ThayerAvenue.com

Real Estate in MoCo
This morning on the Today Show, Matt Lauer was talking to a couple of guests about the dramatic drop in home sales. Unfortunately you can’t see it online until after 11:00am (I assume because of our West Coast Gangsta friends), so this is a loose recollection of the conversation. One guest said, “Whatever you do, don’t buy a house.” Matt, in his infinite wisdom, responded by asking about the fact that so many fo the real estate issues are local, and some markets aren’t as bad. The response: “Okay, Matt. Maybe Seattle, 10005 (Manhattan), and Montgomery County, Maryland would be the only places I would buy anything.”

They love us! They really love us!

UPDATE: MSNBC has posted the video.

Rock for Renovation
The Old Blair Auditorium Project is os putting on a “Rock for Renovation” Benefit Concert this Saturday, September 29, from 7-10pm featuring Featuring Derek James (from NYC), The Fighting Janes, Neil Foley (Irish Fiddle), and Blair High School’s InToneNation (a cappella singing). That last one almost sounds like a local incarnation of Jazz Times 10, the omnipresent band on SNL’s “Wake Up Wakefield.” Man, nothing gets me out of a funk faster than Jazz Times 10 going klezmer.

Doug Who?
Who does Doug Duncan think he is, anyway? Trying to nab funding from Montgomery County to help build The Birchmere in College Park? I would have expected more from him. Thankfully, we have a County Executive who won’t let that happen and a Governor on our side:

Leggett raised the issue yesterday in a meeting with O’Malley (D). Afterward, Leggett spokesman Patrick Lacefield said, “We are wholly unconcerned about the future of the project.” O’Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said the governor told Leggett “that he would follow his lead on the important revitalization efforts taking place.”

Looks like they’ll tweak the language in the legislation to make sure the money stays where it should.

Magical Montgomery
As if there wasn’t enough to do this weekend, Magical Montgomery Cultural Fair is coming back on Saturday from 1-7pm.

As reported just about everywhere, The Birchmere appears to have inked a deal with College Park, and Live Nation is putting in a Fillmore in DTSS. How long have The Birchmere folks been talking to College Park? To Doug Duncan? Since before they and their supporters became incredulous at the breakdown in negotiations?

The bigger question is: Who cares? I don’t. If the Fillmore gets built, I will have gotten my wish. And the details of the Fillmore deal indicate a 500-person seating capacity, with 2,000 fitting in sans furniture. I think that can satisfy multiple groups.

I also saw some banter about the fact that Clear Channel owns The Fillmore. Yes, they are evil. No, I don’t listen to traditional radio (other than NPR) because of companies like them. (Long live Radio Paradise!) Yes, I think the payola people should be jailed and beaten. But you you know what? As long as they bring good acts on a regular schedule and make ticket prices somewhat accessible (as much as, say, 9:30), I don’t care if Clear Channel owns the venue. Quit bitching and either listen to the music or don’t. Buy a ticket or don’t. Or drive your happy ass to College Park and take in some sensitive-acoustic-folk-rock.

I also agree with Silver Spring, Singular that we should sell Prince George’s County our Birchmere banners and recoup some out-of-pocket costs.

Now for Something Completely Different
I left work after a morning meeting and spent most of my day yesterday playing Halo 3. Add me to what the Washington Post is calling “a Toll on the Worforce.”

Thank You.
First of all, thank you to the families (you know who you are) that so graciously put on the Thayer Avenue Picnic. Once again, a great turnout, great food, and great company. Something we always look forward to every year. Also got to meet the kiddies our Maggie will be growing up with for years to come. Looks like a great crop of overachieving youngsters.

Just Like an Episode of Cops
I was getting RCN cable, phone & internet installed on Friday (more on that in a moment), so I was home for the duration of the day. At one point about 2:30pm, I looked out my back window and saw two cops in the backyard next door with their guns drawn. Pretty cool, right? Well, my wife came home shortly thereafter saying that there were MoCo Police crawling all over the street. She had the chutzpah to stop and ask what was going on, and evidently there was a burgular that had been chased by the police in between the rows of houses between Thayer and Easley. They recommended she get in the house and stay there. Last update I heard was that he was chased out of the neighborhood, but not apprehended. Updates to the situation are welcome.

The Coming of RCN
A guy named Mike knocked on our door a little over a week ago with an offer from RCN Cable: Get loads of channels, telephone service, and the InterWeb with 20Mbps download speed for $109.99/month. I had seen some traffic on the listserv with generally positive comments about RCN and figured, with a “switch you back for free” guarantee, I’d give it a try. Here’s what I’ve deduced:

• The internet is blazing fast. I noticed it when I first opened up Firefox after the connection took hold. I’ll look forward to that with all the porn video and audio I upload/download/view on the Web.
• Got an HDTV box, and both that one and the standard digital version look as good as Comcast’s. The only issue is learning a new channel lineup and making sure TiVo is updated.
• SMTP outgoing mail server settings for RCN sort of piss me off.
• Make sure the phone works before they leave.

We rarely use our home phone. My in-laws call that number regularly, and we get lots of telemarketing crap that we usually ignore thanks to call waiting. (If the DNC is reading this, QUIT CALLING ME. I won’t give you any more money until you PICK somebody to run.) So the fact that the phone didn’t work after the technician left wasn’t that big of a deal – except for TiVo. For those of you that have a DVR, you know what I mean. It updates via the land phone line, and I felt like my left arm had been cut off. No updated channel lineup, no buffering – pure torture. We ended up going to Strosniders to get a 100-foot phone cord so TiVo could update from the one active jack in the house. Well worth the $10.98 it cost. And they’ll be here tomorrow to fix the phone permanently, thank the gods.

If you’d like to give it a whirl, call Mike Dato at 301-512-5775 and tell him that Eric sent you. I could use some referral bonuses.

Why Do I Need Referral Bonuses?
Excellent question. We went stroller shopping this morning (and that, in and of itself, makes me cringe as much as what you’re about to read), and we found out why Bugaboo strollers are so damn expensive: Because they ROCK. For a mere $900, you can get a stroller that defies any previous stroller technology and will last you through an entire Irish family’s upbringing. I’m always looking for the latest and greatest of anything I buy, and in the world of strollers (in which, it appears, I am firmly entrenched), these are the shit.

The reason I mention this is something a little more comedic. One of the stroller brands we looked at was “Quinny,” which is not cheap, either. Seems innocuous enough, but my wife’s comment was, “Isn’t that renaissance slang for vagina?” Turns out, she’s right. Sure, it’s the Urban Dictionary, but it was evidently referenced in the movie Elizabeth, as well. I’ll leave you to your own jokes about babies being rolled around in $500 vaginas.

Ahoy! Speakin’ like mateys thar be parrrr for the course, arrrggghhh!

Any drink specials at Piratz Tavern? A pitcher of grog, yarrrr?

Whenever there’s a big lag time in postings here, you can usually attribute it to a varitey of factors: too busy, too lazy, lack of motivation, and/or lack of material. In the end, it takes something specific to annoy me enough to get back in the groove. And sometimes, there’s nothing more annoying than a NIMBY.

I used to live on Dennis Avenue, and shortly before I moved to DTSS, I began receiving legal notices from KAZ Development about their efforts to change zoning laws and build something (retail? residences? I wasn’t sure at the time) on the current site of the Montgomery College School of Art & Design.

My old house is just a couple hundred yards from said site, but I really didn’t have any problem with it. First of all, we were planning on moving. Second, even if I wasn’t moving, what beef did I have? The walk to Forest Glen station was a little long, as was the trek to Wheaton Mall Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton, and it might be nice to have something closer to walk to.

Now I find out there’s some big movement to stop the development. The people at Green Space on Georgia think it would be great to have a big park there. Right by the road. Two blocks up from one of the worst-rated intersections in the region (Georgia & Forest Glen). And that doesn’t even include the fact that there are several parks within the neighborhood that are more secluded, less noisy and easy to get to. But that’s just me.

A friend of mine proposed that next time, just go for the gusto and propose a nuclear reactor for the area. Plenty of room for twin cooling towers and such. Then the townhome/condo development might not seem so out of line.

Now the East Silver Spring listserv is abuzz with the way GSOG was treated, that they weren’t heard, they were patronized during and the proceedings, etc. I’m no fan of Councilmember Praisner, but maybe they made the right decision.

On a different note…
Silver Spring , Singular writes that the Hook & Ladder brewpub, scheduled to go into the historic Silver Spring firehouse, may actually be a Matchbox. While I prefer the former, I’d love to have me some rockin’ mini burgers within walking distance. I’ve been known to make the trek to Matchbox in Chinatown just for that sole purpose. And no offense to Jackie, but while the mini Elvis burgers are tasty, they just don’t cut it like these babies.