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A few weeks ago I celebrated(?) my 40th birthday. One of the best gifts I got was from my friend April. She went and rounded up 40 different beers. The great thing was that they weren’t local beers. Living in Portland, one gets kind of spoiled with the number of microbrews available at our local watering holes. April managed to round up beers from far flung locales such as Tahiti, India, Singapore, and the near mythical dark empire of Germany.

While a review of each beer would be unwieldy, most of the beers were quite good (or at least not heinous). Two stinkers do have to get called out. The Bard’s Tale sorghum beer was ass. I appreciate that there are people with gluten issues that may like this stuff. But let’s face it, its not beer. In that vein, the non-alcoholic Warsteiner stuck out like a sore thumb.

For those interested, here is the complete list:

• Abita Purple Haze
• Ayinger Oktober Fest Märzinger
• Bard’s Tale Dragon’s Gold
• Bison IPA
• Butte Creek Organic IPA
• Carlsberg Elephant
• Dick’s Dick Danger Ale
• Dick’s Lava Rock Porter
• Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
• Duvel Belgian Golden Ale
• Grand Teton Bitch Creek
• Great Divide Titan IPA
• Grieskirchner Jörger Weisse
• Hale’s Ales Kölsch
• Harp Lager
• HeBrew Messiah Bold
• Hinano Tahiti
• James Boag’s Premium Lager
• Kingfisher Premium Lager
• Lagunitas Sirius
• Lakefront IPA
• Laughing Dog IPA
• Lost Coast 8-Ball Stout
• Lost Coast Downtown Brown
• Nectar IPA
• New Belgium Mothership Wit
• Newcastle Brown Ale
• North Coast PranQster Belgian Style Golden Ale
• North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner
• Paulaner Oktoberfest-Märzen
• Speakeasy Double Daddy IPA
• Speakeasy Prohibition Ale
• Tiger Lager
• Victory Hopdevil
• Victory Prima Pils
• Warsteiner Premium Fresh
• Weed Golden Ale
• Weed Mountain High IPA
• Weihenstephaner Festbier
• Xingu Black Beer

tags: Ale, April

The end credits for WKRP In Cincinnati contained a song whose lyrics were shrouded in mystery. Analyzed as much as Hotel California or American Pie, scholars thought the true meaning would be lost to the ages.

Until now.

tags: American Pie, Hotel California, WKRP in Cincinnati

(minor spoilers may be present - I’ll try to be vague in reference to specific events)

Finished up Neal Stephenson’s latest tome, Anathem, and at 980 pages and nearly 3 pounds, it was a hefty read. My thoughts and appreciation of the book changed rather dramatically over the course of reading it, so perhaps a chronological review is in order.

Pre-Purchase - I was hopeful this was going to be a good book. After loving a number of his novels, he lost me with the Baroque Cycle. While the content was interesting, I felt that the books could have been much shorter. I know others will disagree with me. They are wrong. I knew ahead of time that this was going to be a long book, so I hoped for the magic of Cryptonomicon to return.

First 40 pages - Egads… Is this is in english, latin, or hopelandic? Is it spec-fic, fantasy, or a manual on how to wind a clock in a monastery. Hopes for a good experience plummeting.

Pushing through to 150 pages or so - Ok. I’m getting into it. After the rush of the initial nelogisms, he’s calmed down and is actually telling a story.

Evocation - Aha! We have a plot - and a mystery! At this point, I was rather enjoying the book.

Road To Orithena - Hmm Valers? I get it. I liked them, but this is the first indication of a fairly unique variation on a concent. Nevertheless, travel adventures are usually fun. Considering the terrain was as foreign to the characters as it was for me, much was explained.

Orithena and the Laterran - Again, really interested still. Pacing was good.

Convox - Hmmm… again with the noncohesive mathic community. While I understand it and accept it, it seemed a little forced, perhaps so that the messalans could take place. So much time spent on the plurality issue. Perhaps that was just me though. As someone who already understands configuration space and the Wheeler Everett Graham model, it was overkill. On the other hand, for a layperson, trying to decipher it, while having to deal with “Procian” and “Halikaarnian” flavors of it, it may have been too cryptic. Regardless, still completely invested at this point.

Orbital Ballet - Zzz… wha?! oh, are they still out there? Ok, wake me when they land.

Contact - Can we get a couple dozen of the pages spent on explaining orbital calculations back to actually see more of this interaction. Perhaps all of the built up explanations of plurality can get a payoff here instead of a couple pages of lip service.

Resolution - Wait… the book is over? Whatchoo talkin’ bout, Erasmus?

Seriously, this book felt like it could have been twice as long or a third shorter. It felt like so much time was spent in world building and context, while major plot points were glossed over. Maybe I’ll throw Cryptonomicon back in the queue so I can regain some Stephenson love.

tags: Anathem, book review, Neal Stephenson

It was the size of a grapefruit. Now its the size of an orange. Unfortunately, no great story to go with this. I didn’t rescue a kitten from a tree. I didn’t kick anyone’s ass. I straight up tripped. Sheesh.

sums it up…

… don’t wait for the good woman. She doesn’t exist. There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd. Of course, I expect this, but the knife still cuts. The female loves to play man against man, and if she is in a position to do it there is not one who will not resist. The male, for all his bravado and exploration, is the loyal one, the one who generally feels love. The female is skilled at betrayal. and torture and damnation. Never envy a man his lady. Behind it all lays a living hell.

le sigh

Damn, my Pepe Le Pew streak is visible from a distance.

So I ducked out early from WordCamp, after all the scheduled talks occurred. A busy night ahead requires some R&R on my part.

I think I got out of it what I wanted. It was a shame that the two dev related talks (themes and plugins) were held at the same time.

More than any nugget of information I got during a talk, I think the most valuable thing I took away was a general sense of what is possible to accomplish with the framework in general. I purchsed a couple of new domain names today and hopefully some of these new ideas will surface there shortly.

tags: wordcampdx

Its time once again to mentally round up the shows that are coming up in the next few weeks here in the Portland area.

Saturday 9/27 - The Prids are the openers for A Place to Bury Strangers at The Doug Fir. I’m surprised that they are still listed given their near fatal accident earlier this year.

Monday 9/29 - Mission Of Burma at Doug Fir. Saw them here last time and it was a great show.

Tuesday 9/30 - Monotonix and Silver Jews at Wonder. People were raving about their MFNW show at Satyricon.

Thursday 10/02 - Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip at Doug Fir. They were awesome at Coachella this year. A must see show.

Sunday 10/05 - The Dandy Warhols and The Upsidedown at The Roseland. Have to go and say hi to the kids after they return from a national tour.

Monday 10/06 - Sigur Ros at The Schnitz. Heard tickets were going for outrageous prices. Might have to skip it.

Thursday 10/09 - Weezer! and Tokyo Police Club! at the Coliseum?

plus coming soon The Rumble Strips, Sisters of Mercy, and Ogre…

…doesn’t seem right to me.

Apparently, they are the mascots for Pennsylvania’s Quinto lottery. Are they trying to identify with their target market? Trying to increase female particpation? Just a bunch of dicks?

Another billion dollar idea here folks.

Currently, I am reading a hard cover book that is nearly 1000 pages long. Amazon pegs its weight at 2.8 pounds. Now that’s a hefty chunk of words to be throwing in my messenger bag and toting around all day to read on the MAX or at lunch.

So, here it is. Sliced Books. Allow me to purchase a volume where the binding is designed to cleanly separate into more manageable chunks - 100 pages or so. Then, I can just grab the volume that I am on, and am good to go.

As always, if you are a book publisher and you use this idea, I want my vig!