Election 2007 Watch: What Sport!

The Globe is all a flutter this morning that we may be days or weeks away from an early Federal election call. Seeing as I love elections of any sort this would be a great thing. Sure we would only have another minority government of some kind but apparently that is all Canadians are still comfortable with. Here is my summation of where we are at:

  • I particularly welcome a referendum on the leaders and an opportunity for the Greens to see if they can get a seat or two.
  • Even though I think some policies have been flip-flops, wasteful, silly or worse at least the Conservatives have broken the soap opera cycle of the Grits interior battles between the Jeans and the Pauls. The year has been one of a certain stolid dignity as well as some advancement by the government of good ideas among the odd so pretty good – as long as you don’t actually have to work, say, for a member of cabinet or anything and have to put up with the PMO control freaks.
  • The anti-Dion ads have only bolstered his position and I think in retrospect they may be seen as a foolish error. Arguing about things Liberals did in 1995-2003 will not work now either. They may be back on track to recreate themselves. Having Mr. Rae stick around as a policy geek is going to be very handy. I wonder if he will run for a seat.
  • My estimation of Mr. Layton has fallen since Ed Broadbent has not been in caucus to shout “SUCK IT UP!” at him every six minutes. The NDP will have to do something extraordinary to reclaim my vote of habit.
  • Elizabeth May should be in the TV debates. I am quite pleased with the change in the Green Party since Mr. Last Guy left – and it is one I have voted for in the past.
  • Bloc? There is a chance that they will get a lower percentage of votes in Quebec than Harper will outside of Alberta. That will be a bit of a change.

What do you think? Have anything so seriously changed that you would change your vote? I am very much thinking of moving my wee “X” this time around. But I have no idea where. Persuade me.

Super Bowl Prediction

OK, I see it playing out as a mud bowl and Chicago winning. I see Manning holds his head in his hands by the end and we are unclear as to whether it is the rain or tears. Likely this now assures a Colts win.

CNY Brewfest 2007 Is History

To say I had anything other than a blast would be something of a understatement. Being, I have to admit, my first US style beer fest with hundreds and hundreds of people in a large barn at the NY state fair with 52 beer vendors giving it away for free it was quite a lesson in craft beer culture. We met lots of great people and, at one point, one of my fellow Canucks mentioned that if this many people were drinking free beer for this long a fight would have broken out. In the Syracuse all they did was stand around and talk about really great beer.

There were booths from macrobreweries and imports, booths with people selling t-shirts and booths manned by the good folks who put out beer publications like The Great Lakes Brewing News. But most of the crowd’s attention was given to the craft brewers of New York state like Ithaca Beer Co., Sackets Harbour Brewing, Middle Ages Brewing, Ommegang and Lake Placid Brewing. I now have an UBU sticker for the bumper of my car!

I’ll put down a little more later tonight about the event but for now here are some more photos. Look at that good looking beer blog business card…


Later: OK, what were the beers of the fest? I guided a number of people to the Allagash White tap, especially after they tried the Blue Moon. One in my group kept going back for the Ithaca Double IPA and, by that measure, my favorite was the Stoudts Double IPA. Smuttynose’s Winter Ale was also a repeat customer. I certainly did not have one of every kind but I did have some great chats about great beer with folk I had not met before like Mickey who runs the festival, Stefan (Inertiaboy) and Luc (Lubiere) who I know from The Bar Towel, with Spencer Noakes, Craft Sales Director for the main distributor for the festival, with the publisher of The Great Lakes Brewing News who I got to thank for publishing some of my articles (like one in this month’s edition), Peter Quinn, Founder of the excellent Wachusett Brewing, as well as a whole crew of my brothers from Hamilton, Ontario who are connected to a great craft brew pub there – and whose card I lost so I can’t mention the place!

All in all very worthy and certainly an event that will see me return with a larger gang and maybe a bus from the north to get us around, Syracuse being the land that taxis forgot. Buy the way, the Bar Towellers last view of us was jumping in a car full of guys who had been attending the neighbouring golf show and who were good enough to get us to the Dinosaur BBQ. From there we did not get much farther. Next time, I will make sure my compadres will get better nap time.

First Friday of February Chat

Another gentle dawn. Another month.

Friday this week finds us in a full fledged debate on who is most green. I have no idea why as I have resigned myself to ecological disaster a few short centuries after I am gone, sometime after the Venusians get us all and align themselves with our cats.

  • Green is Canada’s new story on the global scene – forget what was said a few weeks ago, please. And it makes strange bed fellows – forget the labour management divisions of the past. I still can’t figure out why our Prime Minister’s conversion on the road to Damascus or at least the next election is not being called a flop-a-rama of the highest order.
  • It is extraordinary in this day that people in leadership positions can say such dumb things.
  • I am not one to reach for the Attends every time the twits at BoingBoing announce the GroupThink of the day but no doubt there is much foaming over the embarrassment that is the NFL’s demands that churches limit the screens they show TV shows on to 55 inches, as the ever excellent Deadspin cuts and pastes:

    Initially, the league objected to the church’s plan to charge partygoers a fee to attend and that the church used the license-protected words “Super Bowl” in its promotions. Newland told the NFL his church would not charge partygoers — the fee had been intended only to pay for snacks — and that it would drop the use of the forbidden words. But the NFL wouldn’t bite. It objected to the church’s plans to use a projector to show the game on what effectively was a 12-foot-wide screen. It said the law limits the church to one TV no bigger than 55 inches.

    The law? What law? The license between the NFL and the calbe network perhaps but show me the red hand with the pointy finger next to “55 inches” please in the terms and conditions of my cable TV agreement. I declare Sunday group projection TV night. Fight the power! Fight the power that restricts us to 55 inch TV screens!

  • Hilarious to see the end of podcasting coming decidedly unbangily but with the whimperiest of whimpers as the 2007 bloggies cut the category for best podcast of a weblog. Remember when people podcasted? That was cool.
  • I still haven’t got the story right about the Space Invaders rip off images being shown in Boston as reported Thursday in this article:

    …yesterday, a subway worker less attuned to the latest in underground marketing techniques called the police after spotting one of the “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” cartoon characters on an overpass in Charlestown. The terrorism scare that followed touched off a massive response from police. When it was discovered that the electronic boards were only ads for a cartoon, serious condemnation flowed from Washington and Boston.

    What generation gap? Space Invaders was 28 years ago. Who in the work force who does not recognize this sort of character?

There. It is done. Soon there will be a week of February behind us, then it will be mid-month. Before long, we will meet March and this farce of a winter will be gone.

Nice And Quiet

What a pleasant week it has been without the refer logs leading me to the reviews of the whacked complaining of rudeness and telling lies about lying, with strangers making unwelcome accusations against each other of no interest to anyone. How nice to have the conviviality of sport and group work making for gentle days of peace. It is like the thought of the Russian gent to the left: “hmm – a hole, a line and hope of a fish.” There was a time when I stopped arguing elsewhere as arguing gained nothing: it was like shouting at a shoe that did not fit. It is nice to experience the same stopping here, moving on now between the group projects and the sports and whatever.

Maybe there is another level of bloggy understanding where ego leaves us and we know unknowing as it is? Be the link.

CNY Brewfest 2007 Update

With just six days to go until CNY Brewfest 2007 at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, the 11th annual, and preparations are being made – meaning that I have booked the hotel and have business cards being printed. Business cards? Me, too – I have no idea why. Anyway, I am going to post more information here as I collect it. At the bottom of the post is a list of all the participants as of last Thursday.

    • There is some good information in the comments section to the original post.
    • Here is an Mp3 of the radio ad that Mick, organizer and man about Teddy’s at Armory Square.
    • I am having a little trouble figuring out the schedule for CENTRO, Syracuse’s bus service. If anyone want to send them a proposal as to having a useful website that might be handy.
    • Here is that list of participants, local distributors listed in brackets. A nice mix with a hearty core of local upstate micros:

North Coast Brewing Co., Fort Bragg, California (TJ Sheehan)
Smuttynose Brewing Co., Portsmouth, New Hampshire (TJ Sheehan)
Otter Creek Brewing, Middlebury, Vermont (TJ Sheehan)
Magic Hat Brewing Co., South Burlington, Vermont (TJ Sheehan)
Sackets Harbor Brewing Co., Sackets Harbor, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Dogfish Head Brewing Co., Milton, Delaware (TJ Sheehan)
Stone Brewing Co., San Diego, Ca. (TJ Sheehan)
Lake Placid Craft Brewing Co., Plattsburgh, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Rogue Brewing Co., Ashland, Oregon (TJ Sheehan)
Middle Ages Brewing Co., Syracuse, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Lindemanns, Vlezenbeek, Belguim (TJ Sheehan)
Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Young’s Brewing Co., Wandsworth, London, England (TJ Sheehan)
Chimay Brewing Co., Cistercian Trappist Monks, Belguim (TJ Sheehan)
Wachusett Brewing Co., Westminster, Ma. (TJ Sheehan)
Lagunitas, Petaluma, Califonia (TJ Sheehan)
Samuel Smith Brewery, Tadcaster, England (TJ Sheehan)
Pabst Brewing Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Onondaga)
Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Vancouver, Canada (Onondaga)
Bass Ale, Burton-on-Trent, England (Onondaga)
Hoegaarden Brewing Co., Hoegaarden, Belgium (Onondaga)
Stella Artois, Leuven Brewery, Belgium (Onondaga)
Heineken, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Onondaga)
Killians, Golden Colorado (Onondaga)
Newcastle Brewing Co., Tyne, England (Onondaga)
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Chico, California (Onondaga)
Yuengling Brewing Co., Pottsville, Pennsylvania (Onondaga)
Blue Moon Brewing Co., Golden Colorado (Onondaga)
Saranac Brewing Co., Utica, New York (Onondaga)
Ale Street News, Maywood, New Jersey
Syracuse Suds Factory, Syracuse, New York
Rohrbach Brewing Co., Rochester, New York
Cooperstown Brewing Co., Cooperstown, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Salt City Brew Club, Manlius, New York
Anheuser Busch, St. Louis, Mo. (TJ Sheehan)
Harpoon Brewing Co., Boston , Mass & Windsor, VT. (TJ Sheehan)
Duvel Brewing Co., Breendonk, Belguim (TJ Sheehan)
Guinness, Dublin, Ireland (TJ Sheehan)
Sam Adams, Boston, Mass. (TJ Sheehan)
Spaten North America, Munich, Germany (TJ Sheehan)
Victory Brewing Co., Downingtown, Pennsylvania (TJ Sheehan)
Southern Tier Brewing Co., Lakewood, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Woodchuck Brewing Co., Middlebury, Vermont (TJ Sheehan)
Oskar Blues Brewing Co., Lyons, Colorado (TJ Sheehan)
Brooklyn Brewing Co., Brooklyn, New York (TJ Sheehan)
Miller Lite, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Sanzone)
Fosters, Australia (Sanzone)
Landmark Brewing Co., Syracuse, New York (Sanzone)
Leinenkugel (Sanzone)
Ithaca Beer Company, Ithaca, New York (Sanzone)