Ah, food. From the June 22 review of La Fonda del Sol:

Among the tapas, the genuine blandness of the salt-cod croquetas helped ameliorate the goutiness brought on by a rich little pot of duckling, pork, and sherry, and, from the next round, lamb dressed with hot peppers and roasted on a bed of grass from the field in which the lamb once grazed. The dinner version of this dish is stewed in yogurt made with the milk of the lamb's mother. (We call it . . . the Aristocrats!)

Alexis Bledel, what am I gonna do with you? Why must you play a character who's kind of perfect for me but in a trailer that makes me hate the movie to follow? And how have Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson, Demetri Martin, Fred Armisen, and Carol Burnett all ended up in this? Carlos would like you to make better movies.

After this blog's last roundup, colleague Denny suggested I track Chico Harlan's existential ledes over the course of the entire season. Given the past two weeks, and the end of the first half, I'm digging in.

July 14, not a gamer but a sad firing: "Employed by an organization with a tenuous infrastructure and in charge of a crumbling team, Manny Acta, in the end, ran out of support both from those above him and below him." July 13: "During the 87 games that constituted the first half of their season, the Washington Nationals performed combat on conventional wisdom." July 12: "On very rare nights, when the sum of their parts adds up just right, the Washington Nationals play baseball at a level unbecoming of the company they keep in history."

July 11: "The Washington Nationals tried to stage an uprising on Friday night, and uprisings only work when you begin at a very low place." July 10 (late game): "For all he gives them at the plate — a patient approach and a prodigious power stroke — the Washington Nationals know that life with Adam Dunn is a trade-off."

July 10: "The Washington Nationals on Thursday completed a game that lasted 11 innings and took precisely 65 days 5 hours and 40 minutes." Bonus on this game (and in a sec on the previous game): "Between the first pitch and the winning run, the Nationals replaced six members of their bullpen, traded their pitcher of record (Joel Hanrahan), fired their pitching coach, sent their starting pitcher to the disabled list, activated him from the disabled list, and demoted Elijah Dukes while he stood on first base. Technically speaking."

July 9: "If ever there comes a day, years from now, when historians gather up the courage to revisit the 2009 Washington Nationals, perhaps they can begin and end their study with a quick, purposeful look at the 21 1/2 hours between 6:40 p.m. Tuesday and 4:14 p.m. Wednesday." Hardly gets worse than this. Bonus from the game:

Uniquely adept at losing, unmatched in their willingness to make a beautiful sport unsightly, the Nationals finished perhaps their most degenerative series of the year with help from every comer. Adam Dunn played first base as you would expect of a non-quality left fielder, Ron Villone pitched as you would expect of a 39-year-old, Julián Tavárez pitched as you would expect of a 39-year-old (except he's 36!) and Ross Detwiler pitched as you'd expect of a 23-year-old, or at least one who belongs in the International League.

On a day when several veterans received the day off, bench players seized the opportunities to showcase absolutely nothing. Shortstop Alberto González, ranging right for a hard-hit third-inning grounder, muffed an attempt that wasn't ruled an error but sure looked like one. Catcher Wil Nieves, mask off, dropped a foul pop-up. Austin Kearns grounded into a double play, his 12th in 157 at-bats, and later whiffed on a one-strike pitch while losing hold of his bat, which sailed 130 feet down the left field line, landing at the feet of third base umpire Randy Marsh. Kearns struck out two pitches later, on a check swing.

July 8: "The Washington Nationals have now played 81 games, their season's midpoint, and the manner in which they passed that marker on Tuesday suggested they are in no way done with preposterous losses." July 7: "Pitching is baseball's lion, perched fierce atop the food chain." July 6: "Ninety-eight pitches into his afternoon, Scott Olsen stood on the pitcher's mound, watching everybody converge on him like some claw closing its fist." July 5: "The 300th career home run of Adam Troy Dunn, when ball met bat, followed the flight path of so many before it." July 4: "On the nights when the Washington Nationals do not invent new ways to lose, they merely perfect the old ways."

June 29: "With his first at-bat still 2 1/2 hours away, Willie Harris sat down in front of a laptop Sunday morning and searched for a way — even a fractional one — to boost his odds." June 28: "Situational hitting is the blanket term used to describe what plagued the Washington Nationals on Saturday night." June 22: "The enduring image was also a repeating image, because Ryan Zimmerman did the same thing five times yesterday." June 21: "Willie Harris is a small guy, just 5-foot-9, sometimes with a small role to boot."

June 19: "Waiting is all relative."

Haven't seen any of the Ice Age movies, but this description is awfully persuasive. Roger Ebert on the apparently many acorn scenes in the new one: "That includes one in which Scrat, Scrattè and the acorn are trapped inside floating bubbles, which is no big deal to the acorn. Still, this is a talented acorn, which sings a tune from the Gilbert O'Sullivan songbook to express how alone an acorn must sometimes feel. An acorn that smart, you don't want to eat it all at once."

For the first time. But I'm eventually coming back. Heading to Austria later this month, I'm going to spend three weeks as a Knight fellow at the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change. The four fellows — two from the USA, two from Jordan — are going to be working with faculty and students from around the world as they create new lenses for media literacy and critical awareness. But my favorite parts so far? The Salzburg airport is apparently named W.A. Mozart Airport, and our classrooms are in the palace where they filmed The Sound of Music.

If you've been there or near there, any and all advice is welcome. I've begun reading all I can in preparation, but there's much more to go.

Two weeks out, I'm excited and nervous. My foreign travel experience consists of Montreal, Toronto and Niagara Falls, Canada. My longest flight over water likely involves Lake Michigan. I joke that my brother, jetting off these days to Beijing, Madrid and Sao Paolo for work, is the Cooper most likely to cause an international incident. But really now. We know there's only one Cooper most likely to fall down the Alps.

Or, as we all learned as children, this could happen…

Media critics have all compared the Jackson coverages, so why can't we do the same with Oscar Mayer? Ever since I learned my beloved Caesar salad was named after someone not Julius C., I've had a soft spot for real people who've shared their names with products. So…

Best Oscar Mayer death story: Wisconsin State Journal.

After leaving Harvard University for health reasons, Mayer joined the family business in its Chicago accounting office in 1936.

"There were three accountants in the office and I was the flunky, making out payroll accounts by hand," he said. "I've always felt I might have a little better understanding of what people in our plant have to do because I did it myself — I've always seen our employees as individuals and I respect the hard work they do."

Best evidence there are more Oscar Mayers: Legacy.com. Coverage was clear this Oscar Mayer — while the one most responsible for the company's modern success — was the third Oscar Mayer to run the company. But Legacy's formal obituary turns up a few more to cheer: his son Oscar, his grandson Oscar and his great-grandson Oscar.

Best headline: "Meats His Maker" from who else but the New York Post. Best pop culture tribute: "Six Classic Oscar Mayer Wiener Commercials" from the Daily Beast. Best sidebar: "What other products were named for real people?" I had no idea about Mrs. Fields or Duncan Hines.

Best post-death rumor coverage: "TMZ: No Weinermobile at services for Oscar Meyer," from USAT's Drive On community (full disclosure: my team at work helps run the community), because it contained the best take on the rumor: "Too bad. When Carl Karcher, founder of the Carl's Jr. chain in the West that now also runs Hardee's, died, his services included free hamburgers for everybody. Heck, if Drive On were to kick the bucket, we'd be wanted to be buried in the Weinermobile. "

Best post-death controversy: PETA wanting to bury the Weinermobile.

Best memorial: "Remembering My Days as a Hotdogger," looking at the company's ethic, from a man whose first job out of college was driving the Wienermobile. "On my first day, upon landing in Madison, Wis. (home of the WMB corporate headquarters), all of the hotdoggers were greeted at the airport gate by Oscar Mayer executives…"

Best consistent mistake: "Weinermobile" instead of "wienermobile" in USAT, NPR and Time. Best resulting discovery: Wienermobile blog.

It's no secret this blog wishes it was 15 years older so it could marry Maura Tierney. This blog would exchange knowing glances with her once and then forever (and by virtue of being 15 years older, invent blogging). So, I'm bothered to hear Tierney has pretty serious health concerns going on. Hope she's going to be fine and acting again soon.

This I did not know. I knew my former editor and Hokum blogger could play a mean harp (harmonica), but he didn't disappoint on either count Monday evening at Evening Star with the Joe Chiocca Band. Finally saw them after several tries and liked the music, food and lounge. It was so chill there was even an indoor firefly capture. Interestingly, I think T. Randy sings in the same key as fellow USATer-turned-NPRerer T. Mark Memmott, last seen on stage two years ago at his anniversary party. Randy has more range, but I think Mark can work at it if he likes. The musical talents of T. Michael Carney are unknown, but we hope tuba.

"The cutest kids in the universe," says friend Will on Facebook, and he's likely right. Catchy too. Video from '06 but new to me. You too?

Kristin Andreassen – Crayola Doesn't Make A Color For Your Eyes from Ballard C. Boyd on Vimeo. A good antidote for our traffic.