Not To Be A Pest, But the (G)nats Aint Drawing Flies!

I noticed this morning that Grandy and Andy have gotten around to discussing what I've been reporting for the past week (here and here)... that the Nationals are having real problems drawing fans. For the record, the team has played seven games now at its new 43,000 seat ballpark, including a weekend set against the Braves... On Friday night, a beautiful night for baseball, 28,051 tickets were sold... 32,532 on Saturday... and on Sunday, the teams drew 29,151. Seven games... one sellout.

Now, I'm sure there are still plenty of fans out there who will eventually make their way down there to catch a game, and that some folks may be waiting for the initial traffic problems to shake out before they venture forth. But here's the real truth, folks. 1/ There is not enough, and there will never BE enough affordable parking... and 2/ They've already expanded the Navy Yard Metro station to handle subway traffic, but even with the expansion, the station can only handle 15,000 people an hour. That means it could take 2 hours to get every fan on a train on a busy night.

Now let me ask you... If you had to wait 2 hours just to get ON a train after a game, how many games would YOU go to? I thought so. I'm telling you - We've got trouble my friends... right here in (Anacostia) River City...

Thank You, Honda!

This is my 1997 Honda Civic. We bought it new in July of that year, trading in my wife's old Plymouth Horizon for 500 dollars, and walking away with this car for just a couple of hundred bucks over cost. I had a choice between the optional cassette deck or the optional CD player, and of course went with the more popular option... the cassette deck! After all, I had all those mix tapes at my disposal... and no one had ever heard of burning their own CDs! The sales manager at Sport Honda in Silver Spring gave me a good deal because I had just purchased two Hondas from him for WMAL that are still being used today as news vehicles. This practice tells us two things, but since I am sworn to take the high road, I will only make the second observation. Hondas are built to last!

I love my Civic. It is neither plush nor cool, and it has a couple of battle scars thanks to a couple of scrapes with pillers in the Jenifer Street garage over the years. However - it gets nearly 30 miles to the gallon, and it is reliable with a capital R. It could also make the drive to Connecticut Avenue to my old job by memory after more than a decade of commuting. The reason I'm writing about my Civic now is that we have observed an important milestone - Today, it reached the big 100 K.

The milestone was reached in Gaithersburg, near the Quince Orchard Swim Club, where I was dropping Brad off for a community service project he was involved in. We reached the pool with a mile or so to spare, so I drove around a traffic circle at a nearby school a half dozen times so we could experience the big flip together. A true father-and-son bonding experience!

It was especially signficant that I shared this moment with my oldest son. He is going to be 15 this fall, and it is certainly possible, if not likely, that the Civic will someday be Brad's first car. My first car was my grandfather's 1972 Ford Maverick, which was on its last legs when I inherited it, and which was spewing oil and smoke within a few months on its way to the scrap heap. I'm betting Brad will be getting a much better deal a couple of years from now!

Add This To Your List Of Things To See Before You Die!

Well, I rolled out of bed this morning, and fired up the desktop to look for something to blog about, and Yahoo had my answer for me right on the front page:

Kilauea Volcano has exploded again. Officials say a small explosion that sent rocks more than 200 feet up onto the rim of the volcano's main Halemaumau crater occurred Wednesday night, hours before the park reopened.
The park was evacuated Tuesday and remained closed Wednesday because of elevated sulfur dioxide emissions.
The U.S. Geological Survey says Wednesday's blast at Halemaumau crater was much smaller than a similar explosion in March, but still enlarged the new vent in the wall of the crater about 15 to 30 feet.
Scientists say they found lava splatters and rocks ejected by the blast, which also contained volcanic glass shards.
They say there is increasing evidence that molten lava is collecting about 300 to 600 feet below the new vent.


Now - this might sound pretty frightening and dangerous (and it is), but that's what makes Volcanoes National Park so fascinating to visit. I've been a lot of interesting places... Luray Caverns... Colonial Williamsburg... even South of the Border! - But none of them can possibly compare to the site of seeing and feeling hot steam venting from the ground or watching fountains of boiling lava explode as it pours into the sea.


Unfortunately, the last time we visited the volcano last summer, it was during a quiet period, and there was no visible lava flowing at the park. But in previous trips, we were able to hike in from the end of the road and watch nature's fireworks. There is no Disney theme park ride (yes, I said it, dammit!) on Earth that can match the thrill of seeing the goddess Pele do her thing!

Now, as I mentioned, we did not see live lava on the last trip, but Mrs. Matthews did manage to find several small pieces of shiny lava rock known as "Pele's tears". These are valued because they are smooth and shiny, as opposed to most lava, which is rough and dull. Mrs. Matthews was tempted to pocket the pebbles, but the boys and I forced her to toss the rocks down a vent shaft instead. It is considered KAPU (forbidden) to take lava away from the volcano. Whether that's merely an old wive's tale or not is unclear... But you remember what happened to Bobby and Cindy Brady when they took that idol from the construction site in Hawaii... Big time KAPU! We weren't taking any chances!

Ponder THIS Around The Flavia Machine!

This story requires no further comment from me. From The Daily Mail of London:

World's most expensive coffee at £50 a cup comes to British stores...and it's made from cats' droppings

It might not be to everyone's taste - and that's not just because at £50 a cup it's the most expensive coffee in the world.
The secret behind the special blend about to go on sale at an upmarket department store is that it is made from cats' droppings.
While such an ingredient might leave many spluttering into their cups, Peter Jones thinks it is on to a winner.
For the rest of April, it is serving espressos, Americanos and lattes made from the droppings in its in-store coffee shop in Sloane Square, central London.
And for those who want the ultimate talking point over the after-dinner mints, the coffee beans are also on sale at £50 for 100 grams.
The store, part of the John Lewis partnership, has bought 60 packets of the exclusive blend of Jamaican Blue Mountain and the Kupi Luwak bean.
The bean is rare, with less than 450lb harvested each year.
The beans are extracted from the droppings of the palm civet, a cross between a cat and a monkey which lives in Indonesia.
The civets eat the soft coffee cherries, digest the fruit pulp and excrete the beans on the forest floor, because they cannot digest the beans.
Plantation workers then collect the beans, which are sold as Luwak coffee.
The civets are said to pick the best and ripest coffee berries.
It is also thought that their gastric juices may add to the flavour.
Now Peter Jones customers can taste flavour for themselves, with all proceeds from sales going to a cancer charity.
One, 23-year-old Hannah Silver, said: "I was a little apprehensive before I tried it but I actually really liked it. It was very earthy and it tastes very smooth.
"It wasn't too bitter and the earthiness really came through - probably because of where the beans have come from.
"It is a delicacy so I can definitely see someone wanting to pay £50 for this, perhaps for a present."
A Peter Jones spokesman said: "We wanted to give our customers a really special experience."

Katie - Don't Bar The Door, USE The Door!

It looks like Katie Couric's days as anchor of the CBS Evening News are more or less officially numbered now, as it has become apparent she is never going to rise out of the basement in the ratings race against NBC and ABC. I say the sooner she leaves, the better, and that she never should have been hired to begin with. This is nothing against Katie Couric. I think she is a fine journalist. I must also confess to having a sentimental affection for her because, like me, she is both a DC area native and a former WMAL intern. But the fact is that no one, man or woman, would have brought CBS out of the ashes in the post-Dan Rather era, and handing that task to Katie Couric was simply a disservice to her. CBS would have been better off shelving the Evening News altogether, and that's what they should do now.

Look at the demographics - Very few people under the age of 60 faithfully watch network evening newscasts, and many of the seniors who do tune in do it out of habit. They're not going to change their routines. My 72-year-old mother-in-law watched Cronkite and Rather, and she watches Couric now. If Bozo the clown replaces Katie, she'll watch him, too. There's virtually no potential for building a new audience there, so why pay Katie Couric 15 million dollars a year to inevitably fail?

Between NBC, ABC and CBS, about 19 million people watch traditional evening newscasts, so there is still, for now, a viable market for that particular product. But for how much longer? The future is digital, not TV news. In a speech earlier this week, Disney chief Bob Iger waxed wishfully that ABC News had the same level of resources as CNN, so it could even the playing field in online news. Iger doesn't seem to be too occupied with the future of TV news, does he? Meanwhile, CBS is considering making a deal to outsource much of its news product to CNN.

Am I, a traditional media person, shooting myself in the foot by discussing all of this? Perhaps, but I'm adapting to the present. New blog... New website (coming soon).... New Facebook account... Social media is the future. What is NOT the future is the CBS Evening News. It, in fact, IS your father's Oldsmobile.

How 'Bout Them Nats?

A quick update this morning to my Tuesday blog, in which I discussed the inevitability that the Nationals season attendance in their new stadium will be a disappointment. The park is tough to get to after the evening rush hour, and DC has fairweather fans. Last night, with the temperatures in the 60's under balmy skies, the announced crowd was 23,340 - that's tickets sold, not butts in seats. The stadium looked much emptier than than that when I flipped past the game on TV, but by then, of course, the Nats were trailing the Marlins, 10 - 2. I'm just sayin'.

Making Myself Younger Is Making Me Old!

After studiously avoiding it for most of my career, I am now belatedly learning the value of networking... that the next person I meet may be the source of my next job. With that in mind, and after a prodigious amount of prodding by my millennial associate, Jen Richer, I have joined the world of Facebook! What an eye-opening experience this has been! In a matter of minutes, I found myself potentially in touch with hundreds of people - many of whom I do not know... and many of whom I'd like to forget! Just by enrolling, it gave me a much better grasp as to the marketing potential and potential reach of social media - how each individual person has the ability now to slice and dice and customize his or her world according to his or her interests, yet at the same time, reach out globally to virtually everyone they've ever known. Surfing around, it quickly became clear just how much of a generation gap exists in the world of communications. I did a search for people in my high school class - Springbrook '79 - and found about a dozen of my classmates have discovered Facebook. By the same measure, I bet if my friend, Jen, did a similar search, she'd be able to account for virtually her entire class!

This whole Facebook affair has caused quite a stir in Chez Matthews. When the Missus heard that I'd signed up, she became immediately suspicious. It's that generation gap thing again.... Robin hears the word Facebook, and it conjures up visions of perverts trying to arrange sex online with cops posing as teenage girls... Meanwhile, when my 14-year-old son found out Dad had a Facebook account, he immediately asked for an account of his own. He was disappointed to learn that Dad signed up purely for "business reasons", and that even in my newly enlightened state, I'm not ready to supervise my OWN account yet, let alone worry about what his hormone-afflicted brain would do with his own page!

There's gotta be a way to marry my traditional media background to this new-ish concept of personal social media. At the crossroads where those two forms meet may very well be where my future career will be waiting... I hope.