Well I had some fun with a live blog during last week’s live blog of the Presidential Debates- so let’s try it again!

I will be blogging live on DC Metblogs during the final Presidential Debate at Hofstra University. I hope anyone interested will stop by during the debates- leave a comment or question while I continue to throw out my random commentary and running tally on buzzwords.

8:41 PM: Hello internet, I’m back for constantly update you with random thoughts about the final debate! It’s a little more than 15 minutes to go and here are my initial thoughts I have on top of my head coming into this debate:

• Towards the end of the workday I heard my state of Virginia is now apprently leaning towards Obama according to CNN. To me this is the latest in current pulling ahead of Obama in the polls. It’s clear that here in the DC area, as well as across the country, that Obama could not only win this election- but may even win big. I am still a little sketpical of how realistic a landslide could be- and others are as well. For me this debate is McCain’s last effort to stop the growing wave of Obama. I am waiting to see how McCain is going to play this last card in his deck.
• Bob Schieffer will be moderating the action tonight- will we see the candidates play by the rules? Or will this be another sit down message point delivery session?
• Will I pick better buzzwords this time around? I have 10 minutes now to pick some.

8:59 PM: Ok after looking at the C-SPAN Debate Hub (thanks Steve) some of the keywords that have been mentioned so far include President, Taxes, Spending, and Billion. Obvious words that would be said- but I’m looking for the buzzwords that wouldn’t normally be said. On that note I will look for these phrases: “voted with bush 90% of the time”; “just doesn’t understand”; “ready to lead”; “I got the scars to prove it”; and “maverick.”

Read the rest under the more tag…

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A year ago I was excited to see that there would be a Madame Tussauds in Washington DC, now a year later the wax museum is celebrating it’s 1-year birthday. According to the Going Out Gurus you can visit museum for only $1 (which is a whole lot cheaper than the standard $20 ticket price.)

There is a catch however- you have to sing happy birthday to the museum.

Call me spoiled from all of DC’s free museums but I am not a big fan of the expensive prices of some of the other museums here and I will definitely take advantage of this deal while it lasts (it ends Saturday.)

Now time to find someone that can actually go out during the museum’s tourist (but not local resident) friendly hours.

This past weekend (very last minute or I would have altered alerted you dear MetBlog readers) I found myself at the first ever Buffalo Battle-aka the “War of the Wings.”  The scoop?  J. Paul’s Chef Darrell “Big Wing” Hughes faced off against Old Glory’s Chef Richard “The Pit Master” Brooks in a four round cook off to see just who has the better wings.  For the price of admission spectators got two complimentary drinks and (wait for it) all the wings you could eat.  Proceeds went to the very worthy cause of the DC Central Kitchen.

As a native Western New Yorker, both hungry for wings and willing to donate to a good cause, I felt uniquely qualified to show up at this event and cast my own judgment on these so called “Buffalo Wings.”  Yes much like the native of Philly who is fond of saying ”that’s not a real cheese steak”, the Chicago transplant who says “ugh! you call this pizza?” and the New York City tourist that can’t wait to tell you just how much ”better the <fill in just about anything> is in New York”-I too become a food snob when wings are brought into the mix.   Especially when someone calls them “Buffalo Wings.”   

So on this, the alleged anniversary of the Buffalo Wing (Happy 44^th!) allow me to share my thoughts with you:

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The Smithsonian has joined The Commons on Flickr, which started as a pilot between the Library of Congress and Flickr to increase access to publicly-held photo collections and allow the public to contribute knowledge and information (such as tags) to those collections.

The Smithsonian’s photostream contains some fantastic gems, including portraits of scientists, cyanotypes cataloging the Smithsonian’s other collections, and cool photos from past Folklife festivals.

Go look, add some tags, but be careful- much like the LOC collections, you can find yourself losing hours poking around at this stuff.

So the Capitals are sliding behind the playoff 8-ball. Hammered last night in Philly by a final score of 6-3, where Brière has lit a fire somewhere and Biron’s thrown up a Berlin-esque wall, the hometown hockey heroes has looked more like the ice-capades on a road trip.

Seriously.

Where’s the fire that exploded from this team in the third period of Game One? Watching Sunday’s game was like watching the Caps back in October, when the team was terrible and looking to beat Columbus down the standings.

Last night was marginally better, but only just.

The Caps got behind early on Sunday and never recovered; Ovechkin was double-teamed and his support cast was nowhere to be found. That’s not how you win playoff hockey - it’s how you give the opposing goalie a shutout. Guess what happened?

I’ll give Washington credit, they did try to stage another late rally, closing the gap to 4-3 on Laich’s goal at 4:34 remaining. But Philly rallied quick, with Mike Richards zinging Huet on a penalty shot less than two minutes later. Nail? Meet hammer.

Biron could’ve taken naps in his goal - the Caps had a total of 16 shots on the evening. Compare that to the final games of the regular season, when Caps opponents were seeing flurries of 30 and 40 shots.

Where have the Caps disappeared to?

Now, not all is lost. The series is only 2-1 in the Flyers’ favor. But they face another rough game ahead in Philadelphia before coming back to the Verizon Center. Which could be the Caps’ swan song…or not. Honestly, it’s really up to the rest of the team.

You can’t hang all the pressure on Ovechkin - though ineffective since his game-winning goal in Game One, he’s hardly at fault. The Flyers defense has been tightly focused on shutting him down (even after losing Timonen), and they’ve done so with frightening ease. In times like this, it’s dependant upon the superstar’s supporting cast to step up and make a difference. We know they can - we saw ample evidence of it in the last month of the regular season. Semin, Kozlov, Federov, Backstrom - pretty much non-existent forces on the ice right now. I’ll give a pass to Mike Green - his sniper shots are still scary as heck, as we saw last night.

So don’t despair quite yet, Caps fans. If the Flyers dominate to another win on Thursday, however…

Maybe the Pope could swing by the Verizon Center on his out-and-about birthday tour and toss out a few blessings…

IMG_5190 copy, courtesy of island_explorer

This is it, the moment that Vatican Sign Man has been waiting for. Finally, a chance to show the Holy Father himself the homemade sign that he’s been carrying across town and waving at traffic on Mass Ave for years now. You’ve seen him on the Metro with his five foot sign, standing there amidst the crowd as if everything is perfectly normal. He seems like a nice old man but deep inside that brain of his there are probably a few synapses that aren’t quite firing. As the train doors open at the Dupont Circle station, he heads towards the exit at a pace that isn’t quite a sprint but definitely isn’t a walk, on his way to his spot on Mass Ave to let the world know that according to him, the Vatican hides pedophiles. I would love to do an interview with him and find out just where they’re hiding them. In the Holy Basement?

What do you think the chances are that Vatican Sign Man “disappears” over the next few days seeing as how:

“Following a meeting with President Bush at the White House on April 16, the Holy Father will leave the White House in the popemobile at approximately noon via East Executive Avenue, travel west on Pennsylvania Avenue past Washington Circle, and then north on Rock Creek Parkway before exiting at Massachusetts Avenue. He will conclude his trip at the papal nunciature located at Observatory Circle where he will enjoy a lunch with the United States cardinals and others in honor of his 81st birthday.”

Um, happy birthday your Holy Popeness.

Warning. This video contains some coarse language.

But they’re right, this is total bullshit. A bunch of Libertarians got together, with their iPods, and headed over to the Jefferson Memorial to have a silent dance party for Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, as it was his birthday this weekend. One of the dancers was then arrested by the Park Police for dancing in the monument amongst a bunch of other dancers around midnight, as not to disturb tourists.

I’m still not clear on what she was arrested for, or exactly what the whole deal was with the Police who decided she needed to get hauled off because she wanted to get her groove on with Thomas Jefferson. You can read a personal account of the event, or another personal response about the event, and as Mike Licht points out, Jefferson himself said “Dancing is a healthy and elegant exercise, a specific against social awkwardness…”

But apparently, it will get you a bullshit arrest by a bunch of rentacops gone rogue. I understand that The Jefferson 1 was released, but I am not sure if charges are pending or not.

So much for Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness…

I hope you all had a happy Turkey (or Tofurkey for some of us) day yesterday and did as much or little shopping as you liked today. I personally limited myself to picking up the Orange Box at Best Buy for $25, half off, but my darling girlfriend and both our mothers spent a little more time with World Market and other places.

So what does that have to do with DC, you ask? Well, nothing. However we celebrated my dearest’s dad’s birthday at Bebo Trattoria, Roberto Gallo Donna’s restaurant. It was the first visit for our families, so we told them about how much we enjoyed the food but that Signore Gallo Donna’s business management was sometimes a little…. lacking. Case in point - the crack is still there. Additionally, we told them, the service sometimes leaves a little to be desired.

Well, if our waiter - who was quite good - heard this and took it as a challenge, he also overheard the mention of someone’s birthday. Because when the end of the meal came about, he showed up with a tiramisu with a candle in it and sang. Which resulted in a lot of looking around the table at each other wondering “who asked for this?” As it turns out - nobody. It was entirely an impromptu observation and gesture from our server.

So, kudos to you, Mr Attentive, and you, Chef Gallo Donna, for employing him. I’m still worried you’re going down the black-duct-tape-on-the-door path that haunted Gallileo, but maybe you’re turning around the service quality so it more closely matches the delicious offerings.

None of which looked as horrific as the above picture I took of Mr Hanky the Thanksgiving Poo-urkey Cake I saw at Giant on Wednesday. *shiver*

Thanks for the correction Tom. There’s a lesson, kids - never post when sleepy!

Giant Rat

Originally uploaded by tbridge.

Wednesday night, as Tiff and I were driving to a birthday dinner at Liberty Tavern, we heard this piece on NPR about our favorite group of homeless people employed as protestors. My favorite section of the article was this one:

Most people who pass the picket line don’t look closely at the protesters. Diego Castaneda, a doctoral student from California, snaps a picture of a marcher and gives her a thumbs up.

“I just like seeing people demonstrating and standing up for their rights,” Castaneda said.

But when I tell him the protesters are actually homeless people, his face falls.

“Are you serious?” he says in disbelief. “It’s pretty disingenuous of the union to hire people who aren’t carpenters.”

Yep, folks, it’s pretty shady to hire folks for $8 an hour to protest when your union members won’t actually protest themselves. Not listed in the story page on NPR’s site was the original postscript when the reporter, Frank Langfitt, asked the workers about their wages, and they wanted more money.

He suggested they formed a union.

When Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers (recently sans Rami Jaffee) took the stage at the 9:30 last night, it was the first time they’d been on tour in two years, and the first time in DC in nearly four. It was pretty clear that they’d not been on stage in a while, but it didn’t show in the music, just the pacing. Long breaks were frequent between the songs, as Dylan tuned one of about six guitars he played during the evening. When he noted some restlessness from the near-capacity crowd, he explained he didn’t use electronic tuning, which seem to mollify the crowd.

It was a great show, overall. Dylan’s vocals were fresh, yet full of a rasp that was not borne of fatigue but rather a unique part of his genetic heritage. The songs were all heartfelt and sincere, Dylan’s voice could lend Happy Birthday a degree of gravitas usually reserved for songs of triumph or mourning. The highlight of the night for me, though, was Fred Eltringham on the drums. The man’s just have a good time. Not in that kinda-creepy Mick Fleetwood way, though, but in more of an “I love my job and everything that comes with it” sort of way. New guitarist Stuart Mathis was simply amazing last night, with a virtuoso’s touch on lead guitar, with soaring melodic solos that were not mere approximations of the studio versions, but added depth and character to the live performance. I don’t go for the jam band philosophy of rock concerts where each song should be 20 minutes long, featuring lengthy solos based on jazz reinterpretations of the cuban cover of the song, it doesn’t work for me. Mathis’ excellent solos captured the essential character of the songs without straying too far afield into the land of the jam band, from whence many concerts do not recover.

The set was a mélange of their catalog, featuring tracks from Red Letter Days, Bringing Down the Horse and Rebel, Sweetheart, but nothing indicated that they’re headed back to the studios for a fifth album, which was a bit of a disappointment. In contrast to the Killers show I saw this summer, the Wallflowers show was entirely business like. There was no set. There were no antics. Just a band getting up and rocking out. It was just what I was looking for, and just what I got. I left the 9:30 with my ears ringing with the last chord (as they still are this morning), and looking forward to their next stop in DC.

Two final notes from the show:

1. Dear TR Kidd & the Visions. Please consider going back to your day jobs. If you don’t have day jobs, please look into them. Your opening set last night was quite possibly the worst live music performance I’ve ever seen.

2. Dear guy behind us who was totally rocking out. I respect your enthusiasm for the show last night. I recognize that you likely worship the man’s entire catalogue, but that was no reason for you to gratuitously shout “WOOO!” in quiet moments. Also, the Night at the Roxbury dance routine was entirely uncalled for.