Okay, I’m sure Deadspin already has a post about this with hundreds of (single word) comments, but this post-game interview is amazing.
beer, coffee, and trains
So it’s the end of the week, and I’m incredibly scatterbrained at the moment for some reason. I’m at my parents’ for the weekend–it’s my dad’s birthday today.
I took the 3:50 pm Brunswick Line MARC train up to Frederick from Union Station this afternoon. I picked the drunk train. (Fox 5 did a story about it on the late night news once. It’s a real thing.) At Rockville, some dude whom I had never met before wordlessly handed me a Sierra Nevada IPA after sitting down in the next seat. It was kind of awesome. (We subsequently talked.)
I seem to be spending a lot of time on/near Capitol Hill lately. The other day I noticed that the house at 314 Maryland Ave NE has a giant, metal letter π above its door instead of regular ol’ Hindu-Arabic-European numerals. Cute.
I usually prefer to walk up to Union Station instead of catching the Metro from any of the blue/orange stations on Pennsylvania. (For me it’s a 15-20 minute walk in lieu of 6-7 station stops.) Any time I’m by Union Station during the day, I stop in Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse. Until recently, that is. I started going there in 2006 or 2007, but I go less frequently now; it’s been overrun by the nondescript Hill types who all sorta look the same to me and could potentially be mistaken for window dressing if I wasn’t paying attention when walking by. I enjoyed its looks-like-a-Starbucks-but-isn’t, hidden-in-plain-sight qualities. Who cares if all of your money supports the National Community Church, which I know zero about? (It’s not run by Sun Myung Moon, so I’m sure it’s fine.) It was quiet, there was always a free table, the place has Wi-Fi, and it’s one block from the Metro. But, alas, those days are gone. Well, it’s still a block from the Metro. Anyway I blame Yelp. I hate you, Yelp. Let people be curious and find new places on their own. Then they will tell other people in real life using their mouths. (AV Club DC, you’re not helping either.)
My latest go-to spot in that ‘hood is Jacob’s Coffee House at 8th & D. Man, there’s never anybody there. They don’t have a website. I wonder how they stay in business. I guess it’s a strange thing to seek out solitude in a public place, but that’s what I want, and this place delivers. Oh, they also have “all day sandwiches.” One day I will order one. In conclusion, don’t ruin this for me, Yelp.
2010 travels (tentative)
Places I want to visit (and current, lowest published roundtrip airfare from Washington, D.C., according to Bing travel) in 2010:
Pittsburgh, Penn. – $120
Portland, Or. – $274
Montreal, Canada – $308
Austin, Texas – $212
London, U.K. – $596
Jerusalem, Israel – $1135
New Delhi, India – $971
Bangkok, Thailand – $1496
Tokyo, Japan – $948
big shiny jelly bean
The first Google hit for “big shiny jelly bean“ is the official Millennium Park Cloud Gate page. Pretty neat. One of these days I’ll make it over there to see it. My one trip to Chicago consisted of eight hours in a conference room and several more hours at O’Hare.
I went and saw another of Anish Kapoor’s pieces S-Curve at the Sackler yesterday. It’s essentially a 30′ long mirror, alternatingly concave and convex, composed of two fused, polished pieces of steel in the museum’s atrium. It’s engaging and playful; the adults seemed to be having more fun with it than the kids even. There’s also a “Please Do Not Touch” sign in mirror image posted on the wall, so it can be seen properly when looking at the sculpture–a nice, silly touch. Check it out.
Further study: At The Hub of Things (Hirshhorn), Memory (Guggenheim), Untitled (Met)
figures of speech, part one of ∞
Metonymy is when one thing is referred to as another related thing. An example would be referring to the U.S. federal government as the Capitol. (Tangentially related: Synecdoche.)
Prosopopoeia is the personification of inanimate things or non-present people. For example, the flames of the fire danced in the wind.
The two should not be confused.*
* Adapted from an earlier, private discussion over GTalk.
2009 travels
Places I visited (and number of visits, if n > 1) in 2009:
Seattle, Wash.
Boston, Mass. (2)
New York, N.Y. (2)
El Portal, Ca.
Yosemite National Park, Ca.
San Francisco, Ca.
Paris, France (2)
Alghero, Italy (2)
Bosa, Italy
Oristano, Italy
Cagliari, Italy
Nuoro, Italy
Hannover, Germany
Berlin, Germany
Hamburg, Germany
Freehold, N.J.
Princeton, N.J.
haitian earthquake relief sites
The San Francisco Chronicle online has a pretty good list of charities and relief organizations that are directing donations to Haiti. Check it out.
And consult with charitynavigator.org to see how much of your donations actually support the causes to which you are giving.