I am now zero-for-two at ordering my favorite summer drink – the Gin Rickey.  Okay, that’s not technically true that; I had one at Gibson (14th and U) a few months ago which was quite delightful. 

However, I had two very similar experiences trying to get one of these at Sequoia in Georgetown (June 24) and Bar Louie at Gallery Place (July 2).  Here’s what happened:

1. Order the drink
2. Server takes order, then comes back and asks how to make the drink.  Recipe is recited.
3. Server delivers what seems to be either a gin-and-tonic or a gin-gimlet-with-soda
4. Recipe is reiterated, server disappears again
5. Server delivers what seems to be either a gin-gimlet-with-soda or a gin-and-tonic (whichever wasn’t served earlier)
6. Recipe is again reiterated
7. Rickey is delivered!

And this a drink with a long DC history.  It was named for Colonel Joe Rickey, an infamous lobbyist, and what is more DC than that?  Only a year ago, the DC Craft Bartender Guild declared July as Rickey Month.  They’re dead easy to make — three ingredients — and are on the cocktail wiki, which I somehow assumed that bartenders in DC knew about.  Do bartenders not have recipe books or web access? 

Or maybe I need to stop going to chain establishments, eh?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user lifeinthedistrict

When I first moved into my current place in Clarendon my roommates and I noticed a quaint little house around the corner next to the car dealership.

It was actually a bar called Jay’s Saloon and Grille.

At first the appearance was somewhat run down and somewhere between divey and dicey. We joked about going there and drinking with all the middle aged townies that probably frequent the place. It wasn’t until I organized a roommate happy hour at Jay’s that I found out what I was missing. I’ve already written that this place maybe our McLaren’s.

The Washington Post opens their review with the exact same thoughts I had when I spent that summer night at Jay’s:

I love Jay’s Saloon & Grille so much that I don’t want to tell you about it. I don’t want you to discover it. I don’t want it to be crowded and popular. I really love this bar. I would not write in the first person otherwise.

Now I know exactly what Shayla was thinking. As much as I want to tell everyone what a great place this is, I don’t want too many people to know. What gives Jay’s its charm is the fact that in location and environment, it is truly my neighborhood bar. I love how it always has the right amount of people, so it’s sociable but not too crowded. It’s the perfect place to relax after a tough day at work or a place to start before you head out into Clarendon or DC.

After that initial happy hour, we kept coming back again and again. My roommates were already recognized by the wait staff a week or two since discovery.

The cover of the menu looks like it’s circa 1985: the pages are typewritten with handwritten notes and former items blacked out with marker. But with the retro menu comes the retro prices- which looks like they haven’t been changed since the 90′s. The fare is standard- not bad but not great either, however the cheese fries are a favorite with my house. Jay’s Happy Hour is where the place truly shines $2 domestic bottles and deals on Budweiser and Coors Light drafts: $1.50 for a frosty mug of beer or $7 for a full pitcher. House wines — from the “Wine List” — are $2.95 per glass. It’s one of the best deals around town short of heading over to Recessions.

We typically enjoy drinks in the covered patio section in front of the bar. Astroturf covers the space that is full of plastic lawn furniture, Christmas lights, and if you look carefully- hung oil paintings that gives the place a more southern feel.

Inside there’s a pool table that’s been covered and unused every time I’ve been and a ramp takes you up to a bar and table area where you can find the townies I stereotyped earlier. However the crowd is actually a jovial mix of young professionals, and other people that make up streets around Jay’s- it truly is a neighborhood bar where the mood is low-key and relaxed.

On the weekends the place will get a bit more crowded that usual but I hope that during the week I’ll still be able to walk 100 ft out of my house and into the patio without having to hunt for a table.

Jay’s Saloon has so far been Arlington’s best kept secret.

Jay’s Saloon and Grille
3114 N. 10th St.
Arlington, VA 22201
703-527-3093

I was excited to break the news that Screen On The Green will be back this year, and now we have confirmation on the four film schedule that starts on Monday July 20th and will run on Mondays til August 10th:

• July 20th: Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• July 27th: Dog Day Afternoon
• August 3rd: On The Waterfront
• August 10th: Rebel Without A Cause

Looks like the film slate will mirror the Bryant Park’s Screen on the Green series also sponsored by HBO as rumored earlier in the Post. For more information check out the festival’s official website.

I’ve recently become a fan of the Lifehacker blog, where I can find all sorts of tips and tricks for, “getting things done.”

So when I heard about Earth Aid (not to be confused with Live Aid), a website service that tracks your monthly utility usage, I thought it would be a good tool for analyzing and reducing costs. But when I heard that that the DC based service will also pay you when you do reduce your energy usage, it instantly caught my attention.

The service is simple enough, you sign up and register your home’s utilities info. Earth Aid then creates a baseline based on the past year’s usage and will continue to track and provide you with a one-stop shop of your home’s utility information. If you manage to reduce your energy usage, Earth Aid will mail you a check based on how much energy you managed to save! Not only do you get paid for reducing the amount of energy you use, the planet also benefits from reduced energy usage. Everybody is a winner in this plan! Also did I mention that using the service is free?

Sounds too good to be true right? A recent story on Earth Aid in the Washington Post explains where Earth Aid gets the money to offer this service:

The premise of Earth Aid is that reductions in household energy use are valuable not only to us in the form of lower utility bills, but also potentially to companies that want to buy credits to offset their own carbon footprints. Earth Aid bundles your energy savings over the course of a year and then sells them off — returning the profit to the consumer minus a brokerage fee.

As the person that manages the utilities at my home, this sounds like a service I may have to check out.

The 4th of July holiday started on a disturbing note Friday when I heard from fellow Metblogs author Amy that there was a shooting at the Apple Store down the street from me. Luckily the victim will be ok but Arlington County Police needs your help.

Arlington County released video of the incident and is looking for anyone that recognizes the suspect.

Anyone who has information about this shooting or the identity of the suspect is asked to call the Arlington County Police Department Tip Line at 703 228-4242. Witnesses can also call Arlington County Crime Solvers at 866-411-TIPS (8477).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IPbphLaHWI[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yprijsXmeUo[/youtube]

Even though it only has over 600,00 hits (great numbers, but it’s no Evolution of Dance) the video, Arlington: The Rap, has made an enormous splash locally for creator Remy Munasifi. The video is only the latest in a series of successful rap videos and has caught the attention of just about every media outlet I can think of. All the blogs have raved about it. His profile has grown to the point he was a hot date commodity and he has earned himself a page on Wikipedia. I wish I had a page on Wikipedia.

So I had the honor to ask him a few questions and learn more about the man behind the video.

Patrick:I laughed, I cried, I begged for more when I ran into Arlington: The Rap. I went over to your site (goremy.com) and I wanted to learn more about you. After reading your bio I was wondering, do you consider yourself a comedian? A musician? A filmmaker?

Remy: I’m not sure. I’d probably go with, “entertainer.” That’s mainly what I’m trying to accomplish–to entertain. Usually through laughter though, sure.

Patrick: So do you have a day job or is your art truly what you work on day in and out?

Remy: I’m a full-time YouTuber. I’m a content partner on the site and have been for a year and a half now, which has been great. YouTube and Google have been very generous and supportive of their partners and do a great job creating and maintaining a great environment for filmmakers who want a home for their video content.

Patrick: One of the reasons Arlington: The Rap is so successful is the local appeal, after I saw it I sent it to all my Arlington/DC friends and I got it sent to me by other locals as well. You’ve been in all the local papers and TV stations, but have you seen any interest coming from outside the immediate local area?

Remy: Somehow some folks outside the area do seem to enjoy it. My chief concern throughout the process of making that video was that it had no widespread appeal–that it would be too geographically specific for folks to understand outside a one-mile radius of my neighborhood. I was surprised so many people enjoyed it locally though, I certainly didn’t expect that.

Patrick: Do you find that you’ve now created a big inside joke for all of us to share? Now when I tell people I live I Clarendon they reply with questions on my collection of brown flip-flops.

Remy: Somebody was telling me they had noticed a slight decline in the brown flip-flop levels around town. I haven’t seen the statistics. I suspect we’ll have to wait for the 2010 census.

Patrick: I’ve watched a number of your other videos and I have to tell you they are all great. Has Arlington: The Rap helped you get your YouTube channel more viewers? In other words, have other people started checking your other stuff now that you broke through with one?

Remy: Thank you for saying so, I appreciate that. I can’t imagine the video hurt anything. It’s the 12th most popular video on the channel, so there are some other videos that folks seem to like more, at least by that measurement.

Patrick: Also I noticed you do a lot of raps, is there anything that makes that your genre of choice? I think it’s funny that you have a lot of Raps yet your favorite iPod artists are mostly country artists.

Remy: After I made my first rap video, “Two Percent Milk,” I got a lot of positive feedback from people who said they really enjoyed it. I had enjoyed making the video, so I decided to make another rap and, two years later, it continues I suppose! Still having fun and I hope folks are still enjoying those videos.

Patrick: So I know you are busy with tons of video projects, what should we expect next from Remy?

Remy: I always have a list of ideas in my head, but it’s always tough to pick the next one to go with. I’ll probably decide in the next week and take it from there. I just hope folks will like it!

This isn’t a drill people. This is for real.

The Real World DC has begun.

Unlike the false alarm earlier this week, The Real World DC cast moved into their new home on S & 20th today followed by not only MTV cameras, but the “Real World Paparazzi Mafia.” Everybody from heavy hitters over at DCist to entertainment blogger elizabethany have been reporting/gawking/stalking the house. Anti-Real World DC has already written on the rude behavior of camera people and some local reactions to a lost cast member.

The Twitter feed of Real World updates is like a car wreck: a sensational scene on your way to work and you can’t help not watching.

Here are some of the Twitpics from luvelizabethany of the DC Cast being real:

courtesy Twitter user luvelizabethany

courtesy Twitter user luvelizabethany

courtesy Twitter user luvelizabethany

I got a cold chill as I read this article yesterday on the Metro crash investigation:

“In the aftermath of the crash on the Red Line between the Takoma and Fort Totten stations, Metro officials analyzed track circuit data and found that one circuit in the crash area intermittently lost its ability to detect a train. The circuit would report the presence of a train one moment, then a few seconds later the train would “disappear,” only to return again.”

It sounded to me like the same problems that have been encountered on the Space Shuttle, nuclear power plants, and various military systems. And that problem is tin whiskers.

The backstory:  When people first started building electric circuits, they used tin metal to solder the interconnections between the copper bits.  It wasn’t long before they noticed the tin would get “furry”, growing spiky whiskers as the part was used.  These spikes could grow long enough to short out the circuits, and then were so weak that they would break off right after doing so.  A smart metallurgist figured out that adding a small amount of lead to the tin alloy stopped this behavior.  And so the electronics industry grew, and electronic circuits got so small and fast and reliable that they ended up in nearly every control system – with a bit of solder in every one of them.

In the early 2000′s two things happened:  Europe passed legislation that prohibited lead in consumer products, and at the same time, the production of interconnection technologies went global.  So even though only European markets mandated this change, producers all over the world had to comply.  And that means that consumers all over the world were getting lead-free electronics, many times without knowing it.  Many times the same part number started showing up with lead-free solder, making this trend very hard to track.

So yesterday, I dropped a note to one of my expert friends, who agreed with me that the circuitry in the Metro replacement part, more likely than not, contained lead-free solder.  And then, he pointed out the likelihood that the latest Airbus crashes had lead-free solder components in their flight controls.

Hence the cold chills.

Yes, it’s a bad thing to have lead where kids might put it in their mouths (especially drinking water).  Yet the activists admit that the amount of lead in electronics isn’t at dangerous levels; they say their ultimate goal is to shut down lead production entirely.   (In the interest of full disclosure, I facilitated a study back in 2005 that predicted this, and only now is the military starting to address those findings.) 

Hey, guys, maybe technology might need to trump politics for once?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user CP

Last year I fulfilled my goal to see the DC fireworks on the 4th. I knew trying to go to The Mall to see them would be a storm of epic proportions, so I made a plan to see them from the Georgetown Waterfront instead.

This year the DC fireworks aren’t getting less popular so I’m starting to make my plan on where I want to see them here are some links I found to help you get your DC Fireworks Plan put together before this weekend:

• The Washington Post already has it’s 4th of July guide out complete with maps of area fireworks and information on the day’s events.
• The Going Out Gurus are already thinking what I was thinking last year, and have put out a map of places besides The Mall to see the DC fireworks.
• Rachel Cooper over at About.com has a comprehensive guide of fireworks in DC, MD, and VA.
• Karen Hart also at About lists the best places to see the DC fireworks.
• Katie Bevington over at Examiner.com has a list of links of area firework displays.
• Washingtonian Magazine just came out with their own Independence Day guide yesterday morning.

Good luck getting your plan together!

I’m not too surprised that they were watching me.

The Spy Museum saw  my post when I visited them last week, and they offered me to come back to see another event later this month.

They are calling it “Sexpionage: Spies, Lies, and Naked Thighs“, which sounds more like a tactic used by Sean Connery than real life spooks. The event tonight will feature espionage expert H. Keith Melton who will show how the art of seduction can be used to gain things besides a free meal or drink. The event will also include authentic KGB sexual entrapment videos and details on their infamous “honey traps.” That being said the event is 18+. Sounds saucy!

Sexpionage: Spies, Lies, and Naked Thighs
July 29, 2009 at 6:30 PM
International Spy Museum
800 F Street, NW, Washington, DC
Tickets $20
http://www.spymuseum.org/

UPDATE: I mistakenly posted that this event was tonight when the event is actually later this month. I learned this the hard way when I showed up to the musuem after work. My apologies to those that got the wrong info.