March 2007 – Page 2 – A Good Beer Blog

Friday Bullet Point Chat…No “-a-ramas” Or Nuttin’

How many ways can you write the same thing week after week before there is any coffee on the desk in front of you?

It’s the Kingston Brew Pub’s Wellie Toss tomorrow afternoon at 2 pm. We are talking the kids as this is the closest thing we have to a good cheese roll around here. Wellie Boot Hurling seems to be a legitimate Highland Games activity so maybe I will have a wee nippy sweetie while we are at it. Definitely a KSPC sanctioned event.
The Flea and others point out the decision to raise the right flag at the 90th anniversary of Vimy Ridge this summer. I added my two cents to remind that Newfoundland had its own flag of its own Dominion and that should be added, too. I even let my mole know. I have a mole again now. A mole with ambition as well.
Besides that good move, it was a tough week but was it as tough as the Prime Minister’s? He showed his dopey mean side, practically offering the nation the wisdom of the person who asks the question “are you still hitting the bottle?” while politicizing the troops in Afghanistan for his own purposes. Nice. He may have guaranteed the separatists win in Quebec. Brilliant. He seems to be cooking the books of the electoral reform review. Perfect. Oh yes, and the transparent intention budget leading to the fastest Federal-Provincial tax break transfer in history. I will be so happy to think of that and the other “special interest placation through tax break” aspects the NuGov National Vision as I prepare my own taxes this year.
Best Blue Jay’s slag of the week:

Who else is ready for another season of Jamie Campbell starting his home run call for pop-ups that get caught by the shortstop?

Days to go now.
Rita Joe passed away, too. One of the good things about growing up in Nova Scotia with a cohesive people like the Mi’kmaq in the community, with neat aspects like creation stories mentioning things you take school bus trips to see like Glooscap’s canoe, is you hear about people like Rita Joe when you are a kid and you get fed some respect. Not really enough but some.

That is it for now. Thanks for all the kind thoughts about the Frobster.

Martin Frobisher Cat 1999-2007

“Frobie” left this life today at the vet’s. He’d been sick off and on for a while but things got worse over the last few days and was in a lot of pain. The time had come.

Really, The Guardian, newspaper of record…or rather “rekerd”…in Charlottetown, PEI, ought to have a headline in the obits “Islander Dies” tomorrow as Frobie, runt of a litter at the Human Society seven and a half years ago, was one of that small land. We were looking for mousers. After buying our first house in 1999, we came home one day to find a mouse party in the middle of the living room. We needed allies in the animal kingdom and so we took on responsibility for the lives of the last two cats from two litters that were in cages side by side. Frobie proved himself as he grew out of kittenhood as a great set-up man, cornering the mice for his lady friend Beaton who finished them off at her, frankly, cruel leisure.

Years passed and the family grew and PEI was left with cats crammed with everything else into two vans. With the lack of mice and even stairs, came effective retirement and Frobes blossomed as an entirely idle mammal. The purchase of light cat food did nothing for him – though he still ate plenty. He spent his days and nights exploring ways to not have his limbs touch the floor and inventing new aromas. His last moments came swiftly and were spent with those who loved him and/or fed him as well as a really nice vet who helped everyone understand how this was all for the best.

Many met Frobie through these many years and wanted to share their thoughts:

“I first saw him in the cage next to the quite stunningly good looking Beaton and wondered for a moment what kind of thing he was. Sickly and thin, he made his life’s work to attain a stoutness that would amazed. He lived the dream.”

“When we lived in PEI, another kid who was visiting dragged him across the kitchen by the tail. He didn’t scratch or meow. He was the nicest cat, just so laid back.”

“Frobie was a really cute cat and a nice one, too. He was cuddly and snuggly. I hope he has a happy life in kitty heaven. There is a huge building filled with just cats where they get to be friends, eat all the time and no one ever bugs them.”

Please share your thoughts about Frobisher in the comments.

Ask What Your Country Can Do For You

I was wondering what to say about the Federal Budget that came out yesterday and what it says about the vision of the NuGov for a new nation being forged by private enterprise and getting the monkey off everyone’s back. But Andrew says it more plainly than I ever would as he voted for these guys:

Today’s budget is an embarrassment for those who consider themselves fiscal conservatives (especially those who poured countless hours into helping bring this government to power in order to change how business is done in Ottawa). Aside from a few small measures – including a continued commitment to pay down the national debt and some baby steps towards preventative health care, the budget is an undisciplined mish-mash of high-flying spending and ridiculous wealth redistribution. There are no true tax breaks, no obvious signs that government bureaucracy is shrinking and, worst of all, a 7.9% increase in overall spending – far more than the GDP’s growth.

Hokey-Ka-Bokey! Sounds like the red flag is flying once again from the Peace Tower in Ottawa. What is it in the water there that makes everyone a centrist? For me and my family, we get the “you have kids” break and the “you have a spouse” break but no income splitting, the real fiscal imbalance as far as I am concerned. My pal and his wife make what we make and have one kid. They get about $5,000 from the Feds we do not due to the bias against one income households. All so unfair to me.

So I won’t likely vote Tory now…and I was this close. Because if you are going to buy my vote, you really have to buy my vote. Maybe that is what we need now. NuGov 2.0. Personalized tax breaks defined to everyone’s own specifications defined by the person. The ultimate in government for I, me, mine. Maybe in a way then I could vote for me, the only thing that should really matter in an honest values system.

How Bad Is Manny?

While I have a Manny bat, I really do not love Manny. I do admire Coco greatly (and have the t-shirt) because of the heroic diving catches he makes from time to time. But I suppose even the usefulness of that is a question some may go over. Likely there is a little more to go into than when one questions Manny:

All of today’s best P.B.P. systems agree that Ramirez is the worst defensive left fielder in baseball, and by a comfortable margin. This holds true even after accounting for the effect of the Green Monster wall in left field. “Manny is at the far end of the as-bad-as-you-can-get-in-the-field spectrum, said Mitchel Lichtman, who designed one highly regarded P.B.P. defensive statistic called ultimate zone rating, and who consulted for the St. Louis Cardinals from 2004 to 2006. But the experts differ vastly on just how much a single bad left fielder can hurt a team.

Is he that bad? I like the NYT as much as the next guy but I think this is just a hatchet piece. Consider the description of Ortiz: “Ortiz is even less mobile than Ramirez, and given his corpulence, the demands of playing the field may substantially increase his risk of injury.” His corpulence! That is just mean. Worries? No way – it’s just baseball season when you get to pray your favorite fat slobs beat the heartless but trim Yankees.

A Trip To The Snowy South

A few months to go yet.

A nice bomb down to the great state of Ithaca where we had diner at Moosewood with Gary and Maude as the greatest Charlie Brown snow in history fell outside. I wanted to sing “Hark the Herald” to loo-lo-loo-lo-looooo as roundheaded cartoon kids skated. We split a jug of draft Cascazilla which was entirely the right drink at the right time. The Ithaca Holiday Inn has solidified itself as the place to stay. We are down in Ithaca there a lot and others have thrown everything from the hallways that smell like a nursing home, to a “pool” that was about 15 by 22 feet, to that light that flashed all night, to the other pool with the green water and the sandbars forming naturally in the deep end. Go with the Holiday Inn. Room 265 works for kids if you are not in the Room 1000 bracket.

We ended up at State Diner on, no question appropriately, State Street and had a great breakfast. We often end up at Ithaca Bakery for breakfast where I have a bagel with sprouts, guack and a formed veggie patty so between that and Moosewood I have to make sure I balance my man-drum pretend-Ithacan with my townie pretend-Ithacan. State Diner can do that for me now. I eat corned beef hash and poached eggs but only on the road. This was a good one. Solid move on the toast as well with 3 slices per order and a light touch on the butter. But it was butter. Coffee is better at the Ithaca bakery but not by much. The staff are kind and helpful at both.

Next time, we hit the Shortstop Deli.

A Trip To The Snowy South

A few months to go yet.

Next time, we hit the Shortstop Deli.

Which Is The Mildest Cantillon?

Attentive readers will know I have not enjoyed Cantillon’s sour beers but that I do love Finger Lake Beverages in Ithaca, NY. Well, I am down here again and will load up tomorrow for the spring’s tastings and noticed yesterday that FLB has a good range of these sour things in stock.

Which – if any – are a little more approachable?

Doug Mientkiewicz On My TV

Come over to the dark side, Doug. Resistance is futile.

I watched the Yankees-Twins pre-season game last night care of the glory that is cable TV. If the Web 2.0 had a quarter of the success of cable TV, it might amount to something one day. Like that miracle of the 1990’s, pervasive email, the miracle of the 1980s, pervasive cable TV, has changed our lives so fundamentally we do not even notice it anymore.

Last night, the miracle transported me to a small baseball field in Florida to watch the Yankee hopefuls beat up on the hopefuls for the Twins. One of the former who used to be one of the later stood out – Doug Mientkiewicz. He stood out not only for his horrible grapefruit league batting average of well under 0.100 but his incredible catching at first, stretching out with last second splits to grab the ball a tenth of a second earlier than if he let it come to the glove.

I don’t know if that is enough to earn him a spot, though, given his batting. But one thing about pre-season baseball, compared to say NHL hockey, is there is a lot more potential for fluidity at the far end of the bench and with the farm team system more opportunity for parking people for specific purposes later in the season so we will likely see him play.

The NTY has a good story on Mientkiewicz (Ment-KAY-vich to you non-Slavophones) in this morning’s edition.

New Science From The New Government

Isn’t it great when politics can solve issues in science:

…a pair of Environment Canada bureaucrats said they don’t even know who’s responsible for climate change policy anymore. They said the now-defunct directorate was specifically in charge of overseeing all new climate-change policy, and that its 10 employees are being reassigned to various quarters.

“Even the people working here say, ‘Who’s really accountable for making climate change policy anymore?’ They don’t even know,” said one bureaucrat who requested anonymity. “Right now we don’t know who’s accountable.”

While that is admittedly a lot of ways of saying it, it appears the results of New Science is in – no worries – move along! Bloggers and politicians have settled the matter so let it be. Hopefully so they will have the vision to apply the same understanding of which knowledge can be to medicine and engineering.

No, I meant the other sort of engineering.

Knut Goes Nowhere And Hangs Around His Mailbox

[This post was written by Knut Albert Solem aka “Knut of Norway”]

knut On the outskirts of Europe there lives a peculiar tribe of people. Like most other nations, they feel that they have the solution to every problem on the planet. Other small nations have had to bow to the necessity of adjusting to their surroundings, but Norway had the curse to find oil and gas in the 1970s, giving them the possibility of constructing their own reality.

One of the inhabitants of this country is a contributor to A Good Beer Blog, sending his impressions from his travels across Europe. When the generous editor Alan managed to find some sponsors for his blog, he wanted to share some of the spoils with his contributors. One sponsor is the Cracked Kettle in Amsterdam, and Alan figured that they could probably send a few beers to two of his European contributors. Packages were dispatched in early February, and the one sent to England arrived within days. Here is what happened to mine:

The package to Norway was first returned because the shipping company couldn’t deliver outside the European Union. Fair enough, they found an alternative.

Two weeks later, I get a letter from the Norwegian Postal Service, Posten. They can tell me that they have received a package from abroad, and that they can do the customs clearance for me. For a fee, of course. I sign a form authorizing them to do so, and wait for the package to arrive.

Another two weeks, and they send me a new letter, telling me that I should provide them with a receipt, an invoice or similar documentation for the package. I reply with a short handwritten note that this is a gift, and I do not know the value of the package.

Another two weeks, until yesterday. A new letter, cheerfully telling me that I must fill in a form. This is an application that has to be processed by the Directorate of Health and Social Affairs, which decides if I should be allowed to receive the gift. In the instructions following the form, I am told that the maximum amount of alcohol I can receive in this way is 4 liters. Luckily the package only contains 2 liters. For more information, see the back of the page. The back of the page is blank.

I do not know which criteria the Directorate of Health and Social Affairs use to determine if I should be allowed to receive the package or not. Will they check if I have been prosecuted for bad behaviour in public places? Will they ask the neighbours if I beat my wife? The answer is probably written in invisible ink on the back of the form, or possible posted somewhere in a basement as in the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I faxed over the form today. If the Directorate of Health and Social Affairs decide in my favour, I will then receive a permit to import the beer. This permit will then be mailed to Posten, who will then talk to the Customs people.

It would be interesting to find out how many hours of work it will take for various government employees to process this package containing two litres of beer. And I have a strange feeling that there might be more efficient ways of combating drunkenness and alcohol abuse. But what do I know?