‘Chanukah at the White House’
courtesy of ‘afagen’

I know you all have been anxiously awaiting the day’s end so you can start celebrating the first night of Chanukah. But good news: you don’t even have to wait for sundown for the festivities to begin! The lighting of the National Chanukah Menorah will take place at 4:00 p.m. this afternoon on the Ellipse. There will be latkes, doughnuts and dreidels to spare, as well as performances by violinist Itzhak Perlman, cantor Itche Meir Helfgot and Hankus Netsky. Tickets are free, but required.

Image edited and created by Chris Olds/Beckett

Some people are having a bit of fun mocking the current situation with long-time Yankee shortstop/all-star/captain, Derek Jeter. As the free agent Jeter works on taking a “reality potion” and scaling back his new contract request from the Yanks, there is some joking speculation as to where else in the world Jeter would go to finish out his career. It’d be really hard to imaging the star playing at home anywhere other than Yankee Stadium, but the longer this drags out, the more curious people get if he really could go somewhere else.

That’s probably why Chris Olds of Beckett undertook some photo editing recently, just to imagine a little bit of what Jeter would look like somewhere else. “Strasburg Who?” reads the Nationals version, and, seriously, this graphic design project is about the closest the Nats will get to having Jeter don the Curly W. Alas, Olds didn’t even use the new jersey design. That’s how you know it’s really not happening.

Fire in My Belly de David Wojnarowicz, Diamanda Galas
Uploaded by altimsah. – Independent web videos.

Yesterday, the National Portrait Gallery pulled a video installation from the exhibit “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” following an uproar from conservative groups. The four-minute video, “A Fire in My Belly” by late artist David Wojnarowicz, depicts ants crawling over Jesus Christ, symbolizing the pain suffered by AIDS victims.

Hide/Seek marks the first major museum survey to explore sexual identity and LGBT themes in American portraiture, and features pieces by Andy Warhol, Annie Leibowitz and Jasper Johns. Although the exhibit has been in place since Oct. 30, it only drew criticism following the publication of an article on Monday by conservative news site CNSNews.com. The article notes that the “Christmas-season exhibit” has used federal funds to display “naked brothers kissing, genitalia, and Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts.” The Smithsonian does receive roughly 70 percent of its funding from the federal government, though funds for specific exhibits — including this one — are raised privately.

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‘Pre-packaged mince / hamburger/ ground beef; also some steaks, pork, lamb…’
courtesy of ‘Diane Duane’
Uh-oh. Do you shop at the Kensington Safeway? If so, read on. The supermarket, located at 10541 Connecticut Ave., is recalling 220 pounds of ground beef sold over the weekend because the meat may contain pieces of plastic and/or ink from a pen.

Any ground beef purchased at this Safeway with a sell by date of November 30th should be thrown away immediately, or returned to the store for a full refund. All possibly affected products are listed here.

‘Fojol Bros. of Merlindia’
courtesy of ‘The Ardvaark’
Well it’s the first day of December and…the weather sucks. And as we all know, rain is the enemy of all food trucks. Don’t get your hopes up folks, the trucks are few and far between today.

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‘Sweetgreen opening party’
courtesy of ‘Kitchen Wench’
The latest location of salad mecca Sweetgreen opens tomorrow at 4075 Wilson Blvd. The Ballston storefront is their first in Arlington, joining the ranks of their four D.C. locations and one each in Bethesda and Reston. The Sweetgreen truck has been posting outside the new location for the past few months, but now that it’s getting a little colder out, I’m sure Arlingtonians will be thrilled to wait in some central heating for their healthy lunch.

To celebrate the opening, Sweetgreen will be giving out one of their reusable “salad bowl blasters” to the first 200 guests to purchase one of their signature salads. Not only will you be helping the environment, but when you reuse your bowl in the future, you’ll get a free veggie topping for your efforts.

Sweetgreen is open daily for lunch and dinner.

‘Wounded.’
courtesy of ‘vvvracer’

Happy World AIDS Day, We Love DC. A full list of the day’s rallies, vigils and parties will be coming your way shortly, but I thought I’d help you kick off the morning with a roundup of sites offering free HIV testing today. If you haven’t been tested since getting cozy with a new partner, then it’s probably a good idea that you do so.

The Whitman-Walker Clinic will be sponsoring free HIV testing from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m at the Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center (1701 14th St., NW), and from 9:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Max Robinson Center (2301 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE).

The Women’s Collective (1333 Rhode Island Ave., NE) will be hosting free testing from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The Student Union Building I at George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus will be offering free testing from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. today, from 7:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. tomorrow, and from 7:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Friday. Ten panels from the AIDS Quilt will also be on view.

The Washington Hospital Center will be offering free HIV testing in front of the Washington Cancer Institute (110 Irving St., NW) today from 1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and tomorrow from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

”
courtesy of ‘Jimmy Morris’

The Atlantic Coast Conference concluded regular season play last weekend, and while one regional team will be headed to Charlotte to play for the league championship (Virginia Tech), local University of Maryland earned some pre-championship honors itself. The mid-week accolade this time is being handed to Coach Ralph Friedgen, who was named ACC Coach of the Year for righting a ship that seemed doomed to sink after the 2009 season.

Friedgen’s 29 votes likely came courtesy of the six game turnaround for Terp football that he engineered. Maryland rebounded from a 2-10 year to this year’s 8-4 season that saw them just outside their first ever ACC Championship Game. A year ago, Friedgen was considered by many to be on the hot seat; after this news, the future isn’t looking as bleak.

In other announcements for the Terps, rookie quarterback Danny O’Brien was also recognized as the conference’s offensive rookie of the year.

image from the South Butt website

The DC MPD’s community outreach department has a release out stating that in the last day there’s been two separate robberies where North Face items were stolen. You might consider replacing your North Face items with stuff from the satirical South Butt company. Barring that, the MPD has collected some tips from various sources about how to keep yourself safe and prepare for the possibility of a theft.

Robbery Safety Tips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhWDZZ29FhQ
Source: Las Vegas Police Department

Wallet Inventory & Emergency Checklist:
http://www.ou.edu/oupd/lostwallet.pdf
Source: The University of Oklahoma

If your wallet is stolen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oERx7Xl_G2E
Source: USAA.com

‘Dessert, Anyone?’
courtesy of ‘sabine01’
Food trucks. You love ’em. We got ’em.

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‘IMG_5116.jpg’
courtesy of ‘bridgetds’

So, it’s not the $100,000-plus that a rare, autographed Stephen Strasburg rookie card went for earlier this year, but still, an impressive showing for Washington’s more established superstar from the NHL, Alex Ovechkin. The hockey trading card market is likely a little smaller, so when a decently rare Ovie card recently got posted to Ebay, it’s worth noting that the piece of cardboard sold for just over $9,000 this past holiday weekend. Details on the card from the seller’s page:

When it comes to high-end Ovechkin Rookie cards, you are looking at the rarest of rare here. The Cup is Upper Deck’s premier, high-dollar hockey set released each year, and this is Ovechkin’s Black Rainbow parallel Rookie card, serial #’d 1/1! You don’t just open up a random pack and pull a card like this, it takes serious cash. Just a gorgeous card.

via Darren Rovell

‘Coffeeshop Googly Eyes’
courtesy of ‘Kevin H.’

December starts this week, which means it’s time for the area to begin its annual ritual of freaking the heck out about the weather. This Capital Weather Gang forecast contains a low-confidence prediction that there could possibly be a little bit of snow this Sunday. How was it linked from the Post’s local section page? “Forecast: Did someone say snow?”

So in honor of this little bit of hype that is still too much about a small amount of snow that might not even happen, let me just encourage you to make a plan to hit the grocery store sometime this week. Buy things that you need to have in your house anyway, which may or may not include bread, milk, and toilet paper, depending on how well-stocked you are on such things already.

But seriously, with the rain we’re about to get, it very likely will be colder than normal this week, so I wouldn’t judge you if you ran out for some hot chocolate supplies, or apple cider, or whatever it is that you like to drink while sitting under a blanket. In our house, that’s bourbon.

‘red bell peppers’
courtesy of ‘needlessspaces’
So how did Chef RJ Cooper and his buddy sous chef David Guas do on last night’s season premiere of Iron Chef America? Er…not so good. They competed against the newest Iron Chef Marc Forginone in his first competition, and lost the battle 54-45. And what battle was that? Battle Bell Pepper. Dunt-dunt-dunnnnn.

Not exactly the most exciting secret ingredient (who remembers all the crazy things on the original Iron Chef?) and it seemed like Cooper was at a real disadvantage since he referred to bell peppers as what he “used to scrape off the salad’s [his] mother used to make.” And the judges probably weren’t the greatest for this particular occasion either since Adam Richman (the Man v. Food guy) is more used to eating a thousand pounds of pizza in one sitting, and Nigella Lawson at one point referred to green peppers as “an abomination.”

But in the end, poor secret ingredient or not, Cooper lost points for not featuring the peppers prominently in his dishes. Should we expect a special bell pepper tasting menu at Cooper’s soon-to-be-open Rogue 24? Methinks no.

‘What’s around the bend?’
courtesy of ‘katieharbath’

Our friends at DCist join in the handwringing today that I thought was confined to the hysterical tones of neighborhood listserves- Yes, everyone. The National Arboretum is planning to take out several (up to 10,000) mature azalea shrubs due to the loss of some grant money used to maintain them. Oh, the humanity!

I like azaleas too, but what everyone seems to be missing is that 10,000 plants is still less than 20% of the entire azalea collection at the Arboretum. That means that even after they’re removed, there will still be over 40,000 azaleas for us to ooh and ahh over each spring. Really.

Meanwhile, the azaleas being removed are ones for which there are no records that would aid the facility’s plant breeders, which, you may recall, is the purpose of the Arboretum: it holds the plants the Agricultural Research Service is using to develop new hybrids. Continue reading →