‘Biscuits of Columbia’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

You may be looking for that perfect gift for your culinary-minded friend, and your thoughts are turning to the artifact instead of the experience.  My favorite culinary artifact of late is the DC-shaped cookie cutter.  It’s available at Hill’s Kitchen, and this morning I used it to craft up these lovely Biscuits of Columbia (which I covered in sausage gravy and served with pork in a bizarre political statement). They also offer other states, if you’d prefer a California shaped cookie, or a Pennsylvania shaped cake.

‘At A Loss: Repeat and Rinse’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Some time a few months ago the Washington Post switched my Sunday-only delivery to 7 days a week without asking my approval. Although I’d dropped daily delivery about a year ago for a variety of reasons, I didn’t make a stink about it – they did this under their offer to deliver the paper through the end of the year at the $1.85 a week Sunday-only price so it wasn’t costing me any money.

But constantly throwing it unread in my recycle bin was making me feel guilty, so today I called them up to ask them to go back to only delivering it on Sunday. Besides, they’d just included an insert in my bill offering to keep doing the seven days a week delivery for only $0.15 more a week. I figured the chance they’d just keep this up forever seemed too likely and I needed to take positive action.

Let this be a lesson to you – caring about the environment can be a money-saver.

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‘Yes We Can – DC Statehood’
courtesy of ‘Wayan Vota’

Not having statehood – or voting rights or, well, really any sort of semblance of border-drawing respect – finally has a benefit! As GQ counts down the 50 worst states, the District’s lack of inclusion in that “state” category saved it from the ever-so-darling satire of Gentlemen Quarterly’s writing staff. I mean, check out these zingers for those crazy Marylanders:

25. Maryland
Maryland’s a McDLT of misery: You’ve got Wire-style urban blight on the eastern shore, and Deliverance-style Appalachian poverty in the west, partitioned by styrofoam suburbia. All of this, plus some of the highest AIDS and homicide rates in the country? No, no, Maryland, you’re too generous! On the other hand, there’s this bitchin’ rest stop, just outside of Delaware. Hell of a Roy Rogers they got in there. Check it out. Then keep driving.

What’s that, Virginia, did you think you had missed that clever critic’s pen:

23. Virginia
Virginia’s making history… up! This former capital of the Confederacy recently distributed elementary school textbooks claiming that thousands of black soldiers fought for Johnny Reb. (Most historians, ahem, disagree.) But there’s good news: Virginia’s Confederate History Month—soon to be renamed “Civil War in Virginia Month”—is now for everyone!

Since you’re dying to know, Arizona finished atop (bottom?) the list of the 50 worst.

This makes everything better with that whole “vote doesn’t really count” thing.

‘useless degree?’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’
Lots of options out there today. Grab a scarf and a hat and some thermal undies and check them out.

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‘Downtown Holiday Market Beads’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’

The Downtown Holiday Market returns this year, featuring a variety of local shop owners, crafters, and other businesses in an outdoor market format centered at 8th & F NW. The market is open daily from noon until 8, and will also have a pretty eclectic range of entertainment, with artists as diverse as the Shakespeare Theater Company’s Candide cast and a Klezmer band as well as a “Jewish a capella” group. It’s worth strolling through on a few different occasions- several booths do change weekly since the market goes on for so long. The market is a fine way to support local businesses and crafters while checking out some vendors that you may not run into at Eastern Market or your other usual haunts.

Edited to add: WLDC author Erin McCann would like to make sure you know that the Market has what she believes to be the best donuts ever.

‘US World Cup Bid Announcement Newseum’
courtesy of ‘levypuck’

It took until about the 11th hour for the news to finally come in from Zurich, Switzerland, where FIFA officials had gathered to select and announce the host nations for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The announcement at 11 o’clock yesterday morning was broadcast to a gather of several hundred DC soccer fans at the Newseum, and a wash of disappointment struck the crowd as FIFA president Sepp Blatter presented the 2022 event to the nation of Qatar.

The United States had put together a very impressive bid package to host the event, set aside from other bidding nations most notably because it had infrastructure in place to both host and transport millions of soccer fans. DC was positioned to be one of the 18 cities that would have hosted several games in 2022, and the Washington, D.C. Bid Committee optimistically invited local soccer fans at the Newseum to be ready to celebrate. Continue reading →

‘His and Hers?’
courtesy of ‘Mylar Bono’

To celebrate their February arrival date on Pennsylvania Avenue SE, DC coffee shop Pound Coffee will be setup in front of their new address and will be handing out free Kickapoo coffee to all comers between 8am and 12pm.  Pound will have some tough nearby competition at Peregrine Espresso, but I suspect it will be friendly.  So yes, come out on Saturday morning, get yourself a free cup of their micro-roaster coffee and enjoy the weekend.

Prominent security figure Bruce Schneier has a suggestion for how to best deal with terrorism fears and the Washington Monument: Close it to visitors entirely.

The concrete fence around the building protects it from attacking vehicles, but there’s no visually appealing way to house the airport-level security mechanisms the National Park Service has decided are a must for visitors. It is considering several options, but I think we should close the monument entirely. Let it stand, empty and inaccessible, as a monument to our fears.

Obviously this is a suggestion on par with Jonathan Swift’s 18th century suggestion that the Irish deal with their economic problems by selling their children as food – not serious, but rather a swipe at screwed-up cultural priorities. In Schneier’s case he’s attacking what he sees as a refusal of our security apparatus to accept reasonable trade-offs and recognize the side-effects and new vulnerabilities our choices create.

Schneier doesn’t mention it in this essay – though I’ve seen it in others he has written – but one of the things that always concerns me about our security choices here is how often they take a wide-open area like the Archive steps and instead funnel people into a tight cluster of lines… which present even better targets for attackers. The Washington Monument is probably an exception here, given how snug it is inside, but exactly what difference does it make if we have an attack on a few dozen people inside rather than a hundred clustered in a waiting area?

By the way, Schneier acknowledges that he’s riffing on a suggestion made with less hyperbole by the Washington Post’s Philip Kennicott.

‘Lunch from Korean Food Truck’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’

Baby, it’s cold outside. But not too cold to go out and get some lunch.

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‘DC Meetups – 09-03-22 – Your Move’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’

Tonight at Wonderland Ballroom, at 7PM, relive your misspent youth with “Show & Tell: An Evening of Nostalgery from the 80’s and 90’s.” Hosted by Hillary Buckholtz, the event will feature TV theme singalongs, an 80’s/90’s dance party, trivia, toys, and snacks. And Buckholtz has procured some bodacious retro goodies for your enjoyment. Seriously, guys: Shark Bites. Dunkaroos. What’s not to love about this?

Also performing will be SM Shrake, Ken Reid, Seaton Smith, and Natasha Rothwell, with music by Lex Paulson. Don’t miss your chance to sing the “Charles in Charge” theme while pawing through a pile of Garbage Pail Kids.

‘366 – 350: You can’t shut me up’
courtesy of ‘yoshiffles’

Yesterday afternoon, Transformer Gallery began showing a controversial video by late artist David Wajnarowicz, which made waves this week after it was removed from the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibit “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.” The video will be shown on a continuous 24-hour loop in Transformer’s front window.

The four-minute video depicts ants crawling over an image of Jesus Christ, meant to symbolize the suffering of an AIDS victim. The decision to remove the piece from “Hide/Seek” came on the heels of an uproar fueled by an article on CNSNews.com, which decried the use of federal funding to support an exhibit containing LGBT, sexual and religious themes.

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‘Washington Redskins at Tampa Bay Buccaneers – August 2, 1997’
courtesy of ‘trainman74’

While players and owners continue to negotiate new agreements, it’s becoming more and more likely the 2011 NFL season really may find itself locked out. In advance of this, teams are trying to navigate the waters between planning the next season ticket ventures and avoiding too many contracts. The Redskins announced today, just as other teams around the league, that there will be no ticket price increase next season, and that refunds will be provided in the event of a lockout. From the release:

“We remain hopeful that an agreement can be successfully negotiated between the League and the Players Association,” said Redskins owner Daniel M. Snyder. “If that does not occur, all Washington Redskins season ticket holders will be offered full refunds for any games that are missed.”

I love that the NFL – and Snyder, especially – do seem to be forced to go on the record to clarify that final point. “In the event of no games, we will give you your money back. No crossies. No, seriously, stop laughing.”

‘American and English fans react as they watch World Cup match at Ireland’s Four Courts Pub’
courtesy of ‘TDLphoto’

Dave Eggers once famously described American sentiment towards soccer through the following story:

When I was 13—this was 1983, long before glasnost, let alone the fall of the wall—I had a gym teacher, who for now we’ll call Moron McCheeby, who made a very compelling link between soccer and the architects of the Iron Curtain. I remember once asking him why there were no days of soccer in his gym units. His face darkened. He took me aside. He explained with quivering, barely mastered rage, that he preferred decent, honest American sports where you used your hands. Sports where one’s hands were not used, he said, were commie sports played by Russians, Poles, Germans, and other commies.

I post this for two reasons.

1) There are a lot of people from the Drudge Report on our site right now and I’m feeling vindictive.

2) Within the next 24 hours, an announcement will be made regarding the World Cup host for 2022. The US is up against Qatar (which has a lot of infrastructure to build among other concerns), Australia (aka, the world’s playground), Japan (recent host in 2002) and Korea (worries surrounding that threat from, y’know, real communism) for a chance to be the country to welcome the world’s game that June. DC will, as it was in 1994, would be among the host cities.

Hopefully tomorrow morning, we’ll be boasting about the good news (and it is good news). Until then, keep all of your extremities crossed.