Contests

To promote its “Guns and Gear” vertical, The Daily Caller is giving away one gun every week until Election Day in November. That’s 25 guns total.

The sound you hear is TWT‘s Emily Miller, who wrote a lengthy series called “Emily Gets Her Gun,” squealing through all of NW.

Winners of the giveaway will receive the FMK 9C1, an American-made high-capacity 9mm, according to a release. It comes in three colors and is engraved with the Bill of Rights.

“Like most Americans outside Washington, DC, New York City and most of our nation’s news rooms, large numbers of Daily Caller readers love guns. These people are already looking to our new Guns and Gear section for the latest product reviews and Second Amendment news,” said Neil Patel, Publisher and CEO.

Trigger happy readers can enter by simply visiting this landing page and filling out a form with some basic information.

Noteworthy: The release says “The Daily Caller is the only major U.S. news outlet with a dedicated section related to firearms and firearm-related issues.” So much for “Guns&Patriots” over at Human Events.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

The next time FNC’s Chris Wallace and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews are contestants on Power Player “Jeopardy,” hopefully producers will pit them against each other. Then we might be able to determine just which Chris is more appealing. In the meantime, we’ll improvise.

In the game show that aired Monday, Matthews played against CNN’s Lizzie O’Leary and former Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. Wallace’s round was broadcast Wednesday. He faced “Dr. Oz” host Mehmet Oz and “BBC World News America” host Katty Kay.

Based on coverage of both nights, Matthews bombed and Wallace crushed the competition. Following Matthews’ poor showing, NewsBusters recalled Matthews hypothesizing in 2008 how well former V.P. hopeful Sarah Palin would perform in the game (in short, he was calling her dumb). The NewsBusters story went viral. Flash to Wallace coverage: almost every story highlighted how well he did.

Jezebel Editor-in-Chief Jessica Coen called Matthews “entirely too slow” for the game show. His MSNBC colleague Willie Geist relentlessly mocked him for not seeming to grasp the answer-in-the-form-of-a-question rule of the game. “Did you see his face?!” Geist said the next morning.

For Wallace, the comments were nicer. “Congratulations to my friend Chris Wallace … for winning DC Jeopardy! tonight,” his colleague Juan Williams tweeted. “Go get ‘em, Chris!” FNC reporter Shannon Bream tweeted in support.

But Jeopardy is just a game, after all. We still need to settle the score between the two men: Who really is the better man?

Here we have Chris Matthews

Age: 66

Hair: Blonde. Gets unruly on long election nights. The mane looks crazier as the night wears on.

Education: College of the Holy Cross

Spouse: Kathleen Matthews, chief communications and public affairs officer for Marriott International

TV behavior: He’s the interrupter. He does it to the point where even his guests roll their eyes and look annoyed as they wait for him to finish diatribes. That said, reporters who go on his program also say they like him and insist that  he’s quite amiable off air.

Best on-air moment: An incredibly awkward interview during the 2004 Republican National Convention in which former Democratic Sen. Zell Miller (who was being questioned via satellite) told Matthews to “get out of my face” and said he wished he could “challenge” him to a “duel.”

Controversy: Matthews has been accused several times of being openly sexist, particularly in regards to Hillary Clinton, who he said didn’t become a U.S. Senator on merit, but because her husband “messed around.” And then there’s the time he “forgot” President Barack Obama “was black for an hour” during the 2010 State of the Union address.

Famous relative: His son Michael‘s father-in-law James Ormonde Staveley-O’Carroll was implicated in a $8.1 million international drug bust. Over 4,000 pounds of pot were found in transit on a boat from Jamaica to the U.S in early 2011. The boat belonged to Staveley-O’Carroll. Also, Matthews’ son Thomas has been cast to play in Aaron Sorkin‘s upcoming HBO drama “The Newsroom.”

Workload: Hour-long nightly news talk show “Hardball,” half-hour Sunday morning news panel show “The Chris Matthews Show”

Accomplishments: Failed run for the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania as a Democrat; he received 25 percent of the primary vote.

 

And here is Chris Wallace

Age: 64

Hair: Dark and kempt and rarely moves. Fox News must have better hairspray.

Education: Harvard College

Spouse: Lorraine Wallace, author of the cookbook Mr. Sunday’s Saturday Night Chicken and Mr. Sunday’s Soups.

TV Behavior: Folksy. Wallace, unlike Matthews, is annoying in an entirely different way. He’s the school marm, the enforcer of the rules and making sure guests don’t interrupt one another. They might as well hand him a ruler for the show. At least then all his enforcing might be entertaining.

Best on-air moment: A contentious 2006 interview with Bill Clinton in which the former president accused Wallace of asking questions that he wouldn’t “ask the other side [Republicans].”

Controversy: Wallace faced some sexist claims of his own. Last year he asked then presidential candidate Michele Bachmann if she was “a flake” (which he later apologized for). His colleague Greta Van Susteren asked if he would “ask the same question of a man.” And Wallace faced intense criticism for a lack of objectivity when he said if presidential candidate Ron Paul were to win the Iowa Caucuses in January, it would discredit them.

Famous relative: Son of the late CBS reporter Mike Wallace.

Workload: Hour-long Sunday news talk show “Fox News Sunday”

Accomplishments: A Peabody and three Emmy awards

There is finally an upside to the godawful morning commute in Washington. WTOP announced a contest today in which listeners can submit their morning traffic horror stories. The radio station has cleverly dubbed it: “Commuter Idle.”

How it works: Starting today and going through Friday, listeners can submit their rage-filled commute stories at WTOP.com. The worse it is, the better. The top 10 stories will be featured online and on-air and listeners can vote for their favorites. Submissions will be narrowed down to the top three on the week of May 21. The winner will be announced that Friday.

The prize: $1,000 in gas money and a limo ride to and from work. Runners-up will receive $150 gas cards.

 

Already sick of all the overlapping of Hollywood and Washington going on as of late? Better grab a barf bag. But hey, at least this is for a good cause.

This month, Meryl Streep, Bill Clinton, Jason Wu, Alec Baldwin, and Yo-Yo Ma are linking arms to take part in the RFK Center’s fifth annual online auction to support human rights worldwide. The RFK Center launched its 5th Annual Spring Auction today and will be open to bidders through May 17.

The auction features nearly 100 incredible adventures donated by A-list supporters of the organization, with more celebs joining every day. A few of the most coveted opportunities on the auction block include – lunch with Steve Job’s biographer Walter Isaacson, meeting the cast of Mad Men on set in Los Angeles, a game of backgammon with Woody Harrelson, walking the red carpet at Streep’s next premiere and the chance to meet Lenny Kravitz in Italy. Visit here.

More auction highlights include:

• Meet President Bill Clinton at a VIP reception following an upcoming speech

• Meet President Jimmy Carter at The Carter Center in Atlanta

• Meet Alec Baldwin on the set of NBC’s 30 Rock

• Play tennis with John McEnroe at Sportime Randall’s Island in New York City

• Jumpstart your music career with a 30 minute meeting with Clive Davis in New York City

• Meet Betty White at her Friar’s Club Roast on May 16, 2012

• Up your game with Tiger Woods’ Golf Coach Butch Harmon in Las Vegas

• Tour the Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. with Senator John Glenn

• Enjoy Lunch with Rolling Stone Magazine founder Jann Wenner at his New York office

Tonight we have a special edition of Whose Shoes. We just went to the TIME/People party at the St. Regis Hotel and guess who showed up to say hello? We spotted these bad boys at the check-in desk.

We’ll give you hints. You guess the person. Send to FishbowlDC@mediabistro.com or to Betsy@mediabistro.com.

Hint #1: She has Maryland roots.

Hint#2: She was once married to a man whose name rhymes with rumpus.

Hint #3: She has visited the Grand Canyon.

Washington played host to several recordings of “Jeopardy” over the weekend at DAR Constitution Hall. Unfortunately we didn’t get into the round featuring D.C.’s hottest celeb Kareem Abdul Jabbar but we did get into the “Teen Tournament” round in which the host Alex Trebek flubbed the show by accidentally giving the answer to a set of clues before any of the contestants were able to try.

“Oh!” Trebek yelled when he realized he had given away the answer (Bethlehem). He joked that he hadn’t made a mistake like that in “a really long time.” Trebek stumbled to get back on track before the show’s producer stopped the recording. The “Jeopardy” crew took about 10 minutes figure out how to edit the flub out then picked back up.

You won’t see the mistake when the show airs later this summer… Read more

NJ is extending its elite Political Pursuit game to the common man. Next Tuesday the publication is hosting its first ever “Qualifier” round in which everyone is allowed to compete in a contest normally reserved for members of Congress and political insiders.

The Qualifier round will be held at 7 p.m on April 17 at the Pour House bar by the Capitol. The winning team will move on to compete in the big leagues at the main Political Pursuit event on April 26 with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, ABC’s Amy Walter and Sen. Tom Davis (R-VA).

We received a number of submissions for our contest this week in which readers told us what the “Titanic” theme song “My Heart Will Go On” meant to them. Here are the submissions that didn’t win, but are worth a runner up prize.

• Woman plagued by Celine’s song: “Fifteen years ago, when my son was 10, he was bugging me to let him take piano lessons instead of cello. Which I, as a harried single mom, ignored. Until the day he taught himself to play the theme song to the Titanic (‘My Heart Will Go On’) on the piano by plunking out the melody with one finger. Obviously I had to immediately sign him up for piano lessons, so he would stop playing that song. I think I should force him to go to the screening with me, as payback.”

• A snarky haiku: Steam-covered Window, The Band That Goes On and On, Just Sink Already.

• A self-reflection: In your contest photo, we see Leo’s arms wrapped around Kate from behind, his hands on her slender belly.  Two decades+ post-college and two children later, the thought of a man doing that to me (in Kate’s words, when she hears the Titanic themes song) “makes ME want to throw up!”

• Jack stole her heart: “I absolutely LOVED Titanic.  I was in 7th grade when the move came out and I was IN LOVE with Leonardo Dicaprio.  I never had a crush on any of the boy bands or any other celebrities, but Jack Dawson stole my heart.  I went to the movie theater THIRTEEN times to see Titanic and am DYING to see it in 3D!”

• Sensual submission: When Titanic came out when I was in 6th grade, the Titanic’s soundtrack got me through thick and thin.  Sadly, unlike my other friends with cooler parents,  I never got to see it in theaters because of its (gasp) PG-13 rating.  It was rated PG-13 for disaster related peril and violence, nudity, sensuality and brief language, and that was not something my parents were in to for me.  I should have been wily and smart and snuck in to a viewing, but alas I did not.  So I got by listening to this song and this soundtrack over and over again. Imagining that I was Kate, beautiful, sensual. (Not that I knew about being sensual in 6th grade.)  I even learned to play it on the piano; sad and desperate to see this movie like all the other kids who saw it 12 times. When it finally came out on video, my mom and I watched it, but I chickened out before the sex scene, because I could NOT bare to watch that with my mother. God forbid!!!!  So, it would complete my adolescence if only I could see Titanic, up close and personal, in 3-D.

Read more after the jump…You won’t want to miss some of these.

Read more

Yesterday we asked readers to come up with a paragraph on how the Titanic theme song, Celine Dion‘s “My Heart Will Go On” impacted their lives. Many of you sent excellent submissions. But now we must choose a winner to attend tonight’s screening at National Geographic HQ. And it is…Parisa Manteghi, a third-year George Washington University law student who lives in Washington. We will run other poignant submissions in a separate post.

This is her winning (albeit long) graph:

“You know how Nordstrom has a piano player? It was a pleasant evening in 1998 and 5 of my girlfriends and I were shopping around Nordstrom as we often did.  As the piano player played the usual classical tunes, we obviously asked if he could play “My Heart Will Go On.”  Imagine our SHOCK when he responded that he ‘didn’t know that one.’  Mind you, we were six 12-year-old girls each of whom had watched Titanic on average 3 times in the theater, had Leo posters draping our bedroom walls, and owned the soundtrack (though I owned both soundtracks: ‘Titanic: Music from the Motion Picture’ and the second less famed soundtrack ‘Back to Titanic’).  We thought maybe he was joking?  As he took in our reaction, you could judge by his face that it was as if he felt he had been living in a cave devoid of human contact for the last 4 months.  We proceeded to the BP section to continue our shopping. Two weeks later, we were all back at Nordstrom hanging out and the same piano player was working.  He spotted us, called us over, and calmly said to us with a smile, ‘I have something for you.’  He started to hit the keys.  It was the song that now defines so much of our adolescence.  As he played ‘My Heart Will Go On’ we all pretty much lost it and by the first verse we arm in arm belting the lyrics (and obviously none of us could carry a note).  I will forgo details on the reaction of the patrons.  When he finished, he told us that he had gone to see the film, bought the soundtrack, and had been working on the song the last 2 weeks.  We were taken aback by his gesture and how the magic of Titanic had overtaken him as well.  As a thank you, we bought him a nice polo shirt from the men’s department.  To Ms. Winslet I say: it may make you vomit but it lifts the human spirit. Deal with it.”

Congratulations to Parisa! Enjoy the movie.

Actress Kate Winslet recently admitted that hearing “My Heart Will Go On”, the Academy Award-winning Celine Dion theme song to “Titanic” makes her want to throw up. Please tell us how the song impacted you in a paragraph or less. Whoever comes up with the response that makes us laugh or touches us in some way will win the prize tickets to this Wednesday’s screening at National Geographic HQ in downtown Washington.

So get cracking! Send to Betsy@mediabistro.com. We need the submissions by noon Wednesday.