March 2009 Archives

Direct from Otterdoc, some mighty scruffy Chris Pine, who will play Capt. James Tiberius Kirk in J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek film this May. Geeks are already losing their shit over this movie. I concur.

Anyway, Pine is waaay hotter than Shatner or even Number One. Between Transformers and Star Trek I'm going to burst into a bright geekfire supernova by this summer.

'Angel' star Andy Hallett, 33, died of heart failure this week. He played Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan, known as the Host and Lorne for short.
:' (

Ten years ago today, The Matrix had us.

I learned this week that massive ash plume output from volcanoes can generate enough static electricity to create red "dirty lightning storms."

There will meeting about vacant properties in Shaw to be held at 7:00pm on Tuesday, March 31st at Chatman's D'Vine Bakery located at 1239 9th St (at the Convention Center). There are a remarkably high number of derelict, vacant properties in my 'hood that are mysteriously and conveniently taxed as occupied on the DC tax rolls. This cheaper tax status allows these slumlords to continue to allow these properties to blight the surrounding communities. The usual suspects involved with these ongoing problems and incorrect tax assignments is the typical DC government corruption, cronyism or inefficiency - or all of the above.

Speaking of headaches, judging by the iron spike that was embedded in my temple Sunday morning, spring has officially arrived in DC. Things are starting to bloom and the pollen is out to get you.

From my new favorite site Happy News: Boy Uses Rugby Skills To Save Family From Fire.

This weekend we traveled to Philly to play the Gryphons again and had a lot of fun. This coming weekend we return to Cardozo Stadium where we'll play the Gotham Knights. It's sure to be a fun match. One of my teammates was quoted using the word "tush" in a Washington Post article. He claims he was misquoted but I've heard him comment on other teammate's "hobbit tushes" before.

Prince was on The Tonight Show last week but I was such a busy bee running around town being stood up I missed it. I don't have TiVo yet, but thanks to the wonders of the Internets NBC captured a bit of his performance if you can wait through all the ads and jerky loading. Go to minute 38. Someone caught another night of his performance on YouTube but it's not likely to last long there. Thanks to Sean for the tips.

6 million hand-scribbled notecards written by over 3,000 people spanning 90 years of bird migration and climate change information has been gathered in Laurel, Maryland to be digitized and analyzed. These notes from "citizen scientists" participating in the North American Bird Phenology Program (BPP) encouraged amateur ornithologists to record bird sightings around the United States and Canada.

"This is the longest and most comprehensive legacy data set on bird migration that we know to exist," said Jessica Zelt, who coordinates the North American Bird Phenology Program at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.

Alaska's Mount Redoubt has blown! View ash, quickly melting glaciers and wierd ash-induced heat lightning in the atmosphere here.

Wow, what a week. I got stood up two nights in a row, from two different guys. Some would say it's just the nature of men, but I blame our new Culture of Immediacy. With the help of new media, instant messaging and electronic handheld devices, flaking out is now easier than ever before. But maybe without all these conveniences they'd still be flakes.

I broke a rule in indulging one of them who had given me a mere 48 hours warning of his arrival in DC. Because as you see, all we do here in DC is sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for visitors to arrive to our city on short notice. Seriously though, I'd love to see you but give me at least week's advance notice, OK?

Anyway, while fortunately I didn't cancel anything to meet the first guy, I did state a time and place to meet. But finite points in the time/space continuum are difficult for gay men under 30 to conceptualize. Planning in advance is an annoyance to many, and apparently very challenging for most. Commitment is apparently an inconvenience for those who wish to do whatever they like.

Part of the problem is that a date takes a fairly significant block of time in my life, and I'm a pretty busy person. In the spring and fall I have to balance work, rugby, grad school class homework and sleeping. The infrequent blocks of time I do have available to meet with others are precious and few, so when they are wasted by other people's inconsiderate impulses, I get a little steamed up. Maybe I should just avoid dating or tricking at least until rugby is over. I just don't have the spare time to risk getting it wasted by flaky people.

It's sad when work is going better than my personal life. One would think it should be the other way around but I guess I'll count my blessings. I have good bosses, interesting work, and this week I was moved away from my cubicle existence between the two extremely chatty and entitled government workers who have nothing to do all day but jabber. I have a lot of work to do and I can do it, but I need to be able to think. It is much more peaceful in my new cube.

Normally I don't go for the clean shaven, but the Washington Capitals' Brooks Laich is strikingly handsome.

Adorkable deaf guy sign language guy signs to Britney Spears' "Womanizer." I wonder if he's from Gallaudet?

Some of my favorite rugby images from SanDanDiego's awesome photoblog:


And congrats to Ireland for their 6-Nations Championship Grand-Slam title for 61 years. Clearly I blessed them when I was there this fall. Here's Leinster's Felipe Contepomi:

We had a nice kickoff to the spring rugby season at Cardozo HS with four other Mid-Atlantic teams coming to visit. I was late for the match so I was demoted off the B-side for the first match, but ended up playing with the Nashville Grizzlies as fullback. Their team colors and uniform were flattering on me. I managed to catch a ball and kick it back to Skip in one play, gaining some yardage. Then we played the Philadelphia Gryphons who get better every year. I notice they don't experience the turnover that we do, and have more and more experienced players every year. That something to note, but we still won in an exciting 8-7 nail-biter. I played wing, which I haven't done in a while, but didn't get too beat up as I would playing flanker. TJ and 'boo even showed up with a banner that said, "Let Jimbo Play!" They seemed to be cheering but for what I'm not sure.

While I missed the first half of the Battlestar Galactica finale on Friday, the remaining hour did not disappoint. A lot (but not all) of loose ends were tied up and a lot of questions answered. I was particularly impressed by how clever they wove in the Opera House prophecy towards the end. Poor Tory - I'm sorry Galen got so upset with you, but you were a pain in the neck anyway.

They aired the Stargate: Universe trailer during the finale and it looks to be a suitable replacement for my sci-fi addiction. It stars Lou Diamond Phillips and that one guy from Trainspotting and 28 Weeks Later. We also have The Plan to look forward to.

Paul Rudd Tells Us 10 Things About Being Paul Rudd. I still haven't seen I Love You, Man nor Watchmen yet. Remember that hot Old Spice centaur commercial? Here's the sequel. I think he's cute when he snorts.

I'm on the B (2) side cuz I'm slow, old and bent. Matches are at 13th and Florida Ave., NW DC on Saturday:

1 Renegades 1 v Charlotte (11:30am)

2 Carolina/Nashville v Renegades 2 (12:15pm)

3 Philly v Charlotte (1:00pm)

4 Renegades 1 v Carolina/Nashville (1:45pm)

5 Renegades 2 v Philly (2:30pm)

6 Harlots (3:15pm) (people not involved in final but who would like to
play again)

7 Final (4:00pm) (2 teams with the best records over the day)

And I'm telling you this new Cardozo High School stadium is the shit with fabulous bleacher seats and cool astroturf. Come check it out. There will be hot dogs, but sorry no beer until later.

A snowy owl was spotted in DC this week. It's rare for this area, but fairly common the further north you go.

Erin go blagh. I drank plenty of Guinness this weekend so I didn't feel bad skipping out on drinking last night. Besides, I celebrated St. Patty's Day by being yelled at by an Irishman at rugby practice, who is one of our new assistant coaches. His grasp of the English language is pretty good and I actually understood what he was saying most of the time. We have two on the team and one is more understandable than the other. I somehow made it on a gallery of hot Irish guys on Queerty, even though I'm mostly Scandinavian and only about 1/4 Irish. Thanks Queerty - I'm flattered but could you ask permission to use a photo next time? It's good etiquette.

Star Wars v. Battlestar Galactica: A rhetorical exemption of accepted norms. Hat tip to Chris (look, see, I'm giving credit here) for this lead. The final episode of Battlestar is going to be this Friday. I'm looking forward to it but I will also be very sad. I think I only missed viewing one episode live, but have been a devoted fan from the start. But I think it's going to be a corker of a finale.

Our first set of matches for the spring season is this weekend at the fabulous new $4M Cardozo High School stadium on Saturday from 11:30 to 4ish. Competing teams include the Nashville Grizzlies, Charlotte Royals, Carolina Kodiaks and the Philadelphia Gryphons. It should be a good time as long as I don't get rug burn from that fabulous new astroturf. The pitch is located at 13th Street NW and Florida Avenue in Washington, DC.

Dustin Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox is kinda woofy:

Of course I must continue to insist that Youk is still the Alpha Woof of that pack. We'll call Pedroia Beta Woof.

I'm tired of all this:

All this killing, rolling dice, getting the attention-deficit-disordered gay gamers who drank too much Pepsi to pay attention. I can't take it any more so I'm passing to the torch to Mark. For the first time in almost 25 years I'm going to be a Player, not a Dungeon Master. It was due time so I'm not really broken up about it. While DMing doesn't take that much of a time investment, my final grad school classes are taking a lot more time than I thought they would this semester, so I'm fine with the transition. We're also switching to the controversial 4th edition of the game, and I plan on rolling up a star pact warlock half-elf from Aglarond in the Forgotten Realms, in case you were wondering.

But what really troubles me is that we have closeted gamers in our group. Yes, two of our members - who are "out" about their sexualities to their friends and families - are ashamed that they are gamers. The irony is not lost on the rest of us. I won't name names but one of the closeted gamers is photographed below, and the numerous tattoos on his arms might tip you off as to who he is:

In the photo this closeted player is clearly ashamed of his status as a gamer, so he hides from the camera behind a 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook. Rob, in the foreground, is clearly out and proud that he's a roller of dice with more than six faces.

The other closeted gamer in our group can be seen frequently at Cobalt and at Town danceboutique pretending to be a not-nerd. Closeted gay gamers walk amongst you all, every day, and the shame they choose to feel about the polyhedron dice they roll is as damaging as any self-loathing of any other categorization. All we can do is pity them. Photos by GURL.

Scientist Looks to Weaponize Ball Lightning. Mind Flayer foodie interviews. D&D 80s commercial. Gnomes are now classified as monsters with gorgeous lairs. "I'm a monster! Rawrrr!" 8-bit Dungeons and Dragons - "Satan's Game."

Having worked in the government food industry area, I found this article approving public consumption of salmonella to be hilarious. It's been a busy week and I have nothing to report other than:

There's an Annie Lennox CD release party this Saturday, March 14 @ OmegaDC, 2122 P St., NW Washington, DC 20037.

And then on Saturday, April 4 is the Stevie Nicks DVD release party @ OmegaDC.

And then there's also Blowoff this Saturday night at the 9:30 Club.

Fleetwood Mac was in DC this Tuesday but I was so out of it I didn't give a shit. The daylight savings time really threw me for a loop this week. On Sunday I was pretty much out of it, and was totally exhausted through yesterday. Today marks the first day since Sunday I've actually felt alert. I would go see Fleetwood Mac tonight but they're gone now. I'll never get the chance for Stevie to cast her spells on me.

Dollhouse and Buffy star Eliza Dushku eats what she kills.

Test your accuracy with the Duck Hunter game.

Horses were domesticated much earlier than previously thought - 5,500 years ago in Kazakstan. I drank some koumiss (fermented mare's milk) and ate horsemeat while I was there. Koumiss is supposed to be alcoholic but I couldn't/wouldn't drink enough of it to get drunk, and I thought the meat was kind of dry and tasteless.

This meat is neither dry nor tasteless:

Photo of Stephen and me by Michael Alexander in NYC on a Friday night at Star Lounge at The Chelsea Hotel for HX Magazine publisher Matthew Bak's birthday party. A Civil War reenactment followed the event.

More fur: me and Eric at Blowoff at Southpaw in Brooklyn, 2/21/2009.

Photo by Dr. Jeff.

I'm not sure exactly how doomed we are these days, but I keep hearing on the news we're kinda doomed. Well, I've dealt with doom before and while I'm no ray of sunshine myself, I have been hopelessly unemployed twice and I have some nuggets of wisdom and hope to share. Some of these tips may be obvious, but I learned more than a few of them the hard way:

• It's not the end of the world. You will survive. We will all be OK. You will work again one day and you will regret it. You will not be homeless. Your friends and family will take care of you and you will find ways to survive and pay rent.
• You will have to pinch your pennies. The top three easiest ways to do this is to cut out going to the movie theaters, restaurants and bars. Explain that and why you are cutting those out, and if your friends still want to be with you so bad they will cover your ticket or buy you a drink. Be sure to pay it back when they're in your shoes some day. Sacrifice a little glamour to keep food in yer tummy.
• Take care of yourself. Eat well, exercise, get lots of sleep and hang out with your friends a lot. It helps more than you think.
• If you are doing a focused job search and properly networking, the job hunt should only take about 4 hours a day. Don't waste your time driving yourself crazy by printing and broadcasting resumes until all day until 8 at night. Spend the rest of the time working out at the gym to relieve your stress, and getting back in touch with old friends over their lunch breaks.
• If you have a lot of skills and are getting unemployment checks, avoid temping if you can. I think it's a waste of time and you don't get paid that much anyway. If you must work, try to work out an agreement with a company you've networked with to fill their needs, not filling the needs of a temp agency. I had many, many bad experiences with temp agencies. Don't like 'em at all.
• Network, network, network. In each instance it was contacts through the rugby team that got me leads to new jobs. I would say 90% of all my job leads were through contacts and networking. Applying to ads in employment sections of the newspaper and broacast resume blasts doesn't work very well. Whine about your job search to your friends until they eventually get sick of you whining and start looking for jobs for you just to make you stop whining.
• The DC unemployment office was actually very sensitive and helpful and they got my checks to me in time. I was actually quite impressed. I hear DC is not experiencing as high an unemployment rate as other regions though. If you have issues dealing with handouts, get over it. It pays the rent and fills your tummy with food.
• Don't jump at the first job offer that comes to you without thinking about it first. Don't take a job you might hate later. Pretend like you've gotten two other fabulous job offers and you have to consider those too. Granted, your first job offer might indeed be fabulous, but there's a lot of desperation on your end at such a time that biases your decision making process.

Things you didn't know about the inspiration behind the classic arcade game Pac-Man inspire this shirt I want so bad. And the game inspires a short film, more inspired art and archaeological discoveries. Here's the artist's blog.

Wise and woofy Eric Leven shares some ancient gay history with us to give some perspective on today's struggles.

Oh noes! McGruff the Crime Dog assaulted by the 14th Street 52 bus line driver. And nearby a Starbucks employee packing heat accidentally shoots himself. They say it's the Starbucks on 16th and U, but I don't recall one being there. I think they meant he's from the one on 13th and U. I'm glad the Chinaman at G-Books was unscathed from either crisis.

Don't forget that tomorrow, March 5 is Dining Out For Life to support men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-challenging illnesses by contributing a percentage of their sales to Food & Friends. Everything is probably reserved already but it's worth a try. I'm gonna keep it real at a participating restaurant in P.G. Plaza catching up with Dreamy Ron. Here's some summer memories with him from Provincetown a few years ago:

Hello Readers:

I'm working on my graduate school research creating a public relations plan to measure and hopefully improve the awareness in caregivers about the importance of disaster preparedness. It's a hyper-specific demographic, I know, but somewhat related to my full-time job.

I need primary survey research data, and I created a short ten-question survey that shouldn't take any longer than 10 minutes to answer. Not all of you may qualify for this survey - but if any of you have provided care for another adult and live near a disaster-prone area (hurricane, tornado, floods, fire, earthquake, etc.), this survey is for you.

Please try to answer honestly if you can, your responses will help me test to see if this survey works right on the technical backend, and will help round out my survey responses. If there's a comment area and you're stumped, feel free to answer "I don't know." Here is the link to the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=2CmBpBG0ejwJnQcqxY2RhA_3d_3d

And if you know a current caregiver who may live in a disaster-prone area, please forward this survey to them! I appreciate it.

A caregiver can be defined as:

• A person who manages or provides direct assistance to a loved one who needs help with day-to-day activities because of a chronic condition, cognitive limitations, or aging;


• provides direct assistance which includes helping with Activities of Daily Living (ADL) like supporting the care recipient with getting in and out of the bed and chairs, dressing, getting to and from the toilet, bathing, dealing with incontinence or diapers, and with feeding;


• a person who provides Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) such as supplying transportation, housework, grocery shopping, preparing meals, arranging for outside services, managing finances, and giving medications.

The typical adult who fits this description is a 46-year-old woman who works, has at least some college education, and cares for her 75-year-old widowed mother who lives nearby. Many of these people also work and care for other family members as well with typical household chores.

Emergency readiness information for caregivers:

Caregiving in an Emergency
Family Caregiver Alliance National Center on Caregiving

Emergency Readiness Kit
Aging in Stride

Just in Case – Emergency Readiness for Older Adults and Caregivers
American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging

U.S. Department of Homeland Security:
Emergency Readiness for Older Americans
Emergency Readiness for People with Disablities and Other Special Needs

Preparedness Information for Seniors by Seniors
The American National Red Cross