Please also welcome Dubai and Miami to the Metblogs family! Miami’s having an amazing art show this week, one of the biggest in the world, and Dubai’s Farrukh and Destitute Rebel are all over the 6.1 Earthquake that happened just today. Broaden your horizons, subscribe to another Metblog today!

Are you one of the brave souls going out today to take advantage of the huge savings at the mall? If you are, you’ve probably been and are back by now. How was it? I will NEVER go shopping on Black Friday. I’ve worked retail before and still have the scars.

Perhaps you’ve worked retail before as well? Got any Black Friday stories?

If you are even in town this weekend, you are dealing with the first really cold snap of the season. For those of us who are stuck working today, this morning’s commute was a chilly one.

The good news is that we won’t have time to get used to 22

If you live in DC, chances are that you’ve seen Borf’s work.

Chances are, though, that you’re a helluva lot smarter than him.

See, if you had a court date, where you were, say, accused of stabbing someone, would you show up covered in blood?

No. You would not.

Borf, however, felt it necessary to show up in court in a coat and pants covered in paint:

Four months after his arrest, the accused graffiti outlaw known as Borf showed up for a court hearing in an unfortunate choice of attire: His coat, pants and shoes were all stained with paint. His black coat so resembled the one he wore in a newspaper feature about his exploits that the judge declared it evidence and ordered him to hand it over to the prosecution.

Seriously, if you’re his lawyer, do you quit right there?

It is official, the first snowflakes of the season have fallen. As of 10:30 there was a light dusting of slush inside the Beltway. If you are still in town, don’t forget to hurry out to the grocery store for bread, milk, and toliet paper. On your way home, abanndon your car in the middle of the road too.

No, not the 80′s band from down under but the men who work in all kinds of weather on road-crews all across the DC region.

My first job as a lad was working on a road-crew in South Jersey in the summer. We policed downed trees, we filled pot-holes, we cleaned up illegal dump sites, and whatever other bizarre grunt-work the Township presented us. It was a tough job but a great one filled with misadventure, camaraderie, and fights. I worked with some of the toughest of the tough guys and they were plenty of fist-fights and heated shouting matches that combined with the work turned my scrawny 15 year-old butt into a hearty ass-kicker. I have fond memories of that summer spent in the wilds of South Jersey with the crew. Today on King Street I saw something that sparked a deluge of memories from those days.

King between 95 and Braddock is down to one lane today as a huge road-crew is scrambling to fill 5 gigantic holes left by the recent laying of underground powerlines. The work turned that section of King Street into a choke-hold of traffic and I was stuck sitting in it for about 10 minutes. I sat watching a group of three guys having trouble directing a dump-truck filled with sand over one of the holes. One of the guys was working, the other two seemed to be arguing. Their mouths flapping, their faces twisted in anger, shovels beng stabbed into the dirt for emphasis.

As my car inched closer I rolled down my window, and sure enough the two guys were screaming at each other. The third guy finally got between them and split it up. Watching this I was instantly reminded of a fight I got in that summer with a crew-member after he almost ran me over with a Bulldozer.

The three guys eventually got the truck positioned and as it started to drop its sand the traffic in front of me started moving. As my car passed the crew – one of the guys threw down his shovel and lunged at the guy he had been yelling at. I got to see two or three landed punches before the flow of traffic took me past the dump-truck.

As I drove home the memories started flooding in of that summer on the crew in NJ. I wondered what those guys were fighting over? Kind of odd to see that sort fo thing around here but back in South Jersey it wasn’t a normal week on the crew without two guys getting into some sort of fight in the yard or on the roadside.

I feel so lucky. I’m staying home in DC for Thanksgiving. No traveling for me (Phew! How did I manage that?).

Judging from the amount of people I just saw at the P Street Whole Foods, I’m not the only one. Though not the grand chaos that it will be later on today, it was starting to get packed when I arrived at 12pm, having skipped out of my tumbleweed-strewn office to pick up the necessary ingredients for the side dish I’ve been charged to make – Chipotle Smashed Sweet Potatoes.

Like me and the harried locals at Whole Foods, you may also be a serious procrastinator and just now panicking over what to make and how to get out of the store with the least amount of pain. So here’s my Thanksgiving gift to you, a guide to sweet potato saviourdom:

Enter the P Street Whole Foods. Grab a basket. Dead ahead are the bins of yams – don’t waste time arguing with yourself or the old lady next to you about whether yams are really sweet potatoes or vice versa – you’re on a mission!. Grab about five nicely sized ones. Dash two aisles over to “Latin Cuisine” and pick up two cans of Chipotle Peppers in Adobe Sauce – pay no attention to the man who just slammed into you with his oversized cart, there’s no time for sharp-tongued revenge! Now, do you have unsalted butter at home? Do you?? Can’t answer fast enough, hit the dairy shelf for a box. Now, restrain the almost overwhelming urge to pick up any of the special cheese or wine they have littering the aisles around the dairy (it’s hard, I know, so hard) and make a beeline for the checkout. Take the path of least resistance – usually this means the cosmetics aisle. Having successfully made it to checkout, wait as patiently as possible while other idiots in line waste your time. Relax, deep breaths. You did it, you’re almost out. Pay, depart, and congratulate yourself. All in all, five mintues and under $15.

Oh yeah, the recipe! Tomorrow – wash, peel, cube, steam, and mash the sweet potatoes. Dice chipotle peppers and add with adobe sauce to taste (wimpy to flamethrower – whatever you want). Mix. Serve and be proclaimed “The Sweet Potato Saviour.”

Though they may be a lot further off from us than Vancouver is, please also welcome our 35th city, Islamabad in Pakistan! Part of the reason I love writing here, and working for the network, is that we’re all over the world. From LA to London, from Vancouver to Vienna, from Hawaii to Houston and from Melbourne to Minneapolis to Manila.

Welcome Islamabad!

For those hoping for a quick exit from DC today, good luck. A tanker truck caught on fire on I-95 between DC and Baltimore already this morning. AP reported that:

Traffic was snarled around the nation’s capital early Wednesday after a tanker truck carrying 8,700 gallons of gasoline exploded on Interstate 95 on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
The truck driver was able to escape unharmed after he noticed one of his rear wheels burning as he headed south from Baltimore around 5 a.m. EST.

The driver escaped unharmed, eh? Yeah, only because he ran into the bushes and hid till the cops came. I’d think if he had that fire at 5pm, he’d be tossed into the flames by those stuck behind him.

Also noted in the article is the newest name for Friendship Airport. I still think the folks responsible for the tongue-twisting “Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport” should be tossed into the flames of the next truck fire. At least they didn’t desecrate it like our other two airports – naming it after CIA Directors or Alzheimers Presidents.

As I prepare for my 9-hour drive back to Detroit, I saw this from the Post: Snip & Save Thanksgiving Talking Points. Do you ever go home and, just because you work in politics (or, worse yet, even if you don