Falstaff and Scare Force One

Friday I saw Falstaff at the Kennedy center, and on Sat I saw the DC roller derby at the National Armory. Between the two, I covered the entire spectrum of cultural events this weekend.

Falstaff was very well done, although some unexpected construction slowed us up and we got there just as it was starting. We had to sit in back of house, but it was better than cooling our heels in the lobby until intermission. The music was beautiful, and I especially enjoyed the quartets and octets. Amazing. My favorite part though, occurred in the final act.
Its set in a wood, during a masquerade, and the fairy queen enters with her attendants, all dressed in fluffy white dresses with veils. Its the ballet corps! They walk out slowly, strike a graceful pose, and then lifted their veils to reveal that all the dancers (except the queen) were men. One of them had a beard. They then proceeded to attempt ballet through out the act, including a dramatic run behind the cast as all 30 of them sang together in one final song. It was hysterical.

On Sat we (my roommates and some friends from work) went to check out the DC Rollerderby. We discovered rollerderby after watching "Whip It" and wanted to see the real thing. It was pretty awesome. Not nearly as violent as the movie makes it out to be, although the women take some really hard spills. There was one jam where my favorite jammer "Lenore Gore" from Scare Force One got taken out three times. It looked like it hurt.

I was cheering for Scare Force One, and everyone else cheered for the Cherry Blossom Bombshells because they were wearing pink. My team triumphed with a final score of 143-46. Those girls can skate. Of course, the best part are the names. I liked Condileeze Slice, Splatsy Kline, Skid Ho, and Guantanamo Bay.

After the bouts were over, we went out for burgers. It was fun to drive through DC and see all the parents walking their kids around the neighborhoods. It was a good Halloween

Art and Soul

I don't know if any of you watched Top Chef Masters, but one of their contestants owns a restaurant in DC. Wednesday we went there to celebrate The Starving Artist's birthday. We all ordered different things and then shared. I got an Oyster Po boy Hoe Cake. The Hoe cake is a flat, grilled piece of corn bread, and then it had the po boy on top of it. It was amazing. Their fried oysters were really well done, and I liked their spicy remoulade sauce. Then it was served with some romaine lettuce. They had another one that had carmelized onions, apples, lettuce and goat cheese that was also really good. I ordered the roast chicken which was tender and juicy, and it came with a goat cheese biscuit which I didn't care for. It was just sooo dry. We also got various sides. We ordered roast vegetables, buttermilk mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and fried green tomatoes. The mashed potatoes were awesome and, has one of our friends put it, the mac and cheese was "literally the stuff that dreams are made from." They came in their own little skillets, and the macroni was thicker and more twisty than your average mac n' cheese. The mac was in a really creamy white sauce, and there was toasted cheddar all across the top. It was gooey. It was creamy. It was amazing. Yes, yes, I went to a gourmet restaurant and my favorite dish was the 6 dollar mac n' cheese side.

DC Tourist

Here are some pictures I took while touring the Capitol with my sister.



From inside the Capitol



Arlington



Jefferson Memorial



World War II Memorial



It was overcast and freezing, but we had a great time.

The Newseum

On Saturday I went into DC with a friend and saw the Newseum, a fairly newish museum (HA!) on Penn Ave. It was very cool, and very large. We ended up spending the whole day in there.

On the top floor they have a balcony with some amazing views of DC. Like the Capitol.



Or the mall:




And it's right across from the National Art Gallery, which has the best cafeteria of all the Smithsonians, for those brave and intrepid souls who manage to find it.


Once you've finished looking around and taking pictures, you work your way down through 14 exhibits and 15 theaters (Holy Crap!)

It was very interesting, and a little intense. Not very kid friendly. On the third floor they have stations where you can play games, or get in front of the camera and do a weather report, there were a lot of kids there, and they also liked the 4D movie (which was free!) but in other exhibits I'd hear things like "Is that man on fire?" "What happened to the baby?" "Is that lady falling? Did she die?"

It's hard for adults too. In the Pulitizer Prize Photo gallery a lady next to me threw up her arms and said "I can't do this anymore" and walked out.

So it's a bit like the Holocaust museum. Good. Humbling. Horrifiying.

They have this massive room filled with a papers from every year, starting back from the first days of the printing press, and on the street they have a paper from each state showing the day's Headlines.

On Saturday, it was all about McCain's VP pick, Governer Palin, who I'm excited about, so it was fun walking past all those papers.

If you're coming to DC, and you're a news/politics junkie, it's definetly worth checking out.

Only in DC

Me and my boy Thomas Jefferson, hanging out at the new Nationals Stadium.

Corbeau's Embassy Row Adventure

Saturday, I went into DC with two friends that I haven't blogged about yet, so I will call them Yoosh and B. We went into DC for the annual Embassy Row Open House.

It was a beautiful day, perfect for walking around the city. We started with Columbia, which had a tour of the ambassador's house, which was beautiful. In the garden they had some sort of jellied fruit on cheese. It was gross.

To be perfectly honest, I hate jellied fruit, so it didn't have much of a chance. The volunteers were passing out various tourist swag, with Colombia's new tourist theme.

Columbia: The only risk is not wanting to leave.

I found this to be freaking hilarious.

After that we went to India, which was my personal favorite. They had their best bollywood dj rocking the house, we were treated to a excellent choreographed dance show, and then given an entire plate of amazing, and free, Indian food.

We also went to Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Pakistan, but none of them were as cool as India. Ethiopia had a speaker, Nigeria was prepping for something, but we'll never know if the event ever occurred, since we gave up after checking back a couple of times. We were going to eat at Ghana, but they had this massive non-moving line. Bangladesh had kids performing folk dances, which was adorable. Pakistan had a small bazaar, and were blasting euro-pop at ear-peircing levels.

I'm not sure why. Perhaps to let everyone know that they were the cool embassy. Pakistan also had food. The only thing we recognized were samosas, which we had also eaten at the Indian embassy. So I decided to pick something at random from the menu. "Can I get the Julab Gotti?" I asked the man.
"What?"
"Uh, number 6?"
"What is the Number 6?"
"Er...Julab...Gotti?"
At that point, the guy started laughing, took my money, and plopped two enormous balls of fried bread that had spent the last five hours soaking in honey down on my plate.

After that, both of my friends ordered samosas.

After the embassies we headed down to the Asia festival in downtown DC. They had a martial arts arena, and we watched some Tai Kwan Do guys kick the crap out of some wooden planks. They were awesome. This one guy threw an apple in the air, kicked it, and it exploded all over the audience that wasn't me.

I cheered. As did everyone else who wasn't covered in apple sauce.

We also went down to the cultural stage, and watched some belly dancers.

Have you ever seen a cultural festival without belly dancers? I haven't. I'm convinced that I could throw a dance/culutral/garage sale festival in my back yard and belly dancers would show up.

There were also Mongolian dancers, and the Indonesian embassy sent a group of muscians. While we were watching the dancers, we noticed that all the people around us were eating bowls of what appeared to be jello floating in milk. We finally worked up our courage to ask what it was, and that's how we found ourselves in front of the Thai shaved ice stand.

Neither of my friends would get some, but they did advise me as to toppings, since both of them have actually lived in China, and knew that some of them were nasty.

So there was a whole line of nice, elderly Asian people, standing behind bowls of various weird things. The first lady scooped some shaved ice in a bowl, and poured coconut milk over it. She handed it to the topping line.

"What you want?" the first guy asked,
"uh, what's good?"
"It's all good!" They all started shouting and pointing their ladles at their topping and telling me how good it was.
"Get the red bean paste" Yoosh told me.

The guy poured an enormous scoop of red bean paste on top of my ice. Then I also got Ai Yu jelly (which looks like yellow jello)
Grass jelly (which looks like black jello) and then had them top it off with a good squeeze of Hershey's chocolate syrup.

It was...strangely delicious. The grass jelly in particular was very refreshing, and the red bean paste was really yummy. Sweet, with a nice texture and a really great flavor.

In fact, it was all really good, but I have no idea about how to describe the flavors I tasted other than... strangely delicious.

Monday-Feeling the Pain

Grr, once again I am lacking in videos. My nice blogging routine is going to be messed up pretty much from now until December.

Saturday I spent most of the day packing. I discovered the Secret Boxelder Bug Graveyard behind my bookcase (gross) and tossed out two bags of trash. That's the one good thing about moving, it forces me to re-evaluate my hording choices.

I need a few more boxes, for clothes and what not, then we'll move our stuff into storage this coming Saturday. Then we'll be crashing with a friend for three weeks unitl the townhouse is available.

Best. People. Ever.

And just to make it the best Monday ever, after a weekend of packing and hauling boxes, I went to the dentist this morning. I also have a Krav Maga class this afternoon, and I'm sure the mouth guard will feel simply lovely.

I really need to work on my scheduling choices.

Let's see, this weekend I saw Elizabeth and Dave in Real Life, so I'll have reviews a little later. Right now I have to think of something soft I can gum down for lunch.

Wednesday I'm going to see a musical called "The Spelling Bee." I know nothing about it, but it's a musical about spelling. So I'm sure it will be awesome.

Metro Gymnast

When I'm going home, if I hit all the lights just right I can get on an earlier train and it's not so crowded.

If I miss it I catch the next train 7 minutes later. You'd be surprised how much of the rush hour crush increases within that 7 minutes.

So last night I was walking down the escalator (it was broken) and I see the early train, and the conductor is giving the "Stand clear doors are closing" warning. But he's still at the beginning, and there's no one on the escalator, and no one on the platform, and I thought "I can totally make it."

So I started running. Raced down the escalator, slid around the turn, took a few running steps and then leaped towards the car, sticking the landing with a triumphant "HA!" just as the doors slid close.

(If the doors catch you, they hurt alot. I learned this during a less successful jump on the train attempt)

Anyway, all the people sitting around the doors swiveled around to look at me, and the guy sitting across from the doors burst out laughing. Probably because he could see my victorious "I made the train!! Take that Metro!!" face.

I was little embarrassed at being stared at, so I made my way, non-chalantly of course, to the front of the car and sat down.

I snuck a peek behind, and the guy was still watching and laughing at me.

Civics Quiz

I got this from a friend at work. We're constantly arguing over politics, so he challenged me to take it.

It's a beast of a civics quiz. I scored 46 out of 60, which is 76%.

This is actually better than Harvard seniors, who averaged 69%, so I've got that going for me. Yeah UTAH STATE!!

So, how well do you know our political system?

Here's the quiz.

I have major issues with a couple of the questions though, and if I had this in a college course I'd be outside the prof's door to complain.

My rant would probably start with "We're a Constitutional Republic DANG IT!!"

At last I have an answer

Since I live in DC, most first conversations go like this:

"Hi my name is suchandsuch"
"Hi, I'm Corbeau."
"So...what do you do?"
"Office ninja"

And then the conversation dies, because suchandsuch thinks my job is boring and mundane, but doesn't want to look like a jerk by saying so.

But now, thanks to today's Dilbert, I can kill the conversation much more efficiently, and with the added bonus of dark humor.

Corbeau Goes to the Movies

Friday night we decided to go see Becoming Jane, the biopic which takes Jane Austen's life story, and shoves it into a Jane Austen novel plot line. BSA and I managed to get into the theater just in time for the 8:30 show, (we had friends holding our seats) and it seems like a cute movie.

You can play "spot the inspiration" for characters and events that mimic those found in Pride and Prejudice. I don't know if other novels come into play, because at the first ball, about 20 minutes into the film, the fire alarms went off and we had to evacuate the theater.

It's a 24 screen theater, so there were lots of people to evacuate, and that doesn't include the die hards standing in the ticket line, or still entering the theater.

If I came to a theater, and saw the strobbing lights, and the sirens, and the masses of humanity exiting the doors and spilling across the street, I would think "hmm, maybe I'll go somewhere else tonight" not, "Hmm, I wonder the ticket line starts?"

But that's just me.

Anyway, so we waited out in the hot humid evening, and watched the fire trucks come, and then a manager came out and yelled that they probably wouldn't reopen that night, so just hold on to your ticket stub to come back another night.

By then it was almost 10, and we still didn't feel like going home, so my two roommates and I decided to drive across town and see what was playing there. We got into a 10:30 showing of StarDust.

As we sat in the nice A/C waiting for the movie to start, my other roommate the Secret Agent(SA)grumbled "I've paid 20 bucks for movies tonight, and I still haven't seen anything!" We had to point out that this wasn't true, since she'd seen one really cool preview for the new Elizabeth movie, and almost an entire 20 minutes of Becoming Jane, and if that wasn't worth 20 bucks what was!?

Fortunately, the movie started and nothing went wrong.

I like StarDust. It's a fairytale movie, and features British humor. Michelle Pfeiffer has a lot of fun playing the evil witch, and it was a lot of fun watching her ham it up. Robert de Niro was amusing as gay pirate captain (really!) and Claire Danes wasn't annoying.

So it was a win-win-win all around! I also like the Peanut Gallery of dead princes, but I have a morbid sense of humor. I can understand though, why it might not appeal to everyone.

Weekend of Cool Grossness

Friday night I went out with some friends to The Flying Fish, a sushi restaurant with a cool renovated "speak easy" in the basement.

Since I don't like sushi, I was perusing the salad menu when my Romanian Friend (RF) asked what I was thinking of ordering.

Me: Well, the Caesar sounds good but it comes with white anchovies.
RF: Ah, you don't like anchovies?
Me: I've never had them.
RF: Well you have to at least try them!!
BSA: If they're gross you can always just pick them off.

This is true. A fish is probably the easiest thing in the world to pick off a salad.

So I ordered the Caesar, and so did RF. When they brought out the salads the two white fish were laid dramatically across the top. I was admiring the effect of their shiny, shiny whiteness against the dark green of the romaine while RF happily speared one with a fork, and popped it in her mouth.

"It's good! Your turn."

So I speared the fish, which promptly flopped over the fork in order to show off it's flippy-floppy tail for maximum effect.

I decided that it might need a little help from a piece of romaine with lots of dressing.

And some cheese.

And maybe a crouton.

As I was trying to get the crouton on my overloaded fork RF sighed "Oh just eat it already!"

So I did. It was surprisingly good. It was neither as crunchy or as fishy as I was expecting.

***
Saturday I went to the Bodies Exhibit.

This is where people have donated their bodies to science, and the scientists have used a special plastic preservative to keep them from decaying. They have all kinds of fascinating dissections with zero nasty smell.

I have dissected my share of critters, as well as handling human cadavers and I can un-equivocally state that the lack of smell was very nice.

The skeletons with intact eyes were a little bizarre though.

Some of the specimens are preserved in action: playing basketball, conducting music, performing tai chi, etc. so that you can see what your muscles are doing when you move.

Very cool.

I think my favorite was the circulatory system. They had exhibits with all the arteries of various body parts. The amount of skill to dissect and remove all those tiny vessels intact is just mind boggling. I must have stood in front of the lower leg for 5 minutes, just staring at that amazing mass of blood vessels.

Some of the exhibits aren't very pleasant. They have specimens with cancer, smoker lungs, and other such unfortunate health problems.

The only exhibit that really creeped me out though was the human skin that had been removed in two, complete, giant pieces. Front and Back. With little holes where the eyes, nose and mouth had been. Then the two pieces laid out, front on the back, like someone had just unzipped the guy all the way around and peeled it off.

The only other thing on the table was a small placard telling you all about the amazing organ that is the human skin.

It just seemed... so wrong.

Sweet, sweet lunch hour

How do I love thee?

Today I really wanted to try something new, so I got a deli recommendation from one of the other ninjas (along with some directions) and went in search of a new lunch experience.

I got a really good sandwich. It started out as a BLT; a quick swipe of mayo, followed by thick fluffy lettuce, tomato slices, and two pieces of bacon that appeared to have not only come from an actual pig, but where also thrown in a frying pan at some point in time. (I enjoy McDonald's breakfast sandwiches, but their version of bacon is some weird stuff.)
On top of that were fresh slices of avocado, and then a heaping ice cream scoop of egg salad.

Served of course, with a quarter sliced dill pickle. I didn't see the guy wrap it at first, and was bitterly disappointed at this breach of the deli code. Serve a sandwich without a side pickle? Madness!!

It was a really good sandwich, and totally worth yelling "I'd like a Yankee Doodle on White!" over the busy counter.

I think delis come up with sandwich names just so they can giggle when a suit comes in and says "I'd like a Big Momma on Rye" or "I'd like a Young Republican without onions."

That's my theory anyway. Deli menus, crafted with humor.

On a slightly related note, I think my local CVS has been taken by the enemy. What else explains the total lack of ho-hos or fireballs? Obviously the inventory was raided by rival ninjas in order to break my spirit. Who can face the dreaded drudgery of a Wednesday afternoon without snacks?

That's how you end up like this guy.

Tres Chic

Friday, something horrible happened.

I opened my closet, stared at my clothes, and realized that I hated everything I owned and therefore had nothing to wear.

Since I hate clothes shopping, I decided to go for the next step and get a drastic haircut. Because if I change my hair style, my clothing will look different and I'll be interested in it again and I can avoid the horrors of trying on clothes designed for mutant stick people who should really eat a sandwich for pity's sake.

Very logical.

So Monday I found myself in a salon, featuring white couches and funky euro-techno, watching copious amounts of hair fall to the floor.

3 different people wandered by to sweep up during the hour I was there.

I want to get a stamp, so I can keep score for every hair stylist that, armed only with a comb, scissors, and spray bottle, bravily wrestles my hair until at some point they have to concede something like:

"It's SO thick"
or
"Man you have a lot of hair"
or
"I didn't seem like that much when I started"

My hair has aspirations. It wants to be the Dunwich Horror.

Anyway, an hour later I emerged with a cut I would describe as "Emo." Short and shaggy in back, with graded sides, getting longer to the front, so as to frame my face as dramatically as possible.

Hey, it worked for Spiderman.

Everyone at work seems to like it. They describe it as "chic" or possibly "shiek."

Bastille Day

Tomorrow, as I'm sure you're all aware, is France's Independence Day. Every year, the French restaurant Les Halles down on 12th and Penn celebrates Bastille Day by hosting an annual waiter race.

Today I managed to schedule a really late lunch so I could go down and watch.

They had the street blocked off, with little cones designating the racing track down Pennsylvania Ave. There were red, white, and blue balloons, and the restaurant had some cooks outside. You could buy a spicy lamb sausage in a baguette, and french fries, and then they had wine on ice. Contemporary music played from a set of speakers. (Sorry Mozart!)

In the center of the block, naturally, Marie Antoinette and the Statue of Liberty were having lunch.

I found a spot on the street, plopped myself down (I'm sure I have a lovely dust mark the bottom of my black business pants), and people watched.

It was worth it to get there early, just to watch Marie Antoinette dance to Usher. The sight of a girl in full 18th Century costume dancing hip-hop inspired the old lady next to me to growl. "That girl in the wig must be hotter than hell."

It cracked me up.

Anyway, the waiters lined up (any professional server working in a restaurant in DC can sign up for the race) and a man with a thick French accent came on and listed the prizes (I'm assuming they're fabulous) and gave the rules. Between his accent and the PA system, he was a little hard to understand, but here are the ones I got.

-No Running (It's a Walk Don't Run race!)
-No Pushing
-No Punching
-No Kicking/Tripping
(These three make you wonder about past races)
-Each waiter has a small tray with a glass of water and a water bottle. If the water spills or the water bottle falls you're disqualified.
-They have to make five laps around the race course.

It was fun. There was one guy who really had the speed walking thing down. Several people got warned for almost running, one girl lost her glass of water, and one crazy lady wore heels. She got lapped twice.

The Fourth

We celebrated the fourth by going to see Transformers (More than Meets the Eye) and then going into town to watch the fireworks over the National mall.

My office building gives out tickets so that you can watch the fireworks from the roof. It's a great view, close to the metro (amazingly we missed the crowds) and since it rained pretty hard yesterday, we didn't have to sit in mud.

Actually, I just found out today that there was a tornado warning out for our area yesterday. Fortunately there was just rain, and no tornadoes.

DC puts on a great show. They shot fireworks for a half hour, with so many in the finale that an enormous clouds of smoke from the first half of the finale obscured bits of the second.

My favorites were the one that burst in the shape of hearts, stars, and enormous smiley faces.

The only bad thing is that I had to come back to work today, and it feels like a Monday. In fact, I even started gathering up the house garbage this morning. (Monday is garbage day)

Chocolate Adventure

There's a great little hot sauce shop down in Eastern Market. I love it. I braved the pending storm, speed walking through the heat and humidity to jog up the brick steps and bask in the stores air conditioned confines.

There was one other customer, she and the clerk were discussing chili chocolate. While I've heard of putting hot chilies in chocolate, the thought has never appealed to me. Then again, the bulk of my experience with hot sauce was its use as a flavor suppressant not as a flavor enhancer. (Thanks Navy!)

The lady remained unconvinced, so the clerk brought out a small golden box of chocolates and asked her to try one.

Apparently the thought of this made her nervous since she turned to me and asked if I was going to have one too.

I said, "Oh no. I'm actually here shopping for a father's day present." (Surprise Dad!) Because I'm a wimp with a sensitive digestive tract.

She then turned to the clerk, "Well are they all hot?"

He pointed out that the round ones were the hottest, but the dark chocolate square wasn't so hot.

I looked at the little balls. A sympathetic reaction in my gut told me that they were pure evil rolled into a chocolate ball and dusted with cocoa powder. Since I had no desire to toss cookies in the hot sauce store, I picked up the dark chocolate square. I asked the clerk, "This one is mild right?"

He replied, "Well, not MILD. Just not as hot as the other one."

Great.

The lady took a hot ball. Then we stood facing each other, like children in a dare, taking mutual courage from the fact that we faced possible public humiliation together.

I bit into my chocolate, eating half of it with one bite.

It was called Citrus Fire.

With the first bite the smooth bitterness of the dark chocolate filled my mouth, mixing with the sweet, gooey caramel filling that spilled out of the chocolate to dribble down my chin.

I can never eat a caramel without leaving wayward caramel strands somewhere on my face. It's my curse and my burden.

But I digress.

My first reaction was "mmmmmmmmmmmm" because is there any other reaction to high quality dark chocolate and caramel? I think not. As I chewed I discovered the subtle presence of orange even as I wondered, feared the coming of the promised fire.

It was subtle. A small tickling, burning sensation at the back of my mouth. From there it spread, a warm, gentle heat that was actually very pleasant.

The lady across from me was enjoying her chocolate as well. "That's really good!"
I nodded and said, "Yeah, it wasn't that hot at all!"

Apparently, Citrus Fire knows a good entrance line when it hears it, because at the very moment my entire mouth ignited.

I don't know if I turned red, but I spent the next ten minutes sweating while I shopped.

Hmm, just thinking about it makes me hungry. Nuts, now I'll have to go buy a box of those little suckers.