You Can Hang A Star on That Baby

The Team may suck, but the new Nat's stadium is something to write home about! You can grab a beer and hot dog in any stadium around the country, but dc taxpayers shot around the bases here.

From the gigundous tv to local vendors like Ben's Chili Bowl I actually made the effort to arrive by the third inning! But the crowd has definitely been preppy-fied. No more sweatpants folks ....yuppy central has arrived.

Funny side story, so we hit up the braves game and buying our tickets last minute, we realized a lot of warrior chops. Being the political correct capital of the world, a fellow YUP eagerly corrected our visitors as it may be offensive to native Americans. To which the very large fan immediately below up sprung up mid chop to don his native American dream weaver tattoo to the stands. It may have been the most excitement the Nats fans saw all evening!

Bad Boys Bad Boys

In a city renowned for it's world class museums with zero admission cost, it seems ludicrous to charge at all, let alone $18 bucks to enter the new Crime and Punishment museum in Gallery Place. But for any CSI fans in the crowd, it's worth it!

Things That Go Bump In the Night...Oscars

Thank god for katie! She had the foresight to get tickets to see the DARK NIGHT. At first I rolled my eyes when I heard about this movie...we're going to stand in line to see a marvel comic. I mean who doesn't love the batman movies (esp. with Val as batman) but it's not something I want to drop everything I'm working on to go queue up with every teenaged boy in the area to watch. I can hold out for the DVD.

As the reviews started to come in, the cinimatic talking heads continued to describe it a good but dark. Of course it's dark...he fights crime at midnight. But what they should tell you is this movie has joker written all over it. Batman is a supporting role at best. This is a sadistic peek into the mind of an anarchist, a cool echo of militant extreamism making headlines in the A section rather than the style.

Heath Ledger hits the mark, everyone of them. As the joker, he takes the simplist line (soon to be cliched) "Why so serious" and massages it into a chilling nightmare...to be repeated for generations.....right up there with Hannibal Lector's fava beans.

Best advice- pay the 10 bucks, see the movie....its a worth the roller coaster!

Back to You In the Studio

Mommie - Reporting for 630 WMAL on the Earthquake

CHINO HILLS, Calif. (AP) - An expert at CalTech says yesterday's big shaker in Southern California should be looked at like an earthquake drill.
The magnitude 5.4 quake wasn't the "Big One" scientists have long feared -- but it was strong enough to rattle nerves and get people talking again about emergency plans.

A fire official in Chino Hills, where the quake was centered, says the region was "really fortunate." It caused limited damage and only minor injuries.
Chino Hills was incorporated in 1991, so much of the construction is newer and built to modern safety standards.

Though it rocked Los Angeles and was felt as far away as San Diego and Las Vegas, yesterday's quake was far less powerful than the deadly Northridge earthquake that toppled bridges and buildings in 1994.

Hail to the Buff and Blue

Having graduated from GW, any mention of said hallowed ground sends my heart a fluttering! So when I was tipped off to a recent book our former president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg published I jumped at the chance to read it. We have a word for those types... TOOLS.

I was a bit skeptical, I'll admit. As president he was not the class favorite. But then again, few undergraduates openly professed their love for the university anyway. (Even though secretly they worshiped their Alma matter as much if not more than I did.)

GW has a few urban legends of its own, as the university that ate Foggy Bottom. But here SJT openly addresses all of them candidly... right down to the hippo myth. He explained with great comical detail and heartfelt justification many of the controversial decisions he made as an administrator. This is not only a must read for any GW alum, but should be assigned reading!

With A Clipboard And An Air of Confidence

WMAL's THE SOURCE!!!

Politico: Bob Novak's victim

Washington Post: Man Hit by Novak Has Hurt Shoulder but Is 'Doing Fine'

The Examiner: Novak's Victim Speaks! "Bob Novak is the one that hit me?!? ... That makes it a great story!"

TMZ:Novak's Victim: Am I Famous Now?

Associated Press:
Man hit by columnist Robert Novak recovering

WASHINGTON (AP) - The homeless man who was struck by a car driven by syndicated columnist Robert Novak says he's surprised to hear the prominent journalist was the driver who hit him.

Don Clifford Liljenquist asked a reporter from WMAL Radio repeatedly whether Novak was the person who hit him. The 86-year-old seemed amused. He said, "Well I think that makes it a great story!"

Liljenquist says his shoulder was dislocated when he was struck Wednesday. He says doctors reset his shoulder and he's "doing fine."

Witnesses say Novak was driving a Chevrolet Corvette near K Street when he hit a pedestrian who rolled up onto the hood of the car. Novak kept driving until a bicyclist stopped him.
Novak has said he didn't know he hit anyone. He was given a $50 traffic citation.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

This is the song that never ends....yes it goes on and on.........

Delta Goodrem was in the mix studio last week, new to us here in the states but apparently she's a big deal in Australia. But I cannot get enough of this song.

A Picture is worth.....

While Grant was visiting I insisted we stop into see the new photograph exhibit at the Corcoran. Magnum Photos and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria teamed up to document artistically the effect of free antiretroviral treatment in third world countries. The Fund was set up to not only address those afflicted by the disease who couldn't afford treatment, but also to slow if not stop the spread of the disease all together.

We arrived at the Access to Life exhibit expecting to wonder through at our leisure but the Media Relations Manager had set up a walk-through with Jonas Bendiksen, a Norwegian photographer with Magnum who chronicled Haiti, and Bill Horrigan, the curator of the exhibit.

The exhibit is actually a conglomerate of 8 separate photographer's work and each were given artistic liberty with how they wanted to showcases it throughout the somewhat narrow gallery.

"The real challenge was fitting everything in," Horrigan told us.

The photographers made two trips both lasting two weeks and separated with three months. Jonas decided to timeline four patients by bookending Polaroids the patients took of themselves with the intimate shots he was able to snap while in Haiti.

Upon closer inspection, some of the Polaroids included handwritten updates to supplement the photos. "Bien, mal" and so forth.

One observation Bendiksen offered was the patients here tended to have a higher survivor rate than those in the US. This was in part due to the drugs being free, but also because the village health professionals were more regimented about administering the drugs regularly.

In fact two of Bendiksen's patients recovered. But not all cases were optimistic. A majority of the exhibitions' subjects chronicled the diseases' powerful effect.

When asked how Jonas was able to cope with the subject matter, he said, "it's hard, you don't stop being human when you pick up a camera."

But he also says, " I love working on stories that get left behind in the race for the daily headlines - journalistic orphans. Often, the most worthwhile and convincing images tend to lurk within the hidden, oblique stories that fly just below the radar."

Flipping Awesome

So I found the perfect gift for goose! For those who don't know, she is quite possibly one of Elvis' biggest fans. On a five week cross country trip in the Bounder (rv) she outfitted the entire music collection with the discography of the king. We could transcribe EVERY song on demand to this day. Well when we made it to Memphis we did the extended tour of Graceland. While Goose wandered, you could see her designing her place in heaven to match this homage to the hip gyrator.

While rifling through a book store recently I stumbled across this 3-D pop-up book of Graceland. It's perfect! With a forward by Priscilla this is no children's book!

Making The Rounds

Yesterday was a busy one! WMAL hosted a meet and greet with morning host Chris Plante at McCormick and Schmicks at the new waterfront in Maryland. This was my first time down since they built up the area. WOW! It's going to be as popular as Alexandria, with all the shops and restaurants, but I digress.

This was my first encounter with the Freepers, or the folks who contribute to FreeRepublic.com. They were so much fun! Politics aside, we had a great time! And it's really an eye opener when you get to meet the religious listeners of the station.

After our little happy hour, it was off to hang with the DC Sigmas. A small group of dedicated alumnae are determined to jumpstart a solid alumnae group here in the district. This was the second happy hour we've done and things are looking good!

Party Crashers

"Special Olympics honored longtime supporter, Quincy Jones, at a 75th birthday bash for the Academy Award-winning film composer held on 23 April 2008 at the Kalorama home of Michael Klein and Joan Fabry in Washington, DC.

More than 150 guests including musicians, athletes, members of Congress, US ambassadors, business executives and philanthropic leaders attended the festivities to personally give Quincy their best wishes. The evening's highlights included the reading of a personal message from United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a surprise phone call from the legendary Stevie Wonder, and a surprise visit from former Secretary of State General Colin Powell.

“What an incredible surprise,” said Jones of the phone call by his close friend Stevie Wonder. "

This is no taco shop! For Katie's birthday we took her to Oyamel, rated very highly on the Washingtonian's 100 best restaurants. Among katie's fan club is my foodie soul mate, Jordyn, who is about as adventurous in eating as I am so we sailed through the menu.

Done in tapas style we ordered the chef's recommendations for the evening. This included the Ceviche de cayo (sea scallops) with citrus dressing, Ensalsa de Chayote (mexican squash), Albondigas enchipotladas con queso doble crema (chipotle meatballs), Nopal asasdo con salsa molcajete (cactus paddles in green salsa), and Lengua quisada (cow tongue tacos). The stand out for the evening (aside from the foregone conclusive guacamole) had to be the cactus. The mole was perfectly smokey and addicting. There may or may not have even been a few licks to the plate!

After a few mango margaritas we were proudly proclaiming this our new favorite restaurant.