3 posts tagged “dc”
I went to the Stump! Trivia night at Madam's Organ the other night. (It was the wrong Tuesday for Ben Andrews, my favorite bluesman, but that's a hymn for another time.) It was my first outing to one of these bar trivia nights, and I have to say that winning the first time out really skews my perception of the scene. I had gone in expecting crowded tables, belligerent nerds arguing technical points about their answers, and cutthroat competition... kind of like the academic competitions I took part in back in middle and high school. Perhaps middle and high school academic competitions would have been different if we'd had Guinness on tap and David Bowie on the PA, as they did at Madam's that night. After the third or fourth time I'd rushed to get my team's (correct) answer in as soon as possible, I started to get embarrassed that I was taking this seriously; indeed, that I was paying attention to the other teams beyond the sauciness of their names (team Penis Mightier takes top honors for simultaneously being literate and raunchy) was, I now realize, something of a faux pas.
Fortunately, given the team I was with, we were able to both relax and kick ass in minutiae. Team No Homers Club included a globe travelling Foreign Service Officer who regularly crosses off titles from the New York Times bestsellers list; a Boston-raised lawyer with encyclopedic knowledge of baseball, American politics, and The Simpsons; and myself. I claim that my strength is literature and general trivia, but the sadder truth is that I'm an IMDB and Onion AV Club junkie, and I know ridiculous details about movies and series I've never even watched. (Case in point: I missed that question about who Megan Fox was because I didn't know all the actors in the 2007 Transformers movie, but I can tell you that the male lead was Shia LaBeouf, who also starred in Holes, and I can pronounce his name properly.) Between knowing where La Paz was, recognizing university mascots, and connecting Don Herbert with his most famous television role, we stayed in the lead all night despite being the next-to-smallest team.
First prize, which is being held in trust by our lawyer friend, is $30 in bar credit that can't be used until next trivia night. Given the pleasantness of our victory (my first), I am perfectly content to return to this scene and never win again as long as they keep the Guinness and "weepy British music."
Here's a reconnoiter of the Taqueria Distrito Federal:
- It is located at the corner of 14th and Oak St NW, about an eight minute walk from the Columbia Heights Metro.
- You can get three tacos for $5, and you will be stuffed afterwards.
- The pork, chorizo, and goat tacos are fantastic.
- The shop carries bottled Coke imported from Mexico. The difference in taste is noticeable, pleasant, and a little exotic (unless you're Mexican, in which case I imagine it's a little nostalgiac).
I've been there twice so far. I'd happily go there again rather than stand in line for The Heights down the street.
I love DC; 14 years in this city (give or take a year or two) and there's still places I'm just now discovering. This past Sunday morning, it was the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. Acres and acres of swamp, marshes, and lotus ponds, right there by the Deanwood Metro stop. Despite the morning's heat, my visit was far more pleasant than I expected in a park whose main attraction is basically brackish, standing water. Apparently, when the standing water is part of a complete marsh ecosystem, there's enough predators that mosquitoes aren't the big problem they are in my own back yard. I have plans to go back in a month or so and check out the boardwalk portion of it.
