Hey, it snowed a whole lot! What global warming?! Al Gore must be sad! Ha ha! How original. Also, not so much. Egads, I just agreed with something Thomas Friedman wrote.

I wonder where all the Tea Partiers of color are. On a related note, at least a few people are starting to figure out that things cost money. As I've said previous, it's way too easy to complain about taxes, but hard to say what services you want to cut.

But we all care about political gamesmanship more than actually getting stuff done, right? Frighteningly on-target, all the way through to the end.

You should know by know that Roger Ebert is awesome, and dare I say one of our best living writers. Will Leitch has a great piece on him too.

Olympic hockey item: Joe Posnanski on the Miracle on Ice.

Mascot news: Royals mascot sued for chucking a hot dog at someone.

Lastly, random awesomeness: Tony Bourdain on Yo Gabba Gabba. That OK Go video everyone is linking to. And Kiss takes over small-town Michigan in 1975.

Love this clip of Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly. Stewart presses O'Reilly on how, precisely, Obama is a socialist, and predictably O'Reilly comes up empty.

Lastly, many old ballparks aren't properly memorialized. Thus I appreciate this attempt to precisely locate home plate of San Francisco's Seals Stadium.

More importantly, though, this dish was a landmark: it meant I had made the 51st and final chili recipe from Jane & Michael Stern's Chili Nation, a cookbook featuring a chili recipe for every state in the U.S., plus DC. The chili-tamale thing represented Arkansas, where apparently they like to pile different foods on top of each other. I had been sitting on 50 for several years, actually; the amount of work involved in the recipe, plus Kristin's being allergic to corn (and thus not keen on tamales) led me to put it off for a while. But the Super Bowl seemed a prime opportunity to knock it out.

I'm surprised I haven't blogged about this book before. I picked it up when it came out in 1999 after a review in the Post, and I've quite enjoyed it. There are basically four types of recipes in the book:

• Chilis that are iconic to a particular state: Texas red, New Mexican green, Cincinnati-style for Ohio. Not surprisingly, these are pretty much the best recipes in the book.
  
• Recipes that came from an individual or a restaurant in the state: a beer-and-Jack "boilermaker" chili the Sterns picked up from a biker at the Sturgis rally in South Dakota, and the chili from Porubsky's Grocery in Topeka, Kansas. These are typically excellent.
  
• Recipes where the Sterns take a state-representive ingredient and add it to chili: chocolate from Hershey, PA, or coffee for Seattle. These are pretty good, with the exception of West Virginia "Fried Bologna Chili." Won't be making that again, thanks.
  
• State-representative recipes the Sterns have attempted to turn into chili, by adding chili powder and otherwise tinkering. These are more hit-and-miss. Some weren't entirely bad, like the Tennessee barbecue shrimp chili, or the Maryland crab chili, but aren't necessarily improvements on the original.

  And for your amusement, here are my top ten:
  

  1. South Dakota: Boilermaker chili. Pretty much everything a chili should be: spicy and filling, with the nice addition of beer and bourbon. The Sterns recommended Dallas Dynamite chili powder from Pendery's for this, and I'm grateful they did. That stuff is awesome.
     
  2. Nebraska: Chili over mac & cheese. This has become a staple in our house. I was skeptical about chili full of barbecue sauce, but now I like it.
     
  3. Arizona: Poblano, pork and cream cheese chili. It's unorthodox, but divine. The poblanos have a little bit of a kick, but it's offset by the cream cheese.
     
  4. Texas: bowl o' red. If the girls aren't home and I have an opportunity to cook for myself, I make this, as hot as possible.
     
  5. Ohio: Cincinnati-style. 'Nuff said.
     
  6. Alabama: beef & kidney bean chili from the Whistle Stop Cafe in Irondale. Tastes like the chili my mom made.
     
  7. Illinois: chili over macaroni noodles. Also makes frequent appearances in our house; spicier than the Nebraska one, and no cheese on the macaroni.
     
  8. Kansas: the aforementioned Porubsky's chili. Don't skip the horseradish pickles, they totally make the dish.
     
  9. Montana: green chili and pork stew from El Burrito in Billings. This is a bit more like the green chile stew I make, though I use like twice as much green chile, plus potatoes.
     
  10. New Mexico: bowl o' green. Now, I was highly skeptical of this when I first read the recipe, having lived in ABQ. Not enough green chile, and too much tomatillo and parsley, IMO; it didn't seem enough like the green chile stew I'd pick to represent the state (from the Frontier Restaurant, FTR). But I made it anyway, and it's delicious nonetheless.

I'll spare you my bottom five--suffice to say they can't all be great, but there's a lot more good recipes than clunkers. (Avoid California, though, if you know what's good for you.) If you want more, the recipes for Colorado, Minnesota (vegetarian!), and Florida are out on Epicurious. Being snowed in is a good time for chili, right? Get cookin'.

Southern Culture on the Skids "Nashville Toupee"
Joseph Arthur "Even Tho"
Sige Sigue Sputnik "21st Century Boy"
Pete Yorn "Murray"
Calexico/Iron & Wine "Red Dust"
John Hammond "2:19"
Stiff Little Fingers "Gotta Gettaway"
R.E.M. "Begin the Begin"
Guided By Voices "Liquid Indian"
Tricky "You Don't Wanna"

This weekend's storm has made December's original Snowpocalypse look positively quaint in comparison. For starters, last night's snow was the usual heavy, wet kind we get around here, which put a strain on all our trees and bushes. Fortunately, we did NOT see the 25-35 MPH winds some weather people were calling for, which may have knocked one of the trees over.

But more importantly, there was the matter of the power outage. It conked out at 5:30 this morning, and it turned being snowed in from vaguely fun to "Yeah, this pretty well sucks" in short order. Normally it takes about 36 hours before cabin fever sets in too badly, but no electricity, and therefore no TV, no Internet, no hot food, and not least of all no heat, put us all a bit on edge. We weren't too keen on taking the kids outside to play, either, what with the interior temperature creeping downward. Hard to get warmed back up with no hot cocoa and the temperature at 60 degrees. Fortunately, the power kicked back on at 12:30--just as we were trying to figure out if we could set up a sterno stove to heat up lunch. I have never been more thankful for hot soup. (I am also deeply thankful for our next-door neighbor and his snowblower.)

We joke a lot about Laura Ingalls Wilder's "The Long Winter," the most ridiculously blizzard-filled winter's tale ever put on paper. But this weekend has forced Kristin and I to conclude we'd be lousy pioneers. Ma and Pa did have a wood stove in their cabin, but I'd still venture to guess that place was colder than 61 degrees (the temperature in the house just before the power came back on). But we were bemoaning our fate, and wondering how low the temperature needed to get before we thought about going to a hotel. Modern wimps, we is.

Hooray for the fine people of Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative, however. After lunch we did go outside and attempt to dig out a bit. The girls waded through the snow, and we shoveled tunnel-like pathways from the house to the playset, much as I did as a kid. I cooked a nice dinner, and plans for Super Bowl Sunday pizza and chili are back on track. I can't wait to down a manhattan, then sleep for like ten hours.

I enjoy this counter-Westboro Baptist protest.

Canada: still awesome. Did you know they managed to avoid the financial chaos we've had over the past couple years? Is it just COINCIDENTAL that they regulate their banks and other financial institutions much more closely than we do? Because completely unchecked capitalism is always awesome, right?

Also, bipartisanship is crap.

Excellent piece by the excellent Joe Ponsnaski on the history of NFL Films. Via Jason and his Yankees blog, a canonical list of major league ballpark statues. I'm surprised the Nats rank so high.

Enjoy the snoo, people.

A pet peeve of mine is Republican/conservative types who shout that liberals are RUINING THIS COUNTRY and are coming to TAKE YOUR FAMILY AWAY AND EVERYTHING YOU HOLD DEAR OMG WTF. I keep looking for specifics ("Which part of the Constitution, specifically, do you believe is being 'trampled on?'"), because as far as I can tell Obama and Congress haven't really accomplished much. (I realize this is pretty much a tactic meant to rally the base and scare stupid people, rather than something most of them truly believe, but bear with me here.) I can't get over this item where Andrew Sullivan runs down what a true Obama-liberal utopia would look like at this point. Ain't a one of them things happened yet.

Speaking of right-wing rhetoric: Deficits matter! Unless it's a Republican administration. And don't cut defense spending or Medicare, and never ever ever raise taxes. But deficits matter!

Speaking of raising taxes--I likes me some online poker. So should the US Government, because they could tax the hell out of it.

Closer to home: Local food blogger spends a week in a DC school kitchen. Not surprisingly, it ain't pretty. I don't say this to attack DC schools, as it must be a completely thankless job (not just here but anywhere, and making food that's affordable, healthy, and palatable to kids is well nigh impossible. But it's an intriguing read, and clearly an area where we need better answers.

How do you feel about Lasik surgery? I always figured I wanted at least ten years of post-op side effects on the books before I'd even consider it. Looks like I was right to wait.

Great post by ?uestlove of the legendary Roots crew, now Jimmy Fallon's house band, on how the music industry handles royalties for talk-show walk-on music. Also, after reading his Rolling Stone article on their best moments so far, I Googled for the Elmo clip, except I put in Jimmy Kimmel rather than Fallon, and got this, which is just as good if not better.

Lastly, Mark Morford on our astonishing ability to be disappointed in everything.

On the other hand, the TSA does pretty well suck.

Roger Ebert is one of our best living writers, not just on movie reviews but on anything. Here's an interesting and touching piece on the inability to eat or drink caused by his cancer.

Lastly, enjoy this video of a Little League game taken to the next level.

In the spirit of the holiday, did you know that just about the entire nation of Sweden watches Donald Duck cartoons on Christmas Eve every year? I sure didn't.

Our great national double standard continues. When poor people default on a loan, they are lazy and stupid. When rich people do it, it's sound business strategy.

This long Posnanski piece on the new Negro League Strat-o-Matic set is well worth your time; I was on the edge of my seat by the end. I didn't have Strat-o-Matic; instead, I had the 1968 Cadaco spinner-based game, and played the hell out of it. Wonder if it's still at my mom's house somewhere.

Lastly: I posted my favorite Christmas song on FB yesterday, so now I'll give equal time to their other Christmas song. Merry Fishmas, everyone.

One of the DC blogs had a reference to Blelvis this week, and I hadn't thought of him in an age. That got me googling, and I found this Post article, complete with embedded Blelvis video.

I am one of the many with a Blelvis story--two of them, in fact. The first time, we were in Adams-Morgan--I think maybe Joel was with me?--when we were approached by Blelvis, all coming his sideburns. "I am the Black Elvis, I can sing any Elvis song, I can tell you anything about any Elvis movie." We tried to ignore him, but he followed us, so I said, "OK, I was flipping channels the other day and found an Elvis movie, and he sang this goofy song about the bossa nova." That was all it took, and Blelvis busted out a verse of "Bossa Nova Baby". (My favorite part of the video is Elvis pretending to play the organ without looking.) That was worth a dollar.

About a year later, a lady friend and I were again accosted by Blelvis. This time I was all "BLELVIS! My man!" He sang "Mama Loved the Roses" for her, and when it came my time to pick, I said "I wanna hear 'How Great Thou Art.'" "OK," he said, "but you have to sing the chorus with me." And so I had a quintessential DC-only moment, blasting out "How Great Thou Art" melodramatically with Blelvis on a streetcorner.

Where is Blelvis now? I don't get out in the city much anymore, so it's not likely I'll ever run into him again. But I hope he's still out there crooning.

1. Superchunk "Learned to Surf"
2. Santigold "Lights Out"
3. The Broken West "Perfect Games"
4. Company of Thieves "Oscar Wilde"
5. Man Plus "A Ghost is a Ghost"
6. Metric "Sick Muse"
7. Friendly Fires "Skeleton Boy"
8. Lykke Li "Little Bit"
9. Glasvegas "Geraldine"
10. Doves "Kingdom of Rust"
11. Silversun Pickups "Panic Switch"
12. Pela "Lost to the Lonesome"
13. Neko Case "Red Tide"
14. Grand Archives "Torn Blue Foam Couch"
15. The Avett Brothers "Ten Thousdan Words"
16. Bon Iver "Blood Bank"
17. The Temper Trap "Sweet Disposition"
18. Animal Collective "My Girls"

Drop a comment if you want to know how to get a copy.

I don't read Fake Steve Jobs often, but this tirade on AT&T is making the rounds. He's got a point.

Anyone who thinks sex discrimination is no longer a factor in today's modern world should read this. Not all that surprising, unfortunately.

Krugman on our continued inability to regulate financial institutions.

Lastly, holiday spirits: Look, someone improved on "Do They Know It's Christmas."

Some good questions about escalating in Afghanistan.

Awesome VF interview with Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil. More rock interviews should go down like this.

And now, The Prime Minister, Sinister Pete Nice, who is apparently an avid baseball memorabilia collector, and also sort of mental, apparently.

Mascot throwdown: Chad Ochocinco vs. the Minnesota Viking!

I am guessing this is inspired by the success of cookies & cream ice cream, a flavor I quite enjoy, and which makes sense there because it imparts a certain flavor and texture differential to the ice cream. But I am bewildered by the cookie offering, because they have in effect created a cookie-flavored cookie. If I want a cookie that tastes like Oreos, I could, you know, go buy some Oreos.

So where else can we take this? Can Pizza Hut make me a pizza that is topped with little bagel pizzas, or Totino's pizza rolls?

Actually, Jim Gaffigan may have been onto something with the Hot Pocket with a Hot Pocket inside.