Despite the title, this post is only halfway about the opening reception of Killer Angels: Faces of American Death Metal. It’s mainly a post about Future Islands, who we’re going to go see at Metro Gallery tomorrow. Naturally, it’s been a while since we’ve seen these...

There’s a scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep gives Anne Hathaway a very cool and refined dressing down for her ignorance of how fashion cycles work. It’s pretty much all the average person needs to know about High Fashion, and it’s a lesson that we’d all...

If you ever wanted to spend a nice, pleasant, relaxing day in Baltimore, tomorrow is it. For one thing, it’s Spring! The weather right now is glorious. It’s cool and warm all at once and everywhere there are trees and leaves and flowers and birds. For someone who’s seen...

If you don’t know Justin Sirois by now, you certainly should. Not least because he’s a friend of the blog and a Baker Artist Award winner. We’ve already told you about his novel Falcons on the Floor and were especially interested in his serial, app centric follow-up So Say...

We’ve been out of town a long time. So long that we’re still not quite up to speed. It’s going to take your old Chop at least one day for every month away from Charm City to get back on track. As we said just the other day, a sailor leaves, comes home and strives to pick up...

It’s been well over a year now since we decided drive our trusty old Chevy down to Crazy Ray’s and let them chop it up. So far it’s gone really well for us. We’ve got no complaints and certainly aren’t going to be car shopping any time soon. A year on a bike has...

The life of a sailor is a peculiar thing. It’s more like two lives, really. There’s life at sea, which is very regimented and routine and carries over from ship to ship. After you’ve gained enough sea time you start to realize how small the world actually is- seeing some of...

This is what we’re doing today. This thing in the poster. Literally. We’re throwing a sea bag over our shoulder and climbing up a gangway and sailing halfway around the world. Some of you reading this already knew that. For others, it may come as a surprise. That’s what...

We’re not sure Why it took us so long to catch on to the whole official election night party thing. It’s a pretty sweet deal. They’re mostly meant as a thank-you to staff and volunteers, but they’re generally open to the public so really any ‘supporter’ can...

We think Obama’s going to win. That’s not really a shocker coming from a decidedly liberal blog in a decidedly liberal city. We think Obama will win in a walk and that’s always been our opinion, since even before the GOP primaries. There was never even a time when we were...

A very well-kept secret of political activism is that a little bit of it can go quite a long way. When you turn on the news you can’t help but hear a lot about big money donors and fancy fundraisers. The images you see are all of paid staffers busily manning campaign offices or dedicated...

For most people there are four seasons in the year. For the chronically single among us, especially those of us over 30, there are only two seasons: Dating Season and Couples’ Season. Today, the day after Halloween, is the official beginning of Couples’ Season. It’s the time...

Here at the Chophouse we like to cook. Whether it’s something as simple as putting together a good sandwich or as complicated as laying out a four course dinner for six, we do more high quality home cooking than the average bachelor. When the Fall rolls around, we really kick it into...

If you’ve been watching closely recently, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve changed things up a bit around here. We added an image of Wee Willie Keeler’s T-206 tobacco card to the header, and adopted it everywhere we are online… Twitter, Facebook, etc. But what...

Back in June certain corners of the Internet went into a minor frenzy for about a week when NPR published an article by one of its 20 year old interns about how she owns tens of thousands of songs and didn’t pay for any of them and wants instant access to everything ever recorded for...

Yes, Choppers, it is here once again. That magical time of year when for two weeks we generally pester the hell out of your for votes in an online contest so that our modest little blogging hobby can receive a tiny bit of validation from the media establishment. Voting officially begins today...

It’s been a while since we did the whole Bike Party thing. We tried to do it back in June and while we made it to the Block Party, we decided that 110° was just too damn hot for recreational riding. Then we thought about doing it again in July when there was a coordinated ride timed...

It is one of the great injustices in the music world that shitty bar bands who cover top 40 songs are usually some of the best paid bands out there. We don’t mean to say that getting up and playing Margaritaville and Rehab is ultra-lucrative and you can quit your day job doing it, but on...

If you’re standing on the street right now pissed off, smartphone in hand desperately Googling to figure out where the fuck your car is and how to get it back, relax. Take a deep breath. The Chop is here to help. If you were towed at rush hour, during a ballgame, or in connection with...

It was a slow weekend around the Chophouse. We spent most of it drinking boxed wine and watching hard-boiled movies from the 70′s like Midnight Express and Dog Day Afternoon. Hell, it was a slow weekend around Baltimore. Except for Sunday night, there wasn’t much doing. So we...

So no more Republican. That was fun while it lasted but we split amicably and mutually after just a few months, which leaves your Chop in a frustrating and absurd position: the state of Passive Dating. For most of our life we believed Passive Dating was a fiction- a made up thing that people...