I spent this past weekend in Washington, DC, for a trash tournament at GW. I love DC, but this was the umpteenth time I've been there and not done any sightseeing or gone to any of the Smithsonian family of musuems. I really have to change that soon.

In any event, flew down Saturday morning (nothing to note there other than I was at the airport incredibly early, more due to when I got a ride into Boston rather than security concerns), got to BWI, got picked up, and it was off to the hotel, possibly the nicest Red Roof Inn I've ever stayed at.

From the picture, you can't tell that the hotel is smack dab in the middle of Chinatown. I didn't even know DC had a Chinatown. And, from walking around during the afternoon, there didn't appear to be a lot of Chinese in Chinatown. Biggest reason for that, we figured, was the MCI Center (home of the Caps and Wizards), which apparenly hosted events that afternoon and night. I imagine there have to be some Chinese folks living there, as in an apparent sop to the community one of the MCI Center signs has some Chinese on it (we assume it was "MCI Center" in Chinese, but none of us know the language).

As some would expect from having a relatively new arena in the area, the neighborhood is gentrifying nicely. There are still a lot of small Chinese restaurants, but Starbucks and Fuddrucker's have popped into the neighborhood as well. I would especially point out the latter, thanks to their overpriced hamburgers (and combo meals that don't include the drink!). Once KaBloom shows up you can kiss the old 'hood goodbye.

Didn't do much else, though we did wander around the outside of the National Building Museum while killing time before checking in. We also stumbled across the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, which was interesting in that the sculpture part of it seemed to have lions threatening cubs rather than protecting them, even if protection was the intent. Other than dinner at the Capital City Brewing Company (which I recommend), it was a quiet day.

The tournament went well inasmuch as we won, but was not the most logistically pleasant event I've been involved with. There's trouble afoot when driving to and from GW's campus isn't the most frustrating part of the day (suffice it to say Pierre L'Enfant was successful when devising a street plan that would counfuse an invading enemy, and what he didn't do the feds have finished by plopping buildings in the middle of streets). My top three issues with the event:

1. No opening meeting at all. Not even a "you get one lame per round, no other special rules, go play!" This led to some confusion, and prevented someone from asking about how they'd break a standing tie to determine playoffs. That problem arose when three teams tied for the last spot (and, for the love of Mike, please don't create a schedule where not all the teams that could be involved in such a tie don't play each other so head to head is invalidated).

2. Editing to make questions more "interesting" at the cost of accessibility. Example: we had a question about Sigourney Weaver and her dad Pat, who was involved in creating both the Tonight Show and Today. For whatever reason, it was changed to include a third required answer in the form of Doodles Weaver, Pat's brother and Spike Jones collaborator. If you've heard of him, you're the first person I've met who did. What compounds this problem is that my team is already known for writing difficult packs, and we'll get blamed for it!

3. The GW folks have devised a music quiz called Heavy Rotation where clips are played and you try to name the tune and the artist. I've no problem with it per se, but it tends to add an hour to 90 minute delay to things, which for a one day tournament is deadly, especially if (like this one) the tournament runs late anyway. With an announced end time of 6:30, I figured I'd have plenty of time to make my 8:50 flight. As it was, we probably didn't get on the road until about 7:45. Should they continue to do this, I may just stop going to the tournament, as I really don't want to have to start making flight plans for 10 PM or (worse) stay an extra night if I don't have to.

For winning the tournament, the team got one of those singing hamsters that trills "Kung Fu Fighting" while making karate moves and spinning a mace (which isn't a martial arts implement, but I digress). I was thinking of laying claim to it so I could face it off against the one my office mate has, but his is about twice as tall. So I begged off (Chris got stuck with it, as he seems to get stuck with most of the prizes), but did get a copy of M*A*S*H in Morocco, which was cool.