Redskins Tight End Chris Cooley may not be playing in the big game this weekend but he has other things to keep him busy til the Pro-Bowl February 8th.

It appears that the star football player and avid blogger has found a new hobby with painting. He has posted a couple of videos of himself talking about his current project. It looks like he’s got all the right tools from the palette to the canvas. I wonder what his bombshell wife thinks about him taking over the kitchen to paint.

So my question is- how good do you think his art is? I was asking people in my office and they think it’s terrible, however the comments on his blog says otherwise. I have no art sense so I’ll leave it to you guys to judge.

Chris is the New Bob Ross

Chris is the New Bob Ross 2

What’s the best way to get 1.8 million people into one picture where you can see just about everyone with incredible clarity? 

Well it better have a hell of a lot of megapixels, I’ll tell you that. 

Like this one right here.  David Bergman took a 1474 Megapixel (would that be 1.47 GIGApixels btw?) photo of the Inaugural address from the north press platform.  The result is a stunning, large, (almost) endlessly zoomable work time-waster of a photo.  Click on the center and navigate around-or use the “Snapshots” bar below it to zoom in on things other uses have already found interesting.  My favorites so far (can’t link them, sorry!) are “invisible man” and “glitch in the matrix” (where clearly people were moving too quickly in their seats) and lots of people have already tagged themselves. 

Enjoy!

Just when I thought I was done with the Inauguration beat the hits keep on coming!

The Funny or Die crew visited DC during the Inauguration to film the latest installment of their high five montages.

My friends at Funny or Die sent along word about the video and when I saw it, I was immediately laughing. Now I thought the first couple were great but the DC version includes more celebs, pundits, and politicians than ever! They definitely did a great job taking advantage of the influx of famous names in town for the weekend.

I’m a sucker for DC locales and they did a great job of getting high fives all over downtown. The list of names range from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to Howard Dean to even Newt Gingrich. Celebs like Jack Black, Nelly, and even Obama Girl make an appearance. I especially like the sinister looking Larry King.

Click on the image below to watch the video:

Ah Inauguration Day, a day that started for many in the wee hours of the morning. For me I value sleep a little more. However I did have a plan to be on The Mall for Inauguration and I’m happy to say everything worked out relatively well.

I started out the morning well bundled. I wore many, many layers and had hand/toe warmers, water, snacks, and maps ready to go.

At 8:30 AM my friend Carrie and I proceeded down to the Clarendon Metro stop to check out that option, if everything appeared all right a possible entry route was to simple Metro into a station and walk to The Mall. While that option was the simplist it was also one of the most popular and I expected to see the Clarendon stop overflowing with people as we walk the short two blocks to the station. (more…)

To celebrate Martin Luther King Day I decided to be less destructive and more helpful.

That morning I gathered some food and drove down to the Arlington Food Assistance Center where I did my part and donated to the cause.

I then spent the rest of the day in a quiet Inaugural fashion. I went out on a date that included making an Obama themed bowl at Color Me Mine and an evening viewing of Frost/Nixon. Very presidential. I have to say however that Color Me Mine was everything Lazy Monday said it would be.

I didn’t have a ticket, so I braved the crowds in the subway and on the Mall and it was toally worth it. After all that I swung by the Al Jazeera English offices and gave them a stack of footage to look at and they edited up this quick piece.

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

Since I shot tons more I might try to learn Final Cut or something and edit up a directors cut or something, but I think this pretty much captures how it felt to be there.

After a late night out Saturday I decided to spent Inauguration Sunday a little more low key.

I actually was thinking about the “We Are One” Inaugural concert kickoff but I previously made plans for lunch out in Tyson’s Corner.

Driving out to Tyson’s from Arlington was surprisingly quiet, I didn’t expect traffic leaving but I thought maybe with all the road closures that there would be traffic heading into the city. But everything looked smooth as Barack Obama.

I arrived at Coastal Flats only to hear that my original plans had fallen through. Well I decided to take the opportunity to enjoy lunch anyways (this time at Gordon Biersch) and walk around the suburbia that is the Tyson’s Corner Mall. (more…)

WTOP is reporting that 68 year old woman fell on the tracks and was struck by a metro train at 9:30 this morning.  Thankfully she’s still alive.

The bad news for inauguration goers (other than the obvious fact that we don’t want anyone to get hurt) is that Metro Center and Gallery Place stations are shut down (as in you can’t get in or out there) and that the crowding is so bad people cannot get in or out of the trains.  Metro suggests Farragut North or Judiciary Square as stations to get out and then walk to the mall from-but at this point, if you were thinking of heading down there-the less metro you use the better.

Here’s my view:

I must say, it looks cold, cramped, crowded and awfully headache-y to be on the mall today.

And I sort of wish I stayed for it…

Good luck brave troopers and Inaugurites, I look forward to your making history on my TV.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_1d_Og5q0A[/youtube]

I’ve been walking around town and filming a lot of things and BoingBoing took those random images and turned them into something more entertaining. In this episode, I visit the opening of the Manifest HOPE exhibition and start seeing street vendors lined up on random street corners. This stuff was all filmed last week and we all know it’s gotten way crazier since then. More coming soon!