Cheapest Mobile Blogging

This summer I plan a road trip that includes hotels with internet hook up. I want to maintain this site for the two weeks I am away but want to spend as little as possible doing that. I also plan to visit some US micros for photo-laden posts at A Good Beer Blog. I have no laptop. What would you recommend? What is the absolute cheapskates’s approach to mobile blogging?

Update: I am keeping this up top for a few days. I need more butt kicking from portland as well as a good idea or two. One question – what is the most backwards laptop available second-hand which you could use? A Tandy 100?

More On Tags

So now that Technorati is tagging allowing for the indexing of the web, shouldn’t categories broadcast the same system of ? I was going to put a referral tag into my Regiopolis post below and then I realized that my post had now text and each photo was already a link. I categorize such posts under “Kingston” so shouldn’t that category broadcast its Kingston-ness? Thankful I am to the masters that be of this my blog as that category already has an RSS link and maybe this is already solved in that sense. It would be nice if that RSS were able to be directed to Technorati or my public centralized aggregator of choice so that it automatically was picked up along with all other posters of posts with that same tag.

Concurrent to this, it seems to me, will be the responsibility to ensure that your categories make sense. “Stuff I Like” might be one of the less useful categories…but as long as the automated aggregation could be turned on or only could be broadcast to a sensible taxonomy such as wikipedia has organically created the inspecific or unspecified categories would not be an issue.

Oh, to be a boy again and have all the smarts it would take to create a “rel-” tag based aggregatron from which I could sell tasteful yet lucrative advertising.

Further: Shouldn’t this be as easy as those broadcasting tags stores are introducing as described at wikipedia?

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a method of remotely storing and retrieving data using devices called RFID tags. An RFID tag is a small object, such as an adhesive sticker, that can be attached to or incorporated into a product. RFID tags contain antennas to enable them to receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from an RFID transceiver.

Mr Fourth?!?!

Mr. Fourth! Both Gen X at 40 and A Good Beer Blog take a fourth at the 2004 Canadian Blog Awards. I feel like the Canadian swimming team.

So what does that get me? A cheese tray even? Many thanks for all who voted…just not often enough. I think over half the votes were from me. Oh, well. Maybe with some Heritage Canada funding I can make the medal podium. I really want to hear the Gen X at 40 anthem and see the Gen X at 40 flag slowly raised.

Totally Dad

When I worked in the Wool Sweater Outlet in Halifax’s Historic Properties in 1985, all the junior-high south end Halifax kids wanted the 48″ chest oiled wool sweaters to wear with their shorts and woolly socks as the Halifax cool uniform. Although I told them (and sold them) the 40 inch to let the sweater sag, it was (and is) a cool and identifiable look – and I thought if I ony had the money, skill, will and immagination I would create a line of clothes built around the idea called “Totally Dad”.

Now I use “Totally Dad” as the upside of “Oldie Olson” – the guy or gal in his or her forties or fifties who is actually almost able to not embarrass him or herself a group less his or her age. “Oldie Olson” is what is said behind “Totally Dad”‘s back…if they are kind. Otherwise – “old fart” seems to cover it off well. Better than smelly old fart, I guess.

Unless you are Black Cat bookstore on Argyle cool. Then smelly old fart is really Halifax cool.

Update: controversy breaks out at casa Gen X with the assertion by herself that, in fact, it was she who was praised at the bar in the Seahorse circa 1992 for a particular sweater she was wearing with a stranger’s comment “that sweater is totally Dad”. I am stunned. This all sounds like the “vitamin K” episode which I am sure I coined for Keiths draft in around 1986 at the Seahorse only to hear it used a few years later by the tarbender there back at me. We clearly need an institute of ale-house slang to verify and trace the origins of such usages.

Belgian Dark Strong Ales

This is a very pleasant pastime this comparison of Belgians which is already into its third month. To say pacing is required is more than stating the obvious. These are big big beers with two of today’s selection coming in at over 10%. Good reason to have a get together.

Just as one observation on the photos I like to add to these posts, this was a very hard grouping to shoot as the paint on the Terrible by Unibroue is actually mirroring silver while the bottle is black glass. There was no way around using the flash, which I do not think provides you with the best photo of glass. So that being noted, here are my notes on the three examples of this style I have gathered:

Gulden Draak: A true Belgian, 10.5% 330 ml from a variety six-pack from Van Steenberge sold during the pre-Yule rush by the LCBO. The first thing you notice is the malty heat from the dark candi sugar – tastes of fig, pepper and prune. Also, it is surprisingly juicy very nice, grapy and there is a bit of milk chocolate truffle in the centre. Unlike a dubble there is no burlap or oaken notes or orange peel and spice. This is all about the malt, like a barleywine stripped of the English hops. The yeast is prominant as well, butter pastry and cream. It is all like a tart of prunes with whipping cream dolloped on top. The hops balance rather than cut the malt, providing structure but it is all about the malt. Advocates say yeah.

Dogfish Raison D’Etre: An entry from Dogfish Head of Delaware in the USA, this beer is 8% and 12 oz. sold by the single bottle at the LCBO. This one is lighter and somewhat reliant on the addition of grape juice to the beer but the result is surprisingly similar to the Gulden Draak. The yeast is bready rather than pie crusty and the hops are even more subdued. The rich core is more about dried apple more than prune. With its fairly soft water profile and relative simplicity it is still very pleasant. I am coming to think that these beers are also like Scotch heavy ales without the smoke of the barley and that northern strian of ale yeast. Soft blankets of malt. Some advocates disappprove citing poor head and thinness yet it was awarded American Beer of the Year 2000. Can’t we all just get along?

Unibroue Terrible: Canada’s entry is again fantastic – lush, juicy and more-ish. Amazingly, at 10.5%, there is no heat. I am recalling that Terrible is less complex as well than the Unibroue’s Trois Pistoles, their other Belgian dark strong ale. [By the way – imagine a brewer in North America selling two Belgian dark strong ales. I hope Sleeman knows what it bought.] There is some orange but it is more as juice than peel. Big malt but the least signs of dark candi sugar than the Gulden Draak or Dogfish. A little figgy, a little leathery, smooth. Some dried cocoa like a can of powder for baking – dusty and light. Perhaps a recollection of black cherry. The yeast is milky rather than butter or cream – not rich and it adds to the juiciness. Hops again are structural rather than bitter. BAers approve as all but one.

I see that this style is just all about the capacity of belgian pale malt if concentrated. These are ‘s beers. This is what beer imagines it could be if it only put its mind to it, think of the big picture.