Sports Fix

Redskins Preview Week 3: The Dallas Cowboys

Photo courtesy of
‘Cardinals5’
courtesy of ‘Homer McFanboy’

Tony Romo has banged up ribs and if he plays DeAngelo Hall will be aiming for them. Felix Jones has an injured shoulder and if he plays DeAngelo Hall will be aiming for that as well. I can’t decide if what Hall said this past week is bad or simply stating the obvious. If an injured player plays and that injury is known then players on the other team are going to be looking to exploit it as a weakness. It is just the way football works, but this is a big rivalry and everything is magnified.

In 2010 both the Redskins and the Cowboys finished with 6-10 records. The Cowboys got rid of coach Wade Phillips late in the season and replaced him with offensive coordinator Jason Garrett while the Redskins choose to get rid of 26 players. Among the players the Redskins rid themselves of were aging and under-performing veterans who were replaced with younger players better suited to Mike Shanahan’s system. The Cowboys came into 2011 thought of as a contender for the NFC wildcard while the Redskins were thought to be nothing but a contender for Andrew Luck.

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Weekend Flashback

Weekend Flashback: 9/23-9/25

Photo courtesy of
‘Fist-bumpin Mayor’
courtesy of ‘slightlyworn’

The last week of September is upon us. For me, this has always signaled the true end of summer. Last bout of muggy, humid weather; baseball is heading into the playoffs; the football season is in full swing; and the days are ending much too quickly. Yep, the summer is ending. Well, at least we have cooler weather and good harvest foods to look forward to! Oh, and some fascinating light in our group’s photo pool. Come, take a look! Continue reading

Sports Fix, The Features

A Shutout Win, And A Glimpse Of The Future?

Photo courtesy of
‘Win!’
courtesy of ‘oddlittlebird.’

On a warm Sunday afternoon on the final weekend of September, the Washington Nationals shut out a division opponent in a game with major playoff implications. The starting pitcher, a high draft pick and source of occasional frustration, pitched six shutout innings; Washington’s best offensive player smashed a two-run home run to break the game open in the late innings; and the team’s sterling bullpen pitched three perfect innings to secure the win.

OK, so the only team who had their playoff chances affected was the hapless Atlanta Braves, for whom the 3-0 loss was their 15th of the month of September. Atlanta’s lackluster performance, combined with the St. Louis Cardinals’ 3-2 win over the Chicago Cubs, cut the Braves’ lead in the National League wild card race down to a single game with three still to play. Continue reading

Sports Fix, The Daily Feed

As the season wanes, Nationals continue strong, beat Braves 4-1

 

Photo courtesy of
‘win’
courtesy of ‘oddlittlebird.’

When this season started, I thought the Nationals might well win about 72 games this year. An improvement over last year’s tally of 69, but hardly a big step forward. With four games remaining, the Nationals are 77-80, still in reach of .500 ball. The Nationals are 14-9 in September, their best span of the second half, and have been playing meaningful baseball in September for the first time since 2005. While winning out isn’t a given, with Atlanta playing for their lives, and the dominance of the Marlins over the Nats, it’s still a distinct possibility that this team could finish at 81-80.

Today’s victory over the Braves can largely be placed in the hands of the battery, with Chien Ming Wang throwing 6 strong innings and limiting the Braves to a single run, and Pudge Rodriguez’s eighth inning rally-killing theft-prevention throwout of Michael Bourn. The veteran catcher’s final home start of the year (and possibly in a Nationals uniform) was certainly one of his more memorable ones, calling a phenomenal game against the very tough Braves offense, and nabbing two runners on the basepaths, as well going 1-2 with a walk.

After the game, manager Davey Johnson was very complimentary of both. Of Wang, he said, “[he had] a remarkable season, got better every time out… If I’m here [next year] he can have my salary. If you’d seen him throw in December, and where he is right now, my hat goes off to him.” Regarding his catcher, Johnson was praising of his training routine (5 hours a day, 7 days a week), and gave no thought to pulling Pudge early for a standing ovation.

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Adams Morgan, Food and Drink, The Features, We Love Drinks

Drinks Special: Cocktails at Jack Rose

Photo courtesy of
‘Mai Tai at Jack Rose’s Tiki bar’
courtesy of ‘Jenn Larsen’

Jack Rose Dining Saloon has been opening in stages, overlooking the seemingly interminable construction at the intersection of 18th Street and Florida Avenue NW. Now that the dust is finally clearing from the brand new sidewalk outside, its long-awaited dinner menu has debuted as well and is being served seven nights a week in the downstairs dining room and bar. The upstairs patio has been in full swing for most of the summer and is due to continue the grilling and swilling through the fall, including a Tiki bar on the back porch that served me up some killer classics two weeks ago when I visited for the official debut of the downstairs menu.

The key visual of Jack Rose is certainly its downstairs dining room’s wall of scotches, bourbons and spirits – 1400 bottles lining the bar in bookcases of booze. Between liquor, wine and beer the catalog of offerings can be a bit staggering, but the elegant room invites relaxed sifting through the menu while sipping some Ardbeg at the long bar, watching bartenders climb up ladders library-style to fetch bottles. Turn a corner at Jack Rose and the atmosphere can instantly change – every space here has its own feel, so give yourself some wandering time before deciding where you’d like to perch for a while.

Upstairs is divided into several sections, including a front balcony overlooking 18th Street off a small lounge bar complete with fireplace, the main open-air deck with a wood-fire grill and bar, and the small back bar that’s slowly turning into a Tiki spot. I started back there and almost never left, as a friend sipped a perfect Painkiller. After watching the moon rise off the back porch with a classic Mai Tai (orgeat syrup? yes please!) it was time to head downstairs and sample some whiskey cocktails from the excellent selection crafted by Rachel Sergi. Continue reading

Sports Fix, The Features

Strasburg Stumbles, Nats Bumped Off By Braves

Photo courtesy of
‘IMG_8416’

courtesy of ‘NDwas’
Now that Stephen Strasburg has made a full recovery from Tommy John surgery, all that’s left for fans of the Washington Nationals to hope for is that his starts in 2012 go a lot better than his start on Friday night, when Strasburg’s disastrous first inning turned out to be the difference in a 7-4 loss to the playoff-chasing Atlanta Braves (89-68).

The start was officially delayed by 14 minutes while the field was given extra time to recover from the day-long rains that soaked the District. Whether it was this minor disruption of routine or the generally damp and humid conditions that affected Strasburg is not clear. However, he had trouble locating the strike zone in a 38-pitch first inning, and when either his four-seam or two-seam fastball did find the zone, it was carted all over the Nationals Park outfield.

After Strasburg struck out Michael Bourn on a changeup to lead off the game, Martin Prado lined a single off the glove of Danny Espinosa. Chipper Jones followed by pulling a two-seam fastball into right field on a full count, sending Prado to third. Dan Uggla fisted another four-seam fastball into center field to score Prado, the game’s first run. After Brian McCann swung through a 97-mile-an-hour fastball, Freddie Freeman doubled Atlanta’s advantage by singling to right before Jack Wilson pulled a ground ball that should have gone straight into Ryan Zimmerman’s glove and ended the inning. However, the ball took a fat hop, nicked the heel of Zimmerman’s glove, and bounced to left field as Uggla crossed the plate to make it 3-0. Strasburg managed to retire Jason Heyward to end the inning, but the out came in the form of a 395-foot fly ball that drove Rick Ankiel to the warning track in dead center field and nearly ended the competitive portion of the game right then and there.

Strasburg retired 9 of the next 10 batters and exited after the 4th inning with the Nationals trailing 3-1 thanks to an RBI single by Wilson Ramos in the second inning. However, Washington’s middle relief let them down. In particular, Collin Balester, who relieved Strasburg, made his predecessor’s performance seem masterful. Davey Johnson, trying to prolong his team’s five-game winning streak, pulled Balester after three batters and brought in Atahualpa Severino, who allowed both of his inherited runners to score on a double by Uggla, who came around himself on an RBI double by McCann.
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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed

Friday Happy Hour: Maple Derby at Black Jack

After what seemed like an extended “coming soon” period, followed by a week or so of soft-opening, 14th Street’s new Pearl Dive Oyster Bar is officially open, as is the upstairs bar, Black Jack.

Black Jack is designed to be a fun, casual spot – complete with that buzzed-about indoor bocce pitch. They have a nice selection of whiskeys behind the bar and a short list of signature cocktails, two of which come out of a slushie machine. There are colorful lights strung from the ceiling to give a suggestion of being outdoors on a cool patio.

If you are getting the impression that they just crammed every bar trend into one place, you might be on to something. However, the staff are nice, the crowd seemed fine and surprisingly, not-crowded – and based on what I have sampled, the drinks are tasty.
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Food and Drink, Special Events, The Daily Feed

Veggies Take Over at This Saturday’s DC VegFest

On September 24, from 11am to 6pm, DC VegFest will showcase ease, fun, and advantages of a plant-based lifestyle at GWU’s University Yard. This annual event, now in its third year, has grown significantly in size – it is the area’s largest vegetarian event with thousands of attendees expected.

Those attendees will have the opportunity to purchase foods from nineteen local restaurants and food trucks, shop from animal-friendly vendors, and take in talks from speakers like chef and cookbook author Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Wayne Pacelle of The Humane Society. There will be free food to sample from national brands and Sticky Fingers Sweets & Eats has organized a cupcake-eating contest.
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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music

We Love Music: Peter Hook presents “Closer” @ 9:30 Club, 9/21/11


Last December, Peter Hook (formerly of Joy Division and New Order) brought his band The Light to the 9:30 Club and performed the Joy Division album “Unknown Pleasures” in its entirety plus a handful of ancillary Joy Division songs. Just about everyone in attendance went in to that show skeptical and curious about Hook’s audacious move; essentially performing as Joy Division without any of the other surviving members and seemingly dancing on deceased lead singer Ian Curtis’ grave. Hook and his band stunned the audience by playing a bullet-proof set that was as raucous as it was reverent. That show proved without a doubt that the world has longed to hear these songs performed live again and that Peter Hook is full of passion for the material he, Ian, and the others wrote 30 years ago.

On Wednesday night, Hooky brought The Light back to the 9:30 Club to continue the Joy Division revival tour. This time they would be performing the Joy Division classic album “Closer” in full. This time around the show had a positive buzz and even brought out a few Joy Division fans who skipped the first show due to sheer disbelief but had since heard Hook was doing the band’s memory justice. So the atmosphere inside the club was much more positive this time around. Everyone, including myself, expected a good show, one that would hopefully match the caliber of the “Unknown Pleasures” set. Peter Hook & The Light delivered an excellent show this time and a great time was had by all; however I can’t help but compare it to their previous show and this week’s performance didn’t quite match last year’s triumph.

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Arlington, Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts

We Love Arts: Macbeth

Irakli Kavsadze and Irina Tsikurishvili in Synetic Theater's 2011 production of Macbeth. Photo credit: Graeme B. Shaw

What would you do for absolute power? Could you kill your friend? Murder children? Call it justice? Watch out. On the path to conquering the world, you might lose your soul. “Fair is foul and foul is fair…”

There’s a gasp-inducing moment in Synetic Theater‘s production of Macbeth that focuses it as a straight-up morality tale. Lady Macbeth, in the last throes of madness induced by guilt, slides into a hellish hole like blood down a drain. It’s terrifying, as Irina Tsikurishvili’s eyes roll around and the watching witches smile demonically in approval.

It’s hard to remember there once was a time when Synetic seemed to come out of nowhere, with images like this one shaking up the DC theatre scene. Their physically combustive style was almost subversive in its daring. Now that they’re more established, at home in Crystal City, they could easily rest on the accolades gained by their current signature style of Silent Shakespeare, and audiences might not blame them for it. But I doubt there will be much resting by Synetic’s driven artistic team, and I’m interested to see what they come up with in the next phase.

Before they move on with new explorations of world physical theater next year, their Silent Shakespeare Festival Speak No More revives three of their popular wordless adaptations – Macbeth, Othello (my personal favorite) and Romeo & Juliet. Each run will be just about three weeks – Macbeth closes October 2.

This revival of the 2007 production is darkly militaristic. Forget the tartan. Bring on the choke chain.

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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed

Mid City Caffe to Close

Photo courtesy of
‘Strut’
courtesy of ‘lorigoldberg’

Charming Logan Circle coffee spot Mid City Caffé is set to close for business effective October 1st.

While a victim in part of its location – on a second floor and away from the kind of office-based foot traffic that supports a bustling coffee shop five of seven days a week – the owner and management still made the difficult decision to close rather than relocate when faced with a lease expiring and ambiguous future for the building they occupy (a situation which, unfortunately, may also impact the street-level tenant, vintage shop Miss Pixie’s in the coming months.)

Until the recent arrival of Peregrine Espresso’s second location only about one block away, Mid City was the only serious coffee shop in the Logan Circle/14th/U St region and, in addition to serving great coffee, it served as a valuable daytime spot to work or socialize in a neighborhood more focused on nightlife. Regulars seeking a spot to open the laptop and drink a tasty beverage will now most likely have to head over to Filter in Dupont.

Mid City’s current general manager and head barista, Jeffrey Lamoureux (previously with Chinatown Coffee Co), brought in to run the struggling shop just a few months ago, will be moving on to open a new espresso bar concept within the renovated AKA White House hotel. That cafe is expected to open later this autumn.

We Love Weekends

We Love Weekends – Sep 23 – 25

Photo courtesy of
‘I’m Andy Warhol, Who Are You?’
courtesy of ‘maxedaperture’

Marissa: This weekend will probably prove to be a busy one. Friday night I’m planning on finally checking out Lost Society since their cocktail menu looks quite tasty. Saturday night I’m excited to see my friends’ band, Level 7, play at the Level X Lounge. Tickets are only $10. Then I’ll round out the weekend on Sunday afternoon checking out the newWarhol exhibit at the National Gallery of Art.

Mosley: You mean besides a lot of photo editing and trip prep?  Actually, after having such a blast at the H Street Festival last week, I’m excited to see that Barracks Row is having it’s own fall festival on Saturday.  Other than that, I’ve been telling myself, for a number of years, to check out the National Book Festival.  I might end up doing that on Sunday.  Full weekend indeed!

Fedward: The Social Chair and I will be visiting friends near Front Royal, which usually means a winery tour. Past favorites have included Linden Vineyards (a Virginia wine pioneer and consistent producer of high quality wine), Glen Manor Vineyards(recently featured in a wine maker dinner at Dino), and Chester Gap Cellars (a place I’d go just for the view from the tasting room, even without Bernd’s excellent wines). If we’re organized we might even squeeze in a visit to a distiller or two. I should try to remember to bring along some WLDC business cards, huh. And then on our way back we’ll stop at Apple House for some donuts.

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The Daily Feed

Latin Rhythms Infuse Food and Wine at Vintage Crystal

photo: Moses

It was easy to take a virtual voyage to Latin locales when I was invited by the festival organizers to attend last Sunday’s “Vintage Crystal: A Taste of Wine and Jazz” in Crystal City. Tasty bites from neighborhood purveyors were pleasantly paired with over thirty wines of Spain, Chile, and Argentina provided by Jaleo.

Local businesses promoted their services with friendly staff and colorful brochures, while Latin jazz from Trio Caliente set a soulful soundtrack for friends to deliberate the merits of Malbec, Carmenere, Verdejo, and Tempranillo. It was impossible to stand still, so it’s a good thing Arlington’s Latin lounge The Salsa Room was on hand to orchestrate rumba, salsa, and cha-cha lessons. Fortunately, overcast skies didn’t detract crowds; in fact, the soft glow and slight chill made for a refreshing climate to hit the dance floors.
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The Daily Feed

Recharge your SmarTrip online!

Photo courtesy of

courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Well, thank heavens for small favors.

Metro announced this afternoon that anyone with a SmarTrip card that’s registered through their website will now be able recharge their transit card with a credit card. From the Metro website:

Because SmarTrip fare value is stored on the card, rather than in a central computer, customers must complete their transaction by touching their card to a target, such as a Metrorail faregate, vending machine or bus farebox. Customers should allow up to one business day for value to be transferred to their card when touching a rail faregate or vending machine and up to three business days at a bus farebox.

Well, it’s not perfect. But it’s a good start.

The Daily Feed

DC Fire Department: Social Media maybe isn’t just for Parties

Photo courtesy of
‘Party Animals on First Street, SE’
courtesy of ‘kimberlyfaye’

One of the very first government twitter feeds I started following belonged to the DC Fire & EMS department, who tweeted short notices about a fire’s location, seriousness of the incident, and often provided updates. They were a quick way to a corroborate a problem across town, to give you a heads up about something that might be happening.

You’ll notice that @dcfireems has been pretty quiet. Yesterday it was revealed that the department brass wasn’t happy with the job that PIO Pete Piringer was doing with the account and they were taking measures to protect themselves.

The outpouring of frustration was pretty voluminous. Thankfully, the Department is listening, and today Tim Craig from the Post has good news for DC Tweeters: “Breaking Twitter News @dcfireems will resume today. Fire PIO Piringer will be tweeter, as had been case. He will also have backup. No filter”

Whew. Maybe social media isn’t just for partying?

Special Events

The wedding series continues – who ELSE is using your big day?

Photo courtesy of
’18 Sep 2010 – No 030′
courtesy of ‘B Jones Jr’

The following is a guest entry by the Social Chair, who is far more qualified than I am to discuss this particular subject matter.

So here’s the problem with being a girl who hasn’t been planning her wedding since she was a little girl:

When it’s time to plan your wedding, it’s a bit daunting.

When last we met, I had just purchased my wedding dress (es).No, I still don’t know which I am going to wear. Luckily, I have some time to figure that out. We decided to push the big event to 2012 and enjoy being engaged, instead of frantically rushing to get it planned this year. Our wedding will take place in October 2012. The logic went something like this:

November-February: Holidays, cold, maybe snow. March & April: Could be nice, could be cold and rainy. May & September: Generally busy months, with weather that sometimes doesn’t cooperate. June: Could be nice, could be terribly hot. July or August: Are you kidding? Who wants to be in DC then? October: It’s the most wonderful time of the year in DC. We have a winner!

And then the fine-tuning begins.
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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music

We Love Music: Clutch @ Red Palace, 9/18/11

IMG_2285b
all photos by author.

This a concert review that is more about a beer than a band. Rather, this is a beer review that is more about a band than a beer. Or how about, this is a review that is about a beer that is named after a band who played a concert in honor of their beer. The band and the beer are called Clutch. The beer hails from Colorado. The band has its roots in Maryland. The concert in honor of the beer was at The Red Palace in Washington DC. The events that follow took place on Sunday night.* It was awesome and I’m sorry you weren’t there.

But really few people were. The performance space at Red Palace was full of people but since it’s a tiny space it could only hold so many. All told about a 150 lucky Clutch fans piled into the Red Palace for a free show by the band. So relatively speaking to the Red Palace, there were ‘a lot’ of people there. But compared to your standard Clutch show at 9:30 Club (or at HFStival the day before), you could say this beer show was quite exclusive. But exclusive sounds kind of stuck up and this event was far from that. In fact I would describe Clutch the band and this event as the complete opposite of stuck up. So instead let’s describe this concert with one of the region’s, nay, the country’s best rock bands as limited edition. I like that. Music collectors enjoy things that are limited edition. Usually we’d use the term to describe an object, but I think it’s safe to use it to describe this intimate free concert. I mean how often do you get to pile into a tiny room for free, drink a mighty tasty beer designed by one of your favorite bands, then listen to them play five or six rare ‘acoustic’ arrangements, before having your face rocked off when they unleash Pure Electric Rock Fury in the form of monster jam versions of some of your favorite tunes?

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