By Tom Bridge
‘Sabre Raised’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’
John Kelly is the human interest writer for the Post, with a special eye on DC, and his column today takes the form of a quiz designed to test your DC Knowledge. I had to do some educated guessing, but I came away with a 15 of 22, and I’ve been here 10 years. There’s a lot of good DC history in there, so give it a good look.
By Ben H. Rome
‘Christmas kisses’
courtesy of ‘ekelly80’
Hope everyone had a great Christmas weekend! If you’re one of the few stuck at work during this week between holidays, we’re sorry. How about some photos to help stave off the boredom monkey? Continue reading
By Dave Levy
Ok, so the office is probably empty between the holidays and the quarter-inch of snow that is crippling the entire region (no, I’m not bitter at all at this reaction). Still, maybe you will have to have a conversation or two about the Redskins, so we offer the penultimate Cheat Sheet of the season to help you bluster your way through Sunday’s win over the Jaguars.
Things in the 80s and 90s were different. For one thing, the Redskins were respectable. For another thing, television was really predictable (not that the end of Lost took a mastermind to sleuth out). So much, so, that there were certain catchphrases and plots you could completely expect to fill in any campy sitcom. Given some of the text messages that were flying around on Sunday afternoon amongst friends, it seems like a perfect theme to recap yesterday’s win.
I’ll steal the two from the Scrubs clip above, but you’ll want to click through to see how I made them work. Honestly.
By Ben H. Rome
‘IMG_6728.jpg’
courtesy of ‘bridgetds’
The Capitals bounced back from their tough loss to Pittsburgh before the holidays with a 3-2 win over division rival Carolina. And more importantly, Alexander Ovechkin put an end to his goal-scoring drought after Mike Green corralled a wildly bouncing puck and sent it through the crowd. The puck deflected off a Carolina player to Ovechkin, who snapped it in behind Cam Ward. The goal, which proved to be the game winner, was his 13th of the season.
Mathieu Perreault continued to impress last night, wristing in a great Alexander Semin no-look pass that slide in front of the net, giving the Caps a 1-0 lead in the first period. David Steckel broke the 1-1 tie in the second after a great pick by Ovechkin as the Hurricanes were bringing the puck into center ice. Despite Tuomo Ruutu’s quick tip-in to start the third period, the Caps held on to grab their third win in four games.
“Our division’s pretty tough, so any game within the division, coming out with two points is huge for us,” Steckel said. “Especially a game after two days off. We wanted to come out and make sure we’re doing the right things and keep kind of the ball we’ve got rolling. I know we lost last game, but it’s indicative of the way we’re playing. If we keep playing like this, good things are going to happen.”
The Caps face the Montreal Canadiens in DC on Tuesday before packing up for the Winter Classic.
‘Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays To My Panda & Flickr Pals :)’
courtesy of ‘Dan Dan The Binary Man’
We know you don’t all celebrate Christmas. We don’t even all celebrate Christmas. But we all wish you a happy one, filled with the people you love and lots of joy and peace.
See you Monday.
Love,
The We Love DC Team
By Tom Bridge
‘Father & Son’
courtesy of ‘MudflapDC’
The New York Times has a great article yesterday about an event the Cleveland Indians are hosting this month at The Jake Progressive Field called Snow Days, where people can skate around a lazy river-shaped rink, or go tubing down a manmade snow hill in center field. $25 gets you access to skating (unlimited) and the tubing hill (for two hours), and the concession stands, of course. But, if you don’t want to skate or slide, you can just play in the snow and drink hot cocoa for $5. Could this work in DC?
By Ben H. Rome
It wasn’t everything the Caps wanted for Christmas, but it came pretty close.
The Washington Capitals lost in the shootout last night to the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins. Drama filled? This game had it in spades. You’d think a game like that would be a great centerpiece for a sports reality show or something… Maybe HBO Sports could get on that?
Despite the 3-2 loss, the Caps have a lot to be pleased about. Going into tonight, the Caps were on a two game win streak after a brutal eight game tailspin. The wins came against Ottawa and New Jersey, not exactly tough challenges for the Caps to overcome. Last night’s game against the rival Penguins was a true test of grit, and the Caps passed with flying colors. No fan should be hanging their head this Christmas.
“We’re back. We’re back to the style of hockey we can play,” said defenseman Karl Alzner. “That was one of the questions that [was] going around. Hopefully, we silenced a few of them. We had a low scoring game and we played solid for 60-minutes. It was a grade-A effort from our team. That’s what we like to see.”
By Jenn Larsen
The Kinsey Sicks in "Oy Vey in a Manger," photo courtesy of The Kinsey Sicks.
What says the holiday season better than a Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet? Rambling, raunchy, rude dragapella, with no pesky plot or fourth wall realism! Singing, dancing, kvetching dragapella – the perfect antidote to any holiday-induced blues you may be harboring.
Through January 2nd at Theater J you can catch The Kinsey Sicks, who’ve been fabulously hilarious since their beginnings years ago in San Francisco. This little variety show, clocking in at about 90 minutes, features belting queens Trampolina (Spencer Brown), Winnie (Irwin Keller), Trixie (Jeff Manabat) and Rachel (Ben Schatz) satirizing popular Christmas carols and Hanukkah songs. Don’t expect much of a plot (the girls are trying to sell their home – a manger, gotten long ago from the Christ family) but do expect to laugh your ass off at some very irreverent humor.
After all, it’s called Oy Vey in a Manger. Continue reading
‘White House Christmas 12’
courtesy of ‘afagen’
Rebecca: The day after Christmas will involve a trip to Two Amys for some simple mozzarella pizza done to perfection. Throw in some oven-roasted olives, deviled eggs with green sauce, salt cod croquettes and this will be one helluva holiday leftovers break. After the meal, I’ll stroll over to the nearby National Cathedral to view their creche scenes which are on display until January 7th.
Carl: I am spending this weekend in Takoma Park with Beautiful Girlfriend. Christmas day will be spent with her family, up near Baltimore and the day after Christmas we will be spending time watching the snow pile up in front of Kramerbooks in Dupont Circle as we sip hot cocoa. Dupont always has a cool energy and if there’s snow, as is predicted, I think it will be just plain fun. God bless us everyone. Or something. God bless hot cocoa, anyway. Continue reading
By Tom Bridge
The Stuff-A-Truck event on December 10th, sponsored by Giant and local Fox TV and CBS Radio stations raised $126,000+ for the Capital Area Food Bank and collected more than 25 tons of food for the bank. In these difficult times, to see such generosity from the public is touching, and to see it go to places that need it is heartening. If you’ve yet to finish your Christmas shopping for the year, consider a donation to the CAFB, or Bread for the City or DC Central Kitchen as part of your gift-buying this year.
By Tom Bridge
‘District #45’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’
This morning was the first day that interested parties could pickup petitions to be on the ballot for the special election to replace Kwame Brown’s At-Large council seat. Four people picked up petitions as of 11am:
Petitions are due back on February 16th and can begin circulating tomorrow.
By Tom Bridge
After a month’s suspension related to test-taking inside the Police Department, MPD Assistant Chief Diane Groomes has been reinstated after an investigation into the allegation. Groomes was vindicated when the investigators found the test to have been open book and that no one had compromised the answer key to the test, according to the Post’s Theola Labbé-DeBose.
‘taking the bus’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’
Or, One More Thing an iPad is Good For
There I was, waiting at the bus stop after work, staring at my phone while waiting for Nextbus to load. Nextbus said the H1 bus would arrive in 2 minutes, though the H1 tends to run on Inception time, so I figured that “2” really meant “15.”
After about 5 minutes of shivering, we saw the H1 turn the corner from Constitution… and then blow right past the stop. There was a great disturbance in the Force, as though 10 angry government employees cried out… and the bus screeched to a halt on the other side of the intersection.
The harried driver waved us all aboard, not even wanting us to delay long enough to pay the fare. As I reached my customary seat right behind the rear exit, I heard the driver say, “Anyone going to Brookland?”
“I am!” I called out.
“Good, maybe you can help me, then. I don’t have the directions for this route. I mean, I’ve done it once before, but, you know, it’s been a minute.”
Oh. Great. Continue reading
By Dan Rowinski
‘Nick Young’
courtesy of ‘Keith Allison’
The Wizards looked good in the first quarter.
That was about it.
The Bulls blew in to Verizon Center on Wednesday and stole the wand from the Wizards en route to a 87-80 victory behind solid performances from Carlos Boozer who had 30 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. Derrick Rose was also able to do some damage to the Wizards backcourt to the tune of 25 points, five rebounds and five assists.
“You can see what great instincts he has to score 30 points, every night he knows how to find seams around the basket. The way he is rebounding the ball is a testament to his ability,” Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau said.
By Dave Levy
‘IMG_7667’
courtesy of ‘dbking’
I could wax poetic on the whole quarterback situation for the 5-9 Redskins.
Could.
I think it’s more fun just to reprint these gems from Donovan McNabb from his interview on ESPN890 yesterday, the first public comments since losing the starting quarterback job for the Washington Redskins slightly less than a week ago:
By Tom Bridge
‘DC Fire Department’
courtesy of ‘Gersemalina’
This morning, DC Fire/EMS responded to a fire at the Takoma Education Campus on Piney Branch Road, which is currently believed to have started near some roofing work that was going on during the break. As it is winter break, no students were currently in session, and what staff were present were successfully evacuated, but the facility has suffered extensive damage which will be repaired with shingle roofing. Visit bondocroofing.com/service-areas/san-antonio/ for more information.
In a statement distributed to press, Safiya Simmons wrote that “DCPS has determined that students won’t be able to return in January and plans to relocate the kids to another school are underway. A meeting with Takoma parents will be scheduled and final plans will be announced next week.”
No firefighters were injured in putting out the three-alarm blaze.
By Dave Stroup
‘dc election day’
courtesy of ‘Paige Weaver’
Yes, you read that correctly.
D.C. Councilmember Michael A. Brown (I-at Large) is considering running for D.C. Council in the upcoming special election to fill Kwame Brown’s soon-to-be-vacant at-large seat. Brown, who was elected to the Council as an independent in 2008 has been itching to switch his party affiliation back to the Democratic party. Everyone in the world knows that Brown is actually a Democrat, and his father, the late Ron Brown worked for the Clinton Administration and served as chair of the DNC. Brown shed the (D) from his name two years ago to run for one of the two seats reserved for minority parties.
So what does this mean for the special election? If Michael A. Brown entered the race, he’d have a pretty strong advantage out of the gate. He’s got pretty strong name recognition across the city and has the advantage of incumbency. However, that ignores the fact that this entire maneuver is completely ridiculous, self-serving and most of all, absurd. If Brown were to win and “switch” seats, that would result in yet another special election, this time reserved for minority parties. That would also cost the city at least another $500,000. Money the city does not have. Continue reading
While I consider my Best Concerts list to be a pretty definitive guide to what concerts totally rocked socks in the DC area in the past year, I think that top album lists are a bit more vague and really only serve as guides to albums the reader may have missed. I am much more a theme-based best-of list maker. I usually don’t compile a best albums of the year list, but I have received several requests for me to do one this year.
I acquire music rapidly and without much regard to year. So really albums are not so much attached to years for me as they are tied to whatever genre or sub-genre kick I am on at a given time.* It was actually pretty difficult for me to put together my starting list. A lot of what I thought were 2010 albums were actually from ’09! That said I did put together a list of about 50 or so albums from this year that are worthy of mention. From that list I battled them down to a top 10. These are not the best albums of 2010, they are simply my favorite. Maybe you’ll find something new here to check out. Maybe you won’t. Readers you asked for it, you got it. My picks in reverse order (along with a taste of each) after the jump…
By Samer Farha
‘Gakkenflex’
courtesy of ‘pnzr242’
As you might have heard by now, Metro’s longest serving board member, Chris Zimmerman, has elected to step down. I spoke with Mr. Zimmerman this morning about his decision to step down, and about Metro in general.
Despite the persistent reports that he resigned due to frustrations with funding, Zimmerman told me that he stepped down because of time constraints. At the beginning of the year, Zimmerman will become chairman of the Arlington County board. “I have a number of things in Arlington that are very important to me that I really need to spend time on,” he said. “The Metro assignment has become quite consuming, and at some point you have to decide what to focus on.”
That doesn’t mean he isn’t concerned with Metro’s funding. “My concern about Metro in the future is that we have not been committing the resources necessary to operate at the level that the region expects, and we’re seeing the consequences of that. That’s not something that can be fixed from within the Metro board.” He adds that he expects to continue to be involved in Metro and other transportation issues, and in finding a stable source of funding for the agency.
Read on for what I thought was a frank and wide-ranging discussion of the issues the board and the region have ahead of them.
By Tom Bridge
‘DC Flag on Bus Stop Crop’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’
This afternoon in a press conference at the Reeves Center, Vince Gray announced five appointees to administration positions. The first two were education-oriented positions, with Gray appointing De’Shawn A. Wright to Deputy Mayor for Education, and Hosanna Mahaley to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education’s head. In addition, Gray appointed Rochelle Webb to run DOES, and Gustavo Velasquez and Clarence Brown to continue on at DOHR and the Office on Aging, respectively.
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