Wait, what day is it again? Dishful of Metal on a Thursday? What's the deal with this?

I took a little vacation this weekend. Every once in a while, we all gotta get away, yeah? I headed to DC, met up with Kali for some hot, steamy ... metal. (What did you think I was going to say?) More on that later.

Monday night we headed to the 9:30 club in DC and grabbed some dinner at Five Guys Burgers and Fries on Georgia Ave. And lemme tell you, if you don't know about Five Guys, you betta axe somebody. Fantastic burgers, and the greatest menu ever. There's only one item on it, served 8 ways. You can get a burger with one or two patties, with or without American cheese, with or without bacon. There are a buttload of toppings you can get and they're all free. Including hot sauce. God love burger joints in the ghetto. And the fries ... holy shit. SO MANY FRIES. Their small was like a pound and a half of fries.

In homage to Five Guys, here's my very favorite burger recipe.

Black and Bleu Burgers

1 lb 80/20 ground chuck
4 oz stinky bleu cheese
2 Tbsp paprika
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp ground black pepper
1 tsp italian seasoning
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

First of all, use 80/20 beef. If you don't know what 80/20 is, that means it's 80% lean, 20% fat. Trust me. You need the fat, or the burgers will just kinda fall apart. And nobody wants that. Make sure the beef is cold when you start working with it. Add 1 tsp salt and pepper to the meat and mix thoroughly. Portion the beef into 4 equal balls, and form them each into a patty about 4 inches in diameter. On two of the patties, place half of the cheese -- I suggest using blue cheese, but any good strong melting cheese (like cheddar) will work wonderfully. Take the other two patties and place them on top of the cheesed patties, and seal them up. Make sure they're sealed really well. You shouldn't be able to tell there's anything inside the burger You've got a half pound burger with an awesome surprise inside.

On a plate, mix the spices together. Dredge the burgers in the spice--really rub them in good--and let them come to room temperature before cooking. It'll ensure even cooking. Cook them over medium to medium-high heat, either over a grill or in a cast iron skillet/griddle rubbed with just a bit of vegetable oil, for about 8 minutes per side. You want to cook these burgers to at least medium. If you cook them less than that, the cheese won't melt on the inside. You want to cook at a lower temperature becauseyou want the spice to blacken on the outside, without completely burning.

Let them sit for about 5 minutes before serving to let them rest a bit, to keep them nice and juicy. Serve on toasted buns with your favorite fixins. My favorite for this burger is big onion slices, bacon, tomatoes, and chipotle mayo.

No record review this week. Instead, I thought I would tell you about the concert Kali and I saw Monday night, and included a picture of us so y'all can be jealous of me.

First up? Gojira. Their latest album, From Mars to Sirius, is on Prosthetic Records and was recently reviewed in this very column. We showed up towards the end of their set because neither she nor I, nor my buddy Ace that was with us, really cared about seeing them. Boy, were we wrong. They rocked. The fuck. OUT. Tight, crisp performance. The 9:30 club, by the way, has amazing sound. For the two or so songs we heard of them, I think I can safely say that we were all pretty damned impressed.

Next brought the mighty Machine Head, whose latest album on Roadrunner is called The Blackening and just came out a couple of days ago. Dear God, they were AMAZING. They had a short-ish set (only 35 minutes), and stuck mostly to The Blackening, though they did play some older stuff too. Rob Flynn was drunk as hell, but he's still one of the best shredders out there. Giddy the fuck up. It's the first time I'd seen them live, and I wanted more.

Direct support for the headliners were Orlando boys Trivium. I was extremely disappointed. This is the fourth time I've seen them live, and every time I've seen them was worse than the time before. I want to see them in a headlining role, because I've heard they're much better as headliners. They just seem to kind of phone it in as an opening act. And Kali thinks the bass player looks like Fabio and she coveted his hair. I don't blame her. His locks were flowing. Made up for the subpar singing.

The headliners were home for this show, and you could tell. The place was PACKED for them -- the one, the only, the direct-support-for-Ozzy-on-this-year's-Ozzfest Lamb of God. It's the first time I'd ever seen them live and I was not disappointed. I think it took them a couple of songs to get their sound down right, and what I liked most of all about their set is that they actually mixed it up. They played a slight majority of their songs from their latest album, Sacrament, but they played a bunch of songs from Ashes of the Wake, including my favorite song of theirs, "Now You've Got Something to Die For." They also played songs from their first two Lamb of God albums, New American Gospel and As the Palaces Burn. They even played a song from their first album, when they were known as Burn the Priest. When they played their last song, "Black Label", the entire place went fucking insane, including the four guys behind us in the balcony who were a) very obviously gay for each other and b) very obviously going to run a train on the girl that was with them to prove they weren't gay for each other.

Good food, good music, and great company. Doesn't get much better than that on vacation.

Baby Huey only posted this week so he could prove he'd actually met Kali and you hadn't.

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