reddit.com is not worthless

You might say that it's mostly full of stuff you don't care about.  But if I hadn't just checked it out tonight, I would not have seen this video of a gummy bear being placed in molten potassium chlorate.

Shakespeare in a Park

This is one of those "here's a great thing I found in Baltimore and I think they deserve a 'shout-out'" sort of posts:

The Baltimore Shakespeare Festival

Right now they are doing Twelfth Night at "the meadow at Evergreen house."  I'd never even been to Evergreen House, it's conveniently hidden between Loyola College and the College of Notre Dame of Maryland and inexplicably owned by JHU.  You should go catch this play or their next one (The Taming of the Shrew, July 18 - August).  The acting was fantastic and you couldn't ask for a more relaxing environment.  The play starts at 8 pm, as the sun is setting, you're far enough off the road that you can't hear any traffic, there's a small brook at the edge of the meadow, it's just awesome.  

We got there at 7:45 and were about the last people to show up.  Apparently everyone else knew that you're supposed to bring some wine and a picnic dinner... I'm totally doing that next time!  And, in case you forgot your wine or beer, it's available from the concession stand!

This is one definitely falls in the "Pro" category when you're considering living in Baltimore.

Crazy Fun Things to do in Federal Hill

I've lived down here in South Baltimore for 3 years now, so I'd consider myself pretty adjusted to the average Friday/Saturday night in the neighborhood.  Perhaps it's more like a building up a resistance to a drug, for some reason the same ol' hit of Cross Street just doesn't do what it used to.

It was with that in mind that I assumed a Federal Hill scavenger hunt would be just like any other party.  Perhaps a scavenger hunt is going to have the same mean fun level as a normal party but a much higher variance, because I was very, very wrong.  It was probably one of the most fun nights of my life.  Sure, I enjoy drinking as much as the next guy (although, in all honesty, possibly not as much as the next guy in this neighborhood), but this party also combined two of my favorite things to do while drinking:

1. Doing things - especially active, unusual, exciting things
2. Competing at things - especially pointless, fun, team-oriented things

Yeah, scavenger hunt was pretty much the ideal party activity for me.

It also helped that it was superbly planned and organized.  Everyone met up at one house, had a couple drinks, then we scavenged, then post-party at another house.  The lists were even laminated!  There were like 6 or 7 teams of 5 to 7 people, so there were a lot of people running all over Federal Hill looking for viryta or Chartreuse (from my favorite bar - Idlehour) or someone walking two dogs.  The best part was how welcoming everyone was in at all the bars.  By the second half of the hunt, we'd show up in a bar with our laminated list looking to sing karaoke and people would be like "Oh, you're with the scavenger hunt!"

Of course, what really makes or breaks the hunt is list.  The guys did a fantastic job with the Federal Hill Scavenger Hunt List.  Check it out and see what you think.  We had from about 9:20 PM until midnight to gather photographs of as many of those items/actions/places as possible.

My team actually won with 860 points.  It was a little unfair, 6 of the 7 people on our team are at least casual runners - so we used speed to our advantage.  I was definitely in a flat-out sprint to make it to the second house on time after deciding to go for those last 10 points at 11:55 PM.

My favorite picture of the night:

Human pyramid (worth 20 points) and picture with "The J&P guy" (Pete) (worth 10 points) in a single picture.  There's also some random dude spotting us.  And by "spotting" I clearly mean "hoping to get a chance to fondle that girl's ass."

So word from the wise: if you're like me and you enjoy "doing things" and "competing at things" while having a couple drinks - attend the next scavenger hunt you get invited to.

Oh, and wear practical shoes (definitely saw at least one girl in heels for this... that team was unable to compete with our teams' highly appropriate footwear).

2007 Lacrosse Champions!

I just returned from watching JHU win the NCAA Division I lacrosse championship game over Duke at M&T Bank Stadium. Hopkins played a great game, just handing it to Duke in the first half. Hopkins was up 10-4 at halftime and Duke was wandering around trying to figure out how it happened (hint: their goalie played like crap). Duke put on a pretty good run in the second half, eventually tying it at 11's before Hopkins scored in the last four minutes and then held off Duke for the rest of the game.

The last two minutes of defense from Hopkins was brilliant. They even had to play a full 1:00 of man-down defense, the goalie had some great saves, they just did not let Duke score by force of will alone. Really incredible, gutsy defense, the kind that wins championships. It was an exciting game and it was awesome to be present when your alma mater wins a national championship, I'm really glad I could be there.

On the other hand, it's a shame that the national sports media is acting so disappointed with the outcome. Just because the rape allegations against Duke players turned out to false doesn't mean that they are stand-up guys. But you read that AP article (the link above) and it's completely written from the standpoint of "look at this poor guys trying to have a come-back season after last year and mean ol' Johns Hopkins had the nerve to beat them." Come on, Hopkins was the underdog here. We were the #3 seed in the tournament, coaches polls at the end of the season had us as #5, Hopkins did a hell of a job getting to the championship game and upsetting Duke, the #1 seed. It could have been a story about the Hopkins team starting out at 4-4 and then ending the season at 13-4 with a national championship, but instead we had to hear about a bunch of guys who probably didn't sexually assault a stripper.

Why does every sporting event have to have some sort of drama behind it, why can't we just celebrate some guys playing some really good lacrosse?


PS - This is not to say that I think the JHU team is full of better guys than the Duke team. I mean, come on, half those guys probably went to high school together, they're essentially the same people. As much as I enjoy Hopkins dominating at lacrosse (hey, it's all we've got), I do admit that most lacrosse people strike me as annoying rich kids who think that they shouldn't have to follow the rules because they are a) rich and b) lacrosse players. I think it's the casual superiority that really gets to me. But whatever, at least it's fun to watch the game and my team is beyond good at it (Johns Hopkins has an all-time record of 871-272-15 in lacrosse (dating back to the 1890's), that's winning 75.8% of all games in the history of the program).

Operation Kitten Calendar

Here's something you may have already heard of, seeing as how I'm pretty much never on the cutting edge of neat things on the internet, but it's fun nonetheless. Acceptable.tv posts a bunch of video clips each week and people vote on which ones are funny. At least, that's the theory. I've neither watched their TV show or voted on anything yet, but I have enjoyed freeloading and watching their videos.

So far their "hit series" of videos has been something called "Operation Kitten Calendar." I highly recommend it as a great way to waste some time on the internet. Just search their videos for that title, so far there are five ~3-minute episodes, so with Verizon DSL and my wireless router, that's like 45 minutes of fun!

Here in My Arms

As an enormous hypocrite, I generally disapprove of user-generated content. The quality is usually very low and whenever I visit I site like YouTube, I feel like I'm adrift in a sea of pointlessness. I will, however, make an exception for personal recommendations. In very rare cases, I will even pass along such a recommendation.