Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Terps v. UCLA: 30s Review

Terps lost to #1-ranked UCLA last night. First half was terrible - UCLA is a great defensive team, but the Terps were awful. Too many turnovers. Vasquez needs to calm the hell down. Hayes needs to shoot more, a lot more, or else Gist and Osby will face double and triple-teams all year. One of the freshmen and/or Landon Milbourne - who looked good in brief stretches - need to step up to provide additional offense.

The Spree, Live!

On Saturday night, we ventured out to Ram's Head Live (our first time catching a show there) to see the Polyphonic Spree. While the acoustics were hard to judge - with 23 people on stage, the sheer cacophony can be a bit overwhelming - Ram's Head is a cool venue. As for the Spree, well it's seriously a performance that you have to experience. Any description won't do it justice, so I'm just not going to write one. We did wonder if we were seeing the energy level of a typical show, considering that it was the last night of this particular tour (and also founder and lead singer Tim DeLaughter's birthday), so I guess that means that we'll just have to see them some other time, to put that question to rest.

Not a problem at all though; they definitely go on my short list of acts that I've already seen, but that I would go see again and again, whenever opportunity presented [others on the list: the Police, Elvis Costello, Garbage, Harry Connick].

Friday, November 16, 2007

Strange Trips

Soon after our trip to Tanzania earlier in the year, Jenny and I started thinking about where to go next. We haven't really made any decisions, although we think we've 'narrowed it down' to Eastern Europe or South America. But something on TV last week got me thinking about less conventional destinations.

The TV piece was on Greenland, and how it received 30,000 visitors in the past year. Yeah, Greenland! Strange. But what caught my attention was that this report mentioned that direct flights on Air Greenland were available from...Baltimore! Their website isn't that easy to use; no flexible-date option, so it took a bit of trial-and-error before I figured out that there aren't any flights available during the winter months. I was finally able to get some results from a search for July 2008 flights from BWI to their hub in Kangerlussuaq. I'm not sure whether that's the best time to visit Greenland, but it still isn't cheap - 2,790 Denmark Kroner, each way! That works out to about $550 each way, so not too bad considering the lack of competition on the route. But from there, many locations are only accessible via helicopter, so transport costs are bound to be be significant.

How about something a bit closer to home, like the Creation Museum in Kentucky! It takes visitors back in time thousands of years, when dinosaurs and man coexisted. This review contrasts the Creation Museum with the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum in D.C.

Finally, what globe-trotting adventurer wouldn't relish the opportunity to take a spin on the Axis of Evil? That's right, North Korea!!! This guy hit the entire Axis, but I'll assume that most people are on a budget and don't enjoy getting shot at or blown up, so North Korea seems like the safest choice. This trip can be a tough ticket if you're an American though, so plan ahead; I actually couldn't find any current travel packages that allowed U.S. citizens. I'll keep looking though - in case Greenland has melted before we make our way there for a visit, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is an excellent fall-back destination. Besides, who wants to go to Kentucky for vacation?!?

UPDATE: After some additional searching, I found a North Korea tours operator that is currently in operation, and that takes U.S. travelers (whether those travelers' Visas get approved is out of the company's control, though).

Monday, November 12, 2007

One-Question Pop Quiz

OK, what's scarier:

a) the apparent need for this sign in Korean toilets

b) the fact that Larry Craig is still a U.S. Senator

Friday, November 02, 2007

United, They Fall

I cheered on the home side, D.C. United, at what turned out to be their final game of the season, a 2-2 draw with Chicago in round one of the MLS playoffs. Since they lost the first game of the home-and-home series 0-1, they lost on aggregate and the Fire advance. It was a game that United deserved to lose after what can only be described as lackluster play over the first sixty-plus minutes. The last twenty-five minutes were another story entirely, with United seemingly finding themselves, and playing at a much faster pace and with great urgency. The crowd was delirious when Christian Gomez put one in during added time to make it 3-2, comeback complete! But the goal was waved off because of a marginal handball by Gomez that was pretty clear on replays. D.C. just didn't get it going in time, period. Still, a thrilling and entertaining end to the season for United, even if they didn't get the desired result.