‘2008 in film’
courtesy of ‘erin m’

The DC Shorts Film Festival is coming soon (September 9 to the 16 to be exact). In the meantime,  niche food and environmental films will be shown at a special pre-festival screening at select Whole Foods in the District.

The Whole Foods stores on P Street (1140 1440 P Street, N.W.) and in Georgetown (2323 Wisconsin Ave, N.W.) will both be providing snack specials and festival catalogs while presenting 7:30 screenings of films.

Both screenings are free, so go kill two birds with one stone – get your grocery shopping done and see a few films from some of the best independent film makers out there.

Tickets for the 2010 DC Shorts Film Festival are still available.

‘the lobstah line’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’
It’s a poor showing out there today. Fojol Brothers are on vacation this week, and D.C. Slices is taking the day off to clean up from some vandalism over the weekend. That just means the line at the lobster truck will be even longer. Prepare accordingly.

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Photo by Anthony Amobi / Nationals News Network

Tony La Russa’s St. Louis Cardinals are a very good baseball team. Albert Pujols is an undisputed All-Star whose slugging abilities rank him among the best of the best when it comes to Major League hitters. Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainright are Cy Young contenders. Yadier Molina is the third catcher in baseball history to play in two World Series before the age of 25. And that’s just to name of a few of the notables.

But – somehow – thanks to a little perseverance and gritty desire, the Washington Nationals won the four-game weekend series 3-1 showing that they’ve still got a bit of feistiness stirring up in their bellies.

“We played good clean baseball. When we don’t make errors, because we’ve got a pretty good offensive ballclub and our pitchers pitch to contact, we don’t strike out a lot of people, so when we play good defense like we did in this series we’re tough to beat. We’re competitive with everybody. You think pitching and you think hitting but defense is huge and when we play good defense like that it just gives us a chance to win that many more ball games,” Riggleman said. Continue reading →

‘Roger Clemens’
courtesy of ‘Keith Allison’

After the fall out from the MLB steroid era of the 90s, there were three different types of villains. There were the Barry Bonds types of the world, the silent, near unapologetic – but at least they didn’t fan any flames beyond stoicism. There were those who just wanted it to go away, like Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire. And then there were those who were so adamant about their innocence that it almost seemed like there was too much, so arrogant in their own defense that something was amiss.

The banner case for that last group may be Roger Clemens. During Congressional steroid investigations late last decade, Clemens was brought in for a deposition, but then personally decided that he wasn’t making his case clearly enough and chose on his own power to go before a Congressional hearing to defend himself and his purity. Two and a half years after testifying on Capitol Hill, Clemens has been called back to D.C. – to be arraigned on charges that he perjured himself during that testimony. The Rocket will be arraigned for six counts related to that February 2008 appearance later today, and the trial would pick up again next spring.

Photo by Anthony Amobi / Nationals News Network

Remember the first half of the week when the Nationals couldn’t hit for squat? And what about the time Manager Jim Riggleman watched his men strand 14 base runners claiming “it’s better to have men on than not at all” on Friday?

Well, if the Cubs series was the rule, then Saturday night’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals is the exception. The Chicago Cubs outscored Washington  18-5 in three games, but Washington went on to outscore St. Louis 25-19 in three games with one game left today at 1:35.

Riggleman went into the Saturday night game with a different lineup than usual. The plan was to get some people a little different feel when they went up to the plate by changing their spot at the dish. “I feel like we’ve tried to stay with basically the same lineup the whole time [this year] and it’s been hot and cold so we just shook it up a bit,” Riggleman said.

And Riggleman said, “Let there be hits.” And – there were. Continue reading →

‘4TH’
courtesy of ‘MissChatter’

Defense lost Friday night’s game for the Washington Nationals. Left-handed starter Scott Olsen was by no means of Cy Young caliber on the mound, but he pitched a decent game. His problems weren’t his control or pitch count; it was his team’s errors in the field and inability to provide run support.

In the span of five batters, the Nats committed three errors in the third – one of which was rescored later in the game by officials – against the St. Louis Cardinals.

“The first couple innings we didn’t play tight defense. We weren’t sharp defensively, we made [Olsen] throw way too many pitches,” Riggleman said. Continue reading →

DC resident and first amendment attorney/guru to WLDC Kevin Goldberg put together this guest piece for us and we are behind its sentiment 100%

‘trashed’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

An open letter to invading masses,

I love DC. I’ll even say flat out that I love DC more than you. I grew up the DC area (Rockville represent!!!), have lived in the DC area (or within 2 hours from DC) for pretty my entire 39 years (and 2 days) and, finally moved into the city itself in 2004.

Before I get to my request, let me make one thing clear, in the interest of full disclosure. I’m not one of you. I don’t agree with your politics. I’m not going to attend the “Restoring Honor” rally this Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial. But, since my politics are pretty much “First Amendment and then everything else,” I 100 percent, wholeheartedly, embrace your right to converge on my city and speak your minds.

What I don’t embrace is the way you treat my city whenever you come here. I’m not going to snark DC-wise on things like standing to the left on the Metro escalators or jamming up restaurants I wouldn’t want to eat at anyway while ignoring the hidden gems that make this city’s food scene one of the most underrated in your country. That’s too easy and it’s been done. Instead, I’m talking trash. Every time there has been a Tea Party affiliated, based or ideologically connected event on or near the Mall, the landscape takes on a post-apocalyptic feel afterward. Trash everywhere. Discarded signs litter the pavement and sidewalks, strewn amidst empty water bottles, food containers and soda cups. Maybe tomorrow will be different, but I’m not counting on it and I’m obviously already affected by it.

So, if I have but one simple request for you this weekend, it’s this: pick up after yourselves.

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‘The Snooki Sandwich’
courtesy of ‘b0jangles’
Well I guess we know what the folks at BGR are doing every Thursday night. A little fist pumping, a little GTL and plenty of brainstorming after a Solo cup of Ron-Ron juice. After the rousing success of the Strasburger (a cheeseburger topped with a hot dog and 14 pickles), BGR has cooked up…wait for it…the Snooki Burger.

Coming next month, the burger will be an all beef patty topped with jalapenos, cream cheese, and a fried pickle for every time Snooki gets arrested in September. So the next time you’re down the Shore, find Snooki and do some provoking. Mama wants some more pickles on her burger.

Photo by Cheryl Nichols / Nationals News Network

The Washington Nationals announced this morning that rookie pitcher Stephen Strasburg will be out for the rest of the season and will likely have Tommy John Surgery.

The news came to Strasburg Thursday after the result of his arthogram showed a “significant” tear of the Ulner Collateral Ligament in his pitching elbow. Strasburg and the Nationals refrained from announcing the arthogram results until this morning out of respect for Bryce Harper’s introductory press conference at Nationals Park that afternoon.

Strasburg will get a second opinion from Dr. Lewis Yocum in California in the coming days, but he remains optimistic, determined, and ready to take on this new thing in his life, Rizzo said.

The Nationals believe that Strasburg’s rehabilitation after surgery, if it takes place, should be a typical Tommy John rehabilitation and will take anywhere between 12-18 months.

Update, 11:30 a.m.: Tommy John surgery is a procedure where a ligament from the medial elbow is replaced with a tendon from elsewhere in the body. Possible options are tendons from the forearm, hamstring, knee, or foot. There are also Knee Replacement Alternatives in Hardy Oak – QC Kietix for those who prefer non-invasive treatments. Tommy John surgery is common among collegiate and professional athletes in several sports, mostly baseball, and several pitchers who have undergone the procedure have made a healthy recovery. These pitchers include: Chris Carpenter, Tim Hudson, Josh Johnson, Billy Wagner, Erik Bedard, and Joakim Soria.

‘20100825_fojol_0016’
courtesy of ‘Amber Wilkie Photography’
It’s food truck time. Grab a friend and some suntan lotion, it’s a great day for food from the back of a van.

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‘unusual destination’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

The AP is reporting that the civil suit brought by survivors of those killed in the June 2009 metro accident, originally slated to start September 2011, is being pushed back to January 2012. Following a motion brought by two newer defendants in the claim, ARINC (a provider of communications system on public transport systems) and Michigan-based electrical supplier, ADCO Circuits, a judge upheld the request to delay the start of the tiral.

In addition, the judge will allow a hearing this November for Metro to ask some charges to be dismissed, specifically those which would impede on “sovereign immunity” that WMATA retains as a transportation authority.

‘2ND’
courtesy of ‘MissChatter’

Three days worth of disappointment later, the Washington Nationals woke up their bats. The Chicago Cubs came into Washington a day after losing their Manager Lou Pinella to early retirement during an already abysmal season and still managed to sweep the Nats by outscoring them 18-5 in a three-game series. So instead of taking batting practice on the diamond before the series opener against the second place St. Louis Cardinals, Manager Jim Riggleman shook things up a bit and moved the team’s batting practice inside.

What seemed to be a last minute moral boost managed to deliver some results. Washington strung together ten hits against Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter to match his season high of hits by the opposition against him in a start.

But by the end of the night, Jordan Zimmermann’s sub-par debut performance was a mere blip in a 13 inning game that felt like it would never end. Continue reading →

Photo by Ian Koski / Nationals Daily News

If he were anybody else, 17-year-old Bryce Harper would be getting ready for his senior year of high school right now. Instead, the 2010 first round Major League Baseball draft pick is preparing for what he says is every ball playing kid’s dream — a successful career in the big leagues.

Harper took batting practice at Nationals Park this afternoon before speaking with the media. According to The Washington Post’s Adam Kilgore, the first word out of Nats hitting coach Rick Eckstein’s mouth after watching Harper slug a few was “wow.” Those who were there to watch him hit saw balls fly to every inch of the outer edge of Nationals Park including the visitor’s bullpen and the triple deck in right field. Continue reading →