I drew this portrait of Ana last night. She says it looks like Mark David Chapman, I say it looks like Mark David Chapman with horns and fangs.
Marty sends along this picture of me at work last New Year's Eve. Marty lives in Switzerland or somewhere now. 
It's hard to have a bad trip to the beach, it turns out. Even with no sun, and when somebody's car breaks down on the way, the ish still rulez.
The ruling, it turns out, has much to do with being an adult and getting to do whatever you want.
Like, say, eating a snow cone and a caramel apple AT THE SAME TIME.
Or spending $20 on carnival games in exchange for a toy truck and three Dum-Dums.
Like this kid, who was enraptured by the claw.
Really, the entire point of going to the beach is to go to the bars. Or, in the case of Ocean City, the bar. The Bearded Clam, that is. The greatest bar in the world. Why, you ask? Because when you get up from your seats at the nearly-empty bar, they put a reserved sign. Cuz they know you're coming back.
And because they have all sorts of quasi-vintage beer paraphernalia, like this Bud sign which seems to have something grammatically wrong with it. Either way, though, it's still hard to argue with being Uniform and Distinctive at the same time. Just like America!
We stayed at Boss Boss's condo, which was likely built by Khrushchev, and which features a) the least-helpful exit diagram ever,
and b) the best beach-themed lamp ever.
Also, Ana was there!
Bad news.
We had sunglasses.
Who, me? Yes, both of us.
Look! Two dudes with beards. Shocker.
Dudes with beards sometimes chat with each other.
That lady with Hamouda reappeared.
If I were an ad executive looking for someone to advertise something related to kicking, I would hire Patrick. 
Poses.
Best tattoo ever.
Let's start this off right, Vegas-style, with a picture of a bakery in the airport.
What is more Vegas than Breadz?
Next is the second picture of a 24-hour bar that I've taken in the past month. Do you know what that means? Good month.
Next would be a couple dozen pictures of the inside of the casino we stayed at, including but not limited to the Dealertainers® (celebrity look-alikes who perform and also deal blackjack), but it's Vegas and they don't like cameras. So pictures of novelty drinks must suffice.
How this for suffice? 40 ounces of daiquiri in a plastic guitar. In the mall bathroom, natch.
Then disperse with the novelty drinks for the real drinks. Why? Cuz we're getting ready to go to the club, that's why.
(Aside: when you find a Sedaris book in the hotel bathroom, you know your friend is white.)
Hey, are you guys going to the club? Yes? Thought so.
What are you dudes doing? Oh.
What happens twelve hours later? Your body reminds you that you are a jackass.
But whatever there is still time to go to Fremont Street and eat fried Oreos.
In Fremont Street, you may remember, there is an experience that people take pictures of for some reason.
Other people buy Oakland Raider earrings and sparkly hats.
Oh, and some of the hats have lights in them.
Like this one the Chad is wearing. It is a USA hat.
Finally, we went to the El Cortez, which is noteworthy because it rules.
Then we came home to find that Junes had stocked our joint with Canadian chocolates
and New Glarus. Both of which are delicious.
Then we slept for 17 hours.
At RockHouse®, the Rock-themed/Beer Pong fake club attached to our hotel, Hamouda wore a singlet/jumper/onesie and drank a blue daiquiri. What did this result in?
You guessed correctly. It resulted in being accosted by a blacked-out, middle-aged tourist.
After perusing my upcoming roadtrip itinerary, Junes (aka Dana Junior aka the great chocolate heiress) texts me today:
Junes: I noticed saint paul wasnt included in your itinerary.
Me: Actually i looked into it and then realized that you live in scandinavia
Junes: No passport?
Me: Hate white people
Junes: Not a lot of pigment with the nords.
Also in the last week Ana has realized that she enjoys a) Blue Moon and b) Jager Bombs.
Next step: whiny baby voice, perhaps collars fully popped joining kickball league.
Look who got her first credit card!
In other news, a couple of big phlogportunities coming up this week: visiting with Jill & Tyler at their Harper's Ferry World of Wonder (my name) and movingtime!
When Murph gets sleepy, he sleeps:
But one can never accuse him of keeping us from the party.
BONUSBONUSBONUS Pedro was caught lounging in a compromising position:
BONUSBONUSBONUS #2 Ana on eating blood: "The thing about blood is that you can only eat so much of it." Truer words have only been spoken periodically.
To get ready for our trip to Medieval Times, I decided that it would be prudent to wear my most appropriate t-shirt, in case I was called on to join in the tournament proceedings. Spoiler Alert: I wasn't.
Riding in a van with a dozen other people: always makes one feel like one is in high school. When the destination is a birthday party for your friend, it makes the feeling even more prominent.
Especially when you have coupons.
The only disappointing thing about Medieval Times is that you can't enter through the drawbridge. This is made up for by the fact that there are archers in the turrets waiting for approaching enemies.
(While it looks like I'm posing here, I'm actually looking across the parking lot to the Golden Corral Buffet restaurant, where an ambulance was carting off what could only have been the third coronary victim of the evening. I still wanted to go.)
So when I said that I was going to root for the red and yellow knight, that was before I realized that we would be assigned a knight to root for because stupid monarchies always want to be in control. Anyway, our group was split between the blue (me and Ana's knight, the awesome one) and the yellow (boring loser) knights. Hence our blue crowns.
I can only surmise that the light streams in this picture are faerie trails unseeable by the human eye.
While the princess is being wowed by boring girl stuff like pony tricks, everybody gets their meal. You eat with your hands, but you already knew that because you saw Cable Guy. What you didn't know was that they had plastic:
as well as garlic bread and Campbell's soup. Although I guess it's not surprising that Campbell's was around then, because that company is an American institution.
It's also good to know that they had wet naps back then, because otherwise their tunics would be really greasy.
I also said that my favorite wench would be the one with the choicest grog or mead. But they only had enormous goblets of beer, and we had a serf, not a wench. His name was Chris.
Paul decided that he would both root for and fall in love with the blue knight.
The blue knight recognized this and threw him a flower, totally on purpose.
So when the fights started, the yellow people were all cheering for their knight, who promptly kicked his opponent in the junk (they didn't say what it was called back then), which was considered dishonorable even then.
I don't have a video, but Murph promptly screamed "The yellow knight fights with no honor! His color befits him!"
If you are interested in going to Medieval Times, I would highly recommend taking Murph with you.
Our knight was the winning knight, obvs. If you have the sound on, at the end I call out Chick-fil-A Waldorf, who was there for their Christmas party. For some reason I had decided that they were rooting for the red and black knight.
(You'll also hear calls to "chop his head off!" and "there can be only one!" from our table. The cinematography is unfortunately not too good. Cuz of all the excitement.)
Everybody that I've seen since we got back from San Francisco has been all dude, please, where are the videos? Please, something! Maybe of small children we don't know? Well, wait no longer, everybody. Here's a sampling:
1. Ana says "Hey! Take a picture of me jumping from this bed to that bed!" I take video instead. Good decision.
2. Shopping at Target for Ana's 3-year old nephew when I stumble on a cache of Frogz, which are animatronic frogs that sing popular music. I bought this one. After giving it to the nephew, he kissed it on the forehead. Kid recognizes a good thing when he sees it.
3. Ana acts like she's taking my picture and instead attacks my face with the camera. Payback.
4. Possibly the best video of all time: Nephew spinning.
It's a little late, but we've never been to CENTRAL MICHEL RICHARD, and I have a camera now so it seemed like time for the first true DeffoReview of Foods.
CENTRAL MICHEL RICHARD is a "bistro," for the purposes of the fact that they wanted to make hamburgers and one can't do that at MICHEL RICHARD CITRONELLE, presumably for fear that people might mistake his high-end restaurant for a barbecue bug-b-gone device.
Anybody with two restaurants with his name in them has got to be a good chef, right? Of course! He's really good! How about the design of the place? As my dad likes to say, as a designer, he makes a really good chef. Nyuk! Narf!
Washingtonian notes the "endless blond wood, clean lines, and air of casual brilliance" in the dining room. Hey Ana! What do you think of that?
Yes. Big orbs scream casual brilliance.
"Blond wood" = fake and plastic, a la our most luxurious chain hotels!
But if you put delicious foods on top of plastic tables, it's still delicious. These things on the right are called "Gougères," which means either "cheese puff" or "venereal disease" depending on what the context is (for reals). Thinking about this linguistic overlap is gross, but the cheese puffs were really delicious.
Because the restaurant is on Pennsylvania Avenue, reviews always mention that "power brokers" "hobnob" there. The place was full, but I didn't see anybody powerbroking (unless you include our great overlord).
I did, however, see a middle-aged woman shoveling salad into her mouth with a strained look on her face like this:
But anyway. Less about me, more about food! Enough Tim Carmaning! (Side note: Hey Tim! How about a description of a dish at some point in your next review! Thanks!)
It's a bistro, but it's still fancy and frenchy, so I figured that my fried chicken would be a piece of chicken lightly breaded with a fancy sauce drizzled in an asymmetrical pattern over the top. In reality, the dish is 4' x 6' (see fig. below), and comes with 1.5 gal of creamy mustard sauce in a gravy boat, two whole perfectly-fried chickens, and 3lb of rich, creamy pureed potatoes.
Junk is delicious. For actualies.
Ana got "pied de cochon," which we assumed meant "to walk like a pig," i.e. some sort of slow-roasted dish. We were totally wrong. It actually means "ground up pig, wrapped in dough with spices and vegetables, and fried so as to look like a pig's foot." Trust me-the latter is infinitely more delicious than the former. They had to bring a new table to fit the 5' x 5' plate:
Then we had coffee.
(There you have it, people: the perfect food review. You're welcome.)
BONUSBONUSBONUS
Me and Riff Raff's Prom picture (look how short!):
OMG MURPH'S CHIN IS FREE, LADIES
Two new superheroes arise out of the mist, driven by their dramatically different shoe sizes:
Nerds remain nerds, people.
Still waiting on new camera.
In the meantime, this seems like a spectacularly bad idea.
BONUSBONUSBONUS PJ WINKLEMAN SLUTTING IT UP
