Category Archives: The Daily Feed

The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Light week here on We Love DC

Photo courtesy of
‘Reg 220 after the rapture’
courtesy of ‘quinn.anya’

We’re hoping that everyone is having a great post-Christmas pre-New Year’s Monday.  As you may have noticed, we’re running a bit light this week as we all prepare for 2011.  Posting will be fairly light as all our people come back from their holiday breaks, but you can count on at least two features a day and probably a smattering of news and events as it happens.

We’re planning some awesome stuff for the New Year, and we’re gonna get a head start now. We’re around this week, but maybe not quite as much.

Hope you’re having a restful week.

The Daily Feed
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Washington Post launches Favorite Tweeps contest

Photo courtesy of
‘Metro Emergency Call Sign’
courtesy of ‘[F]oxymoron’

I love Twitter.  I didn’t understand it when I first started using it in 2006, but what makes Twitter great is the quick bites of usefulness in any situation, and that’s the sort of thing that governs our Twitter use policy here at We Love DC.  The Post is also claiming some love for the Tweets, and has put out their first DC Tweeps twitter contest, which lets you vote on your favorite Twitter personalities.  We’re honored to be nominated in the “Favorite local blogger” category, and even more psyched that Katie “@isitdinneryet” Test is nominated in the “Favorite foodie” category.

We know and love a lot of great local blogs and people that are up for these Tweeps awards, so endorsing in other categories is right out, but feel free to argue for your favorite people in the comments.

The Daily Feed
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Hot Ticket: Clutch @ The National – TONIGHT!

Shake of that post-Holiday hang-over and warm up from this winter chill by catching the awe-inspiring Clutch perform at The National down in Richmond tonight. The boys from Germantown love them some winter touring and tonight kicks off the latest in their long tradition of short winter tours.

I have been a fan of Clutch for many years and have seen these blues-stoner-metal masters put on some truly spectacular shows. Most recently, I got a brief taste of their current live show at the 9:30 Club 30th Anniversary Concert. Needless to say but Clutch’s hurricane-force mini-set that day completely blew me away and showed off an epic quality of Clutch that has me thinking this already phenomenal band has reached the next level of performance. While I lament the fact that they are not playing their traditional Christmas-time show at the 9:30 Club this year, Clutch could not have picked a better venue than The National in Richmond as a substitute. I expect full force, psych-metal annihilation in that high-ceilinged theater tonight. Don’t miss it!

Clutch
w/ Kylesa, Righteous Fool, Hex Machine
@ The National
$22
doors: 7pm

The Daily Feed
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Redskins Cheat Sheet: Week 16 at Jacksonville

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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.

Continue reading →

capitals hockey, The Daily Feed
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Ovechkin Snaps Drought With Game Winner

Photo courtesy of
‘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.

The Daily Feed
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Skating in the Outfield?

Photo courtesy of
‘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?

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capitals hockey, The Daily Feed
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Caps Lose Tight Game to Pens in Shootout

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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.”

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Stuff a Truck supports CAFB to the tune of $126,000

stuff.jpg

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.

News, The Daily Feed
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Four pickup petitions for At-Large council run

Photo courtesy of
‘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:

  • Sekou Biddle, Ward 4 School Board Member
  • Stanley Mayes, Ward 1 Political Activist
  • Joshua Lopez, Ward 4 Organizer for Adrian Fenty
  • Jacque Patterson, Former Policy Analyst & Community Affairs Coordinator, DC City Government

Petitions are due back on February 16th and can begin circulating tomorrow.

News, The Daily Feed
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Assistant Chief Diane Groomes restored to duty

groomes_diane.jpg

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.

The Daily Feed
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Wizards stymied in second half, dropped by Bulls

Photo courtesy of
‘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.

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News, The Daily Feed
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Serious Fire at Takoma Education Campus

Photo courtesy of
‘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.

All Politics is Local, The Daily Feed, The District
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At-Large Councilmember Michael Brown considering At-Large run

Photo courtesy of
‘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 →

Music, The Daily Feed, We Love Music
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Favorite Albums Of 2010

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…

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News, The Daily Feed
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Gray appoints education, economic positions

Photo courtesy of
‘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.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Brookland gathers to remember Raj Patel

Photo courtesy of
‘flame in twilight’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

Over 150 community members met at the Newton Market last night at 12th and Newton to remember Raj Patel, who was shot and killed during a botched robbery on Saturday.  Lead by priests from St. Anthony’s, a candlelight vigil was held at the market to support the Patel family and support the community at large.  I was impressed with the turnout from the surrounding community, with ANC Commissioners Steptoe, Clark and Blair present, as well as Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. and a large number of area businesses (I know that Subway, the Brookland Cafe and Inn, Brookland Grill and others were there.  I only know those names by who the speakers recognize, I suspect that there were many others present) and community associations present.

Mr. Patel’s son, nephew and brother were present, and have asked that any further donations not be made to the family, but rather to Brookland causes, businesses and churches.  Mr. Patel’s nephew explained that while the donations were generous and welcome, that the family knew that Mr. Patel would have wanted that money to go to the people who would need it this holiday season within the Brookland community.

I was disappointed at the lack of representation from MPD, who did not send anyone to the event. I received an email from Commander Greene of the Fifth District last night who said that they had not been made aware of the vigil, and had they known, they would have sent someone to attend and speak to the group, but that they were unaware.  Given the large number of posts on area listserves, as well as flyers throughout the neighborhood announcing the event, I find it troubling they were not organically aware of the event, and would have needed an invite.

MPD has yet to issue further guidance to the community concerning the killers.

capitals hockey, The Daily Feed
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Bears/Caps Beat Devils, 5-1

Photo courtesy of
‘Gordon Celebrates His First NHL Goal’
courtesy of ‘clydeorama’
It took a couple of minor league call-ups to get the Caps out of their scoring funk. Andrew Gordon and Jay Beagle, brought up from the AHL Hershey Bears on December 15, scored the first two goals for the Caps, and Washington went on to beat the New Jersey Devils 5-1 last night at Verizon Center.

There were two desperate teams on the ice to start the game. The Caps came into this game to try to string together a couple of wins and leave the eight-game skid behind them. The Devils needed to make up for the 7-1 loss in Atlanta on Saturday and their awful 1-7 record in December.

The new-found discipline of strong forechecking and playing deep in the offensive zone paid dividends as the Caps had a number of good scoring chances early in the game. Gordon lit the lamp first for the Caps, recording his first NHL goal with a strong push to the net as Marcus Johansson chased down a loose puck and whipped a perfect pass to the crease. Continue reading →