SnarkInfested

02/24/10 Tamara Darvish of DARCARS in Silver Spring, MD rallied with Toyota dealers from across the country at the U.S. Capitol to tell Congress that (among other things) the recall record of the Japanese automaker is much better than that of its Detroit rivals.

02/22/10 Music superstar Shakira unveils Hard Rock’s Shakira Artist Spotlight t-shirt and bracelet benefiting her Pies Descalzos Foundation Monday night at Hard Rock Cafe’s DC location.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO SNIPPET!

02/21/10 Chinese New Year’s in DC’s Chinatown celebrating The Year Of The Tiger on H Street, NW.

02/21/10 Yesterday’s Open Studio went well and I want to thank everyone who came out. It was a fun shoot which included photographing an author who is writing a children’s book about a super hero she is portraying. She had a custom made costume which included a cape! We took a lot of pix of her running, punching and jumping.

It will take me a while to photo edit all the images but here’s one of Roxy. She’s one of my favorite models . . .

Model: Roxy

Makeup: LaT

02/18/10 The Dalai Lama was in town today to meet with his fellow Nobel Prize recipient President Obama at the White House.

[After the meeting, a crowd gathered outside the Park Hyatt Hotel attempting to catch a glimpse of the Tibetan holy man.]

[The Dalai Lama came out to greet the crowd outside his hotel.]

[Shouting "Long live Dalai Lama!"]

[This man seemed overcome with emotion after seeing the Dalai Lama.]

02/18/10 DC Fashion Week is upon us in case you were unaware and in Washington, Fashion Week revolves around the embassies. Last night I checked out “Planete Chic Presents Fall 2010 Collections” at the Mexican Cultural Institute. There were three designers in the show; Mexican designer Artemiza Cruz was showing her LAVILL F/W 2010 collection; Serbia-based Tatjana Tatalovic was showing her TATA F/W 2010 collection and Argentina-based Ruben Gonzales was showing his haute couture F/W 2010.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO SNIPPET

[Kate Michael wearing Ruben Gonzales.]

[LAVILL collection.]

[TATA Collection]

[TATA Collection]

[Samba demonstration between designers.]

[TATA Collection]

[Miss DC Jen Corey was in a bridal gown by Argentina-based designer Ruben Gonzales for the finale of the show.]

02/17/10 Turns out I picked up one of the “must have” items from the Vancouver Olympics without even leaving town. USA Today reports on the huge popularity of the $10 pair of red mittens with the Olympic logo on one side and the maple leaf emblem of Canada on the palm. Demand has completely exceeded supply. The original run of 1 million pairs has been changed to a projected 3.4 million pairs. USA Today: “But they’re hard to get. They’re currently out of stock on the Vancouver 2010 site. Hudson’s Bay has them in stock in stores, but isn’t licensed to ship them outside Canada. Some folks are turning to eBay and paying twice the price, or more.”

Here’s a similar story from Yahoo Sports.

I got mine the easy way by attending the the opening night ceremony watch party at the Embassy of Canada last Friday night. All of the guests coming into the party got a pair.

[Bro Tim shows off the mittens at the Embassy of Canada's opening ceremony watch party.]

USA Today Red Mitten Slide Show here.

Speaking of the games and photos, Foreign Policy magazine has a cool slide show called “Olympic Outliers: Forget the Jamaican bobseld team. This year, there’s a pack of Olympic underdogs from countries that aren’t well known for cold-weather sports.”

And here’s a story from Yahoo Sports on the “semi provocative pose” by skier Lindsey Vonn on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Winter Olympic preview issue.

02/16/10 General Raymond T. Odierno, commander of Multi-national Forces-Iraq, offers his insights into the future of Iraq at an event hosted by the Institute for the Study of War Tuesday morning at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, DC.  He is noted for being one of few Army generals in history to command a division, corps and entire theater in the same conflict.

General Odierno will brief President Obama and Vice President Biden on the situation in Iraq Wednesday at the White House.

[02/15/10 8pm Jefferson Pl. NW DC]

02/16/10 Last night, at Public Bar, hosts Kate Michael, Ebong Eka and Sonya Gavankar celebrated 1 year of The District Dish with a taping before a packed house of well wishers. This fun, DC centric show is the brainchild of Kate who is also the show’s booker. She manages to get some interesting guests to stop by (last night’s included Keith Center, frontman for band, The Dreamscapes Project and Sophie Pyle from Blonde Charity Mafia) and the show is unique in that it tapes not in studio but at a different local dining establishment for each episode.

[The hosts chat with Matt Paxton of Clutter Cleaners, as seen on A & E's "Hoarders." In response to a question about the worst thing he'd ever had to clean up from a  house filled to the brim with junk; he told a story of one person who'd kept a bag of 20 or so dead rats. ]

[Kate retelling the rat story.]

UPDATE 02/24/10 I stand corrected. It was 100 rats.