JPW

I played varsity hockey in high school (WPIAL champs in '87, perfect 21-0 record in '88 (until the playoffs)). Played 2 years of club league level hockey at Northwestern. Always wore #4 in honor of my favorite player as a kid.

It's the greatest sport on Earth.

If only the NHL would toss the fighting to the curb along with Don Cherry.

Holla for Shadyside! You didn't happen to go to Falk, the Pitt school for faculty kids, did you? I was at the Learning Research Development Center there for second and third grade. Weird, but awesome place (we each had computers in the early 80s and the walls were all one way mirrors with rooms of people studying our behavior behind the mirrors).

Nope. Liberty Elementary and St Edmund's Academy.

My turn.

Born in McGee Women's Hospitol - Pittsburgh, PA -- right next to the Pitt campus.

Lived in Shadyside and Squirrel Hill. My dad was an academic and we had two exciting summer trips so he could do research - a month or so in Warsaw during the height of the Cold War and a month or so in Aspen.

Undergrad - Northwestern U - Evanston, IL (due to eG I met one of my classmates who I never knew at school, but she said she recognized me because I drove the sandwich truck on campus). A summer in Quebec where I got to meet Premier Rene Bourassa. Junior year in Paris at Sciences Po.

Took a year off and worked in the industry full time along the tourist migration route - winter in St. Thomas, summer on Martha's VIneyard (where I worked for Todd English until I got fired).

Grad school in lovely Binghamton, NY.

Been in DC now for 15 years. First in Arlington where we rented a place in the Park Fairfax from a woman in the military. She got recalled after 9/11 and we got booted out. I'll never forget the sound of silence when all air travel was shut down and nothing was coming into National. Only the occasional helicopter and the little prop plane that circled the Pentagon at night.Then down to Del Ray for a year. Bought our house in SS in 2002.

I'm quite impressed that somebody knows this!

It crops up on my neighborhood listserv from time to time as a few families by the Arliss St. Giant keep hens. As most of those families appear to be Latino, the debate tends to be colored by cultural differences and (sometimes) thinly veiled racism.

Alas, I don't believe the county would let me keep laying hens in my Silver Spring back yard.

Au contraire. From Chapter 59 Montgomery County Zoning Ordinance:

Section 3.2.9. Urban Farming

7.   Only manual or walk-behind mechanical equipment and practices commonly used in residential gardening may be used.

 

The very thing that always stood out to me about Yan is that his TV persona really seemed to be his real persona. He may be cheesy and goofy and silly, but you could just TELL that it wasn't an act. I'd love to hang out and knock back a few cold ones with him. I am sure that it would be a riot.

Although it didn't exist until a month after your question, the answer now would most likely be Pacci's.

Or Pete's Apizza if you don't want Neapolitan.

Availability of beer and wine is a major plus.

ETA - Yeah parking sucks, but you can pay to park in the building's garage.

A lovely 20% hike in the price of soup from the soup bar. A medium bowl is now $5.99 before tax. Cashier was kind enough to mention several of the other recent price hikes.

A&J?

I'm guessing "no"

They just sent out notice on Facebook that they would be having a re-opening party on Monday Feb 9.

More importantly, I can afford the Chave Crozes-Hermitage, but not the Chave Hermitage.

It's closed. Sixteen months - a landlord-tenant issue, perhaps?

No. Just an utter lack of foot traffic caused in no small part by the library construction shutting down the sidewalk. The location was effectively at the end of a dead end. Having the parking garage across the street didn't help in terms of foot traffic on that block. Plus, anyone who parks in the garage pretty much automatically exit onto the Ellsworth Ave pedestrian mall.

If you walked out of any office building downtown, you'd go past any number of other options. Even from the closest office building on the SE corner of Georgia and Dale. Cross Georgia - Le Madelaine - Pete's Apizza - Ghar E Kabob. Discovery Channel people feed straight into Ellsworth Ave.

Galaxy? That place closed awhile ago.

Really? Oops.

So, if you are in downtown Silver Spring and you want a sports bar to watch sports and you don't care about food, then by all means give McGinty's a shot.  Otherwise don't bother.

Now, if you happen to be at McGinty's on a Saturday night and a society of rugby referees happens to be holding a dinner in the private room upstairs, stick around for the part of the evening when they all standup and start singing...brilliant.

Nah. Go to the pool hall in the basement. More and better TVs. : )

Who knows where Van Der Beek is,

Don't forget Varsity Blues. And I love his satirical take on his role in that movie in the car ads that he is appearing in.

Just go to Weygandt and ask TIm, Warren, or any of the fabulous staff to pick something out for you. They have scores of nice bottles around $15 - $20. For now, I'll plug the Plouzeau Chinon. Lovely stuff.

Great topic...when I lived in MoCo, I got a couple of truly insane deals on single malt scotch in the county stores.  The best deal ever was two bottles of Laphroaig 30 year-old for $130 per.  This was in the Kensington store about ten years ago.  At the time the average retail was at least twice that and has since gone much higher.  I can only guess that they didn't know what they had...best scotch I've ever tasted.

A few years ago, before I was truly aware of the cult of Pappy, I bought a bottle of the 10 year for $37 at the store in Silver Spring. Tasted it that night and went back a few days later to buy a couple more for "storage". Someone had bought out their entire stock of about 2 cases in one fell swoop.

A double tonight

1) Pat Quinn

2) Viktor Tikhonov

If you get the WineSearcher app, you can just plug in the name of the wine.

FIFY

Mouthfuls in New York and LTHForum in Chicago are the two big ones. PHXFoodNerds in Phoenix is another. There have got to be more -- Chowhound's uncurated, everything in one thread approach makes it largely useless and Egullet's dining forums have mostly died out.

I thought that LTHForum had died? Did someone resurrect it?

The curing room escaped harm and the power to the restaurant was restored before the room temp could rise to unsafe levels. So, they've been selling charcuterie at the SS Farmers' Market. For the last few weeks, the've been "about a month away from re-opening". Nutty Buddy ran into Chef Reynald a couple of weeks ago and he said that the MoCo inspectors have been the main hold-up.

What rocks typed + economist.com (very limited access unless you're a subscriber). I'll run through the major European papers once in a blue moon.

My neighbor gets the milk delivered  and gave me a bottle a few weeks ago when they were going to be out of town. Abso-freakin'-lutely delicious.

With all due respect to Don's best intentions and kindness of spirit, if you are thinking about suicide or are in extreme mental distress, please make your first call to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - 1.800.273.TALK. It is staffed 24/7 with trained counselors. Memorize this number and be prepared to provide it to anyone you run across who you fear may be having suicidal thoughts. Preventing suicide is the business of ALL OF US!

For those grieving due to another's suicide, I would suggest starting with the American Association of Suicidology's Suicide Loss Survivors page.

Then call Don.

Like Don, I have been close to others' suicide in my personal life (and suicide has been a big piece of my professional life for the past 5 years). More of us know someone close who has completed suicide than you think. It's just that, like many things, it's not something that gets talked about a lot.