Why should you bother saving such a date six months in advance? Because that is the expected date of birth of lil’ Megatron, niece/nephew of one Mike Affinito. On February 27th, Mike started the Facebook page “MY SISTER SAID IF I GET ONE MILLION FANS SHE WILL NAME HER BABY MEGATRON,” and within less than 12 days he has well over 1.1 million fans. Oh internet, you never cease to rule.

And so it is with baited breath that we await Lil’ Megatron, which hopefully will end up female.

Lil' Megatron

For members of the blog set, spam comments are a fact of life. Annoying, link-filled facts of life that fortunately get filtered 99.9% of the time to their appropriate home, the spam box. The thing about spam, though, it has gotten considerably bizarre in recent history. Aside from the usual links to some sort of Viagkra WEBISTE 4 CHEAP, a few have caught my attention due to their context; the post, the “author” and the comment itself can sometimes be unintentionally hilarious. Here are some of my favorites.

William J. McDonald – UR MOMA IS SO HAIRY THAT HARRY POTTER GOT JEALOUS….

(in reply to Obligatory Stephanie Rawlings-Blake suggestion post pt. 2)

For the record that joke doesn’t really make any damn sense.

Health Insurance – As soon as I discovered this blog I wanted to kick myself in the face to make sure I wasn?t dreaming. I backed away from the computer and walked around my department with a huge smile on my face. I was in such a great mood that I asked out this girl from the coffee shop that I think is cute. Posts like this slap all others straight in the nuts.

(in reply to Twilight of the Plastic Bag Saga)

Hey if you say so!!

Doggy -

Hola,
De d?nde eres? ?Es un secreto?
Have a nice day

Doggy

(in reply to This snuggie thing is absolutely out of effing control)

Doggy,
Uhhhh, me llamo Enrique.

tadwina – ?????? ???????? ???????? ?????? ???????? ?????????????? ?????? ?????? ???? ???????? ???????? ?????????????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ?????? ???????? ?????????????? ???? ?????????? ???????? ?????????? ?????????? ???????????? ( ?????? Vs ???????? ) ?????? ???????? ???????? ?????? ???????? ?????????????? ?????? ?????? ??.?????????? ?????? ?????? ???? ???????? ???????? ???????? ??????????????.?????????? microsoft ???????????? ?????????????? .?????????????? ?????????????? ????????

(in reply to I just hate uggs)

Ah yes, I get this question often.

Online Shopping – Hi there, I found your blog via Google while searching for first aid for a heart attack and your post looks very interesting for me.

(in reply to A perfect fall drink – Spiced Bourbon)

Good to know that an article on spiced bourbon appears in search results for heart attack first aid! (spoiler: it doesn’t)

Oh spam, when will you learn??

HII’MJOEFLACCOANDPIZZAHUTPIZZAISMYFAVORITEPIZZA. SOMEOFTHESENAMESTHEYCAMEUPWITHFORMYPIZZAISPRETTYWEIRDTHOUGH – THEWACCOFLACCO?THATMAKESMESOUNDPSYCHO!
HEYCHECKOUTTHISAWESOMEPLATETHEYPHOTOSHOPPEDONTOMYHANDIT’SPRETTYBADASS

Saint Patrick’s Day weekend is upon us. Quake with fear. Do some stuff while you’re at it.

	4TH ANNUAL MUSTACHE & MINISKIRT PARTY When: Friday, March 12th 9pm Where: Joe Squared (133 West North Avenue, Charles North) More What: (Facebook) Grow out your mustache and dust off that miniskirt for the 4th annual mustache & miniskirt party, this friday! Featuring live music by Claire Hux and a drunken spelling bee! Free!
	SOME SORT OF GETTING DRUNK EVENT When: All weekend 24/7 Where: Baltimore, MD More What: Seriously try walking out of your front door this weekend without tripping over a bar crawl, bar special, kegger, beer bash, stein hoist, green party, blippity bloppity blorp. Oh and the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Sunday, March 14th at the Inner Harbor, 2pm.

CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE EATING CONTEST When: Sunday, March 14th 5pm-6pm Where: Burke’s Restaurant (36 Light Street, Downtown) More What: (Facebook) Eat your way through plate after plate of Saval Deli Corned Beef and Cabbage to win! 1st Place- $300 plus 4 passes to The Comedy Factory 2nd Place- $150 plus 2 passes to The Comedy Factory 3rd Place- $50 plus 2 passes to The Comedy Factory

In what simply must be the greatest news ever to hit my cerebral cortex in no less than twelve lifetimes, disgraced former mayor Sheila Dixon’s Xbox 360 – purchased using absconded gift cards for the poor – is now available for bid on eBay, according to The Baltimore Sun (“Dixon’s Xbox up for sale on eBay” 2010/03/08). This Xbox was submitted as evidence at the trial of former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. This item has been surrendered to the Maryland State Prosecutors Office pursuant to the plea agreement. All proceeds from this sale will go to Youthworks of Baltimore. This item was originally taken from the residence of the former mayor in June 2008.

Robert A. Rohrbaugh, you rule. With providence, this monument to governmental corruption and family entertainment will sit proudly on my mantle, forever preserved in a vacuum-sealed, laser grid protected vault. And by that I mean a sign that says “DIXON’S XBOX NO TOUCH!”

A++++++ WOULD BUY AGAIN!!

25 minutes later update: way way outbid

Well kiss my grits and break out the fine plastic china. As reported by the Sun’s B’More Green blog, Tim Wheeler tells us this morning that Jim Kraft, long time advocate of the proposed ban on plastic bags in grocery stores has somewhat reversed his opinion and opted for a program of mutual cooperation between businesses and city community groups in an effort to educate the public (wha????) concerning the virtues of reusable grocery bags and litter reduction.

HIGH FIVE, JIM KRAFT. Meanwhile, unfortunately, councilman Bill Henry is still opining for a fee on the plastic menace, while Mary Pat Clarke would like to see an “automatic trigger” put into effect in which a ban or fee would be implemented if certain reduction goals are not met. …and we all know how often that type of strategy works, especially when it comes to public education – right Mary Pat?

So hurray for common sense today, let’s all do our rain dance for some more in the future!

(literally everything else to be said on this issue lives here)

In our last episode, we covered the ins and outs of the SBNA meeting last Tuesday during which a committee member broached the idea of requiring permits in order to have a pub crawl in the city of Baltimore. And I’m sure, oh I am sure that there are some of us out there who think this is a fantastic idea; a way to ensure that the organizers are responsible, well to do groups of people who would nor will ever be the harbingers of stabtrocities in our fair city.

I think this idea, in 9 out of 10 cases, is totally useless. Here’s why!

• Logistics and semantics – how many people constitutes a bar crawl? 4? 10? 50? Do they have to be wearing themed T-shirts or bracelets? How much notice must all bars involved be given? Do you honestly think that if on some given Saturday I call my 12 friends and say “Hey let’s all wear top hats and do some drinking along Boston St.” that I’m going to take additional steps to get a permit?  Would the permits cost money based on a scale of how many people are involved?
• The “no” factor – “Well sorry orphans, you won’t be receiving any toys this Christmas because the city denied our permit for a charity bar crawl because the ASPCA wanted to do their bar crawl at two of the bars we wanted, and they’ve got more people going to theirs.”
• It won’t prevent violence – Despite the fact that we try to deny it, violence occurs every day in life, especially when alcohol is involved. Having a permit that allows the assembly of 60 people who want to walk around getting tanked all day isn’t going to stop them from eventually getting into a disagreement over a girl or a dog or sandpaper weight and ending it with violence. It’ll just end up bring more
• Liability – into the situation. I organized a charity bar crawl last November to which 60+ people attended – no incidence of violence. But let’s say for a second that it had, and I was the one with the permit – i.e. the guy responsible for the behavior of 60+ people on a bar crawl. Can you say “law suit” in the event  that someone gets stabbed? Despite the fact that I have no control over where these people actually go, or what they do?
• The community can take care of itself – now, the community very often doesn’t do this and would rather complain when things go wrong, but if on that particular Saturday a single person had alerted the police to the presence of a huge crowd of people clamoring along Fort Avenue with open beers in their hands, visibly intoxicated to boot, the whole thing would have been shut down. Or at the very least, the police would have kept an eye on them. Furthermore, if a single bar owner saw a massive group of drunk people flooding their establishment, they could have a) refused them service, b) called other bar owners in the area to warn them, c) called the police, d) some other thing I haven’t thought of. It’s not like we’re helpless against bar crawls as a community when they come through, even when things get out of control. The only thing needed to prevent these situations from happening is vigilance, and even then it might still happen. A permit, on the other hand, will do basically nothing except validate some sort of power structure that the governing entities so often love to flex. Like a fun tax.

So you may be asking yourself “Hmm these are all fantastically sensible points, but what about that 10th case?” The 10th case is one in which a for-profit promotional company floods an area with hundreds of people, utterly disrupting the neighborhood in terms of parking, peace of mind and increased police presence – that case would be Lindy Promo’s upcoming Irish Strolls, occurring in Canton and Federal Hill on consecutive weekends to celebrate St. Patrick’s day. At this point, if they aren’t required to obtain a permit for the hundreds of people drunkenly blocking traffic and pissing in the streets then they most certainly should be required to elicit that air of cooperation among bars/citizens/police etc. in order to prevent complete bedlam. Fortunately (and shrewdly) for them, they seem to have done so. The bar stroll on the 13th in Federal Hill will apparently feature portajohns, 11 or so extra police officers, a paddywagon, and a host of other measures – all presumably on their dime – in an effort to minimize the negative effects that a crawl of this magnitude can bring. Granted, it won’t stop every single resident in the area from being inconvenienced, but hey, that’s city life. Let’s just hope there aren’t any more stabbings.

At the end of the day, my prediction is that this proposal will meet about as much opposition as you can imagine, like when George Della tried to ban beer pong and it failed miserably. But as we all know the powers that be have been capable of passing stranger bills, so who knows.

Stay thirsty my friends!

In case you were not paying attention to the Baltimore area internet in the past few days, it was initially reported on Monday by Sun reporter Justin Fenton that during a pub crawl along Fort Avenue on Saturday (an overlapping pub crawl not associated with the one I plugged a few days prior), an altercation broke out which eventually resulted in one man being stabbed in the back by another, the details of which unfolded during the day in the form of edits on the original post. The nature of the report and the individuals involved – for whatever reason – sparked what essentially amounts to a race war in the comments section within a few hours; truly some of the most vitriolic commentary I’ve seen in relation to Baltimore neighborhoods and their opinions of one another in a very long time (this line of commentary continues on Sam Sessa’s Midnight Sun blog here). I recommend reading these as a case study on how truly screwed up we are as a community, especially given the fact that someone’s life was nearly lost in the incident.

Last night the South Baltimore Neighborhood Association (SBNA) held a meeting to discuss Saturday night’s stabbing which stemmed from a pub crawl along Fort Avenue, and the sometimes problematic nature of pub crawls in general. SBNA member Tom Bullock (police and community relations committee) led the discussion, expressing his concern for the disruptive nature of pub crawls and that something like this could happen, noting “We cannot and will not have a regular somewhat unorganized display of public drunkenness in our streets. We have to be able to do this together or else it’s simply just not going to work.”

“Even the little league parade in Locust Point needs a permit. … [Pub Crawls] have absolutely no need to even let the police know. So we’re going to try to work on the state level to get that changed because unfortunately liquor is a state issue, not a city issue. ”

He went on to state that he would be in works with various city and state officials, notably 10th district councilman Ed Reisinger and state delegate Brian McHale (who were in attendance as well), in an effort to make changes to the law which would require a permit for those who wish to organize and participate in a bar crawl. Additionally, he stressed the importance of cooperation between crawl organizers, businesses, police and community in an effort to prevent dangerous situations in the future.

Ed Reisinger gave a few words to the crowd as well, pointing out the fact that pub crawls are banned in Rhode Island as a result of the 2004 death of a Connecticut college student. “I don’t want that to happen here in my district or in the city of Baltimore,” he said. He went on to reiterate the importance of being a liquor license holder and a business owner, as it relates to the fact that when someone is visibly intoxicated, they shouldn’t be served.

Reisinger, along with delegate McHale and various residents/business owners also noted that requiring a permit for a pub crawl would be difficult, as they often times can be organized on the fly without any prior notice to anyone at all. And even given the requirement, may still not prevent such instances as Saturday’s stabbing from occurring again.

(editorial: despite the fact that the stabbing occurred as a tangent to the pub crawl and could have happened entirely on its own without any such pub crawl existing)

Pub crawls have been an extremely popular staple in the Baltimore area for those looking to socialize or raise money for various charities over the years. Saturday’s incident has shed an unfortunate spotlight on these events as out of control binge drinking disruptions that end in violence, a perception that may be difficult to shake unless future events go smoothly, featuring the cooperation and courtesy among businesses/organizers the attending members of the SBNA meeting spoke of. Whether or not a piece of legislation for required permits for pub crawls will be introduced remains to be seen.

(my full opinion on the matter of permits for pub crawls is here)

Step 1. http://google.com/trends

Step 2. Punch in a search term and/or compare several search terms.

An immense amount of back and forth has been going around over the past few days over the proposed shopping outlet in Remington, primarily over the you-knew-it-was-coming hubbub over the inclusion of Walmart into the mix. This news is considerable and it deserves the level of conversation that it has so far enjoyed; the announcement by developer Rick Walker took many, many people by surprise and this issue deserves a thorough digestion. So here’s about as much information you’ll ever need to read on the matter, posted in chronological order as Baltimore media (and blogs!) have reported them.

2010/02/24 – MD Daily Record – sets the stage for the development details and drops the knowledge that Walmart will be included; 95,000-100,000 sq feet, $65 million, 700-750 jobs created total. Notable detail – the Montreal-based developer in question is well known for essentially airlifting big box stores into “depressed urban areas” – translation: he probably doesn’t know very much about the area he’s trying to develop in aside from its price tag.

Notable comment:

Baltimore Indie - I’d much rather see a commercial development in that site that would bring in more businesses; preferably smaller and local. There could be a variety of businesses there that would accomplish the goal of getting retail needs into the community and Baltimore City.

e.g. More businesses, more diversity, happier consumers – and less of a burden to the street-level infrastructure.

2010/02/25 – City Paper -Makes the reveal that the developers in question had been looking for a “quality supermarket” as of January but in the story run the day prior by the Daily Record, they claim Walmart approached them in December. They pretty much knew Walmart would start a shit storm and pretty much sat on the knowledge. By this point, an online petition is already circulating against the presence of Walmart.

Notable comment by a PR guy from Walmart:

Steve Restivo – We look forward to opening a new store in northern Baltimore soon and remained committed to growing our business here. Residents need more affordable grocery options and more convenient access to quality jobs. Our new 25th Street Station store will deliver on both.

These jobs – including positions in store management, pharmacy, human resources, customer service, cashiers and sales associates – offer competitive pay, quality benefits and a real opportunity to build a career. More than three-quarters of our store management team started as hourly associates and benefits include affordable health plans, profit sharing and 401(k) contributions, a stock purchase plan and a discount on store merchandise.

In Baltimore our stores in Port Covington, Arbutus, Dundalk, Glen Burnie, Catonsville and Towson already co-exist with dozens of small, medium and large businesses; just drive around in the vicinity of our stores to see how Walmart fosters opportunity for others. This is not surprising. There have been countless studies done that show Walmart stores are a magnet for growth and development.

We look forward to working with the community over the next several months to create economic opportunity by providing good jobs and by saving customers money on their groceries and other quality merchandise.

Thanks,

Steven Restivo, Director Community Affairs

Walmart Stores, Inc.

ugh. Duly noted that the area Walmarts he cites, notably the locations in Port Covington, Catonsville, Glen Burnie and Arbutus – all of which I have been to – generally only compete with large sized businesses, as most suburban locations do. The Port Covington location, actually, is the only store at all in that immediate area. But this guy’s a shill, what can you do, he doesn’t actually know anything about Remington.

2010/02/25 – Mobtown Shank – Hampden-based blog launches the assault on the idea of Walmart coming to town with a 1500 word list-filled article citing study after study which detail Walmart’s effect on surrounding businesses and communities – almost all of which would most certainly be the exact opposite of one Steve Restivo’s PR copy-pastes.

Notable comment:

ADMIV – I will say here what I said in other blog comments:

Propose a viable alternative. Propose a development with private investment that would generate an equivalent number of jobs, income, and taxes (real estate, commercial, income, etc.).

And oddly enough, this comment has mostly been met with “Well that isn’t our job” by a lot of other comment-makers. I for one refer to the first cited comment and say that instead of 3-4 big box stores, turn it into a (oh crap I’m about to say it) shopping plaza with 10-15 smaller venues, maybe a single big box store. Restaurants, shops, an employment center, on and on – they could and certainly can work in that space, all while accommodating a very comfortable boost to the local economy without choking the surrounding area.

2010/02/26 – Baltimore Sun – Jay Hancock cites the occurrence in Chicago in which a new Walmart was blocked from being developed based on their poor wage scales and other notable hiring practices. He also makes an interesting point – Baltimore and its City Council are very much aligned with labor unions, and labor unions just LOVE Walmart. Fuel to the fire. (Steve Restivo also commented on this article)

2010/02/28 Baltimore Brew (1,2) – In a twofer, Gerard Neily gives a four out of five star rating on the Remington development, based on suggestions he made in December of ‘09 which the developer seems to have paid attention to. Interesting to read, as it gives a much clearer mental picture of how the proposed development would “fit” into the area (it still doesn’t do that very well). The second link is a deft summary of things up until now by Fern Shen, most notably the language used by local media in their headlines which seemed to suggest that the Walmart is 100% definitely coming to town, when in fact it is still just a proposal.

Notable comment (by me because I am awesome):

I can’t help but wonder if all of this controversy would be nearly as …controversial if it were a Wegman’s instead of a Walmart, even given the lack of infrastructural support for such a huge amount of traffic it’ll generate. Rather, the traffic it generates if it’s a success at all – the Walmart just three miles south pulls in traffic from Cherry Hill but the Sam’s Club is shuttered – people (at least, the ones with cars) are still quite content to drive the extra 5 or so miles outside of the city to give patronage to their big box store of choice and I’m not entirely convinced this will fare any better.

And that probably won’t change. Fact is, if Lowe’s or Walmart or whatever surprise big box stores they end up building go under, that area is SCREWED with a giant vacant building and no tenant to use it – something that Port Covington knows about all too well, but since no one lives there no one really cares. And if the reverse is true and they succeed at the expense of other smaller area businesses, Remington is equally screwed. If however there are several smaller venues in the same area and a few of them turn over, it’s not nearly as difficult for Remington to deal with. In terms of traffic, in terms of happy residents, in terms of pretty much everything.

Virtually every Baltimore area media outlet today has reported that a $65 million shopping and residential development featuring Walmart and Lowe’s will be coming to the Remington area by late 2011.

aaaaaaaaand I was about to make a list of predictions on the matter and they’re alreadycomingetruesorryforwastingyourtimefolks!!!! Here are some totally awesome animated gifs to make up for it (click to make them go)!

In our last episode, we covered five possible alternative uses for the male/female statue in front of Penn Station that currently offends the eyes of all things living. And since the statue has officially been repurposed, now we begin the process of searching for a replacement. (click for big)

	As was suggested previously by Baltimore Chop, the highly sought after statue of Frank Zappa which is supposed to be put up… somewhere in this city is an option. Oddly enough this looks 40 billion times more “Baltimore” than pretty much anything else. But I think we need a bit more …zazz.
	…so how about this totally bitchin’ axe? A 50 foot flying V would be a constant reminder to everyone as to how hard Baltimore shreds. The guitar would come equipped with a loudspeaker that blares Dokkyn 24/7, and whenever a train arrives to the station it could play an immensely loud guitar squeal or solo, audible throughout the entire city. Rocks pretty goddamned hard, right? “The 8:15 from Philly has arrived. WEEDLY WEEDLY WEEDLY WAAAAAH”
	…BUT NOT AS HARD AS TRUCKASAURUS!!! THIS BITCH WILL KEEP THE MORNING COMMUTERS ON THEIR TOES!!! YEAAAAAHHHH!!!!! YOU’D BETTER MOVE YOUR CAR WITHIN 5 MINUTES OR THIS ENGINE OF MAYHEM WILL DESTROOYYYY!!!
	Too violent? Ok, let’s go with function over form. This amplified sonic tower emits a high frequency sound, attuned specifically so that only Yankees and Red Sox fans can hear it – the sound is so irritating to their cauliflower ears that they will be unable to come within four miles of the city’s borders, forever solidifying a sense of peace and tranquility in our fair land during baseball season. Off season, the tower will emit the sound of purring kittens.
	Mmmmmm functional, but not very fun. How about this super fun rock climbing wall. White people love that stuff! Plus a smoothie stand at the base! Fun AND profitable!

So until the city decides to use one of these fantastic ideas as a replacement for male/female, we’ll all just have to keep our eyes closed when within visual distance of Penn Station. Especially while in traffic.

Since 2004, Baltimore has been forced to acknowledge the fact that it for some reason commissioned a guy to build received the gift of a 51-foot tall metal statue with a glowing heart in front of Penn Station from a private organization, enjoying a level of eyesore that causes even the blindest infant to wince. The metal menace known as male/female continues to offend the eyes/hearts/minds of Baltimore – nay, Earth, and it is time to begin suggesting some alternative uses for the gobstrocity so we can finally get our $750,000 worth. I humbly submit these ideas for public consumption. (click for big)

	While male/female may be somewhat useless as a piece of art, it does emit light and is very tall. For these reasons it could potentially be a fairly decent lighthouse, guiding our beloved clipper ships home to safety.
	Through me you pass into the city of woe, Through me you pass into eternal pain, Through me among the people lost for aye. Before me things create were none, save things, Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon ye who enter here.
	Sheila Dixon may no longer be mayor, but lordy knows she still needs protection! And since the tide of public opinion may prevent posting live officers outside of her home all the time for very long, perhaps male/female could be adjusted to be motion sensitive, its heart illuminating when dangerous intruders come prowling! Worry not, disgraced mayor! You will be safe!
	Paw that has got to be the best scarecrow we done ever bought!! Let’s go wrestle some pigs!!
	“Houston, we have a problem.” “One small step for a man, one giant ugly stupid metal statue” “Insert other moon joke here” Whatever, let’s just send the damn thing to the moon.

Well glory be, time has flown straight past us all and ye olde blogue has suddenly turned two years old. Here are some of my favorite posts from the past few years (that you might have missed since no one really read it back in the day); a hodgepodge of stories, comedy and HARD HITTING JOURNALISM.

• Misadventures in House Hunting - a personal tale of trying to find a domicile in Upper Fells Point. With sexy results!!
• Federal Hill – still decidedly evil – a personal tale of trying to get a drunk guy – and his teeth – to a hospital. With sexy results!!
• Scientology Digest – 07/16/2008 – The evil church of Scientology hunts me down… to my mom’s house!
• Spontaneous Deadification: The New Threat to Baltimore? – Murder may be at its lowest, but a new threat is taking its place.
• The struggle of Little Havana – HARD HITTING JOURNALISM about a popular restaurant’s ongoing woes with the city.
• Fells Point Fun Festival canceled in favor of tax hike – oh those zany city council folks.

Mmmmmmm delicious re-purposed content. You love the way it tastes. Thanks for reading folks!

Finding yourself bored this week/end with very little or nothing to do and too lazy to file your taxes? Here are some events you might want to check out!

	COMICS WITHOUT FILTERS When: Thursday, February 25th 830pm-1015pm Where: Windup Space (12 W North Avenue, Charles North) More What: (Facebook) The likes of Jim Meyer, Justin Schlegel, Erin Jackson, Jason Weems, Erik Myers, and Doug Powell team up to put on a show for Doctors Without Borders! $12! Laugh your balls (or lack thereof) off for a good cause!
	HUMILIATED III: UNLUCKY IN LOVE When: Friday, February 26th 8pm Where: Metro Gallery (1700 N Charles St., Charles North) More What: (Facebook) Tales of woe and humiliation on stage, from those of us with those tales to tell. $7 at the door. Come point and laugh!

2ND ANNUAL SNUGGIE BAR CRAWL When: Saturday, February 27th 2pm-2am Where: Captain Larry’s (601 East Fort Avenue, Riverside) More What: (Facebook) Last year’s snuggie pub crawl was xtreme epic awesomeness to the maxxx. This year promises to be bigger and better, with more bigger better ridiculous snuggies and cultish fun. Be there or be totally lame!

I was inspired to create this drink after a recent trip to Chicago, where I happened upon a bar that was still using egg whites and powdered sugar in their mixes. Up until then it was only something I’d read about and it seemed archaic, but after the first sip I was sold. I don’t know who was first inspired to use egg whites in a cocktail, but they deserve a medal, because it was a stroke of genius. The egg whites make the drink taste creamy and rich; think of it as the whipped cream on your sundae.

While at the bar I had a Tom Collins and a Gimlet that utilized both of these ingredients, and they each went down smoother and tasted better than any I’d had before. The sugar and egg kill the harsh qualities of the alcohols being mixed, which is probably why they were such a necessity years ago.

Although the Tom Collins I had was good, I’m just not a big fan of that drink to begin with. The Gimlet, on the other hand, hit the bull’s eye. It was my drink of choice for a while, and during that time I discovered there is a very thin line between a good and bad Gimlet. The key is using just the right amount of lime juice, which varies with the kind of vodka or gin you are using. However, even with a properly made Gimlet most people wouldn’t have more than one before switching to something else. Fortunately, adding sugar and egg whites not only takes the guesswork out of the process, it makes the drink taste …good. Think: lime smoothie.

For my recipe, I used Skyy vodka that was infused with ginger for one week. You can’t get away with using a rotgut-quality vodka; use something that you’d be able to have straight. Anything without a feral animal on the label should be fine. To infuse, simply peel one ginger root as you would a potato, slice, and place in a container with a standard 750ml bottle of vodka. You definitely want to use a fresh ginger root , and not the powdered stuff. I wrapped my ginger in cheesecloth so I wouldn’t have to dig out the pieces later on, but it’s not necessary. I let mine infuse for a week, but you could shorten that time by adding more.

Now that we have our vodka, let’s make the Gimlet.

Wipe the rim of your glass with lime, then coat with powdered sugar ( I used Sugar in the Raw for the picture, but powdered sugar will give a better flavor.) Fill the glass with ice and add: 2.5 parts ginger vodka 1 part egg white (I’d recommend Egg Beaters) .5 parts of Rose’s Sweetened Lime Juice to taste – if you use the unsweetened variety, or fresh-squeezed juice, you’ll need to add powdered sugar or simple syrup to the mixture. Shake or stir vigorously, drink in a dimly-lit room. Cheers!

If you’re for whatever reason adverse to all caps, stop reading now. But I need to get this out.

HEY I HAVE AN IDEA!!! LET’S GO JOGGING IN FOUR FEET OF SNOW!!! ZERO VISIBILITY? BRO, I JUST GOTTA JOG!!! IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET!! EVEN BETTER, ON A SIDEWALK THAT ONLY HAS 40% OF THE NORMAL SPACE FOR WALKING, SO I CAN TOTALLY BE IN THE WAY ALL THE TIME!!! SHOVELING? WHA? HELPING OUT? NAH IT’S COOL!! MY SENSE OF COMMUNITY IS SO BLUNTED I’M JUST GONNA RUN AROUND WHILE EVERYONE ELSE BREAKS THEIR BACKS MOVING GIGANTIC AMOUNTS OF SNOW!!!

WELP, I GUESS BECAUSE THERE’S SNOW ON THE GROUND IT’S JUST TOOOOOO HARD TO PICK UP MY DOG’S SHIT. FAR BE IT FROM ME TO TAKE THE DOG SHIT BACK TO THE HOUSE AND PUT IT IN A TRASHCAN, NOPE!! THAT’S GROSS!! I’M JUST GONNA LEAVE IT HERE WITH THE 56789 OTHER PILES OF DOG SHIT. HAVE A GOOD ONE!!!

WAAAAAAH THE CITY ISN’T DOING ENOUGH!!!! WAAAAAH THEY’RE NOT CLEARING THE MOST SNOW BALTIMORE HAS EVER SEEN WITHIN FIVE WORKING DAYS!!! WAAAAAAAH I CAN’T FIND PARKING WHEN I COME HOME BUT I ONLY BOTHERED TO CLEAR THE 0.05 INCHES OF SNOW AROUND MY CAR AS NEEDED TO PARK IT AND NOTHING ELSE!! MY LITTLE PARKING CORRAL IS THE ONLY ONE THAT MATTERS – SO MUCH SO THAT I’M GOING TO PUT A SAWMILL ON IT SO AS TO SAVE MY LITTLE PARKING CORRAL!! HELP YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE BY BUSTING UP THE DRIFTS ON OUR BLOCK AND MAKING IT EASY TO PARK AGAIN?? WAAAAAAAAAH NO WAY!!! I’D RATHER CRY ABOUT THE LACK OF PARKING!!!!!!!!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

ok I feel better.

As promised, photos garnered from 2 Snow 2 Pocalypse. Click on each one to enlargeify. Next up, I complain a lot.

(you feed readers should click the title now)

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"BOOB" "PREGNANT - CAN WE TALK"

Well it would seem the city council’s long standing tradition of trying to tax literally anything and everything under the guise of environmental or safety concerns has come to a head this week, as the now nearly two year old issue (1, 2, 3) of the city’s efforts to ban/tax plastic bag usage at grocery stores has been brought to light again.

Realistically there’s no way in the world the city council will end up banning them, for as we all know, there’s no money in that. The alternate intent is currently to issue a 25 cent surcharge on each and every plastic bag used, the aim being to “reduce litter” across the city. I modestly propose several reasons why this is horribly misguided. Again. For the third time in two years.

Everyone is already pissed

Property taxes in Baltimore are as high as ever, we just ousted a corrupt mayor who will be receiving an $83,000 annual pension regardless of her transgression, and let’s face it the economy is still very well lodged directly in the bottom of the toilet. And you want to make people pay for plastic grocery bags, on top of all of it? Makes perfect sense!

The market is handling it

Dunno if everyone has noticed (they have), but almost every grocery store has started placing bag recycling boxes outside of their locations and have been offering incentives to reuse bags or reusable totes. The businesses are creating an incentive and the people are taking advantage of it. No legislation necessary. Additionally consider this: implement the fee and people who live on the city’s borders (Irvington, West Gate, etc) will simply drive an extra half a mile and shop outside of the city, where the fee is nonexistent – then proceed to drive back into the city, unload their groceries and throw the plastic bags into the street anyway. So you’ve effectively lowered the level of business conducted in the city AND not solved the litter problem. Way to go!

The “gotcha” effect

So let me get this straight: I’m supposed to carry plastic bags or reusable tote bags with me everywhere, all of the time in an effort to avoid being penalized unless I’ve planned on a shopping trip ahead of time? I’m really supposed to always have one on hand, when I need to run into 7-11 and grab some quick food?

The “dogshit” effect

It’s no mystery to anyone that Baltimore has a dogshit problem. In fact I get the sensation that if plastic grocery bags didn’t exist, the city would be blanketed in dogshit. Granted, it’s just as easy to pick up a canine pet’s excrement using a sandwich bag or something slightly smaller, but more than likely a lot of people will simply stop picking up their dog’s shit if they have to pay a quarter every time they do so.

…..actually, the idea of paying a quarter to pick up crap to me is kind of a beautiful cruelty. And for that reason this is my only point I will make in favor of the tax. Mwaaaaahahahahahahahaha!

Anyway, the 25 cent fee proposed is a deliberate move to overshoot the actual amount they probably think they’ll get through. Obviously 25 cents is incredibly high, whereas DC’s 5 cent surcharge would probably be the intended target. The whole point is to get the concept of levying the fee through the door, get the public semi-comfortable with it, and finally get it passed at a lower level than initially proposed. Classic politics, emphasis on ‘ass.’ My advice to you, dear reader, is to not fall for it – because they’re just going to try it again with something else later.

Some of the best comedic writing ever seen, in cartoon form? Yeah. Watch Archer. Brought to you by the same guys who dropped Frisky Dingo (a show I never really got into) and starring the likes of Chris Parnell, Aisha Tyler and Jon Benjamin? Watch Archer.

Throughout the last ……4397534 days of snow, the Baltimore area continues to collectively shit its pants and devolve into an infant state, a lot of which I would like to complain about in a timely fashion. But before I do, I continue to die laughing every single time I see Mr. Accuweather, over and over.

Hilarious.

And speaking of the internet, Foot’s Forecast literally exploded onto the scene as the most popular …weather blog (?) I’ve seen pretty much ever. Strange, as it seems they’ve been in operation for six years and change, but I hadn’t heard of them until last week. But they do damn fine work and you should check them out!

One more internet point: internet humor, it would seem, has reached real-time. Once upon a time, internet jokes would saturate the market after a period of several weeks, stop being funny, and then proceed to be forwarded to you by your mother 7 months later. Now it would seem the rules have changed thanks in part to #hashtags, Facebook, on and on and on – until we see the President himself engaging in an internet joke by referring to the whole thing as “Snowmageddon” and taking credit for naming the blizzard. Well played internet, you’ve destroyed humor!

Coming up next: more pictures. If there’s one thing Baltimoreans do engage in enthusiastically during a snowstorm, it’s photographing the whole damn thing. That and drinking. A lot.

Big ups to Kate for providing these choice product videos, both of which are absolutely essential for your survival:

A gun rack! For your bed!

A rack rack! For your rack!

Judge Sweeney is the man. He finally had the chance to voice his opinion today regarding Sheila Dixon and her trainwreck of a trial at her sentencing, sending her on her way to her remaining days of shame and relative obscurity (…and an $83k pension). His statement is a deliberate, nut kicking wakeup call to the entrenched politico of Baltimore and it expresses the opinion that literally everyone I know personally has had for ….ever.  I get the sensation that throughout the trial his blood pressure was probably triple that of a charging rhino, steam slowly oozing from his ears as he was forced to remain mute while the dog/pony/wizard show went on and on, his face ever reddening until today when he was finally allowed to pull the release valve and verbally punch her in the throat repeatedly with a lead boxing glove. Cold comfort, true, given the lightweight sentencing Ms. Dixon was given, but read his statement and it might make you feel just a little better. This particular gem rings especially loudly to me:

I hope that the new and welcomed dedication to higher ethical standards is genuine and will have a shelf life that last beyond the next election. If not, then the city will be doomed to repeat the cycle of petty and tawdry corruption and special entitlement that ends badly not only for the people directly involved but more importantly for the citizens of Baltimore that depend on fair and honest governance by its officials.

Amen brotha.

The Sun’s Andy Green also had some choice words on the matter that are definitely worth a read, so go read them.

Check out my guest spot on Midnight Sun today where I ask the tough questions regarding swankariffic joints around town.

DO IT DO IT DO IT

The tagline on their website says it all. When cello player for the late 90s Alt-Rock band Treadmill Trackstar Heidi Carey emailed me about her love of po’ boys and whiskey, she informed me of her recently reunited band’s finished effort to produce an album – after a ten year hiatus – funded entirely by donations from fans and supporters, entitled i belong to me. Intrigued by the idea I gave the album a listen, and I’m impressed with it. I mean, strictly from a technical standpoint it really can’t be easy to put out a well-produced, decent sounding album (as this is) after such a hiatus, while simultaneously tackling the issue of having absolutely no money, but Treadmill Trackstar managed to pull it off.

On that note, Heidi said:

The donation thing was crazy, we just sent out an email to our old (like 10 year old) list. About half came back as dead addresses so we set up a sort of public radio style fund raising effort on our website. We totally didn’t expect it to work and for about 3 months it didn’t!  But then, money started showing up in our PayPal account.  [...] We like to think that folks wanted a new Treadmill record!   I think it was just a proper alignment of the stars or something.

TT’s “non-profit band” formula of making music for music’s sake is entirely – and ironically – new and refreshing in this day and age. This mentality actually feeds into a feeling you develop as you listen to the album; they’ve clearly put a lot of love into it and it actually makes the music feel better. Describing the music is a touch tricky since it enjoys a wide range, but the term that keeps sticking in my mind is “slightly moodier Foo Fighters with a dash of Smashing Pumpkins.” …and a cello. Try track 8, Hands Off (available free to listen on their website) for a very good sense of what they’re all about.

Since the individual members are all currently with family and settled down, you won’t be seeing them any time soon at the 8×10. But for their next project they’re apparently attempting to develop a full blown ROCK OPERA, with all proceeds from their current album and individual “investments” going entirely to the production. It will be interesting to see where it leads. But for now, check out Treadmill Trackstar’s i belong to me at their website or Facebook.

(Album available on iTunes)

Finding yourself bored this week/end with very little or nothing to do and entirely too many babies to not take care of? Here are some events you might want to check out!

YACS KICKOFF HAPPY HOUR When: Thursday, January 28th 7pm-10pm Where: Mothers Federal Hill Grille (1113 South Charles St., Federal Hill) More What: (Facebook) The Young Adult Cancer Support group kicks off an evening of music, light fare and a free Bud Light for the 1st 250 people through the door. If you’re a cancer survivor or have been affected by cancer in some way shape or form, come feel the support of people like yourself.

MOUSTACHE SUPER FUN DANCE PARTY When: Friday, January 29th 8pm Where: Ottobar (2549 N Howard St., Charles Village) More What: Moustaches, DJs, some more moustaches. Get it on.

BEER BOWL VII When: Saturday, January 30th 12pm-6pm Where: Little Havana (1325 Key Highway, Riverside) More What: (Facebook) 20 Beers! Blind head-to-head tasting bracket! Only ONE will win!! Help Baltimore pick the best beer! You can register here.

BE THERE!! AND BY THAT I MEAN SOMEWHERE!

Thank God there’s this totally awesome piece of plastic in a RAINBOW OF COLORS to make your can into a bottle!!! You just plain have to love the lady at 0:32 who is DEVASTATED because she has to pour out an ENTIRE HALF CAN OF SODA on the sidewalk. Shameful shit.

(part 1)

More community gardens absolutely everywhere

Remember those 30,000 vacant properties I mentioned earlier? Yeah they aren’t really helping the economy in Baltimore. But you know what would, while simultaneously raising morale/property values/a sense of community in the immediate area? Raze a few of them and convert the plots into community gardens. Obviously this strategy doesn’t apply to areas that are completely abandoned, but for those areas that are struggling to rebuild and/or feature a few certain properties that cannot be salvaged and have been remained idle for years, just do it. Flatten the property, put in some dirt and grass and charge people a tiny fee to grow whatever they want on 3×3′ plots. The fees would pay for maintenance, while boosting the immediate area’s worth on all fronts. Hell, any stretch of a few blocks featuring a community garden and a charter school? Golden.

“Green” Jobs

I wince at the title and its ridiculous media-buzz nature, but environmentally conscious service, infrastructure, and manufacturing jobs are going to be a huge part of this city’s future. Smilin’ Martin has been jawing about it for a good long while now with regard to the state, and with the industrial infrastructure already featured within city limits it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to retrofit some existing manufacturing installations that aren’t in use with proper “green” measures in an effort to bring back working class employment to the city without further destroying what’s left of the inner/outer harbor. It’s just a matter of attracting the right businesses to the area. God knows, I certainly wouldn’t be adverse to paying 2-3 dollars more for a t-shirt manufactured in Baltimore if it supports the local economy, as opposed to China’s. The ball appears to have started rolling on this one, let’s keep it that way – and with the rather limitless infrastructure fixes that can be made toward getting Baltimore off the BGE coal tit, let’s speed it up actually.

BRING FIOS TO THE CITY OF BALTIMORE, MD

This one is a completely selfish pet issue but I am certainly not alone when I say: I am sick to death of the monopoly that Comcast Cable Corporation has with regard to the media choices that our residents have in the city of Baltimore. There are literally no other options for terrestrial cable services within city limits and the company knows it. Consumers deserve a choice, and there currently are very few to none aside from the overcharging, customer-supportless behemoth entity known affectionately as Comcrap. I don’t care what needs to be done, I don’t care who needs to be called or how many HJ’s need to be serviced, please for the love of Mike do something to entice Verizon Wireless to bring their illustrious FIOS service to our fair city. Please. Anything.

…it’ll totally boost the economy or something.

SRB and company, please take these humble suggestions and know that every one of them has been thought about by at least a thousand other people. Get to work.

My EX-girlfriend Sheila Dixon (we had a falling out over a time share) will no longer mayor in just over a week. My NEW girlfriend, Stephanie Rawlings Blake (or SRB, as she signs her emails) will be transitioning into office, and the time for a new-but-not-really-but-maybe-it-will be era of Baltimore progress is waiting in the wings. Much like assholes and elbows, everyone has an opinion or two as to what our incoming lady mayor ought to do with regard to her personality, administration, choice of pet dog hairstyles and lip liner color. For instance, MMMMMMMcDermott gives SRB 9 pointers for mayoring, most of which she has probably broken already. Meanwhile, JMG uses his lvl 23 street lingo to put out some ideas on Westside development. There are others out there but I’m too lazy to look.

It wasn’t until Friday last week when former City Council member Keiffer Mitchell announced that he would be a part of SRB’s economic development transition team (2000 xtreme associates esquire) that I fully decided to make my own list of ideas, pertaining particularly to economic and community development. I gave him the 140 character nuggets via Twitter, and here are the full text versions.

Stop developing the fucking waterfront

Not a day goes by that I don’t read some sort of master plan from the BDC, bulletin or article in the BBJ about some new mixed used retail slash luxury condo development being crammed on top of the condos that are on top of the dry dock out by Bay Cafe or HOTELS HOTELS HOTELS, and it needs to stop for a good long while. The waterfront surrounding the Inner Harbor doesn’t. need. any. more. developing. Furthermore the majority of these properties and development deals invariably involved shorting the city on the taxes it’s supposed to be paid, sweetheart deals on the land (Silo Point, Ritz Carlton, probably Westport, an attempt on West Covington) – and we all know how that turned out for our soon-to-be previous mayor.

With so much room for RE-development in a city that has far less of a need for NEW development, the point here is that the incentives – or in Baltimore’s case, ethically thin perks for developing in Baltimore – don’t belong in the areas where new development is occurring, they belong in areas where redevelopment is a top priority. Not that I’m condoning ethically thin practices and the old vanguard just can’t help itself but get its sweet, sweet cut of the profits but STOP RIPPING OFF THE CITIZENS OF BALTIMORE ON LAND DEALS. If the city’s government truly wants to make an effort in the way of rebuilding its tax base, they need to stop focusing on 3% of its land base. Which leads me to the next point…

Bring back the dollar housing program

This topic was broached by the diligent Slumlord Watch blog a while ago, but it’s an idea that I have been clamoring for for years now. The idea is simple: take wide swaths of abandoned row homes that the city is in possession of and hasn’t done a damn thing with, and sell them for a dollar. Or if it makes them feel better, $6,000 – it doesn’t matter. Put a residency requirement on the house (which currently doesn’t exist, resulting in squatting scumbag speculators leaving their blighty goodness all over the place) and give the owners a provisional 5 year discount – say 50% – on the property taxes. With 30,000 vacant properties, I’m pretty sure the city could offload a few of them in their possession to those of us that actually want to live in the city.

Now, I fully realize the city just can’t help itself and wants to do a bit of its own speculation with regard to certain areas and the boarded up shit holes in its possession but again, if the city’s government is truly interested in rebuilding the tax base and opening the window to lower property taxes for everyone, it is a hell of a lot better to get started NOW with those that are legitimately interested in living in the city and improving their surroundings than playing the speculation game (which is soooo 2005 btw).

Charter Schools, Charter Schools, Private Schools

This is an issue that is in a state of revival but it needs to be stated over and over – we need more charter and small private schools in this city if we’re ever going to maintain a meaningful, productive population.

Some years ago a lot of charter schools tried to set up shop in the city and were met with great resistance by the teacher’s unions, administration, the powers that be and so forth. The going conspiracy theories as to why this was the case were varied but involved the usual excuses – lack of funds, it makes the other public schools look bad (even worse), on and on. Fortunately this isn’t necessarily the case these days and charter schools are slowly starting to pop up around the city, with the hopes of small class sizes and unorthodox education methods bringing parents and students to their doors, desperate for an alternative to the rest of the otherwise shattered city public education system. And quite frankly, this is the most immediate need in the city right now. One could literally go on for pages and days on this point but the bottom line is pretty simple: if the city’s government is truly interested in preventing youth violence/death and preserving the middle class that has been fleeing the city for generations in an effort to raise a family in the suburbs we need competitive, small and otherwise productive schools that aren’t tied down by the hopelessly broken bureaucracy that encompasses the rest of the city’s public schools.

coming up in part 2 …gardens, green jobs and uh, some other g word.

Finding yourself bored this week with very little or nothing to do and entirely too much laundry to put off cleaning? Here are some events you might want to check out!

	BACON AND BEER HAPPY HOUR VII: ITALIAN EDITION When: Thursday, January 21st 2pm-2am Where: Bad Decisions (1928 Fleet St., Fells Point) More What: Facebook or this post will pretty much give you the gist.
	ROCK PAPER SCISSORS TOURNAMENT When: Friday, January 22nd 8pm Where: Sidebar Tavern (218 East Lexington Street, Downtown) More What: You ready to show your skills Baltimore? Can you beat a field of 32 Rock Paper Scissors contestants to win a cash prize? Pony up 5 bucks and enter in Baltimore’s only Rock Paper Scissors competition!

IT’S TIME FOR THE SPARKULATOR!! When: Saturday, January 23rd 2pm-???? Where: Frank and Nic’s West End Grille (511 West Pratt Street, Downtown) What: (Facebook) A bar crawl dedicated to riding a free bus in sparkly clothing? Yeah sure no problem! Get your sparkle, bus rides and booze on during this crazy ass event!

BE THERE!! AND BY THAT I MEAN SOMEWHERE!

Episode 5 – “Walking Contradiction”

Episode 6 – “A Chicken in the Pot”

Sand Art + World War II story = genius.

Quack

The year 2009 was a banner year for harbor stench. As algae blooms, fish kills and raw sewage sprinkled the collective populaces’ noses with a bouquet of fetid and otherwise lovely aromas during the height of spring and summer, sadly these times passed on and the colder months reduced the city of Baltimore’s finest quality to a bare minimum. The harbor aerators aren’t running at full capacity, the clouds of brown not hardly as noticeable during a cold, cloudy day.

Unfortunately, due to some infrastructure improvements made by the city over the past year, the levels of raw sewage pouring into the inner harbor may be reduced by some degree. This lack of precious nutrients may cause a sharp decline in the algae population, which may in turn allow proper oxygenation of the water, starkly reducing the fish kill instances and robbing us of our precious stink. On the other hand, it is entirely possibly that there simply aren’t any more fish left to kill, in which case we may never enjoy the nostalgic aromas of a fine Baltimore June evening in quite some time.

Some experts are nervous for the upcoming season of reek. “My staff and I haven’t seen a single living thing in the Inner Harbor in over nine months,” states Deborah Kicklebaum of the Baltimore Dept. of Inner Harbor Wildlife, “we don’t actually know if there are populations of fish to kill at this point, and unless we restock the harbor with a healthy population soon for algae blooms to suffocate, we may not be able to enjoy another season of horrific stench come late spring.”

David E. Scott, director of the Department of Public Works, is more optimistic. “We here at DPW can assure the citizens of Baltimore that the levels of raw sewage infiltrating the harbor may be slightly lower this year, but they are more than sufficient to produce the high quality algae blooms that lower the life sustaining qualities of our Inner Harbor, and will certainly result in massive amounts of rotting fish carcasses for many years to come. You’ll still be able to be choked out of your seat at Camden Yards due to the green clouds of death.”

Currently the City Council is assembling a workshop to address the issue, with the intent of coming up with contingency plans in the event that the quality of water improves to the point that The Stenchening no longer occurs. Preliminary ideas involve dredging sediment from the bottom of the harbor and placing it in strategically placed dumpsters around the area, with high powered fans spreading the fumes.

Continuing our list of websites you may have missed from the past ten years or so, the remaining five websites are examples of those beloved sites that are no longer with us. Whether it be the stiff competition from other sites, lack of interest or just bad timing, these sites for whatever reason didn’t last. It is with a single tear that we remember them fondly.

	pimpmybaby.com Originally intended as a site for people to gussy up photos of their respective babies and enter them in “hot or not” style voting contests, this site was shut down by perverted-justice.com in 2006 on the hit television show “Dateline: To Catch a Predator” under suspicion that the owners were running an underground baby hooker ring. Shameful.
	xtremerabbis.org In operation starting in 1993, XTREME Rabbis was a haven for Rabbis looking for an outlet to express their love of Xtreme sports and Xtreme lifestyles. Complete with photo profiles, chat rooms and forums it was the most successful website of its kind until late 2002, during which a great deal of infighting as to which member Rabbi was most Xtreme erupted, resulting in a BMX competition in which all 14 members of the website were killed in a massive wreck. The website was mothballed immediately.
	mushroomcloudenthusiast.net Formerly the Internet’s premier forum for appreciating the beauty and splendor of nuclear explosions, the site was tragical brought to a close during 2003’s planned “Shroomfest” during which the majority of members attended a nuclear test in Nye County, Nevada. The gathering was raided by the DEA, who were under the impression that the event would be an illicit drug use party. The fleeing cloud watchers evaded the DEA during a 3 hour chase, eventually finding themselves within a quarter mile of the blast radius and winding up instantly incinerated.
	sockssockssocks.biz An internet sock outlet, defunct since 2000. I can’t imagine why!!! Fun fact: the pets.com sock puppet was their original spokespuppet.
	enron.com Whatever happened to these cool dudes? I heard they were going places!!

2009 is over and done with and the shittiest decade seen by the world in quite some time comes to a close. However, one thing that didn’t suffer over the past decade is internet comedy. Oh the humanity, our lovable series of tubes has produced a wide menagerie of content that the world has since gawked at, passed onto family members and coworkers, and promptly forgotten about within five minutes. But there are certain sites I still visit on occasion simply because I remember they still exist, and they’re still awesome. Here’s the first five of the ten of them that sprang to my mind – some of which you may have missed.

	y2khai.com – Asian kid in an Elvis suit making flash videos of hip hop songs. Do you really need to know more?
	realultimatepower.net – A true OG of internet comedy. A website (and book!) dedicated entirely to facts and stories about ninjas, long before ninjas and Chuck Norris jokes became as played out as they are today. Still one of my favorites to this day.
	ulillillia.us – A guy with Asperger’s Syndrome (or something) with a website dedicated to …something. Video games? Trick and tips? Volumes and volumes of strange and unusual material not to be missed here. I highly recommend the image collection.
	mulletsgalore.com – Unfortunately defunct, this site was the be all and end all for mullet categorization and subsequent hilarity on the internet. I still have their bumper sticker.
	maddox.xmission.net – The Best Page in the Universe has been entertaining quite a number of people over the years and Maddox continues to kick ass – albeit very infrequently – with some of the most scathing commentaries around. A true pioneer of internets comedies.

Come back for the next five in 2010!

Here’s my interpretation of a drink I had while traveling a few years ago. After a hectic day of suffering though mass transportation and shopping for gifts, I found myself in a nice lounge in the high-rent district, fully prepared to unwind with some drinks. As a prelude to something more serious, I decided to try a cocktail made with vodka, sparkling wine, and Chambourd, a French liqueur made from black raspberries and herbs. And goddamnit if it didn’t taste good! Once I returned stateside from traveling I was determined to reverse-engineer the recipe. I think it turned out as good, if not better than the original.

This recipe is fairly precise in that you ABSOLUTELY must use Chambourd, a decent vodka, a mediocre sparkling wine, and lemon juice (oddly enough, the lemon is a crucial ingredient) in my exact proportions. And although Chambourd is EXPENSIVE ($35/bottle), it’s fairly intense – so a little is all you need for most drinks. Unless you’re having cocktail parties on a weekly basis, that bottle’s gonna stick around for a bit. I made the investment thinking that I could pass on the remainder of the bottle to my grandchildren. As far as the vodka is concerned the Chambourd, sparkling wine, and lemon juice should kill any harshness – but stay away from anything in a plastic bottle, or anything with “WILD” in its name or a feral animal on the label. I used Skyy and was very happy with the results.

Sparkling wine. I’m not calling it Champagne because only wines from Champagne, France that meet certain restrictions can be called Champagne, and are therefore very pricey. All that’s required for this drink is a sparkling wine made in the Champagne style, unless you’re looking to kill some leftovers from New Year’s Eve. Just stay away from the sweeter varieties; most Brut or Extra-Dry types will do (between the two, Brut is the dryer, but Extra-Dry is by no means sweet). You really need a dry sparkling wine in this case – Champagne or not – to really make this work; something as sweet as an Asti Spumanti will ruin the drink. I used an extra-dry Cava and it did the job just fine. Your local wine and spirits shop should yield a wallet friendly candidate. In short, no Champale.

The portioning on this will make one awesome drink if you have big martini glasses like I do, or two normal-sized drinks if you don’t. In a glass filled with ice, combine the following: 2oz Chambourd 5oz sparkling wine (extra dry or brut) 3oz vodka squeeze half of one lemon into the mix Next, wipe the rim of the glass with a lemon wedge-it makes a noticeable difference-strain in the mixture, and you’re done! Although I can’t take credit for the inspiration, this borders on cocktail perfection: the sweetness of the Chambourd and tartness of the lemon are balanced by the yeasty-dryness and fizz of the wine, with the vodka warming it all up at the end.

Cheers!

If there’s one thing I and every other person knows about Baltimore during the holiday season, it is this: The Trans-Siberian Orchestra – the orchestral-metal-holiday-christmas-music-supergroup – will come to town (sadly they’ve already been here, maybe next year!!), 98 Rock will give away a bajillion tickets to the show, and THE HOLIDAYS WILL ROCK. HARD. Don’t believe me? Just try watching this one minute promo for their current tour without a large amount of eye/brain bleeding:

HOLY SHIT!!!! NUTCRACKER SUITE WITH EXPLOSIONS!!! LAZERS!!!!

Truth be told, the TSO is pretty much the perfect thing for Baltimore during the holidays as a large portion of our population still loves Dokken, laser light shows and want to appear classy all at the same time. It’s perfect! And damn profitable too; the TSO has been one of the top 20 grossing concert tours for a long time – and every one of their albums has gone platinum with the exception of their ONLY non-Christmas album.

LAZERS

So Kudos to you, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, for melting the holiday faces of the citizens of Baltimore since 1996. May you return for many many more face melting incidents!

We’ve all been there before. You’re sitting on a plane, bored out your skull because you forgot to bring a book or a gameboy, and some asshole has filled out the crossword AND the sudoku IN PEN in the back of the stupid inflight magazine. Desperate for entertainment, you reach out with a wincing pained look on your face and pick up the last ditch, bottom of the barrel form of airplane entertainment: Sky Mall. All the lazer guided forks you could ever want to pay entirely too much for, right at your fingertips.

Truly there is a place in this world for even the most useless products, and Sky Mall is most certainly the place to find them. Here are my favorites.

	TELEKINETIC OBSTACLE COURSE Have you ever felt like moving a ball with a fan through a hoop – WITH YOUR BRAIN?? Then this ridiculous looking piece of crap is for you!! Only $99.95!! Order Now!!
LASER GUIDED POOL CUE Are you so shitty at pool that you need to cheat and use a laser to line up your shot? Do you feel the need to put batteries in your pool cue? Then this ridiculous looking piece of crap is for you!! Only $129.95!! Order Now!!
	ELECTRONIC FENG SHUI COMPASS Are you a total moron? Then this ridiculous piece of crap is for you!! Only $199.99!! Order Now!!
SUNLIGHT 365 Do you suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) and need a thing to sit on your desk that shines a bright light in your face? Then this ridiculous piece of crap is for you!! Only $59.99!! Order Now!!
	SOLAFEET FOOT TANNER Do you want or need to tan your FUCKING FEET at home or in the office?!?!?! Then this ridiculous piece of crap is for you!! Only $229.99!! Order Now!!
HEAD SPA MASSAGER BWAHAHAHAHAHAahahahahhahahaha wtf order now only $49.95.
	LIGHT THERAPY SYSTEM STICK YOUR FACE IN THIS THING IT HEALS STUFF ORDER NOW $399.95
PERSONAL INFRARED SAUNA ………..sweet jesus what the CHRIST. order now only $499.00
	UNDERWATER CELL PHONE SYSTEM WHY. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU EVER CONCEIVABLY NEED TO MAKE A GODDAMN CELL PHONE CALL WHILE SCUBA DIVING. JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST. GOOD GOD. ORDER NOW ONLY …..$1790!?!?!?!?!? GGAAAAAAAAH!!!

ORDER NOW!!!

After much deliberation and whats not and whose forth, it has been decided that a spinoff website/blog dedicated to kickass gee dee em effing food is in order with regard to Baltimore (and stuff). Behold,

The City That Feeds.

All food posts seen previously on this here site will be listed there, and all new food-related (but not booze, that stays here for now) material will be posted there. Everything is infant stage as of now, but keep your eyes peeled, folks!

-mangia-ment

The devastation immense. The corpses — as far as the eye can see. Snowpocalypse knows no kindness, spares none. Observe.

Duly noted that it was snowing so hard at the time that these shots were taken it actually borders on white distortion. Refer to photo titles if you can’t figure them out…

[Show as slideshow]

 

Hey! Would you like to watch a movie about angsty teens that just so happen to be the children of GREEK GODS that need to recover Zeus’ lightning bolt which has been stolen in order to prevent a huge war? Hell yeah you don’t! So laugh at this trailer!

ATTENTION CITIZENS – THESE ARE THE OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED BALTIMORE SNOW EMERGENCY HASHTAGS FOR USE WITH THE INTERNET COMMUNICATION ENTITY KNOWN AS “TWITTER.” KEEP ABREAST OF BREAKING SNOW NEWS USING THESE VERY HELPFUL SNOW HASHTAGS:

#snowpocalypse

#snowtastrophe

#snowmaggedon

#snowtrocity

#snowacaust

#snowkkake

#snowthehumanity! (@bmoreNat)

#snowdiots (@ryan97ou)

#snowpussies (@Chippewa29)

#snOMG (@SpamSpam)

#snowgasm

MORE AS THE SITUATION DEVELOPS!!!!!!

Snowpocalypse 2009 is occurring this weekend according to the National Weather Scientist People (Incorporated) and it’s time to take stock of what to do in Baltimore in the event of a giant snowtastrophe. This list is 1000% necessary to your survival!! We’re through the looking glass here, people.

SNOWPOCALYPSE IS NIGH

• Drive 3 mph at the first sign of a single flake on the pavement.
• FREAK OUT AND BUY TOILET PAPER BREAD EGGS AND MILK IMMEDIATELY AAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
• Go to Federal Hill park at 2pm on Saturday, December 19th and take part in a huge snowball fight.
• Head to The Dizz and warm your feet by their enormous fireplace.
• Go sledding on the west end of Federal Hill Park, the Board of Education in Towson, CCBC in Catonsville, or Leakin Park.
• Laugh at the school kids who won’t be getting a day off since the snow hits on Saturday.
• Bring a thermos of hot chocolate to any of your favorite bars or restaurants and just sit there drinking hot chocolate.
• Make snow angels on Rash Field (or any other field, for that matter)
• Go cross country skiing at Fort McHenry – if it’s open!
• Sit at home and complain about how you can’t get holiday shopping done because there’s too much awesome snow outside.
• drink. HEAVILY (@ryan97ou)
• Put cheap furniture in your parking spot such as (but not limited to) lawn chairs, stools, anything to save that spot you dug out. (Tracy)
• Find your local bar then drunkenly help push out the bad city snow drivers (that didn’t realize you can’t drive though 2 feet of snow in a ford focus) on the walk home. (Tracy)
• Watch local newscasters throwing their mics into people’s faces and ask them how miserable they are in the snow. Then wait for the next piece: a heartwarming tale about sledding and snowman building. (@threestonesteps)

PLEAS ADD YOUR VITAL SURVIVAL TIPS TO THIS LIST PLEASE OK THANK YOU

It was a few days ago when I received the heads up about a whiskey tasting a-goin’s on at The Idle Hour, which quite frankly I didn’t even read the invitation when all I saw were the words “Whiskey” and …… ok all I saw was “Whiskey.” At any rate, last night The Idle Hour hosted a free whiskey tasting by Copper Fox Distillery, the makers of Wasmund’s Single Malt Whisky (it’s spelled that way on the bottle) and Rye Whisky.

I spent quite a bit of time sampling master distiller Rick Wasmun’s various boozes and I have to say I’m impressed. Not just with his product – the first applewood aged whiskey in the world, but with the guy himself. His journey to create a unique whiskey spanned over six years, many visits to distilleries all over the world including Scotland, and the kind of love for what he does that few of us can lay claim to. His two person team (himself included) have been driving around in a modified van, meeting and greeting with people at bars around the region and spreading the joy of whiskey for quite some time now, spending the night in the back and moving onto the next destination. I highly recommend reading his whole story here.

But how does it taste, you might ask? “Like old man breath,” one of my friends said. Just kidding. The single malt is incredible. It’s rich, fruity, and instantly warms your whole body (120 proof helps a bit). The rye whiskey is much drier, which isn’t my preference, but if that’s your thing then I have no reason not to recommend it.

Another thing that I found pretty awesome that Rick sells – DIY whiskey barrels. You can buy your own barrel and spirit as a kit, and age the stuff yourself in your own home! A damn fine gift idea I must say, and they even have a “barrelhead club” in which you can purchase future barrel kits and exchange old ones. …INCREDIBLE IDEA.

I chatted with Rick at length about the business, how he got started and how he’s occupying a niche in the market; with this lineup I’d say he’s doing a fine job of it. If you’re interested in picking up a bottle, head on over to Wells Liquor (6310-10A York Road, Towson) or Graul’s (7703 Bellona Avenue, Ruxton). Alternatively if you’d just like to try a glass, try Wine Market (921 East Fort Avenue, Riverside) or Woodberry Kitchen (2010 Clipper Park Road, Woodberry).

Cheers! Best of luck Rick and company!

Po Boys, Po Boys, Po Boys

Chances are pretty high that if you’re going to New Orleans and someone you know has already been there and you’re talking to them about New Orleans, they will say something to the effect of “OMG OMG G O JOMGOGMGOMG PO BOYS DDROOOOL.”  Sure enough, New Orleans is awash (hehehe) in Po Boys, their version of a Hoagie/Grinder/Sub/Whatever. From reading entirely too much on the matter, I came to find that the only functional difference between a Po Boy and any other sandwich/sub on Earth is the use of French bread – which is actually great, since the crust is nice and crisp while the inside is soft. Wonderful for sandwiches without a lot of runny toppings, but in the event that you throw on some gravy fries (as I did) onto your sandwich, you’re gonna end up with a really soggy mess on the bottom.

Case in point: the Ferdi. This rather famous sandwich prepared by Mother’s Restaurant comes on French bread with baked ham, roast beef, debris (in gravy), shredded cabbage, creole mustard and mayo. To be certain, it’s one of the best sandwiches ever and I’d eat an entire plate of debris by itself. But the gravy goes straight to the bottom of the bread and causes it to disintegrate, leaving you with a pile of stuff to eat.

Then again, if you’re like me you’ll eat the whole thing in 2 minutes flat and not have to worry about it. Yeaaaah buddy.

Furthermore, it also seems like the most popular thing to do for 99% of all restaurants serving Po Boys around town is to pile them to the ceiling with fried seafood. Fried oysters, fried shrimp, fried gator tails, fried catfish, fried crawdads, fried fries, it goes on like that for a while (but no fired clams, surprisingly!). It actually begs the question: Why doesn’t Baltimore do this? We’re pretty obsessed with seafood on the whole and I rarely see fried insert seafood here subs around town. Come to think of it, a lake trout Po Boy would be pretty awesome…

To the point, you can’t go anywhere in New Orleans without tripping over a Po Boy. They’re everywhere. Most places do a serviceable job of putting together a nice sandwich for you but real trick is finding the best ones – much like finding a decent deli pretty much anywhere, anymore. So if you go, try Domilese’s, Mother’s, or Sugar Shack. You won’t be disappointed!

…and for an honorable mention try Tomatillo’s for their “niño pobre,” which is basically just a wrap but they were pretty awesome folks and have live music (including a rockabilly version of “When The Saints go Marching In”) often times.

Savior of the internet and super rap star Chuggo brings us the Christmas rap of all times. Thanks for the heads up, Santa!! (don’t know who Chuggo is? Refer to this post)

(lyrics NSFW-ish)

A week or so ago I had the pain/pleasure of spending some time in New Orleans during what must have been the coldest four day period in the history of New Orleans, with the exception of the last ice age (maybe). And since walking around the Garden District seemed less appealing in freezing rain, I ate. And ate and ate and ate. Here’s some of what I ate.

Breakfast in New Orleans

First and easiest of all, Cafe Du Monde. Every single tourist in the city can be found there every morning and it’s not hard to figure out why; they serve two things – coffee and doughnuts. I don’t know when the Cafe decided to start calling them beignets officially but I’m guessing it has something to do with the place being house within “The original French Market.” Regardless, I found photographic evidence that they did in fact used to just call them “Doughnuts.”

All this aside, realistically beignets are remarkably similar in every way imaginable to one food thing in particular: FUNNEL CAKE. They taste the exact same and have the exact same consistency. So from now on, I will refer to Cafe Du Monde as “That funnel cake place.” And so should you.

.

Fortunately, if coffee and funnel cake isn’t your thing there are plenty of places to grab a full service breakfast in the Crescent City. My favorite place for a regular ol’ breakfast turned out to be Daisy Dukes, a 24/7 diner type place with a pretty awesome breakfast menu, including a cajun omelet (pictured, with sausage/onion/parsley/tomato/paprika/black pepper) with all the fixins for $8.95 – not too shabby.

And of course, the holy grail of all breakfast experiences in New Orleans is the vaunted Jazz Brunch. There are numerous, numerous places to enjoy a decent Sunday brunch with some hoppin’ jazz music, but after much deliberation I settled on a place called Buffa’s Lounge, a fairly low key locals bar with a Jazz Brunch featuring a special menu every week. The folks there are super friendly and make some fantastic home cooked meals. For more PR, check out their video for a bit of the experience!

So that’s some of what you can expect from breakfast in New Orleans. Stay tuned for part 2!!

Don’t you miss the Sunday comics? Especially Mark Trail? No? Oh well. Here’s a new comic called Jasón Roland by Brian Nowakoswki. He describes the new effort as such:

This is going to be a stream of consciousness strip so it’ll go where ever it’ll go. Part experiment, part I feel like it. Hope everyone enjoys it. Inspired by Sunday funny comics, european comics, pulp films, and life.

Sounds good to me – and without further ado, Jasón Roland (click to enlarge).

Normally the ins and outs of our fair city’s political machinery is fairly dull and not necessarily worthy of note, but boy howdy today is quite the day of interest on the Baltimore City Council’s draft agenda. Don’t believe me? SEE FOR YOURSELF.

Possibly the most important issue being discussed is the resolution for Split-Level property taxation, which was recently passed by Washington, DC in an effort to dissuade property owners from squatting blighted properties (“…to establish a
split-level property tax rate wherein vacant, nonoccupiable or uninhabitable properties would be taxed at a higher rate than occupiable or habitable properties” in legalspeak). This issue is hella important and has been dealt with ad blueintheface by the prolific and successful Baltimore Slumlord Watch. And let’s face it, with 30k abandoned properties, the city is probably foaming at the mouth to pass such legislation and reap the benefits. Let’s hope for a favorable outcome on this one!

Moving right along, Mary Pat Clarke is introducing an assload of bicycle-related bills which call for and include the installation of more bike lanes, bike safe grates, and …mandatory (I hate this word) bike parking on new or expanded structures. Good stuff, especially this little ruby of a gem:

The Cyclists’ Bill of Rights
FOR the purpose of reaffirming support for efforts to improve conditions for
cyclists and encouraging more widespread awareness of the “Cyclists’ Bill of
Rights” .

What exactly would something as important sounding as a bill of rights for people on bikes consist of?

Finally, the city council continues with its obsession with legislating plastic bags with a resolution designed to “call on the Department of Public Works to study the amount of waste generated due to the use of plastic carryout bags, and the environmental impact of carryout plastic bag use, in Baltimore and to report the results of this study to the City Council by a specified date.” Your tax dollars at work, folks.

Most of you probably think that New England Clam Chowder is the be all and end all of chowders and blah blah blah there’s no other way to do it but GUESS WHAT I DON’T LIKE CREAM BASED SOUPS so without further ado I present to yall one of the greatest most amazing recipes for Manhattan Clam Chowder, presented by one of the most greatest most amazing grocery stores on Earth, Stew Leonard’s. It is delicious.

INGREDIENTS : 6 slices chopped bacon 2 cups diced onions (about 2 large onions) 1 cup diced celery (about 2 stalks) 1 cup diced carrots (about 2 large carrots) 1 cup clam juice 2 cups diced tomatoes 2 cups tomato juice 1 teaspoon dried thyme 1 bay leaf 1 cup diced potatoes (about 2 medium potatoes) 28-ounce can of chopped clams Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS :

1. In a pan over medium-high heat, cook the bacon until it is crisp. Remove the bacon and drain the majority of the grease. Leave more or less, depending on how much you’re comfortable with (I usually leave a tablespoon or two at most).

2. Add the onions to the remaining grease and cook until golden. Add all of the
other ingredients except the clams and the potatoes and cook for
15 minutes, stirring frequently.

3. Add the potatoes and clams and simmer until the potatoes are tender. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper and taste.

(photo not by me coz my camera is horrible)

Potentially long post made very short: SNL isn’t very funny but LASER CATS IS FUCKING HILARIOUS AND ALSO ADORABLE.

EPISODE 1
unavailable (((

EPISODE 2!!!!!!

EPISODE 3(D)

EPISODE 44444444444444

With the weather becoming colder and grayer, I’ve been craving whiskey drinks more – and my standby, a frosty beer, less and less. And while you can’t beat a top shelf Bourbon (Woodford, Makers Mark, Bakers, etc.) at room temperature in a glass with nothing else, the downside is that it’s an expensive way to catch a delicious buzz. I wasn’t too keen on moonlighting at the docks to support my cocktail fetish, so I came up with a cheaper alternative.

A good Bourbon has a full flavor that is less evident in it’s more wallet-friendly brethren. You can easily dull the sharpness and bite of any harsh liquor by adding some tonic, soda, or water, and Bourbon is no exception. But these cocktails usually taste too much like the ingredient they’re mixed with (more on this later). I was hoping to enhance the “Bourbonness” of the drink rather than mask it.

So, after some experimentation, here’s my solution to drinking even more of the bottle of expensive Bourbon that’s already half-empty…

Mix some Jim Beam with honey, maple syrup (actual maple syrup, not pancake syrup!) and a splash of water. Toss it in the microwave for 20-30 seconds, and you’ve got a winner! You want the end result to be hot, but not boiling. The heat helps dissipate the honey and syrup and just makes it taste really, really good. As for the proportions, it’s roughly: 3 parts bourbon 1 part syrup 1 part honey 1 part water

I say “roughly” because depending on your personal taste or the mood you’re in, (or the brand you choose) you may want it sweeter, stronger, or lighter. The first time I made it exactly 3:1:1:1 and loved it, but each subsequent time altered the ratios very slightly at the end.

Also, go ahead and use a different Bourbon if you want, but Jim and I were roommates in college, so I called him up for the occasion.

Furthermore, while I was at the store picking up the honey and maple syrup, I also grabbed some ginger beer and ginger ale. Bourbon and ginger go well together, and I thought I’d do a little compare-and-contrast between the two as a potential mixer for my budget Bourbon.

Even though they each have ginger as the predominant flavor, there is a difference between the two, especially as a mixing ingredient. Ginger beer has much less carbonation than its counterpart. It has the “fizz” of well, a beer. Ginger ale, on the other hand, is all about carbonation-you can still taste the ginger, but it’s in the background. Based on that comparison, I decided to use the ginger beer as my main ingredient (next to the alcohol of course) in the next cocktail.

I made a few variations of just ginger beer and Bourbon, but they all tasted too plain. But after adding a couple old standby’s, it really came alive: 2 maraschino cherries, muddled in the glass 2oz Bourbon 2oz ginger beer squeeze of lime The result is a Bourbon cocktail I can live with: not too strong, not too fizzy, and all the flavors complement each other. You can even taste the Bourbon.

Cheers!

Last year, I spent entirely too much time during the month of December making delicious soups and eating soup and thinking about soup and loving soup, and well lookee here folks, it’s December again. Which means IT’S SOUP MONTH AGAIN!!!!

For the record, here are some of last year’s recipes:

Italian Wedding Soup

Minestrone Twofer – the second one is to die for.

I’ll be posting new ones soon and shortly, so keep your eyes peeled folks.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!!

Send us your soup recipes! Take a picture of your soup! Tell us how great it is! The best one will win a $25 gift certificate to an area restaurant (Alternatively if we don’t get enough submissions I’ll just cry. Prevent that from happening.). The contest begins …..NOW and ends December 21st. START MAKING SOUPS PEOPLE!!!

The entire virtual and physical city of Baltimore has been positively riveted and glued to any and all media sources for the past two weeks during Mayor Sheila Dixon’s trial. Despite the fact that her hired wizard managed to stave off several convictions of theft in the first of two trials against her, a single count of embezzlement has stuck and our fair(ly gorgeous) mayor is now a convicted petty criminal.

Fortunately, the internet is a goldmine of all things comedy regarding the matter and the Twitterverse has provided 48k paydirt. Here are some of the funniest tweets I’ve seen thus far (more will be added as the day goes by!) regarding the infamous #dixontrial.

DEC. 3 CHICKEN LIGHTING @ OTTOBAR NOT AFFILIATED WITH SHEILA DIXON, BUT SHE IS INVITED TO PRESIDE OVER LIGHTING THE CHICKEN.

Don’t blame me. I voted for keiffer Mitchell.

KEEP BALTIMORE STOOPIDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

she didnt fly to bermuda & try & get her groove back w/ a jamaican lover for a week & not leave someone in charge.

Does Big Boyz Bail Bonds offer gift cards? Perhaps that’s one Mayor Dixon would appreciate…

Baltimore, The City that Reads….. except when the envelope says “For Charity”

Keep expecting to hear “I am not a crook,” from Mayor D(n)ixon.

Carcetti for Mayor.

Embezzlement my ass. As far as I’m concerned, we’re all “children of Baltimore.” Speaking metaphorically.

Love it. And you know, I’d bother saying something pithy about this whole situation but instead I summarize my thoughts and feelings on the whole matter as it was so eloquently put by former city council member Keiffer Mitchell:

I believe the jury’s decision today underscores the public’s desire for broad based reform and transparency in our city government.

Or as I would put it less eloquently, “We gotta pull some weeds before the flowers can bloom.” Don’t be sad, Baltimoreans – even if this conviction ends with a slap on the wrist (and we all know it will), at least the public’s eyes are a litter harder fixed on the ethics-skirting propensity of our elected officials…. for now.

Ultimate praise for the Baltimore area media outlets for covering this whole process from beginning to end in a respectable manner. See yall at the next trial!!

What: Turkey Wrap Where: Cafe Azafran (3700 San Martin Dr, Johns Hopkins Homewood) How Much: $8.50 Synopsis: It’s not often that I would use Mealtime! to disparage something I’m eating, but this turkey wrap – despite its decent flavor – was small and exceedingly expensive considering you could just as easily get the same thing one block away at a place like Hopkins Deli. I mean, daaaaayamn it’s expensive. Anybody else out there have an opinion on the matter? How much should a turkey wrap cost?

View the Mealtime! Map

The City That Breeds will be taking a posting hiatus until after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and will resume its total idiocy on November 30th. The aforementioned Movember Charity pub crawl last Saturday raised a grand total of $1690 American U.S. Cold Hard Dollars™ (click here for some pictures!)- if you enjoy reading this site at all and would like to donate to the charity, click here and do so – no amount is too small. Have a safe and slap happy holiday.

(painting by Bryan Moon)

The smoothest operator ever. EVER.

It’s not often that I bother to make reference to the fact that professionally speaking, I am a bonafide grade A nerd-ass scientist who works with and studies animals. But this particular article recently published in PLoS ONE is just…. WAY too good to pass up saying something about.

The article, entitled “Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time” describes in great detail the process by which Chinese Fruit Bats engage in fellatio during copulation, including statistical analysis and postulates as to the biological purpose of said fellatio. Hell, even the opening line from the abstract is a total gas:

Oral sex is widely used in human foreplay, but rarely documented in other animals.

But all this text is totally boring. Fortunately, THEY MADE A VIDEO OF FRUIT BATS HAVING ORAL SEX. AND INCLUDED PORN MUSIC ON THE VIDEO. Might I remind you, dear readers, that PLoS ONE is a legitimate scientific publication. A legitimate scientific publication that now has a fruit bat porn video on it. Which I am now hosting a copy of. Enjoy!

Beef Bulgogi Kimchi Bowl

What: Beef Bulgogi platter, Kimchi Bowl Where: Jong Kak (18 W 20th St, Charles North) How Much: $8.50 each (lunch special) Synopsis: Do you love Korean food? Do you love the most amazing lunch deals ever? Then you should probably check out Jong Kak’s lunch specials on the daily. All of this delicious food you see here is only $8.50 AND it comes with a wide array of traditional Korean sides (Kimchi, fish cakes, veggie bulgogi, etc). The kimchi bowl picture came out BOILING, and contained huge amounts of egg, dough, kimchi and some root vegetables. Oh, and some pork too. Their Korean BBQ is amazing too. SO GO EAT THERE RIGHT NOW!

View the Mealtime! Map

Duly noted that George Lopez has secured his own late night show on TBS. Good for him.

So I’m driving around Baltimore, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I start seeing these giant pictures of George Lopez, smiling this gigantic and wild-eyed smile – the kind of look a guy gives you when he’s about to eat a baby or something.

Just look at these guys at the bus stop. They’re literally quaking with fear at the sight of his giant head. “Jeb, if I didn’t know any better I’d say this latino’s gonna eat us.” But that’s them, not me, I don’t really care and I’m on my way to work and MAN I got so much to do and I can’t even be bothered to — to…. Waitatick, what’s that? Is it – -

OhGod

No, please …. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Once you’ve broken your cherry by making some bacon-infused vodka Bloody Marys, give this one a shot.  After tasting a bacon Bloody Mary, I was inspired to create a BLT-type drink.  After a lot of trial and error, here’s what I came up with.

Now, if you haven’t made bacon vodka yet, it’s time to man up already.  It’s wicked easy – cook some bacon and add vodka.

Having done that, let’s make some BLT-inspired cocktails. For our first example, start by adding equal parts of the following: Bacon-infused vodka Hendricks gin (The “L”) – For those of you not familiar with it, Hendricks is a Scottish gin made from traditional botanicals as well as cucumber leaves and rose petals.  You WILL taste the difference. If you’re afraid of gin, this one’s a pussycat; people who hate gin love this one.  I also know that cucumber is not the same as lettuce, but who in the hell wants a drink made from lettuce? Tomato Juice A dash of celery salt and/or sea salt

BLT Cocktail

The cucumber flavor in the Hendricks is subtle when mixed with the bacon vodka and tomato juice.  I added a splash of cucumber juice  to enhance it (cucumber+blender+cheesecloth).  It’s not necessary, but it’s definitely an improvement that’s worth the whopping $0.50 and two minutes of hard labor. My favorite aspect of it is that you taste it in stages – first the cucumber, then the tomato, and finally the bacon. It’s basically a “light” version of a Bloody Mary.  This is also a deal-maker since it goes down smoother than water and is laden with alcohol. It’s like Rohypnol for the DIY-er!

Now, I love Bloody Mary’s, especially Bacon Bloody’s, even Virgin Bloody’s – but after having one, I’m ready to settle with a smoother cocktail. This next drink is something you can knock down with ease until you can’t legally drive, and it’s equally as tasty (and if you don’t want to shell out $35 for Hendricks as far as the gin is concerned, it’s a much cheaper alternative…).

BLT Smoothie

In your blender, add: One cup of diced seedless (English) cucumber, or about 4″ worth. 2.5 oz tomato juice and 2.5 oz of bacon vodka. Toss in a couple ice cubes and blend. It’s more of a smoothie than a cocktail, but delicious nonetheless. The texture of the cucumber actually enhances the flavor. To be honest, I prefer this version of the drink, but it requires too much preparation and cleanup for a guy without a wife. So if you have a wife, this drink might be for you! Cheers!

What: Flag Pizza (large, 16″) Where: Joe Squared (133 W North Ave., Charles North) How Much: $23 (yikes!) Synopsis: Posting anything about Joe Squared is kind of an afterthought since practically everyone knows it’s a superior place to get a ‘gourmet’ pizza. And this pizza, split into three different pizzas (standard cheese, four cheese, pesto and mozzarella) is living …er, pizza proof of that.

Each section has a distinct flavor, and the 16″ pie was large enough to split between 3 people. Which for $23 comes out to be around 8 bucks a head, which is pretty reasonable. I did note, however, that the “flag” aspect of the pizza is supposed to be Italy (right?) but the cheddar adorning the middle portion makes it yellow, which apparently is the flag for Mali. Eh, whichever continent you’re into, I guess. Thumbs up for this pizza.

View the Mealtime! Map

Yeah at first Snuggies were kind of funny to me. The cult-member appeal, the idea of wearing the equivalent of a hospital gown made of LUXURIOUS material granting everyone the ability to answer the phone without the major hassle that a blanket might confer, I could kind of see it. Plus, the commercials are a gas.

But like most as seen on TV products, things have gone overboard. Like the Chia Pet before it, Snuggies have become insane mutations of themselves, coming in zebra pattern, dog varieties, and the dreaded Peekaroo (not an actual Snuggie brand product but far more sinister) – just to name a few.

And you’d think with 47 varieties of Snuggies and various god awful commercials associated with each one, that’d be enough. You’d be wrong. The latest Snuggie commercial features a horrendous theme song, lame ass white guys raising the roof, and families of Snuggie adorned dumbasses “Getting on their Snuggie!”

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!!!! There’s also a really horrible Snuggie Fan Club website where awful, horrible people can upload pictures of themselves and their dogs in Snuggies! Or maybe report on Snuggie bar crawls that they went on! There’s even a completely useless flash game in which you can upload pictures of your friends and have them dance in Snuggies!!! (except it’s completely broken and doesn’t work, I even opened it in Creative Suite and tried to get it to work with no success)

PLEASE STOP IT, SNUGGIES! YOU’RE KILLING US ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

MOVEMBER!

The full-month charity extravaganza known as Movember has begun. Throughout the month, men all over the world will grow mustaches (and the occasional beard) in an effort to raise awareness for men’s health issues with a primary focus on Testicular and Prostate Cancer. The international organizers of Movember have teamed up with the Lance Armstrong Foundation and Prostate Cancer Foundation and will be splitting the money raised by Movember between the two.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund research to find better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer, while the Lance Armstrong Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund the LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance program, which has the goal of improving survival rates and quality of life for young adults with cancer between the ages of 15 and 40. They will provide additional funds toward research initiatives to further understand the biology of adolescent and young adult cancers.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the fun stuff. In an effort to raise some quality funds and have a supremely fun time this year, a few of us have banded together to form Boh Knows Movember, a rag-tag team of gents and ladies dedicated to raising funds for the charity, as well as throwing a kickass pub crawl along Fort Avenue on Saturday, November 21st (as was previously mentioned unofficially). The pub crawl costs $25 and will include $1 Bohs, T-shirts (while supplies last), door prizes at each and every bar and tons of bonus prizes throughout the day. A full list of other specials provided by each bar will hit our flagship site, movemberbaltimore.com very soon.

Full list of stuff of interest regarding prizes and fun:

• First 25 registered for the pub crawl receive FREE AVIATOR SUNGLASSES ($18 value) from Diece Boutique in Federal Hill!
• Free decorative mustaches for the ladies!
• Over 50 gift certificates up for grabs to 15 local restaurants! (to be given away during event and throughout the month)
• “Stache Bash” – an interactive showdown of the world’s greatest mustaches – coming soon!
• Team member Gutter Magazine is running THE MANLY MOVIE COUNTDOWN – a countdown of the most manliest of manly movies leading up to the 21st, with a kickass prize for guessing the #1 movie!

So you’re ready to register for this awesome party, right? Great. Just head to movemberbaltimore.com and register (it’s the best way for us to know how many shirts to order, k?).

If you cannot attend the pub crawl, but would like to donate to the cause anyway, you can donate directly to the team here!

Additionally…

Join our Facebook group!

The pub crawl’s Facebook page!

Follow our tweets!

And once more with feeling, the official website.

I recommend STRONGLY you pay attention to any of those social media outlets and keep your eyes peeled for surprise contests and prizes throughout the month. This Movember is going to be fantastic.

And lo, it is with great fatness that I present to you, my faithful nacho enthusiasts, the final official NachoQuest 2009 review. The winner of NachoQuest will be carefully considered and announced around the end of the month.

Ever since NachoQuest began some three-ish months ago, people have been telling me over and over and over and over that I ABSOLUTELY NEED TO TRY THE PULLED PORK NACHOS AT MAX’S TAPHOUSE (737 S BROADWAY, FELL’S POINT) BRO, THEY’RE THE TITS BRAH, OMG OMG OMG. And for a while, I was pretty excited about doing it, too. They come with salsa, cheese, jalapenos, sour cream and onions AND your choice of chili or pulled pork. The kicker, unfortunately was that according to the website they’re $11 and there was no way I was going to eat them alone.

So, after a million weeks of not eating the nachos at Max’s I finally grabbed a few of my friends and we were off.

And then we were kicked in the balls by the reality of most restaurants not keeping their websites up to date: The nachos weren’t $11. They were $12.50!!!! Plus an extra $4 for chicken! Sorry folks, but that’s blindingly expensive for nachos.

….ESPECIALLY when we discovered a large amount of NAKED CHIPS in the pile. Not cool guys, not cool. Our other companions ordered a separate order of nachos with only chicken and the results were similar. Mostly covered and a decent sized pile, but with some very naked and very expensive nachos at the bottom.

At the end of the day, the pulled pork was tangy and tasty as promised and all of the other ingredients were fine and dandy. But these nachos are easily the most expensive ones I’ve had; the quality prevents them from getting a lower score but if you’re in the market for nachos, go somewhere less expensive.

Three out of five golden nachos (realistically 3.5 out of 5 but I’m too lazy to make the graphic)

This was a joint venture between myself and Erik Brown, the bartender at the Oregon Grille. Once I learned that it was possible to create a bacon-infused vodka, I immediately thought, “That would make a bitchin’ Bloody Mary.” I finally got around to making the vodka a couple of weeks ago, and the drink had its debut today. It was a big hit. Once you make your bacon-infused vodka (refer to previous link!), the hard part is over. All you have left to do is make your mix. For his Bloody Mary mix, Erik works outside the realm of standard measurements. He adds enough of each ingredient until it tastes just right (I’ve found it’s better to make the mix to your personal taste anyway.)

You’re essentially going to combine tomato juice, prepared horseradish, Worcestershire Sauce, cracked black pepper, celery salt, Tabasco, and a little lime juice. Do feel free to go Avant Garde on the ingredients though, because you can easily balance out your mistakes. However, the mix will make or break this drink. If you don’t love the mix then start over.

To top this all off is a coated rim. It’s a combination of celery seed, Old Bay, and black pepper. To make it adhere to the glass, wipe the rim with a wedge of lime.

It’s finished off with a celery stalk and a few olives; 3 to be exact.

Cheers!

I just keep waiting for South Park to not be funny after all these years, much in the way that The Simpsons jumped the shark literally 13 years ago. It just hasn’t happened, and this Cartman version of Poker Face has been stuck in my head FOR FOUR DAYS.

Things I learned while sampling the nachos at Kooper’s: 1) The addition of chili, in some cases, can actually elevate the quality of an entire plate of nachos. 2) My camera phone is horrifically shitty and I should seriously just bring my regular camera with me everywhere.

At any rate, the nachos at Kooper’s Tavern (1702 Thames St., Fell’s Point) start at $8.95 and come with the usual cheeses, jalapenos, black olives, scallions, salsa and sour cream. Add grilled chicken, $11.95. Though while I was ordering, I was told that I could either top them with chili or chicken, and could opt for a half portion instead of a whole one. Being tricky like I am, I opted for a half portion with chili – which came to roughly the same price as the standard nachos run. I for some reason was an idiot and thought that half portion = half price – definitely not the case.

The nachos were well loaded with the ingredients listed and salsa came on the side, which I appreciate since you can opt to dump it on the pile or dip individual chips (though if done correctly, the salsa should generally be incorporated into everything else). I think alone these nachos would have been just ok – but the chili really made a total difference. It was sweet, barbeque flavored and loaded with sliced peppers and onions, which really added a lot of flavor – “Zazz” if you will – to the whole mix. The kicker: when I was done with every last chip, there was still chili left!

Long and the short of it, the portion was good and the price was fair. If it were a whole portion for the same price I’d be giving these nachos 5 golden chips so fast it would tear your face off and I’m reaaaaaalllly leaning toward it anyway, but on the whole I’ve had more for less elsewhere.

Four golden nachos out of five

(view the NachoQuest map so far here)

Being that it’s now officially the five days leading up to Halloween, I thought I’d share with you folks what I feel are five of the most horrifying feature flicks out there. I can safely say that watching these films in order once a day until Halloween will probably make you insane in some way shape or form. And a word of caution: these videos are pretty effing scary.

And without further ado…

5. The Thing

John Carpenter’s 1982 flick about a team of researchers in Antarctica that encounter a …Thing. I personally cannot believe that this movie is 27 years old and the special effects really and truly hold up. It’s an awesome, scary, aweseome movie.

4. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Purists love the original, but 2004’s DotD (Zack Snyder) is like 1978’s DotD on crack cocaine and adrenaline snorted through three nostrils. The sense of urgency throughout the film is visceral, the zombies are absolutely horrifying and the story arc is one of the bleakest, most nihilistic things you’ll see in a while. It’s actually emotionally draining by the end of it. Watch this clip right up until 05:30, that’s all you’ll need.

3. Eraserhead

I’ve heard Eraserhead (1977, David Lynch) referred to as a lot of things; surrealist horror, that creepy movie with the baby, a David Lynch film, but Eraserhead’s use of sound and somewhat obscured black and white footage definitely contains some rather disturbing – if not at least uncomfortable – moments. Quite frankly if you watch this clip and it doesn’t disturb you to some degree you’re either a) Crazy or b) David Lynch.

2. The Shining

So many millions of words have been written about The Shining (1979, Stanley Kubrick) already that it seems fairly redundant to the max that this is one of the greatest horror movies ever made, period. The performances by Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall are absolutely flawless. The score is amazing. There are literally hundreds of scenes in this movie to choose from which could be considered “American cinema classics.”  I just plain love this movie and it scared the piss out of me  the first time I saw it.

1. Begotten

Begotten (1991, E. Elias Merhige) is a movie that defies a whole slew of things: convention, logic, the senses, and good taste – just to name a few. While technically not a horror film and described by the director as “art,” you’d be hard pressed not to watch the first 10 minutes or so of Begotten (or this particular clip below) without feeling a cold shudder of some variety. I won’t go into the plot – mostly because there isn’t really a plot – but the events that take place in this film are really quite shocking. The editing, sound, and sense of total unfamiliarity throughout bearing witness to whatever the fuck is going on in this movie can and should leave you disturbed. I can personally attest to seeing Begotten for the first time in high school with two of my friends and I had to sleep on the floor of my own room with them after seeing it.

Since then, I’ve shown Begotten to numerous people and the reactions are always 50/50 – some think it’s the stupidest crap they’ve ever seen, while the others were visibly disturbed. If you get your hands on this movie, watch it in the dark and among friends.

For something a bit different and with far less vomit during this year’s Halloween festivities, I fully intend to patronize Station North in lieu of more jam-packed, expensive and otherwise drunk as hell areas like Fell’s Point or Federal Hill. And so should you. Granted, you’ll be trading your crowd of 20,000 totally sweet sexy nurses/school teachers/eskimos/vinyl siding salesmen for a crowd of hipsters/art students/or both in TOTALLY IRONIC costumes, but I’m willing to bet you’ll see a lot more creativity and far less public urination with the latter.

Not to mention that all six participating venues – with the exception of one – are FREE to attend and offer a lot of entertainment and SWEET CONTESTS for your general enjoyment. For a full list of such events, check out the fine freaks over at Gutter.

On another note, this will be the first year in my mind (or rather, for me personally) that Station North has really been put on the map as a legitimate holiday blowout – with the exception of Artscape – since the revitalization of that area began. Or maybe I’m just generally out of the loop. Wait, let me rephrase all of this: This will be the first year that I actually would really like to patronize Station North for a holiday of any variety. It’ll be interesting and somewhat heartwarming to see a great party going on in a section of the city that less than four or five years ago was considered literally untouchable. Warms my cockles, it does!

With the onset of cooler weather, I thought that a spiced bourbon would make for some pretty tasty cocktails, and I was right. Try out this recipe for spiced bourbon and you’ll agree.

To begin with, use a decent bourbon (Maker’s, Evan Williams Single Barrel will do). To make the spiced bourbon, you can use whatever spices you want-it’s all about personal taste. But since my personal taste is better than yours, you should follow these guidelines. For the infusion I chose cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and clove. Whatever spices you choose, use the whole (not ground) versions. If you do use nutmeg, crack the nut – don’t leave it whole.  I wrapped mine in cheesecloth and let them steep in the bourbon.

The key to this project is daily tasting.  Each spice will infuse its flavor at a different rate of speed, so you may have to add or remove them during the process.  When it tastes right, remove the spices.  If you wrap each spice separately in cheesecloth, it will be much easier to add or remove them.

Here’s the breakdown of ingredients in this case:

• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 nuts of nutmeg (cracked)
• 1 tsp. allspice
• 1 tsp. clove – clove comes on strong. I had to pull mine out after 3 days to keep everything balanced. The cinnamon and nutmeg took longer to impart their flavors.

I let my spices steep in the bourbon for seven days, but you could go longer or shorter depending on how intense you want the final product; I came up with two drinks for this, both served hot.

Spiced Bourbon Cider Use 1 part spiced bourbon and 2 parts apple cider, then heat in a microwave. Wipe a lemon wedge around the rim of the glass and put a spoonful or so of Sugar in the Raw on a plate and rub the rim of the glass over it.  This step is key-you need the sweetness of the sugar to balance out the spice of the bourbon. Once the cider/bourbon mixture is finished in the microwave, squeeze a lemon wedge over it and add a teaspoon of honey.  If you want to go balls deep, you can top it off with whipped cream, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Spiced Bourbon and Cider

Spiced Bourbon Old Fashioned

Spiced Bourbon Old Fashioned with Blood Orange You can make this with regular oranges, but it won’t be nearly as good. To start, wipe the rim of the glass with a slice of Blood Orange. Then, coat the rim with Sugar in the Raw – I added a bit of cinnamon as well to liven things up.  If you want to avoid the mess of coating the rim with sugar, muddle it in with the orange and cherries. Heat about 2.5 ounces of your bourbon. Next, muddle  a couple maraschino cherries and a decent slice of Blood Orange, along with a teaspoon of Maraschino Cherry juice if you have a sweet tooth.  I also tossed in a quarter ounce of Blood Orange juice to make it more user-friendly. Pour in the hot spiced bourbon. Add a splash of club soda; it really cleans up the taste of the drink and prevents it from being too sticky-tasting. On a final note; go easy on the Blood Orange!  It has an intense flavor, so if you add too much, you’ll wind up with a hot spicy orange juice.

CHEERS!

It has been said by some that miracles exist in this world. Sometimes, lightning strikes twice in the same place, or two bullets fired from opposing guns collide, or a dog gets issued a credit card. This my friends, is one of those occasions.

I have heard from others and personally experienced legendarily bad food at Holy Frijoles (908 W 36th St., Hampden) over the years; tales of dried, cracked enchiladas, hard rice that could chip teeth and stale quesadillas that may or may not have been sitting under a rug some where.

But this time, THIS time. I am blown away. These nachos are fantastic. $6 will get you cheese, salsa, jalapenos, black olives and sour cream. For a buck more, your choice of refried or black beans. And for another added dollar, your choice of chicken, steak, beef, chorizo or veggies (those pictured were $8 with black beans and chicken).

What makes them fantastic? Well, the chips are light, unsalted and toasted to an almost-burnt but still damn fine crispiness. The ingredients are well mixed into the pile and there were no naked chips. The serving size, for 8 bucks, is pretty large – especially with meat included. And the salsa is fresh, with just a bit of cilantro.

But what set the value apart in my mind was this: for $11, you can get the “supreme” version of these nachos with EVERY SINGLE OPTIONAL INGREDIENT. $11 for nachos with cheese, salsa, jalapenos, black beans, refried beans, sour cream, olives, and all four meat varieties – AND veggies? Holy crap! Er, Frijoles!

Caveat – and this may or may not explain the quality and timeliness of service during my visit to this ‘versial establishment: I was the only one there, and it was during lunch. Your experience may vary and I exempt myself from any and all liability. Either way, this specific plate kicked total ass and it’s easily in the top 3.

5 out of 5 golden nachos

(view the NachoQuest map so far here)

A wee couple of days ago I first heard about local electro-pop-whatever-i’m-not-a-music-critic act Lazerbitch over at Ye Olde Midnight Sunne Blog and got a solid kick out of the video “Coquette” and it’s sheer sheer localness. Welp, fast forward to the other day and I find myself at Windup Space somehow observing a photo shoot for none other than Lazerbitch herself aka Libby. And wouldn’t you know it, the last set of photos shot were taken at that super-awesome, super-shady crackden No-tell Motel about a block away (also visible in the background of her music video!)

At any rate, I took some photos of some of the whole thing. Enjoy!

(photo shoot by JMG)
(styling by Di[e]ce)

[Show as slideshow]

 

BONUS VIDEO CLIP!!!!

It’s like, you know… I tried. I really tried. I tried my hardest to avoid watching the guy behind the counter making these nachos. Throwing a pile of chips onto a plate, throwing on some other stuff and a bunch of cheese, popping it into the oven for a minute or two, then dumping on literally a metric ton of salsa, sour cream and guac and putting it in front of me with a “BAM!” Needless to say, you can barely see the tricolored chips used as the base for Paper Moon’s (227 W 29th St., Remington) Machos Nachos under so much salsa, and for 9 bucks (add 3 more for chicken or portabello mushrooms) you’d be well served to avoid them.

But for the sake of record, the nachos come with tomato, onion, black olives and the rest of the stuff I mentioned above. And to be blunt, they were hastily and poorly prepared. And very expensive, considering what you can get for less at other places (chart for comparison forthcoming!). In fact, some of the nachos I’ve had as of late may warrant a reevaluation of some of my other scores. This was just… guh.

One thing I would note that might be worth trying for the incredibly curious consumer – they have a variation on their standard nachos called “Vegan Nachos” that use hummus and cucumbers rather than sour cream and cheese, for the same price. This I think could be pretty interesting, but considering the quality of the regular nachos I didn’t want to consider it myself (that, and I was full from eating the ones I ordered)

…at least it’s over with.

Just barely 2 nachos out of 5

(view the NachoQuest map so far here)

This is truly and without question one of those days that the namesake of this website couldn’t be more appropriate.

The Sun reports this morning that the giant, controversial (what?), pink flamingo adorning Cafe Hon in Hampden has been removed as a result of the owner refusing to pay a fee of $800 for the ‘privilege’ of intruding upon public space. Other examples include outdoor seating, chalkboard advertisements (what an invasion of my space!) and statues, apparently. Really, none of the legalities or arguments as to whether or not this big dumb bird belongs on the restaurant’s fire escape interest me terribly. But let me tell you what does: reading the comments left on the article. MAN. High level entertainment. From the mess, here’s what I’ve kind of learned about this whole thing:

• Hampdenites tend to think very, very little of Cafe Hon, Honfest and the owner of Cafe Hon in general.
• Everyone else thinks the flamingo is an icon.
• The owner is “controversial” to the point that I overheard a reporter asking about her at another Hampden restaurant, which will undoubtedly result in an article about her specifically and therefore give her (and her restaurant) more publicity.
• Regardless of the situation’s outcome, Cafe Hon is going to benefit due to said publicity.
• Teenagers are still being shot and dying elsewhere in the city.

Again, I couldn’t care less about the flamingo or what people think about it, so I’d like to use this situation as an opportunity to make one simple point about living in and operating a business in Baltimore City: Sooner or later they will find a new way to try to get your money, one way or another. Always and forever.

And I’m not seemingly suggesting that a business shouldn’t pay for intruding on the use of common space – if it’s an actual intrusion or god forbid a legitimate safety hazard. Outdoor seating or some sort of ornamental fountain, these things get in the way of me trying to walk the full width of a particular sidewalk and a business should pay for such things, especially if they stand to profit due to their presence. But a statue of Elvis, chalkboard with specials on it, or a giant flamingo hovering ten feet above the ground at its lowest point? Not getting in the way, and not hurting anyone.

But the city hungers. It is entitled. It finds a way to walk right up to a business or home and knock on the door and say “Excuse me, but you owe us $800 for this.”

And where, exactly, did that figure come from? $800? Would it have been less if the flamingo were smaller, or if it were instead a flat tapestry hanging off of the fire escape instead of a sculpture protruding 1.5 feet outward? Would anyone have cared if it were a big American flag? In my mind the answer to the figure’s origin is pretty simple; it’s arbitrary. And I guarantee that if paid, the fee would go up in time and a new excuse would be made for why it has become necessary to pay $1000 to put a chalkboard on a sidewalk.

When infrequent author wgatsum asked the question “What’s the point of the Department of General Services?” last November, we all kind of shrugged and wrote it off as another waste of time and energy by the city government to perpetuate its own existence. Now it would seem that one of its main functions is pretty clear; to write parking tickets for buildings.

As I eluded to about two weeks ago, November is quickly approaching and the time is nearly here to begin the fund raising bonanza for my charity of choice, Movember. In preparation for this monumental month of man, a group of us have truly stepped it up a notch (at least, from last year) and put together a bar crawl and a website (as well as the usual social media services) to serve as a portal for accepting donations. The website isn’t “active” until later this week, but in the meantime feel free to have a look-see at our Facebook group and Twitter page:

Facebook – Movember Baltimore
Twitter – @movemberbmore
Website – movemberbaltimore.com

Go right ahead and join up, please!

And without further ado, the flier for said bar crawl:

Registration for the bar crawl will begin on Wednesday, and the big campaign for soliciting donations (aka emails to my mom) will begin November 1st. In the meantime, I will be fluffing my moustache in anticipation.

When I received word that Federal Hill’s Riverside’s favorite neighborhood bar, Captain Larry’s, had a form of nachos that incorporated my two favorite things – nachos and brunch – I Scooby Doo ran my way down there and immediately used my mouth muscles and tongue to order them. The BRUNCHOS are $9 and come with tortilla chips topped with scrambled eggs, black beans, choice of bacon or chorizo, melted cheese, avocado & pico with sour cream & salsa.

Things that make this dish awesome to the max: firstly, the chips are well toasted. Secondly, the cheese, bacon and eggs are all layered together, which most other joints don’t bother doing. Thirdly, there is a ton of bacon on them. Fourthly, the portion is huge and is best shared among friends.

Which actually brings me to an interestingly foodosophical topic: brunch is a meal that is rarely a shared event. More on that later. At any rate, brunchos are a great idea and they’re different enough from chilequiles to warrant their own place in the annals of breakfast greatness. And the chunks of avocado are kickass.

(also they should make non-breakfast nachos, especially if they’re this quality)

SO how exactly do I rate such a thing? Breakfast nachos? With a golden donkey, since they’re so different? Or with the normal golden nachos? Guess what. They get both.

One golden donkey and four golden nachos out of …..5?

(view the NachoQuest map so far here)

So I received an email from a TOP SECRET source giving me a heads up on some nachos that I have yet to tackle, along the same lines in originality as the pulled pork nachos at Harborque. Get this: BRUNCHOS. Brunch-nachos. The dish is described as such:

Tortilla Chips topped with Scrambled Eggs, Black Beans, choice of Bacon or Chorizo, melted Cheese, Avocado & Pico de Gallo served with Sour Cream & Salsa

Sounds somewhat similar to Chilaquiles, but without mole and more “nacholike” than the more traditional dish. Expect a report as soon as possible.

Well the Mobbies are over and done with, and what a fun time it was. I whole-foodsedly thank all of the readers, commenters, guest authors and Sheila Dixon for making this site truly worthy of a voter-generated award. But guess what! It’s just the beginning people! Prepare to see advertisements for this site on baltimoresun.com in the next few weeks! And these handy badges advertising victory on this site!

Additionally, we’ll be bringing some new features, contests, and more of that beloved content you all love so much. This train ain’t stoppin’ any time soon. Furthermore, some quick bullet points: NachoQuest will and absolutely must end by November 1st. A trophy will be presented to the winning establishment. We will be running some banner ads for local businesses which will benefit everyone in the form of 10% off coupons, specials and so forth exclusive to us! If you are/own a local business and would like to get in on the action, contact us. “Yard Sale” should be up and running next week, a page dedicated to selling amazing knickknacks and other junk of interest. It’s an opportunity to support the site, and buy/own crazy crap in the process! Bullet points aren’t actually made of bullets, nor are they pointed. They do however often deliver a fact in short form.

BONUS KITTENS

This very special Mealtime! brought to you by Spam and the Ministry of Bacon.

What: Elvis Pancakes (or Lisa Marie if you want a half order) Where: Golden West Cafe (1105 W 36th St, Hampden) How Much: $13 for Elvis, $8 for Lisa Marie Synopsis: The Elvis pancake platter consists of two buttermilk pancakes with applewood bacon inside, topped with sauteed bananas, honey, and peanut butter.

Baltimore Bacon Czar Spammy describes the situation as such:

The pancakes were huge and fluffy, the bananas were soft like little yellow clouds, and the peanut butter and honey mixed into a potion almost (but not quite) too sweet to bear.

“But what about that bacon?” you ask. The bacon itself was spectacular; our High Priestess Anna thought it was a bit too smoky for her taste, but it was certainly high-quality bacon, well-cooked but still just chewy enough to allow the full flavor to come through. However…we had to admit, it was a bit out of place in the dish. It’s kind of like having William Shatner at a college house party: didn’t really fit in perfectly with everything else that was going on, but an awesome addition to the scene that you wouldn’t even think of turning away.

For the record, if William Shatner showed up to a house party it wouldn’t matter if it were out of place, because it would be literally the most incredibly kickass thing to ever happen to a house party, ever, ever. -Evan

View the Mealtime! Map
(If you’d like to submit your own mealtime entry, follow the simple guidelines and email me!)

It has been five months or so since I last opined about the unlimited badassery that is contained within the soulless shell known as Vladimir Putin, reveling in photographic evidence that he could probably kill you with his unending gaze.

Well I saw the most compelling evidence ever conceived today on the Sun’s website in a photo provided by Getty Images:

PUTIN IS WATCHING

Holy CRAP. Putin’s powers know no limit. He’s staring down a man into submission and he’s not even real in this photo. I’m willing to bet that the tiny gentlemen on the right has soiled himself approximately 324,456 times already.

 PRINT THIS SHIZZNIT

On October 14th, at the Metro Gallery (1700 N Charles St, Mount Vernon) in Baltimore, MD USA Planet Earth, the collected masses crammed into the mixed use venue will convene for the Baltimore Sun’s 1st annual Maryland’s Outstanding Blogs contest results, and will additionally celebrate this incredibly well crafted graphic:

The festivities begin at 7pm and I am going to look fantastic.

It’s not often that I feel strongly enough about a television product to elicit a comment by my mouth and fingers in typing form, but Comedy Central’s new show “Secret Girlfriend” has truly gotten my hackles up.

See that banner? You already know this show sucks, right? Well. Wait, let me backtrack a bit. If you’ve never heard of Secret Girlfriend – and you’re lucky that you haven’t, the premise is this: It’s a zany, horny, beer soaked romp through the main character’s life as he tries to escape the clutches of his psycho ex-girlfriend (or is he ?), all while trying to secure the affections of the sporty, beer-loving, cute, understanding, and essentially perfect (aka essentially fictional) other girl, ALL WHILE HIS BROSEPHS COMMIT TOTALLY CRAZY ANTICS!!! A totally original premise, never before seen in the history of television or movies.

But wait, there’s more! You missed the ultimate twist! The main character is YOU!!!! HOLY SHIIIIIIIIT!!!!! That’s right! The whole show is shot in 1st person “you-are-the-camera” view! And since you’re a totally rad, cute, gnarly main character, every girl swoons at your appearance, and you love to ogle every girl’s exposed parts! And here lies the real genius; since it’s the main character eyeballing girl’s junk and not you the viewer, you don’t have to feel guilty about it coz the main character is just a guy, AMIRITE?!?!

Even the screecap of the preview isn't funny.

And actually, a reviewer over at Time.com put it really well last week:

When You, through the camera, check out a bunch of girls’ asses at a convenience store, or at a party, or at a lesbian bar, or underwater in a pool, you’re not being cheaply titillated, you are participating in a sly comedy of manners. It’s funny, because guys like to check out girls’ asses! And also, you get to check out girls’ asses! How droll! How metafictional! Look at the comic irony on those knockers!

MAN I wish I could use big words like metafictional. Anyway. The show is terrible, unfunny, tries so very hard to be Benny Hill meets Girls Gone Wild and fails on virtually every level. Hard. 50% of the time the horrible acting and “talking to the camera as you” manner of dialog reminded me very strongly of the very shitty Sega CD full motion video games of old, like Night Trap or something. Good GOD it’s bad.

And the website for the show has a “Brobonics Dictionary” which I will not dignify the existence of with a link. As a successful web series, relegated to the likes of Youtube and Atom, I have no problem with it. It sucked enough for the internet, but even for Comedy Central I draw the line. Fortunately it’s only supposed to be on for six episodes, and then we can go back to high quality programming that we’re used to seeing on Comedy Central, like the smash hit Chocolate News (unfortunately was not renewed).

This is literally an idea I had for a Halloween costume today that I for some reason bothered to conceptualize.
The alternative is the raptor head with a Hef smoking jacket.

AND THAT’S THE BOTTOM LINE, COZ Clever Girl.

Now with extra pictures!

What: Lake Trout with fries and Chicken with kale, sweet potatoes Where: The Roost (5281 Reisterstown Rd., Woodmere) How Much: $4.99 each, lunch special Synopsis: If you’re into soul food, dirt cheap lunches and half and halfs, you pretty much have absolutely no recourse but to hit up The Roost and take advantage of all of those things I just listed.

My understanding is the place gets super packed during prime breakfast and lunch hours, but if you’re super gifted and talented and head there around 2pm, there’s literally no one there and you can get swift service and flaming hot greasy fish n’ chips like these in no time. I wanted to try the catfish nuggets, but went for the (huge) serving of lake trout instead. Plus, if you sit outside for more than 15 minutes, you’ll receive no less than four (4) advertisements for car detailing!

(If you’d like to submit your own mealtime entry, follow the simple guidelines and email me!)

Guest poster Allan honors our American President the only way we can: with cold, hard facts.

President Barak Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today, and I’m hearing a lot of people carrying on about how he doesn’t deserve it. Well let me tell you something, he does deserve it. He deserves it a lot. Not only is he our nation’s first African-American president, but he’s also our first AWESOME-American president. Have you seen this guy? Just look at him! Dreamy eyes, nice white teeth, can-do attitude, this guy’s got it all! I asked all my friends who was the (best) president of 2009, and they all said Barak Obama. That’s 100% of people I polled, telling me that he was the (best) president. You can’t argue with 100% of people. It’s impossible, there’s just too many of them. That means that 100% of people, all agree that he should get the Nobel Peace Prize.

But those nay-say-ers, are nay-saying that he doesn’t deserve it because it’s too soon, and he hasn’t done enough to merit an award of that caliber. Those people are dirty, rotten, communists who probably listen to house music all day. And work 3 cubicles over from me, and are named Dennis. So to those people I say, “You’re wrong comrade, meptbo wrong.”

You have to look at all the things he hasn’t done, to really appreciate the scope of why he was given this award.

-President Obama hasn’t increased world hunger, nor has he increased the AIDS epidemic. People in Africa are very happy about that.
-Barak Obama hasn’t started another Cold War. I think we can all appreciate the warm and pleasant weather we’ve been having. Thanks, Obama!
- President Obama hasn’t gone back in time to stop Abraham Lincoln from being shot. He knows that no one, not even himself, should mess with time travel. It’s just too dangerous. Good job, dude!
- Barak Obama hasn’t tried to re-create dinosaurs from dead mosquitoes, found in pieces of amber from coal mines. He’s good friends with Jeff Goldblum, and knows that if something can go wrong, it will. And also that Raptors, are very clever. Thanks, Obama!

Now, if our president actually did any of those things, then yeah, we probably shouldn’t give him the Nobel Peace Prize, that would be ridiculous. But since he hasn’t, I think it’s pretty plain to see why he deserves this award. Way more than that blowhard ,Wei Jingsheng, with his Chinese democracy. Yeah right buddy, grab a Dr. Pepper.

In conclusion, Barak Obama is the coolest person ever, and already the best president we’ve ever had. They should give him all the other Nobel Prizes’ too, and a couple Grammy’s for all his hard work.

THE FIRST ANNUAL MOVEMBER IN BALTIMORE BAR CRAWL!!!!

NOVEMBER 21ST, 2009!!!!

7 BARS, DOOR PRIZES AT  EVERY BAR!!!!

MORE AWESOME DETAILS VERY VERY VERY VERY SOON!!!!

The nachos at Dead End are a lesson well learned: looks can be deceiving. For $8.95 these nachos come with cheddar, chili, lettuce, olives, salsa and sour cream. ….sort of. When they were first brought out I was pretty happy, as they appear to be layered nicely with a fair amount of all things nacho. I reached for a chip, pulled, and something horrible happened: six or seven chips came along for the ride.

This might not seem horrible to the untrained nacho consumer, but what this instantly tells you about the nachos you’re eating is that they are dried out to the point that the cheese has effectively spackled your chips together. To make matters worse, there wasn’t very much cheese to begin with. To make matters death-rattling, the chips were STALE. A low, guttural “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” issued from my soul as I turned over bare chip after stale, bare chip until I finally gave up and came to the chilling conclusion: these nachos SUCK. I love Dead End Saloon to death, but their nachos are pewp.

Sorry guys.

One Golden Nacho out of Five

(view the NachoQuest map so far here)

HEY CHECK OUT THESE SWEET PIX I SHAWT YESTERDAY AT THIS TOTALLY WICKED AWESOME BIKER BAR DOWN IN ELKRIDGE THE ARBUTUS VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT WAS DOIN’ IT UP AMERICA STYLE!!!!!

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Continuing the “I’m a big dumb tourist who likes to follow Anthony BOREdain’s travels” Mealtime! series…

What: Cold Seafood Platter, Calamari Appetizer Where: Mo’s Crab and Pasta Factory How Much: $15.99 for the platter, $8.99 for the calamari Synopsis: I have heard ten billion horror stories and ten billion happy stories about the service and quality of food at Mo’s over the years, and by the time I got there after not having been there since the age of about six, I was ready for pretty much anything. I can say pretty safely now that Mo’s is a place for locals, and the people who get pissed off about the service are tourists or transplants. It’s as simple as that. I won’t go into why for the sake of wall of text syndrome, just trust me on this one folks.

Regardless, I can also pretty safely say that both of the items featured here were really, really good. The cold seafood platter had a huge helping of jumbo lump, shrimp, oysters and clams. For the record, raw clams are GROSS DON’T EVER EAT THEM BARF – but the rest was pretty fresh and very tasty. The calamari was lightly fried and didn’t get grease all over everything, and the portion was pretty huge. Split between two people, this Mealtime! was tasty and priced on par with most seafood joints around the area (expensive).

We didn’t try the blue drank, but the dranks we did have were stiff and pretty cheap. It’s a rowdy crowdy at the bar in there around happy hour, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s due to what the commercial for a completely different store says: you just gotta go to Mo’s!
(If you’d like to submit your own mealtime entry, follow the simple guidelines and email me!)

It’s that time again y’all (lol I’m southern) for me to dump some pictures I have accumulated on my phone/camera in a hot steamy mess onto your faces. YEEEEEHAW!!!

The month of November is fast approaching and I/we/the universe has decided that a bar crawl for the awesomestest charity ever, Movember, is in order. Last year I personally raised around $650 bones for the charity and was ranked 299th in the nation. This year, we’re blowing the lid off of it and having a full blown bar crawl complete with T-shirts and a charity auction at the end.

So the question is this: which weekend to have it? The 14th or the 21st? Both are Saturdays, but the 21st is the weekend before Thanksgiving and people may be traveling. On the other hand, there are big fat college sporting events on the 14th and people may not be able to make it. So I ask you, dear readers, which day you think it should be on????????????question mark

Autotuning may be the most immensely played out crappy gimmick the music world has known since the fisheye lens in all of those Puffy videos in the late 90s, but this video of an autotuned Billy Mays selling affordable health insurance is …truly inspired.

While I normally wouldn’t be caught dead in Stalking Horse (26 E Cross St., Federal Hill) on a weekend evening, I have to admit they’ve got some pretty good bar food. Weeknights at Stalking Horse are quiet and usually feature CHEAAAAP specials, so I’d recommend it. At any rate, this is about nachos so let’s talk about nachos. The nachos at Stalking Horse are $6.99 and featured tri-colored chips, cheddar, salsa, guac, sour cream, jalapenos and black olives. For $2.99 more you can add chicken or beef, and for $3.99 more you can add steak or jumbo lump crab meat.

I guess if I had to use a term for the nachos at Stalking Horse it would be “totally adequate.” They have all of the toppings people want and/or like, at a very very reasonable price. They satisfy all of the requirements for a decent pile and deliver plenty of flavor and a generous helping, even for two people. This particular serving had just a little too much salsa and not enough cheese, but not so much out of the ordinary as to cause me to hate them uncontrollably.

But one thing sets these nachos apart in my mind that has nothing to do with NachoQuest simply due to the Nacho Manifesto’s first law; you can substitute waffle fries for nachos at no additional cost. I’m going to go right ahead and guess that in the event you order waffle fries instead you won’t be getting nearly as much, but considering this is an option you see almost nowhere else in the city, I thought it was pretty awesome. If anyone out there has tried them, let me know how they were!

Bottom line: The nachos at Stalking Horse are really good.

Four Golden Nachos out of Five
(view the NachoQuest map so far here)

Facing severe budget shortfalls in the upcoming fiscal year, the decision was passed down during Monday’s city council meeting to forgo this year’s 43rd annual Fells Point Fun Festival in favor of a $5 “fun tax” designed to boost awareness concerning the amount of fun that can be had in Baltimore City, and simultaneously bridge some gaps in the city’s $3467 million public school deficit. The free fun normally enjoyed by residents and tourists in the form of parks and recreation, festivals, harbor water paths and boarded house torching will now cost all a one time fee of $5.

The bill, sponsored by James B. Kraft, is also aimed at improving public safety during a time in which drunken behavior at the festival can become a nuisance.

“Yeah I’ve seen them Yousetube videos of people runnin’ along the tops of portatoolets and gettin’ all drunk and bein’ loud. The problems them people cause costs the city way much more money and lowers property values of them shiny condos I like than the beer garden at the festival brings in. Plus, people who live in Baltimore have been freeridin’ on the fun that living in the city brings and it’s time they paid their dues.”

Those opposed to the bill feel that the Baltimore City Fun Tax is merely a re purposed form of the proposed increase in parking fees surrounding the inner harbor area, which was shot down recently by a strong opposition. Others still feel that the experience of fun in Baltimore City should remain free. When presented with this notion several members of the City Council responded with “But… where’s the revenue?”

A thunderous round of applause then filled the council chambers.

Carolina Nachos - $5.75

At the suggestion of some guy with a blog, I moseyed on over to Harborque (1421 Lawrence St., Riverside) the other day to try their Carolina Nachos – nachos piled with cheddar cheese, beans, jalapenos, BBQ sauce, and A MILLION POUNDS OF PULLED PORK. For $5.75. And let me tell you something, these “nachos” transcend the human language in terms of description and can be really only be described using a low frequency sound normally uttered by whales.

There is so much pulled pork on this pile that it becomes more like a “crunchy meat pie with cheese” as opposed to “a pile of nachos.” My first bite was pretty easy – I scooped up some cheese, penos and pork and chewed on it, noted the deliciousness and went right for the second bite. But after about five mouthfuls, the sheer density of the nachos began to affect my reality. These things are like dark matter. After six or seven bites, clocks with alarms going off started spinning around my head, my roommates started looking like dragons with bees coming out of their mouths, and the sky turned a darker shade of fuchsia. I’m not entirely certain how much of these pulled pork nachos I actually ate, as I woke up later naked in a ditch on the side of Harford Road somewhere. That was a really awkward cab ride getting home…

Aaaat any rate, these nachos kind of defy a rating. They’re certainly not the best, but probably the one of the most unconventional nachos in the city, given the BBQ sauce and baked beans instead of the traditional nacho toppings. Plus, for the money and sheer volume of pulled pork you will inevitably develop meat sweats eating, they’re certainly one of the best values for both pulled pork AND nachos going. So for now, I will award the Carolina Nachos from Harborque the Golden Donkey – an award that defies logic and convention, until I can figure out a more appropriate award for them. Kudos.

One Gold Donkey out of One

(view the NachoQuest map so far here)

…or at least, someone out there does.

It has been brought to my attention that this very website known as The City That Breeds has been nominated for the Mobbies, the Baltimore Sun’s first ever awards for the best blogs in Maryland. Voting for the awards starts Monday, and let me just be clear about something: I am going to BRING IT. I will be reminding you, dear readers, as to why  TCTB deserves an award with past hits, new A-list material and contests all throughout the voting period. …also I will tell you who to vote for in other categories. Also I will give one (1) cookie to everyone who votes for TCTB.

I’d also like to be clear about something else: When I attend the awards party on October 14th, I will most certainly be wearing a tophat, monocle, and a big “#1″ sash. And if I don’t win any awards, I will club a baby seal. So I suggest you all vote – do you really want a dead baby seal on your conscience? No. No you don’t.

So be prepared, for Monday begins an era of KICKASS TEN GALLON HAT GREATNESS.

Sweet, sweet pit beef

What: Pit Beef Sandwich (medium)Where: Chaps Pit Beef (map) How Much: $5.75 Synopsis: Yes, I am a big dumb stupid tourist and went to all of the places that big dumb jerk Anthony Bourdain sampled on his way through Baltimore over the summer. …and boy howdy am I glad I did. This mountainous pile of pit beef, for less than six bucks, is amazing. The entire menu at Chaps is amazing.

Not only can you take this sandwich to their fixin’s bar and pile it higher than Krakatoa with whatever you want, but you also have the option of ordering the meat rare, medium, or medium well. I was tempted to order a mix of all three, but there was a line.

The best part about driving all the way out to Pulaski Industrial Area and packing it into Chaps for a big fat pile of meat to your liking? You can get a lapdance afterward! That’s right! Chaps Pit Beef is situated in the parking lot of Gentlemen’s Gold Club, where apparently some sort of wild and sexy dance parties go on – not that I would know. Because I totally did NOT go in there after eating my pit beef sandwich and get a lapdance. Ever.

But wait! Lap dances not your thing? No problem! Just head twenty yards across Pulaski Highway to the Adult Video Outlet and buy some high quality pornography! Hundreds of fine adult videos and erotic items to choose from!

…..oohhhhh Baltimore.

(If you’d like to submit your own mealtime entry, follow the simple guidelines and email me!)

It was called to my attention while I was away last week that a particular Baltimore Restaurant Events Examiner (quite the mouthful), Jasmine Touton, has given wicked mad props to the WILDLY POPULAR and current long term City That Breeds project, NachoQuest. Knowing full well what she’s talking about, she had the following to say about NachoQuest:

Nacho Quest 2009 is nothing short of genius.

Well stated, Jasmine, well stated.

BONUS PIC: Here are some nachos I made while on vacation. The best nachos in Baltimore are the ones you make yourselves, folks!

KICKASS NACHOS

(if you’d like to read about the bacon and other foodstuffs featured at this horrifically amazing event, go here)

SO I’ve been wracking my brain over and over about what to say about the Heavy Seas Bacon and Beer Fest put on by Clipper City Brewery the other day, and I just can’t really do it justice. The event was positively magical; all you can drink Heavy Seas and Clipper City brews (which will get you bombed incredibly quickly as it turns out), bacon centric foods and frigging pirates walking and ROLLER SKATING around – it was simply the best way to spend half of a Saturday afternoon. The ability to walk around among the bottling equipment, tankards, cisterns, cooling systems and all of the other brewery equipment that comprise an otherwise industrial setting were perfectly woven into the festivities in a way that bizarrely complimented the whole thing.

That coupled with the surreality of pirates walking around and getting drunk while eating bacon, I mean …what the hell? The whole thing was incredibly well executed and I can’t wait to get back to another one of their events, regardless of the theme.

At any rate, hopefully some of these pictures can kind of do the whole thing a bit of justice.

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