TedE

9 hours ago, DonRocks said:

I can't think of a better beer selection in NoVa

Better than Westover Market?!  As noted below, at any place like this check those dates!  There is no way places with this type of selection can rotate stock fast enough.  Unless it's a really high demand beer there are just so many choices that some six-packs are going to languish.

Ministry had an interesting progression.  At the start they were pure New Wave/synth, and that gradually shifted to the more popular industrial stuff.  In the album right before the one referenced above you can basically hear the transition.

Psalm 69 is a great album.  I remember seeing them at Lollapalooza here in 1992 (at Lake Fairfax!  That was a weird place for a venue).  It had poured rain the night before, and was hot the day of.  The entire area in front of the stage was mud that rapidly dried when it eventually found its way onto your person.

Fun fact: I was in college in Chicago in the early/mid 90s, and the far distant orbits of my friends and Al Jourgensen's friends oddly aligned enough that I ran into him at a few parties.  It became a running joke ("Maybe we'll see Al tonight").  He is an ... interesting guy.

On 3/2/2018 at 5:26 PM, Bob Wells said:

Westerns are not served with Old Bay, but now that you mention it, that is a great idea! But yes, definitely plucked from a stainless steel bin. I cut my teeth on the Westerns at the old Homewood Deli on St. Paul Street in Charles Village (peculiar motto: "A pleasure dome of easy and filling foods"). The Homewood also had a small Silber's Bakery inside it, until the unfortunate rat droppings episode circa 1980 put paid to ol' Silber's.

Of course, let's not pretend that Westerns are something unique. It's just the name they go by in Baltimore. People of a certain vintage still wax rhapsodically about the "Fraked Potatoes" at Rummel's Dairy in Waterville, ME. When I got to Baltimore and saw Westerns my immediate thought was "Frakes!"

Oh, man.  Westerns!  I spent a large portion of my youth riding bikes around the greater Guilford area, and distinctly remember a place on the ground level of the Hopkins House off of University.  I have no clear recollection of the name, but it was pretty much a carbon copy of Homewood Deli; it may have been, unsurprisingly, the Hopkins Deli??   Among my friends they were the consensus best Westerns in our little sphere of the known universe.  We used to get them doused in gravy and then sneak up on the roof of the Hopkins House for a snack with a view.

Royal Farms had the best fried chicken and a superior assortment of Hubba Bubba, though.

19 hours ago, DonRocks said:

Given the physics of skating, there are *absolutely* jumps that haven't yet been done: Look at half-pipe, mountain biking, snowboarding, and skateboarding for your examples - the craziest kids are the ones who will be the inspiration for figure skaters to be standing on the podium in the future.

In parallel: Nadal's Buggy Whip forehand was certainly derived from the Loop in table-tennis, even if by coincidence.

You would think that somebody would have come up with another one by now.  I guess we could count the backflip, but that was quickly outlawed in competition.  But why hasn't somebody tried an aerial cartwheel (cartwheel with no hands)?  That seems like something that could be developed as the land based trick is pretty standard.  Think of all the crazy things you see in gymnastics floor routines that aren't technically flips.  Are they also outlawed akin to backflips?  Skating seems to be very conservative when it comes to pushing the envelope, and I think it would be much more watchable with more innovation (IMHO of course, I know people love it.  I change the channel to a different competition unless NBC has decided it's the only thing we're allowed to watch that night).  But when your success hinges on basically perfecting the same routine for half a decade or more straight I guess there's not much need to break boundaries.

18 hours ago, DonRocks said:

I assume you saw this - I'm going to try to think about this a little bit.

This question was prompted watching the cross country skiing coverage, and I purposefully did not mention any sports that have seen developments in new elements of the sport. I would include figure skating jumps and whatever new tricks aerial skiers and snowboarders keep coming up with.  Those advance the difficulty of the sport, but don't really change how it's competed.  I see them as natural evolutions made available by advancements in training and athleticism: you have to have a certain level of talent to land a triple, and have to progress to another level in order to attempt a quad.  I'm sure somebody will eventually land a quintuple, just like somebody will eventually break 2 hours in the marathon.  Closer would be: is there a brand new figure skating jump style that nobody has attempted yet?  But that is still somebody coming up with a new "trick".  Given the way the judging goes (a totally different topic to debate!) I guess you could argue that everybody would then have to learn that new trick just to prove they could do one.

12 hours ago, Tweaked said:

The Underwater dolphin kick changed swimming to the point that the regulating organization FINA had to make rule changes.

Good one!  That's the stuff I was thinking about.  A change so dramatic that given roughly equal abilities an athlete using the new technique will *always* have a sizable advantage over an athlete using an older technique.  Adapt or lose.

Don - I think in all of your examples the advancements were due to the individual athletes' incredible skill or potential.  Not every sprinter can take one less stride per 100, because not everybody has Usain Bolt's leg length.  Chamberlain ... well, let's just say he's an outlier.  Bird was one of the greatest shooters the game has ever seen.  Etc.

The table tennis technique could be a good example.  Was that not possible before the advent of the super sticky rubber compounds?  Was it impossible to do, albeit less effectively, on a "slippier" paddle?

Gretzky's behind the net shot is kinda in between.  Goaltenders had to adjust to the possibility, but the entire game of hockey didn't change fundamentally (I would argue that Gary Gait's leaping-from-behind-the-crease goal changed that sport more dramatically).  The impact was probably even more dramatic in football with the advent of shotgun and spread formations.

Back to Olympic disciplines, one of my friends mentioned Ted Ligety's "swivot" turns, but I don't know enough about skiing to know if that was revolutionary.  I don't get the sense that it's the widespread, default technique in downhill, though.

I posted this to FB friends because it's been running through my mind most of the morning: is there a current Olympic discipline, Summer or Winter, that is still awaiting its "Fosbury Flop" moment?  Not an advancement in technology or equipment, but a different approach just to technique that is so advantageous that it revolutionizes the sport completely.  It has to be within the current rules of the discipline, just something that nobody has ever thought of trying before.  With all of the advancements in computer modeling and actual research in the the physics of sports you might think something might still be out there.

The most recent I could think of is maybe ski jumping with the spread ski tips to increase wind resistance and keep the jumper aloft longer, but that was also accompanied by the new style of wide skis so equipment played a role there.  Freestyle cross-country (ski skating) had to be split off from classic cross-country because it is so much faster (something I did not know: ski skating was a technique in use in the early 1900s, but freestyle only became separate events in 1986).

Has anybody tried some weird, asynchronous sweeping pattern in an 8-person rowing boat that puts down more consistent power vs. the short bursts in coordinated sweeping?  You'd have the keep the oars from hitting each other, but maybe?  I used to throw discus and shot put in high school, and it's all about achieving maximum angular momentum on release.  There were a few styles in use for us lowly high school amateurs just learning the sport, but every Olympian uses the same spin technique these days.  A lot of freestyle swimmers have adopted a lopsided, loping stroke coordinated with their breathing, but that's a pretty minor tweak to current technique (it was also famously adopted by Katie Ledecky which may partially explain her dominance; it's less common in the women's events for whatever reason).

On 1/30/2018 at 3:06 PM, funkyfood said:

How did it go?

We went last Friday, and our experience mostly mirrors the recent ones here.  I got there at 4:30 just to be sure we could get a seating time we wanted.  The "line" was 3 guys milling about the entrance, and two of them were paid line-standers, so I took a short walk on a nice evening and got back at 4:50 to about 8 people lined up. Host came out at 4:55, took our numbers and preferred seating and I went across the street to Petworth Citizen for a couple of drinks (very nice happy hour there, BTW).

We ended up getting 5 dishes that are on the menu posted above: oysters, kanpachi, brussel sprouts, eggplant, "gnocchi" (my wife is celiac, so we didn't try anything that couldn't be gluten free, but I now regret not getting the uni toast after seeing one on the way out the door).  The eggplant was the surprising standout, and we really enjoyed the kanpachi preparation; the pickled elements + coconut milk worked very well.  Drinks were excellent across the board, and I wish I remembered all of the details.  One involved green tea and a nori garnish and it had a smoky sweetness that really went well with a couple of the dishes.  It was undoubtedly a great meal, and I'm glad we went, but I don't think I'd return for two reasons: 1) dinner for two easily hit $200 with tax and tip, and we didn't indulge in many dishes with 4 or 5 drinks total between us; it seemed a little over-valued.  2)  I hate (hatehatehate) the line-up-for-your-table thing.  I know we're in the minority, but with 3 little ones to arrange coverage for and the uncertainty of when, or even if, we could get a table it's just not worth the extra hassle.  It was fine to try out for a special occasion, but once was enough.

This whole launch was one of those science-fiction-comes-to-life events (at least for me).  The pace of advancement here has meant that we scarcely get to become accustomed to the last engineering marvel before the next "Holy sh*t, they're going to do what?!" one comes along.   The first successful landing attempts on the drone ship were less than two years ago.  There are some pretty good amateur videos showing a wider angle view on the booster recovery yesterday.  There is still part of my brain that wants to see them as video of a dual rocket launch played in reverse.  It's still that unbelievable at some fundamental level.

Fuel use and the subsequent pollution is never gong to be solved on the hardware engineering side; it's going to be solved on the chemistry side.  The engines are about as efficient as they are going to get with the fuel formulations in use (all of it really nasty stuff).  The point of the (failed) landing attempt a few weeks ago was to test a much higher burn rate (3 engines vs. 1) for a much shorter time so the boosters can come in "hotter".  It ends up using less overall fuel than a slower single engine burn to slow down.  Of course, environmental concerns have nothing to do with it: every pound of fuel you can remove from the launch cycle is another pound of payload you can put into orbit.

The stated goal for the Falcon9 boosters is to be deployed, recovered, and made ready for re-use in a single 24 hour window.  They want to get to the point where they can launch twice in the same day using the same hardware.

Holy sh*t, they're going to do what now?!?!?

On 8/14/2017 at 6:41 PM, lion said:

Ah thanks for the info! I think years ago when I first started drinking 120, a couple of the Dogfish locations said they only got a couple of kegs and they went fast. 

Nanny's in Cleveland Park is hosting a tap takeover for DFH tonight (2/1) and according to the announcement they will have 120 Minute.

Yuzu Hot Sauce.  Just discovered it last week.  I'm always on the lookout for interesting hot sauces with actual flavor (I have no interest in macho, super hot sauces).  It's vinegary with lots of citrus, about Tabasco-level of heat, maybe a touch more.  It was probably an influence of the greenish-yellow coloring, but at first taste was like a South Carolina mustard BBQ sauce with a bunch of citrus peel thrown in.  Awesome over eggs, and probably great with pork.

42 minutes ago, cantjosh said:

You can line up early and request to be in the second (or third) seating. They'll provide an approximate time and text you about 10-15 minutes before your table is ready. We were there this past Saturday and a few people in front of us did this. The hostess was telling guests that 2nd seating would likely be around 6:30-7p and third seating around 8p. 

I don't think you can ask for a specific time to be seated, however, so your party will still need to be semi-flexible and ready to move somewhat quickly once you get that text.

Also, for the record, 2 of us arrived at about 4:55pm on Saturday. There were ~30 people already in line when we got there. We were included in the second seating (we would have eaten right away if available) and got our table at 6:30--had a drink across the street at Petworth Citizen while we waited.

Excellent!  Thank you.  Unless it's awful weather I'll give it a shot.

Does anybody know he actual line rules for this place?  Is is truly first-come-first-served where you get in line and if they just seat you whenever space opens up, or can you line up and 5:00 but say you want a table for 7:00-ish and they will text you when ready as close as they can?  I'd love to try it for an upcoming birthday dinner on a Friday night, but both of us would never be able to make it in time for one of the first seatings, and I'm of the age where showing up at 7:00 to wait until maybe 9:30 to eat is not going to happen.  If I can be there right before 5:00 and put our name down for a later time it would be worth a try.

On 10/29/2017 at 1:07 PM, Tweaked said:

Support your local brewers:

Port City, RAR, Old Ox, Monocacy, Calvert Brewing Company are producing some of my favorite beers right now.  

I wish more DC-area restaurants were focused on local brewers, a place like Duke's Grocery/Counter should be 75% or more local beer, IMO.

The two Glen's Garden markets are local-only (where the border of "local" is approximately Frederick/Loudon County/Richmond/Delmarva), and they have a really broad selection.  I've been eyeing their growler subscription program that begins again this week.  You get discounts on a weekly growler fill from whatever is featured on their taps and they have some members-only events with the brewers.

On 1/5/2018 at 5:25 AM, DonRocks said:

One day someone will believe me.

What, that a nigh-monopolistic multinational corporation, upon realizing it was seeing double digit losses in market share for certain growth segments, will flex its corporate muscle to try and regain that market share in any way it can?!?  You don't say 

On 1/4/2018 at 4:46 PM, squidsdc said:

Help!  Hubby has a bday next week and is craving a really good smoked or grilled octopus. Any recent good suggestions?  He's already dismissed Iron Gate and Siren. Why, I do not know...

I would prefer close to the downtown business district, where we can walk to the restaurant and then drive home, or either in Maryland, or on our way home from downtown to SS.

TIA!

The Red Hen has in the past almost always had a grilled octopus app on the menu with varying preparations, and I think one of the best in the city. I don't see it on the current menu posted online, but that is still dated Autumn 2017; might be worth giving them a call and seeing if it is back on.  A quick stop off of North Capitol if that is your route home.

5 hours ago, Simul Parikh said:

It's location probably hurts it early on, because a place like this in Shaw or 14th with have lines out the door and 2-3 hour waits. 

Well ....  and I'm sure the favorable Post review isn't going to help.  Looking forward to trying this out when the crowds die down a bit.

Also, this is not Blagden Alley which is off of 9th St.  There is a La Colombe in both places, which is even more confusing!

I'm not interested in joining one of the clubs, but have to note that they have a great selection at retail.  Stopped in to get some beers for holiday gatherings and they had dozens of options stocked.  It's great to have access to such a wide variety of their Terreux line in one place.  They are also going to be getting shipments from their Offshoot brewery from time to time; I don't think these are distributed anywhere else in the area.

Yes, thank you for turning me on to these!  Spied them at a Wegman's in PA over the break and bought one each of the shoyu and miso.  Based on the outside packaging I thought that each one was a double serving, but pleasantly surprised to find two completely separate single servings in the box.  Weather like today make me really hungry for ramen, and even with nothing to add from a holidays-depleted fridge just the noodles and broth really hit the spot.  I'll pick up some more at Hana or our next visit to Wegman's when these run out (which, honestly, is probably going to be by the end of the week).

I'm not surprised, their craft line is brewed by everybody's favorite contract brewery, F.X. Matt.  I wonder if that is one of their in house Saranac recipes, or if Costco sourced the recipe from somewhere else.

When did this happen (posted to their site when I went to check on hours since we may be in the area next week)?:

Quote

Because of a recent discrepancy between to regulatory agencies, Aslin Beer Co. has decided to alleviate some of the issue by closing the taproom and tasting room.

Sounds like you can still get cans and growlers to go Friday-Sunday.  And:

Quote

** Due to the demand at the brewery, shipments to any draft accounts have become rare. 

Hard to expand and build a following if you can't get more tap handles out there. I've really liked the limited number of beers I've tasted from them.  The double dry-hopped Starfish was tapped out very quickly at Snallygaster, but I recall liking the Berliner Weisse.

Victory has been a solid Mid-Atlantic brewery going on 20 years now, one of those "so established they can't be trendy anymore" kind of places.  The founding brewers both earned their stripes at the late, great Baltimore Brewing Company/DeGroen's (I don't think there has ever been a better brewer of traditional German styles on this side of the Atlantic, and it was a great loss when they shut down).  So it should be no surprise that Victory Prima Pils is very good, but almost all of the hype they get goes to their other styles.  Hop Devil is an excellent American IPA and has been for a long time; Golden Monkey Belgian tripel has a strong following (but I think it's too cloying, and I've had what must have been off bottles that were very yeasty in not a good way). 

DirtWolf is their newer flagship DIPA.  You can find it year-round in bottles, and if aggressively hopped DIPAs are your thing it's one to check out. It scores a 99 overall on RateBeer, and similar high marks in other ratings, but when you dig into individual ratings you can see a lot of variation.  People either love it, or say it's nothing special or not what they expected in a DIPA.  To my taste I think what sets it apart is how dry this beer is.  The normal progression for big IPAs these days is a strong hit of hops up front that gives way to a malty/toffee finish with a noticeable alcohol warmth under the sweetness.  DirtWolf is hops layered all the way through.  The nose is strongly resiny, and the first sip is fresh pine.  That then gives way to the fruity hop characteristics that blend really well with the relatively subdued maltiness.  It's a dangerously smooth transition for a beer that weighs in at close to 9%; it drinks like something much lighter.  I currently have a sixtel of this on tap at home, and I think it opens up a lot better on draft than in bottles; it probably would open up even more if I raised the temp on the fridge a bit more.  They had this on cask at Snallygaster, which was even better.

I don't think it should rank as highly as it tends to be rated, but it's a top tier, readily available DIPA from a local(ish) brewery that otherwise gets lost in the hype hive mind these days.

(By the way, the name is a nod to the the scientific name for hops, humulus lupulus, which is also where the term "lupulin" comes from that refers to the resin contained in hop cones.  So I guess a wolf that grows from the dirt?  Sure.)

1 hour ago, Pat said:

Dusty's out. They're not rehiring him. Didn't even negotiate for that new contract they'd been promising right up until late in the season. The contracts of the rest of the coaching staff have expired too. 

I didn't agree with some of his managing decisions--and he really botched that Strasburg explanation--but I'd have given him another year. The Nats sure do run through managers.

This means they terminated the contract of Mike Maddux as well, who absolutely needs to be brought back as pitching coach, but they need to leave that up to the new manager at least for appearances.  Hell, he could be the new manager.  Hopefully they've pulled him aside and said as much.

6 minutes ago, DaveO said:

A friend of mine who studies baseball like Einstein studied relativity stated that there is a long history of starters stinking as relievers in situations such as yesterday.

Madison Bumgarner did this.  His success out of the pen in 2014 put this thought in the head of every stud starter and the managers who oversee them.  Sometimes it works (Kluber last year), most times it does not.

Read this article from last week.  Scroll to the chart about 2/3 down the page.  Bang head on desk.

59 minutes ago, DonRocks said:

No, the HBP. It ricocheted off his bat, and hit him *after* that. If you have the game filmed, rewind and take a look. He ran down the first base line backwards because he was looking to see if the umpire was going to call it. Baker was complaining about the wrong thing - Jay checked his swing, but made contact with the ball in doing so.

The fact that literally *nobody* else is screaming bloody murder about this makes me wonder if *we* saw it wrong. It was during the replay, when the announcers were seeing if he checked his swing. As they were saying, 'Yep, he checked it,' we both shouted out, at the exact same moment, "HEY! The ball hit his bat!" Either we both missed something, or everybody else in the world is missing this, which leads me to believe that we missed something, but I have *got* to see that replay again in order to sleep at night.

---

EDIT - Our mistake. We thought it hit the bat, but it hit his leg. This is the only thing that could have made sense.

Yeah, this one:

https://www.mlb.com/video/heyward-scores-on-jays-hbp/c-1862904883

In the full speed pull-back shot the redirection on the ball makes it look like it could have caromed off of his bat, but the replay clearly shows he was nowhere near it.

On another note: the only time I was screaming at the TV due to a managerial decision was when Dusty pulled Albers after the 4th (actually, that is incorrect.  I almost threw something at the TV when Solis entered the game).  Max is a generational talent at starting pitcher.  He will be a perpetual CY candidate in his prime as long as he's healthy.  Do you know what he isn't?  An established middle reliever with a 1.62 ERA who hadn't given up a run in the post-season!  Max is there if you need him.  The Nats did not need him in the 5th.  Send Albers out there for the 5th and maybe 6th.  He just threw you a 1-2-3 inning on 12 (14?) pitches!! Put him on a short rope, if he shows signs of trouble then you go get Max to bridge to Kintzler/Madson/Doolittle.  Dusty did it because Dusty could.  I can't get it out of my mind that he went with Max in that situation because he thought "How cool would it be for Max to give us a couple innings of shut down ball after Gio sh*t the bed?  After all, he told me he really wanted to".  Every other instinct and stat available to him says stick with Albers until he's done.  GAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

And it wasn't just the pitching match up, this had downstream effects.  Who pinch hit for Albers in the switch?  Robles, which made him unavailable for the rest of the game.  In a do-or-die close game in the later innings, what do you do?  Send your best outfield defense out there.  Know who is not our best outfield defender?  Werth.  Now I know there are a lot of Werth-haters out there, and you have to I've him credit for getting on base 4 times in clutch at bats, but in a one run decision losing a playable ball "in the lights" could literally have meant the game.  Watch the slo mo replay.  His eyes are tracking the ball as it goes past his glove.  He may have lost sight of it temporarily in flight, but that is a catch you have to make.  I can't help but think that a plus OF defender (oh, I don't know, maybe someone like Victor Robles?!?) gets to the ball quicker and makes that play.

GAHHHHHHHH!!!!!