Author: Alan

Rained Out In Cooperstown


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Well, it only lasted two and a half innings and I got soaked but it was OK. I get to get my money back for the tickets because the game didn’t make it to the fifth. Plus, Gentleman potter Gary made me a piggy beer mug in the style and then, before the rain, Fergie Jenkins elbowed Gary out of the way in a crowd so he could get to where he was signing stuff. Willie Fordham was signing his book out in the street and Adam Dunn hit a homer during the pre-game derby way way over my head (as illustrated above) and everyone said “HOLY MOLY – LOOK AT IT GO!!!”.

More photos when I get my head out of the interstate highway system. Gary had lots of questions about you all, particularly the Flea and what he gets up to. I said I am not sure about anything that goes on at the western end of Lake Ontario.

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Friday Chat Or The Chat For The Day After The Red Sox Win!!!

Eight AM meeting across town so I may be brief today. Rainy Friday in May here, by the way. It’s close enough to winter still that you think rain is great.

  • Yes, the Red Sox took the Yankees in the final game of this series and did so in high style 5-3. It was a close game even if the Yanks got two of their three in the first inning when Wakefield’s knucklebal was wonky. After that is was all horsetails and flies. But the Red Soxs left the bases loaded three times so it could have been a bust out but for some good defence by the Yankees at the right times. Big outing for Loretta, the Sox second, who went 4/5.
  • I am inordinately fixated on baseball this weekend with the first GX40 Rewards ProgramTM Event at Cooperstown when Gary and I and maybe even portland will converge for the Hall of Fame Game as I got tickets. There have been rumours of later events such as a Thousand Island BBQ and the Flea says we can all go to Toronto one day and play with his vintage Twister games.
  • You know, I probably believe George when he says the government wasn’t “trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans” but should you really put yourself in the position where you have to say that? I believe him in the sense that the technology and personnel are simply not there to listen to everything and make coherent sense out of it all. And telephone records are always compellable by the courts on a subpoena issued on the request of a lawyer as opposed to by a judge upon a hearing. This is not really the stuff of privacy anymore than the internet is. Yet…there is that whole appearance thing and, more importantly, the mishandling of the appearance thing. Will he lose Congress to a hapless opposition. Will he be look back on one day as the US’s Paul Martin?
  • Apparently nice is the new cool. You have to look who is behind these sorts of studies, though, and I have it on good authority that the money for this bit of work came from the Association of Grannies and Librarians of Maine as well as the Cardigan Manufacturers Association of Indiana.

    He said fewer people identify with the classic image of cool than one would expect. For most, the new cool is someone who possesses more “socially desirable” characteristics. “I don’t know if I can blame marketers, or if there is even anyone to blame, but the mainstream got a hold of coolness and turned it into a mainstream version of coolness,” he said. “People now identify passionate and warm as cool, which is almost oxymoronic.”

    This, of course, is the leading edge of the new neo-socialist movement that will whip neo-cons off the map from 2008 to 2022. It’ll start with nice, move through additional arts classes in high school and end up in news papers dropping their business sections. Mark my words.

  • My Google – because I own one share – is getting more open. Hoo-ray!

    Talking to the BBC, Mr Schmidt also reflected on Google’s decision to adhere to Chinese government censorship rules in order to launch its new site in China. He said the decision was “the hardest the company has ever made” but added that, despite it being heavily criticised, he still felt it was the correct move. Mr Schmidt also believed that competition in the internet search business, especially from Microsoft and Yahoo would drive up prices and increase revenue rather than threaten them. Google appeared to be benefiting from its “limitless growth model”, he said, adding that more users, more advertisers and more content would fuel further demand.

    Excellent. More kowtowing to totalitarians and bizarre enununciations on economics please. These are the snippets you cherish after the bubble bursts.

Gotta run. Someone spell check this thing, wouldja?

Reader’s Survey: How’s It Going?

Time for a readers’ survey to give me an update:

  • Where are you?
  • How often do you read?
  • Do you think I am a bit manic?
  • What are your favorite topics?
  • Should I encourage portland to write more?
  • Which topics do you prefer: food and drink, politics, disdain for blogging, sports?
  • Do I go on and on?
  • No, really…where are you?
  • Do you follow the comments?
  • Are you a stalker?
  • Should I delete the wacko comments or let them ride?
  • Do you also read our sister station A Good Beer Blog
  • Do you read as many blogs as you did two years ago?
  • Is your time with blogs time you later regret giving to blogs?
  • Is the Flea right or me?
  • Is David Janes right or me?
  • Anything else?

The Yankees Lose!!!

There really isn’t a ball in their hands. The now Small Unit just needed a little squeeze after blowing another game.

I could go into why I tell myself I dislike the Yankees but it is really an arbitrary facade I have assigned to myself. Yet hearing things like Jason Giambi, the DHer who gets to stand near first, blowing a few defensive plays again warms my tiny little heart. Not quite as much as the joy I knew when Partick Roy quit the Habs mid-game after reaming out the GM in front of the entire Hockey Night in Canada audience.

But close.

Four More English Pales Ales

I have done a couple of sets of tastings of English pale ales before and with a guest about this is another good opportunity. Here are four more English ales: a 4.3% best bitter from Somerset to the left, then a 5.5% pale ale from East Sussex, next a 7.5% Burtonian IPA and to the right an organic 5.0% ESB from Oxfordshire. What an excellent selection with which to consider the pale ale family as expressed from its homeland.

Pitchfork Bitter: White merenge stiff whipped head over medium straw ale with a light floral and grainy nose. The mouth feel is light, full of pale malt graininess, bright with pear and unripened peach fruit from the malt. Dryish with significant but not overwhelming hopped. Well balanced and refreshingly clean. A very attractive lighter pale ale. Here is what the brewery says. Here is what the BAers say.

Thomas Paine Original: white foam and rim over amber. Black china tea hops plus fruity malt with caramel and a hinty molasses note. The fruit is raisin and fall apple. Heavier again, clearly an ESB, some way to Chas. Wells Bombardier but just one wee step down that path. Yes, here is what the brewery says and, yes, here is what the BAers say.

Burton Bridge Empire India Pale Ale: Woah, Nelly! I had a Burton Bridge Porter in 2001 and this is its somewhat nicer twin cousin. White whipped egg white head over cloudy deep straw. Unique Burton Bridge hops along with that Burton Bridge unique tang. The hops are sharp, green and like a marigold-based drink from the blender. The only brewery’s hop profile which is beyond my descriptor of the smell and taste of driving a lawn mower into a patch of weeds in June. Tangier than that. So tangy it is tongy, like licking a cast iron pot coated with plain yogurt. [Not really but no other ale I have had could plausibly have that image in the review.] Yet underneath is grainy malt and creamy yeast. Black pepper at the dry finish. Again, here is what the brewery says and here is what the BAers say.

Duchy Originals Organic English Ale: Light tan foam over orange ale with no notable aroma. Soft water, quite flavourful watery water. Some sweetness but not yet up to raisiny. Some thought of orange marmalade but nowhere near Special London Ale. Hints – all hints. A tiny notch heavier than Pitchfork above, more tangy white grapefruit hoppy. This beer is brewed by Wychwood for Prince Charles:

When the Prince of Wales created Duchy Originals in 1990 it was because of his belief in the clear advantages of organic farming: the production of natural and healthy foods and sound husbandry which helps to regenerate and protect the countryside. Profits from sales of Duchy Originals products are donated to The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation, which has to date raised more than £1.7 million.

Imagine that! It reminded me a bit of St. Peter’s organic. Finalissimo and once again, here is what this brewery says. Here is what the BAers say.

An excellent collection and instruction itself as to a portion of the English pale ale continuum.

Big Hop Bombs: Un*Earthly, Southern Tier, New York, USA

Can these guys make a bad beer?

This ale pours a light tan foam and rim over bright cherry-amber ale. You pick up heat from the first whiff. Check the bottle. Yikes 11%. I thought it was a Double IPA – but no…it’s an Imperial IPA. Good thing the Mets and Braves went to 14 innings. Another sniff adds rich greens and stone-fruit malt. Sip. Spicy hops over big body heat. It is creamy yet hot saucey. And a pile of weedy greens. And, yes, its 11%. Wow. Lots of graininess and fruit-juiciness even with the hot hot heat.

A very legitimate challanger to Double Bastard from Stone. Too bad I didn’t remember to note the price when I got it at Galeville a couple of weeks ago.

Most Haunted

hauntedMost Haunted. It’s the kind of show you stumble across after the Mets win in the 14th inning and for some unknown reason you are not quite ready to hit the hay. I think it is my best guilty pleasure for the following reasons:

  • The host who comes on at the end of the show to explain why everything you have just seen is likely hooey.
  • It’s in “W”, the network formerly known as “Woman’s TV” or something like that. I am not a “W” person. I cannot bear Debbie Travis. Debbie Travis is on “W” every three hours.
  • Green-grey night vision goggle filming of séances with people saying “did you hear that” or “I can’t stay in this room a moment longer” or “She is here. In that corner…right…there” over and over.
  • Elementary school ouiji-boarding ‘fraidy-cat hosts and para-normalists apparently getting really scared over and over week after week except for the fact that this is their job and their hobby and they are supposed to know a lot about things that go “boo”.

Best. Reality. Show. Ever.