new butchers/charcuterie places is The Butcher’s Block, a Market by RW, located at 1600 King Street, next door to sister restaurants BRABO Tasting Room and BRABO.

The Butcher’s Block is “a chef-driven market with a wide selection of value wines, international beers, artisanal cheeses, charcuterie, prime cut meats, desserts, dry goods and home cooking accessories”. In addition to the charcuterie, pates, sausages and terrines, The Butcher’s Block sells prime cuts of rib-eye, fillet, lamb tenderloin, veal chops, pork loin, rabbit and chicken. Chef Wiedmaier sources much of his meat from the region, and he offers braised lamb shank, pork and beef carbonnade that can be purchased with his signature sauces to be heated and served at home.

On your way to a picnic along the Alexandria waterfront or off to Mount Vernon? Customers can schedule to pick up crusty baguettes still warm from the oven, and purchase freshly made sandwiches and seasonal salads for a grab-and-go picnic. Sandwiches come with choice of beverage and potato chips or fruit for $12. Perfect for your next lazy weekend afternoon – a nice thought to get you through the Monday doldrums.

The Daily Feed
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Congrats Champs!

Photo courtesy of
‘Ovechkin and Green Celebrate Again’
courtesy of ‘clydeorama’

Even though the Caps lost tonight against the still-alive Nashville Predators Buffalo Sabres, the loss came in overtime, which gave the Caps a much-needed point. That point clinched the Southeast Division for them; for the second year in a row, you can call the Caps “Division Champs.”

Congrats to Coach Bruce Boudreau and the entire squad for an amazing ride this year. Having garnered over 100 points in the standings and strongly holding the second playoff seed with a week remaining in regular season, the Capitals are gathering momentum at just the right time. Let’s just hope they keep lighting the lamp and push farther into the playoffs than last year.

Take a bow, boys. You deserve it.

Business and Money, Life in the Capital, Media, The Daily Feed
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The Post and Tech Crunch

Photo courtesy of
‘IMG_3957’
courtesy of ‘nrkbeta’

There’s some consternation going on about TechCrunch, and their reporting style, and Jon Gruber has a pretty interesting response: “The Washington Post must be so proud to have such high-quality bullshit running under its name.”

I had forgotten, The Post does rebrand Tech Crunch, which makes it’s the Post’s problem, too, when Michael Arrington goes out on a limb and the branch snaps off. How’s that got to feel over on 15th street when one of the people that’s not under their control wrecks a story like that?

DC Victory Gardens, The Features, We Green DC
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DC Victory Gardens: Planting

Seeds!

When last we left our intrepid gardeners, we were all on the path toward clearing up the land and getting ready for garden season. We’ve had some positive developments out at the farm, getting all the soil tilled and turned for planting, and some setbacks at the quarter acre, related to a section of land that turned out to be horrifically root-bound, and so we’ve had to move the garden. But before we go any further, this is a follow-up on the last post about using seeds. It’s time to get planting (truth be told, it was probably time to plant a week or two, but we’ve all been so busy, it’s been hard to write!) and we can worry about land-use later. This work could not be done without  The ArborLift™ by Environmental Design Inc. has revolutionized large tree transplanting.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Rabies in Fairfax County

Photo courtesy of
‘Some rabies sign from the 1950’s?’
courtesy of ‘smalltownguy22’

Fairfax County authorities are alerting residents to several incidents of rabid animals around the county.  So if you’re out that way, please check to ensure that your pets are up-to-date on their vaccinations (required by law for all dogs and cats almost everywhere, including Fairfax County). Make sure you have documentation of the vaccination handy as well- dogs who bite humans are often put down on the assumption of rabies if the victim doesn’t want to get vaccinated himself, so be sure you can prove your animals are rabies-free.  

Finally, be aware of your own safety- aggression is a telltale sign of rabies. A wild animal will almost always prefer to avoid you rather than attack you, unless it’s rabid. So if that racoon is running toward you, run away and call Animal Control; it’s not trying to make friends.

Interviews, People, The Features
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I Love DC: An Ode

Frame 10

As is the task of all the We Love DC bloggers, I set down to put what I love about this place into words. However, as I’m the upteenth member of the team, I had a feeling that much of what I could contribute would have been well-tred soil. So, instead, I have composed an Ode in three parts.

Continue reading →