Somebody was a very good husband this morning. Somebody cleaned the living room and dining room until they were spotless and did two loads of laundry. As a result, somebody has been cleared by their wife to beer blog to his heart's content. Can you guess who that someone is?
OK, then. Let's get this party started. Our first entry of the day is Harpoon's Celtic Ale, which I saw for the first time yesterday at the Shire's local sud shop.
The Pour: Depositing Celtic Ale into my Harpoon pint glass I am rewarded with an inch-tall head of cream-colored foam. As this dissipates, Tracy and I each take a whiff. I get nothing but a trace of a mildy worty scent. She detects bananas. Oddly enough, she will soon be proven spot-on. The body is translucent and new-penny copper-red in color. There's not much in the way of carbonation-related program activities going on in the glass. The head is gone now, except for a little film and the usual ring around the inside of the glass.
The Taste: I realize that certain sensory modalities can be easily swayed by the power of suggestion, but I swear to you that, yes, there is a semblance of banana flavor lurking in the predominantly malty tones of this beer. Banana-bread actually. Not precisely what one would expect from an Irish red ale, but not at all unwelcome. Letting go of the banana note and swishing another big sip around I'm picking up a bit of wood - no, in the beer, people - and more general fruitiness in a body that's delightfully creamy. There's also a hint of spice lurking at the perimeter that adds a nice warmth to this beer. The hops here are subtle and in the background. They don't contribute directly to the flavor too much, but their presence can be inferred easily from the feeling of balance, of the malts being reined in by something. You know, like the hops are the "dark matter" in the beer. The mouthfeel is a tad on the light/watery side for an ale, but not troublingly so. Harpoon lists ABV at 5.4%.
The Verdict: This is a very nice little beer. Nothing mind-blowing, but it combines a fun, identifiable character with a body and weight that would allow one to put back a whole bunch of them, if one were so inclined. If they have this at Stop & Shop, I'm going to pick up another six for the game tomorrow.
Next up, we've got Duchesse De Bourgogne, a "traditional Flemish red ale" from Brouwerij Verhaeghe (that's Verhaeghe Brewery for those of you who don't speak, um, whatever language that is). Saw a 4-pack of this on sale at Liquor Depot for $4.95 and decided to give it a shot.
The Pour: Pouring the Duchesse into a goblet, I am practically knocked over by a heady aroma of yeast, alcohol, and burnt cherries. This beer has a big nose on it. Not much of a head, however. (-rimshot-) Less than a quarter inch of noisy, off-white, coarse foam evaporates before I can walk from the kitchen upstairs to the office. Residual carbonation appears scant. The body is dark cherry-brown color, similar to port wine.
The Taste: Whoa. My first impression is "Abbey Ale meets Cherry Coke™". There's a huge pop of over-ripe cherry flavor right up front that rides on top of a funky sour malt note. There's also a suggestion of something sort of like birch beer. Not a trace of hops. What's really odd, though, is the body. This beer really does have a body that's more like champale or soda. The closest I've seen a beer come to this sort of texture is the Lambics I've tried -- real Lambics, that is; not the Sam Adams-style knockoffs -- but this is more coarse than I remember those being. The brewer lists ABV at 6%,
The Verdict: This beer just does not work for me. There's something very off about it that's a little difficult to capture but has to do with the flavor and the texture being out of kilter with each other. Maybe I'm just not familiar with what a Flemish red ale is supposed to taste like -- I actually don't recall encountering the style before, which is somewhat miraculous in its own right -- but, if this is indicative of what they're like, count me out. Honestly, though, I have a hard time believing that's the case. This beer supposedly won gold at the 2006 World Beer Championships, so there's no way it should suck. I'm thinking something went South with this batch and that's the reason it was on sale.
Tags: Harpoon Celtic Ale, Duchesse De Bourgogne
Um, did Google just go apeshit for everyone else out there? Every site that comes up on every search I do is being flagged with a "This site may harm your computer" warning.
Update: Nope, it wasn't just me:
Don't be alarmed if it looked like the entire internet was infected with something earlier this morning—Google apparently tagged every search result, including its own sites, as something that "may harm your computer."
The glitch seems to be fixed now (11:50 a.m., EST), and the tips we received from watchful readers came in between 9:52 and 10:20 a.m. EST. We'll update if any official word on what happened comes out of Mountain View.
Tags: Google
Let me start this post with a plug: If you like food, and you like travel, and you like snarky commentary, and you aren't watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, then you are depriving yourself of some serious entertainment. Tracy and I started watching re-runs of the show over the Summer when Travel Channel was doing a marathon (we've still got about two dozen back episodes to catch up on) and we're staying current with the new season that started a few weeks ago on Travel Channel HD. The show goes around the world exploring cuisine and culture in a way that is both educational and entertaining, and it gets a special ooomph from the headliner's eccentric rock-star-chef personality. I haven't seen that "Five People You'd Like To Have Dinner With" meme circulating lately, but after watching this show I think Mr. Bourdain would make my list.
Anyhow, this coming Monday Tony takes on Chicago, and I can't wait. Because if this promo for the show is any indication, he's putting Chicago-style "pizza" front and center. On trial, as it were. Hell, in one of the scenes previewed he even uses the same term I use to describe this pizza abomination: Pot Pie.
Yes, the pseudo spoiler towards the end suggests that Tony eventually gives at least one purveyor of this pretend pizza their due, but I can't help but think the snark along the way will be hugely entertaining. And if the show holds to form, I'll finally learn how this oddity came to be; how something that, in it's New York City form as FSM intended it, is one of the world's Perfect Foods, evolved into the confused crypto-cuisine that is all some folks in the Midwest ever know from cradle to grave.
Should be all kinds of fun.
Tags: Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations, Chicago
I was just walking by the TV outside our cafeteria and for a split second I thought I heard George Bush's voice. I was wrong; it was someone else, who I didn't stop to identify. But it made me stop for a second and go, whoa. I have not heard Bush's voice or seen his image since that helicopter took off and spirited him away over the jeering crowd on the Mall. Moreover, I don't believe I've heard anyone else so much as mention the man in over a week. He's gone. He's really, truly gone. It's a little disorienting, albeit in an awesome way.
Tags: George Bush
Meet the new GOP; same as the old GOP. Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the stimulus bill without a single vote from the minority party. This move came despite the highly visible efforts of our new president to win their support by seeking their input and offering not insubstantial compromises. Surprising? Hardly. Republicans are still Republicans, and House Republicans in particular are some of the most unreasonable, ideologically-blinkered human beings on the planet. Obama can and should follow through on his promise to reach across the aisle, but he can't shoot magic rainbows out of his ass and he doesn't have the power to make GOP House members suddenly act like mature adults or bargain in good faith.
That does not mean, however, that he shouldn't continue to try.
The function of trying to win bipartisan support, it seems to me, is to clarify things to the American people. If the House Republicans could be induced to support the bill, that becomes clear, and everyone would have been better off. If, on the other hand, they were bound and determined to oppose it, no matter what, that also becomes clear. Neither would have been clear had Obama not bothered to try.
To my mind, it is generally a good idea to act on the assumption that your opponents are reasonable people. It's the right thing to do morally. But it's also generally the right thing to do tactically. I think this is especially true when you suspect that your opponents are, in fact unreasonable. You should always hope to be proven wrong, but if you are not -- if your opponents are, in fact, unreasonable -- then by taking the high road, you can ensure that that fact will be plain to the world.
Now, there are two possible problems with this. The first is the risk that you end up crippling much-needed legislation in order to make the other side happy when, in fact, they can't be made happy and you get nothing back from them for your efforts. The excision from the stimulus bill of funding for family-planning is the example that comes readily to mind. For now, I'm not terribly worried about this. I'm quite certain that, with control of both houses of Congress and the White House, we'll get our family-planning funding at some point relatively soon. It will be in a different bill, and no one will have any illusion that that bill is a "bipartisan" effort. One could make the case that including things that are odious to the GOP in a bill you're trying to get their support for simply so that they can be ostentatiously removed during the highly-publicized negotiating process was a slick move, should one be inclined to see gamesmanship here. Certainly, it's important to tally the end results as we go along to make sure we're not really sacrificing anything important, but I'm willing to let Obama and Pelosi play out their line here a bit.
The bigger problem with Obama's strategic magnanimity is making sure the public knows that you're taking the high road. And that problem is complicated by the mainstream media's ever-more-baffling complicity in giving Republicans and conservatives the lion's share of face-time with the news-watching public. Steve Benen documents the continuation of this egregious behavior over the course of recent negotiations:
If you watched the debate over the economic stimulus plan unfold on the cable networks this week, you may have noticed a certain imbalance. Digby asked the other day, "Can someone explain to me why I'm seeing Republican after Republican on television advising Americans on the right way to run the economy?" It was not an uncommon question.
As it turns out, this was not just a figment of progressives' imagination. ThinkProgress researched the issue and found that "the five cable news networks -- CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business and CNBC -- have hosted more Republican lawmakers to discuss the plan than Democrats by a 2 to 1 ratio this week." From 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on Wednesday, the "networks have hosted Republican lawmakers 51 times and Democratic lawmakers only 24 times." The chart helps drive the point home.
Let's also not lose sight of the context. House Republicans dominated the networks' airtime, despite the fact that they were making absurd demands, despite the fact that they had no intention of voting for the legislation, and despite the fact that their small caucus lacked the votes to defeat the bill anyway.
It would seem that, while it's safe to put away my Bush-bashing t-shirts for the time being, I might want to keep my "I don't believe the right-wing media" shirt handy. If this state of affairs persists deep into Obama's first term - if, despite our new president's insanely high popularity and a public whose actions in the last election clearly showed they'd had enough of Republicans and their "ideas" about how to run things - if we continue to have to suffer through a never-ending parade of Republicans filling the airwaves with their pissing and moaning and mewling about the big, bad Democrats and the evils of government and our descent into socialism... Well, then Obama's prospects - and ours - are pretty dim.
Hell, we might just need to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.
Tags: House Republicans, partisanship, Obama
Yo, Old Man Winter. How's it goin', dude? Keepin' busy? Hey, I was outside doing the driveway just now and it occurred to me that, since Tracy and I got our snowblower a year ago this past October, you've been kinda quiet. Sure, you've dropped some snow on us here and there, but nothing serious. Mostly piddling 2-4" nonsense with a handful of 6-8" affairs tossed in to make it look like you're doing your job. So, um, what gives? Where's the real shit? You know: The big, bad, take-no-prisoners beat downs we New Englanders are accustomed to? The couple of feet that are oh-so-sweet? The metric tons of back-breaking fun? C'mon, I'm ready to feel the love, man! Get your ass in gear, you big ol' meteorological anthropomorphism!
Unless... Wait....
Unless you're afraid of me. Is that what this is about?
Tags: snow
Yes, it seems like a million random question memes before it, but you know what? I don't care. I'm celebrating delivery of my project at work. Just got back from Buffalo Wild Wings, got a glass of Samiclaus by my side, and if I feel like doing a stupid meme I'm damn well gonna.
WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
My maternal grandfather, I think.WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
I'm pretty sure something happened on the last Friday Night Lights that made me cry. That's usually a solid bet.DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
What's handwriting?WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Roast beef.DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Yes. A girl (green) and a boy (blue). Both are soft and weigh about an ounce.IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Probably not. I don't generally get along with other people who are "like" me.DO YOU USE SARCASM?
No, I find it terribly offensive.DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yup.WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Hell yes.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Captain Crunch.DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Of course. Is this even a serious question? Are there adults who don't untie their shoes before taking them off?WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Pistachio.WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Women: Hair. Men: Whether I think I could take them or they'd kick my ass.RED OR PINK?
Red all the way.WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
Thin-skinned and easily offended.WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
All the characters from Deadwood.DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?
Nope. But sometime real soon I'm going to sit down and compose one of my masterpiece "theme" memes, and you'd best all complete that.WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Black track pants (white stripes) with tan moccasins.WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Jack Johnson's Brushfire Fairytales.IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Royal blue.FAVORITE SMELLS?
Let's retire bacon to the Smell Hall of Fame and move on. After that? Onion, garlic, cilantro, and coffee beans. Laphroaig. And, of course, my belly button.WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
Tracy. It's pretty much always Tracy.DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Wilde? Fuck yeah. Except when he's shampooing our hotel room carpet with vomit.FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
NFL football. Yankee baseball. College hoops. Pro hoops. Non-Yankee baseball.HAIR COLOR?
Dark, dark brown.EYE COLOR?
BrownDO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Nope. Wanted to. Spent an hour trying to get the samples in and eventually gave up.FAVORITE FOOD?
C'mon. Depends what mood I'm in. OK, fine, let's say Thai, Chinese, and then pizza.SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
I like both, but Tracy only allows me to watch two scary movies per decade.LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
1408. (My scary movie for this half decade.)WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Jets Green.SUMMER OR WINTER?
Fall.HUGS OR KISSES?
Hugs.MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Whoever's the most bored and hard-up for a blog post.LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Hurmmmmm. I'll say... DITCH!WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Watchmen by Alan Moore; The Feeling Of What Happens by António Damásio.WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Painting of Hemingway House in Key West.WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
House.FAVORITE SOUND(S).
My wife's voice. My birds' ACKACKACKACKACKACKACKACK'ing.ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Beatles. How anyone could go the other way is an enduring mystery.WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Sligo, Ireland.DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
Superhuman spatial/directional skills.WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Melrose, MA.WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
A-Rod's, but I doubt he reads TwoGlasses.HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER?
Working together at Domino's in Troy, NY.DO YOU BELIEVE IN EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENT LIFE?
Sure. The numbers are too large for life - and intelligent life - not to have evolved more than once.HOW OFTEN DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR DREAMS?
Once or twice a week.HOW MANY MORE YEARS DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE ON THIS EARTH?
Forty.
Wait, that's NOT forty eight questions! I know this because I put Wilde's answers into an Ordered List and it ends at forty five! There was no 12, no 20, and no 36 in the original! C'mon. Let's fix this, people...
Tags: blogmemes
Over at Cogitamus, Sir Charles looks for a possible silver lining in the financial mess:
It is my hope that the current financial debacle will seriously alter the American attitude toward the business elite, that it will demystify these so-called "masters of the universe" and expose their rather obvious limitations. I also hope that it will discourage so many bright people from entering the world of finance, which has always struck me as a tragic loss of societal talent for extremely dubious ends. Lastly, it is my fervent wish that the pain that will be endured (and I fear there is much yet to occur) will discredit for the rest of my lifetime the jejune market idolatry and money worship that has been far too much a characteristic of the culture in my adult years.
As I've remarked many times over the last four months -- usually right before getting tangled up in yet another ceaseless and tiresome debate on the subject -- I don't know a great deal about big finance and the ways of Wall Street. The reason for this is simple: It's never struck me as a remotely interesting or worthwhile pursuit. Yes, I realize we need banks and lenders, and I respect (though to a more limited extent than most, I imagine) the role that investment plays in building our economy. So much of that world, however, seems to consist of people inventing silly games where they try to make money off of their money without doing anything useful or adding any value in the process. I've never understood how anyone would be attracted to that line of work and, like Sir Charles, I find it baffling and disturbing that it somehow became a cool and sexy thing to do in our culture.
Tags: big finance
This is fast becoming one of my Favorite Internet Things. It's a web app that lets you mix and match a huge variety of ambient sounds "inspired by" the Sam Poh Buddhist Temple in Malaysia. I've had it on for the last hour or so while I'm sitting here fixing code and I am finding that it both relaxes me and enhances my ability to concentrate. Or maybe it's having a dampening effect on my ADD. Six of one, half dozen t'other.
Tags: ambient Zen sounds
I gave up "social smoking" a little over three years ago. I had picked up the habit of having a cigarrette here, a cigarrette there, when I was with friends who were smoking or out at a bar or, you know, just now and then back in my sophomore year at RPI. I was out hanging party posters on campus with Ditch - a hard-core smoker - and asked if I could try one of his Marlboros. After figuring out how to inhale and then getting a kick-ass drunken nicotine buzz, I took a fancy to the things. Never picked up the habit full-bore, mind you. On doctor's office forms where it asked how many packs you smoke per day I'd always put "1/2" and then cross out the word "day" and write "week". Still, I always knew, even as I was enjoying puffing away on my random smoking binges, that with my family history of heart disease and my asthma-afflicted lungs this had to be a bad idea. So, three years ago this past December, after finding myself taking a drag or ten and noticing how shitty I felt afterwards, I just decided to quit, period. Put down my last butt and never turned back. Amazingly, I haven't had the slightest interest in picking up a cigarrette since then, not even when I'm in situations where, before, I can guarantee you I would have been jonesing to the point where I'd happily bum a crap menthol off a stranger just to satisfy the urge. It's like the spell just lifted. And, listening to this NPR story on Thursday morning about a recent study detailing the health risks of casual, intermittent smoking, I can't tell you how glad I am that it did.
Tags: smoking
From the Times, today:
President Obama signed executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantanamo detention camp within a year, government officials said.
The orders, which are the first steps in undoing detention policies of former President George W. Bush, rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism suspects. They require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be transferred, released or prosecuted.
And the orders bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years, a practice that has brought fierce criticism from foreign governments and human rights activists. They will also prohibit the C.I.A. from using coercive interrogation methods, requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in interrogating terrorism suspects, government officials said.
Believe in it or not, that's change.
Tags: Obama, restoring America
To: New York Jets owner Woody Johnson
Re: Brett Favre
Message: Shut. The Fuck. UP.
Tags: New York Jets, Woody Johnson, Brett Favre
Things I wondered about while eating salad and grazing on RSS feeds:
Considering that the Democrats waved through Bush's Torture Monkey when the former president named him AG and then folded against two hard-right Supreme Court appointments, do Republicans really think it's appropriate to hold up Obama's nominee for Treasury on some vintage nineties-style nitpicking over nanny issues and tax-filing errors? Why yes, apparently some of them do.
The Caroline Kennedy saga had me veering undecidedly between complete disinterest and low-level annoyance at the presumption that her surname was sufficient qualification for a Senate seat. It appears I can now settle on disinterest.
If this move by the Obama Administration actually holds up, the first thing I want to see is a FOIA suit that forces disclosure of who was on Dick Cheney's energy task force and what they talked about. Not because it's in any way still germane, but simply because it will piss off Dick Cheney. Update: Oops, I spaced. We already got that. Oh well, I'm sure there are many, many more secrets lurking about would piss Cheney off to see disclosed to the public.
I don't know a whole lot about incoming DNC Chair Tim Kaine, but the fact that he went out of his way to lavish praise on his predecessor Howard Dean and the "50-State Strategy" earns him big ups in my book.
And finally, this poll of the American public's priorities, which ranks global warming dead last among twenty issues -- including such pressing issues as "Moral Decline" and "Lobbyists" -- leads me to conclude that our species will almost certainly perish from the Earth due to a complete inability to attend to and prepare for complex, abstract, long-term problems. I wonder which species will rise to sentience in our absence to build the next great civilization. (My money's on the contestants in the order Psittaciformes, but maybe I'm biased.)
Tags: Tim Geithner, Caroline Kennedy, Dick Cheney and his Super-Secret Energy Commission, Tim Kaine, Howard Dean, the Decline and Fall of Homo Sapiens
I just took down my George Bush countdown calendar and threw it in the trash. It was a very satisfying experience. Just wanted to share that.
Tags: buh bye
Obama hit on a lot of powerful themes in his inaugural address today, including repeated exhortations to take greater responsibility not just for ourselves but for each other, and to "set aside childish things" - a scriptural reference which sat very well with me nonetheless. One passage that's getting less attention than it deserves, especially given the ongoing guessing game about whether Obama will "govern as a liberal" is this:
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them--that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account -- to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day -- because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control -- and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
Obama's post-partisan posture and aversion to ideological labels might prevent him from ever declaring it so, but those two paragraphs are a perfect encapsulation of liberalism, both in its goals and in its temperament. In all my years of following politics I've never met a liberal who believed government was always the solution to society's ills. I've met plenty of conservatives, however, who believe government is always the problem and the "free" market is always the solution. It's one of the most crucial differences between right and left.
Chris Orr at TNR, who has written extensively about liberalism's essentially pragmatic core, also highlighted this section of Obama's speech, framing it as something that supports Obama's liberal bona-fides:
There is constant confusion about what [Obama] means when he invokes pragmatism and disdains ideology - is he saying he's not really liberal? The answer is, he's not saying that. He's describing liberalism, properly, as a form of empiricism.
The reference to "stale political arguments" sounds like a slap at both the right and the left. But in fact it's only a slap at the right. Conservatives are the only ones who think the size of government is an end rather than a means. Liberals are the ones who only care about what works. This isn't to say that liberals are always right about what works, or that they always agree with each other about what works, only that this question matters to liberals in a way it doesn't matter to conservatives.
This is a very useful formulation, one that Obama and like-minded liberals might deploy to completely reframe the debate about the role of government without ever needing to utter the words "liberal" or "conservative". Ultimately, the powerful mantra of "What works?" could be the final nail in the coffin for the Right's "Big Goverment" boogeyman. And I bet most of them don't even see it coming.
Tags: liberalism, Obama
1:15 PM: Like Fridge and others, the passage in Obama's address that really stood out for me was this one:
"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."
Translation: "We're going back to being America again. You know, the good guys."
1:03 PM: I just heard the phrase "former president George W. Bush" for the first time on NPR. I really like the sound of that.
12:30 PM: So begins the first term of Barack Hussein Obama. Good luck to you, sir. Please don't disappoint us.
12:20 PM: If this man can govern half as well as he speaks then we've got a bright future ahead of us.
12:05 PM: Yes we CAN haz new president!
12:00 PM: Musical interlude. So, technically, right now, Biden is VP and Bush is still president. That's weird. Too bad he can't use his new authority to place Bush under arrest or something like that while he's still in office.
11:58 AM: Biden taking the oath... we have a new Vice President.
11:50 AM: Warren's certainly not shying away from the explicitly sectarian crap. What really sticks out, though, is the weird affect the guy has. Maybe I'm just not used to the Mega-church Pastor Vibe.
11:47 AM: Feinstein's remark about how future generations will look back on this day as a turning point can't be sitting well with the Republicans in attendance.
11:44 AM: And there he is. The Man of the Hour. Still just a little hard to believe what I'm seeing.
11:39 AM: Holy crap. They just showed the Mall. It is a vast, joyous sea of humanity. Can't wait to hear the attendance counts.
11:35 AM: Here come the bad guys. Bush and Cheney, the latter wheelchair bound, trailed by the GOP Congressional leadership. They're playing "Hail to the Chief" for Bush for what should be the very last time.
11:00 AM: Just about an hour away from the swearing in. I'm taking a long lunch today in order to watch the ceremony and listen to the speeches. I'm starting to get a little amped up now. I wish I'd just taken the day off so I didn't have to keep one eye on the work laptop...
Tags: Barack Obama
Psychologically, a given point in the past feels longer ago in direct proportion to the number of notable events that occurred between then and now. Twenty four hours spent following a familiar routine will feel like it went by in a flash, whereas that same span spent taking in novel experiences will, in retrospect, feel like a lot more than just a day. This insight helps to explain why it seems like George W. Bush took office approximately five hundred million years ago. The novelty that led to this psycho-temporal expansion, alas, was not the enjoyable kind.
Eight years cannot possibly be enough to hold all the lies, can it? Twenty nine hundred twenty two days seems an insufficient span to encompass all the damage that George Bush, Dick Cheney and their various cronies and enablers have heaped on our nation. Seventy thousand... Hell, you get the picture. We've spent these two awful terms living under that old Chinese curse. There was a while there where it seemed impossible that the Bush Years would ever end.
Oh, but end they're going to. In just a little over three hours.
Putting aside, for a moment, the hopes many of us have for Barack Obama's presidency, the sheer sense of relief that these criminals -- these immoral, unethical, imcompetent goons who have held America hostage since the day the Supreme Court stole the White House for them -- are finally exiting, stage right (of course) can't be overstated. And yet, even as the storm clouds begin to lift and we allow ourselves to imagine a tomorrow -- tomorrow! -- free of these particular assholes, there's one little downer we need to keep in mind: They left unpunished, of their own free will, never having been held to account for what they did. That's one stain on our nation that's going to be a real bitch to get out.
Tags: George Bush, Dick Cheney
Mon - 9:45 AM: So the Steelers and Cardinals will meet in the Superbowl to decide who is this season's Biggest Kahuna. Could have been worse; could have been stuck with Steelers and Eagles. At least the Cardinals provide some novelty and a good storyline or two. My gut tells me that this game will be a Steelers rout, but the Cardinals have now proven my gut to be wholly inadequate in the prognostication department for three straight weeks, so who knows? Also, Kurt Warner has God and Larry Fitzgerald on his side, so there's that.
8:05 PM: WOO HOO!!!! Blazers guard Rudy Fernandez is headed to Phoenix for the All-Star Weekend Slam Dunk contest! Rudy won the league's 4-man fan voting contest for the final spot. And I'll tell you what: I've got $10 that says he wins it. You all take the field. Rudy has mad skillz.
7:15 PM: I fuckin' love Winefest. Really. I ain't even got the words.
6:45 PM: Cardinals headed for the Superbowl. Woo Hoo. Far better than the alternative of McPuke making a second trip. Oh, Winefest was fucking AWESOME, since you asked. Good lord, my head is spinning from all the amazing wines, beers, and great food. Best $65 per person you can spend, hands down.
10:00 AM: Tracy and I are off to Mohegan Sun's Winefest in a little bit. Have to get an early start as it's snowing and the drive is a little over an hour in good weather. I was originally planning to duck out of the 'fest a couple of times to check the score of the early game, but given who's playing I've bumped that down as a priority. (Um, Go Cardinals?) Not exactly sure when we'll be back, but we should be in time to see the end of Pittsburgh's inevitable victory over the Ravens. You kids have fun.
Oh, predictions: Eagles 27, Cardinals 13. Steelers 13, Ravens 10. Pennsylvania 2, Rest of America 0.
Tags: NFL
Fuck Windows 7. Seriously, every time I turn around I'm seeing posts in my RSS feeds about Windows 7 beta and how great Windows 7 is going to be and it just leaves me shaking my head in frustration. Windows Vista is a perfectly good operating system, but it's been torpedoed by a combination of overblown complaints gone viral and Apple's diabolical Mac-PC ad campaign. So now Microsoft is prematurely moving on to a new OS, leaving those of us who adopted Vista and are perfectly happy with it in the lurch. That really sucks.
1°? OK.
Wind chill of -9°? OK.
Water vapor condensing at a temperature of -7°?
That's the Craziest F#?king Thing I've Ever Heard.
I can't stand Tom Friedman. It's not just because of his "Suck. On. This." comment about the Iraq war or his callous cheerleading for the off-shoring craze. It's because the guy is transparently full of shit and yet, despite the obviousness of his shit-fullness, he is still greeted by most as a sage. Moreover, I listened to a recent Science Talk podcast where he was the guest and the motherfucker couldn't go two sentences without trotting out some stupid fucking metaphor or Friedmanism. Oh, look how clever I am! Really, the guy needs to get bent.
I was quite elated, therefore, to see that Matt Taibbi and David Rees recently tag-teamed the dumb fuck. Here's Taibbi, perfectly capturing the Moustache of Understanding in all his glory:
Friedman frequently uses a rhetorical technique that goes something like this: "I was in Dubai with the general counsel of BP last year, watching 500 Balinese textile workers get on a train, when suddenly I said to myself, 'We need better headlights for our tri-plane.'" And off he goes.You the reader end up spending so much time wondering what Dubai, BP and all those Balinese workers have to do with the rest of the story that you don't notice that tri-planes don't have headlights.And by the time you get all that sorted out, your well-lit tri-plane is flying from chapter to chapter delivering a million geo-green pizzas to a million Noahs on a million Arks. And you give up. There's so much shit flying around the book's atmosphere that you don't notice the only action is Friedman talking to himself.
Spot fucking on.
How this douchenozzle won three - THREE - Pulitzers is beyond my meager capacity to comprehend the world. The dude is a fraud. Easily one of the top five Faux Intellectuals of our times. (Oh, and check out the picture on his Wikipedia entry. It's like he's trying to make fun of himself.)
(h/t: Angelos)
For the second weekend in a row we had Ozzy out of the cage and socializing. We worked on step-up today a bit. Both birds tagged around with me on my shoulder for awhile as well. Good times. If you'd told me two weeks ago that we'd suddenly start making this kind of progress taming little Ozbourne, I'd have laughed. Can't tell you how tickled I am that he's coming around like this.
Tags: Windows 7, cold, Tom Friedman
To all of you who constantly post shitty YouTube videos of old songs, crappy bands, stupid people, jokes, and other irritating not-nearly-as-funny-or-interesting-as-you-think crap on your blogs -- content which I ignore but which constantly prompts my wife to say "Can I watch this?" thus obligating me to pause iTunes for the fiftieth fucking time in an hour -- I'd really just like to say BITE ME.
Tags: you know who you are
Last night the Halting Blatherer and Delusional Liar in Chief gave his final farewell speech. I am happy to report that I didn't watch a minute of it. Assuming he doesn't spring a surprise on me Tuesday morning, that will give me a perfect eight-year track record of never once having deliberately sat down to listen to what this piss-poor fraud of a man had to say. Not a single dishonest State of the Union speech; not one fear-mongering minute of his many emergency harangues about the War on Terra; not even his stirring and unifying (not) post-9-11 speech. From the moment his goons stole the White House from Al Gore I have been resolute in my conviction that this horrible little man has nothing to say to me that's worth listening to. Oh, I've caught snippets on the radio, TV, and in the paper -- second-hand "smoke" as it were -- which exposed me to the weird, inappropriate-pause-laden cadences and the exasperated, frustrated tone of a "leader" who desperately wants the people to believe his lies. That minimal exposure was quite enough, thank you very much. Those stray emmissions of goo-goo, gah-gah freedom bullshit, juxtaposed with a relentless string of actions designed to divide and defile, were enough to send me around the bend on many occasions. I guess, looked at in that light, my eight-year boycott can be considered less an act of defiance than of self defense. In any case, it's over now. Time for the worst orator in modern presidential history to shut his smirky little yap, go back to Texas, close up his fake ranch, and then, hopefully, disappear from public life. We've finally got a brand new president on deck. One who is worth listening to.
Update: The "George Bust" Technorati tag was a typo, but I think I'll leave it as is.
Tags: George Bust
"[Bush] would probably fire me if I permitted a science question to leak into his briefings." -- Outgoing Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger
(h/t: Kevin Drum)
Tags: worst president ever, science!
This past Sunday morning my grandmother passed away at the age of 92. Her taking leave of the world was not unexpected. She had been in a state of failing health for months. Eventually, a combination of old age, chronic ailments, and, to be brutally frank, a lack of interest in remaining alive did her in.
Tracy and I drove up to Boston on Saturday to see her one last time. She was being cared for at Melrose & Wakefield Hospital - the same hospital where I was born, coincidentally. My uncle roused her when we arrived. Despite pain medication and a somewhat diminished mental state, she recognized me and spoke to me by name. I held her hand for a while, glad after all that we had decided to come in spite of the impending snow storm. It was an odd and unsettling experience, however. Never before have I been in a position to comfort and talk to someone so palpably close to death. I found myself wondering what that reality was like from the other side; what it was like to be the person in the bed with the parade of family members coming to your side, everyone knowing the truth but not speaking it directly, not needing to.
The next morning we got the call from my mother. Nana was gone. The timing was such that one could only conclude she had simply decided to let go after seeing everyone.
Now we're off to Boston again to pay our final respects. I have my suit - my one, all-purpose suit - for the funeral mass tomorrow, at which I will - ironically? - be one of four grandchildren tasked with carrying the communion materials to the altar. On the way, I need to stop at Men's Wearhouse to pick up a sport jacket for the wake. It's time I had a third option between "work casual" and "dress suit". Also, I think I will buy a larger dress shirt or two.
Tags: death, funerals, dress clothing
Sun - 7:45 PM: Assuming the Chargers don't pull something extraordinary out of their ass in the final three minutes and change, the conference finals are going to include the Ravens, Eagles, Cardinals, and Steelers. In the twelve years I've been watching pro football, that has to be least compelling final four I've ever seen. It's as if the Football Gods saw my exuberance for the NFL post-season and thought "Oh yeah???" (sigh) Oh well, Tracy and I have tickets to Mohegan Sun's WineFest next Sunday. At least we won't be missing anything interesting.
Sun - 3:30 PM: Next up, something a little more appropriate for the sub-freezing temperatures of January, Dogfish Head's Chicory Stout.
The Pour: This brew pours into the glass like dark brown liquid silk. Very pretty to witness. A quarter-inch head of rich, tan-colored foam develops and sticks around for a few minutes, very slowly fading to film. A strong chicory/coffee note wafts off the surface as the head settles. The body is completely opaque, but from the scant activity on the surface I'd say carbonation levels are fairly low.
The Taste: That is yummy. A rich, complex malt profile offers a lot to taste in a body that's nice and chewy up front like a stout should be. The roasted chicory is the most assertive flavor of the bunch, but there are hints of coffee, dark chocolate, and I'm even getting a little smoked almond or some other nut in there as well. (Note: Checked Dogfish Head's description and they claim to use licorice in this beer as well. Only after they pointed it out could I pick up on it.) The Cascade and Fuggles hops lend a nice, dry finish to each sip. Surprisingly, given the fairly intense flavor, the aftertaste here is a little on the short side and doesn't extend down the palate into the throat at all. I credit this to the nature of the body, which feels substantial at first but evinces a bit of wateriness around the edges as you swallow it. ABV is only 5.2%, which strikes me as on the low side for such a robust beer, but I'm not complaining since I've got two heavy hitters coming up later in the day.
The Verdict: This beer's major vices - the short aftertaste and a body that backs off a little early - could also be considered virtues in a way. While one gets the full-flavored impact of a good, solid stout, the lack of persistence means you don't find yourself exhausted halfway through the glass. One might say that this is a stout with... drinkability.
Sun - 2:00 PM: I'm going to do some beer blogging right here on the Couch™ because while I'm too lazy to make a separate post for it today, this task just needs to get done. Why, you ask? Well, take this first beer. It's Unibroue's Blanch de Chambly. And it's been sitting in my fridge since December of 2006. Yeah, I'm ashamed of that. I just hope it hasn't gone horribly bad in all that time.
The Pour: WHOA! Popped the cap on this and BAM, it spewed all over the place like a bottle of champagne that's been rattled around before being uncorked. After cleaning up the mess on the floor, I poured the beer into a room temperature pint glass. An inch-high head of coarse white foam built up, made a racket, and then quickly vanished. The aroma, yeast and citrus and grass, suggests a witbier. The body is light gold and translucent and carbonation levels appear healthy.
The Taste: Well, the good news is it didn't go south on me. Still very tasty. Big, mouth-puckering punch of sour malt and lemon up front, carried on a weiss-ish body. Very intense; very refreshing. The hops are dry, not too bitter, lending the beer a nice, clean mouth feel. Swishing it around a bit, Blanche de Chambly foams up vigorously, releasing even more flavor. The aftertaste, a pleasant lemon-drop, is medium in length. There's just a tiny hint of Unibroue's signature cloying film around the lips after each sip. The label advertises an ABV of 5%, which doesn't seem like much until I stop and think how quickly I could throw back a half dozen of these.
The Verdict: I need to revisit this beer in its proper season: Mid-Summer, when it's hot and sticky and I need a cold, refreshing brew or three. This is a very nice Belgian white. Highly recommended if, like me, you like that style.
Sun - 1:05 PM: Tracy: "They're playing at Jets Stadium?" Me: "Yup." (...pause...) Me: "You're sooo my wife."
Sun - 1:00 PM: OK now, let's go G-MEN!!!
Sun - 12:50 PM: Michael Strahan with the awesome self-dis: "When I was a kid, I thought the Gap Band was named after me."
Sat - 3:30 PM: Hey all, putting this out there from my remote location in East Longmeadow, MA. Tracy and I are running behind on our many engagements today and there's no way we'll be home for kickoff, but would I leave you hanging? Hell no. That's just not how I roll.
Catch up with you once we've returned to the Shire.
Until college football gets a playoff system, they get the ironic quotation marks around the word "championship". With that said, I'll fluff the cushions, put out some chips and dip, and await your prescient predictions and insightful observations.
Tags: college football
For the second straight morning, NPR's Morning Edition is focusing a substantial portion of its coverage of the Roland Burris controversy on the matter of the appointee's race and the assertions by some that racism is at the heart of the Senate leadership's refusal to seat him. Yesterday, CNN spent a good deal of the late morning offering breathless footage of Burris' march to the Capitol building, where he was "turned away" - imagery and phrasing clearly intended to evoke memories of the Civil Rights Era. Witnessing this, I am led to wonder if the media's refusal to call out transparently baseless canards is simply a matter of incompetence, an outgrowth of their overweening desire to provide faux objectivity, or a kind of tacit collusion with the perpetrators of dishonest arguments undertaken to fill the news cycle.
Senate Democrats are no more guilty of opposing Burris' seating because he's black than they were guilty of questioning Samuel Alito's fitness for the Supreme Court because he was a Catholic. Both arguments were one hundred percent false and one hundred percent dishonest. And yet now, like then, news organizations feel the need to report and discuss them with a straight face. It's disgusting and it's irresponsible.
Tags: Roland Burris, our irresponsible media
It's the New Year; a time for new beginnings, when we clear away the clutter in our lives in preparation for a fresh start. As it happens, I've got some serious clutter in the beer section of our fridge. Can't make a fresh start with that, can we? Let's get to it.
First up, we've got a holiday offering from High & Mighty Brewing called "Home for the Holidays". In a classy move, the brewers are donating all profits from the sale of this beer to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. So even if the beer sucks, it's for a good cause.
The Pour: Cracking the bottle open with my sweet Starship Enterprise bottle opener (thanks, Fridge!) and pouring this beer into a wide-mouth frosted mug, we get a light malty aroma with a hint of flowery hops. Efforts to provoke a head meet with no success whatsoever. An uneven 1/8" of brownish foam quickly dissipates to a single puddle of film in the center of the glass. There's very little activity at the top of the dark brown, slightly translucent body. This beer appears almost flat.
The Taste: Mostly malts up front. Syrupy sweet, with notes of caramel and burnt sugar (like the top of a crème brûlée, Tracy suggests, using all the proper accents over her vowels). The "liberal" dose of noble Halletauer and Saaz hops in the brewer's description is muted for the most part while the beer remains in your mouth, but it comes on strong in the aftertaste. The big weakness in this beer is the body, which is surprisingly watery and insubstantial. The flavor profile is pretty robust as it is, but you wonder what could have been if they'd put a foundation under this house. ABV is listed at a healthy 7%, enough to warm the sub-cockle region of any returning veteran.
The Verdict: This beer's one glaring flaw - the sub-par body - takes it down a notch from "Good" to merely "Fair". If I'm drinking a brown ale, the style intended here, I shouldn't be left thinking "Mmmmmmm, watery." It's really a shame, too, because the more I drink of it, the more I'm appreciating the neatly balanced one-two punch of the malt-hop interplay. Ah well, it was still $4 well spent.
Next we have something from the Oldies but Goodies file, Theakston's Old Peculier Ale. I first sampled this particular brew twenty years ago at Holmes & Watson's in Troy, NY. Here's hoping it's as good as I remember it being.
The Pour: Old Peculier's body is slightly cloudy and caramel-colored as I pour it into a room temperature pint glass. A small, tan head briefly makes an appearance and is quickly gone, leaving nothing whatsoever behind. A few fine streamers of tiny bubbles gravitating towards the edge of the glass provide the only evidence of carbonation. The bouquet offers a heady dose of candied fruit.
The Taste: Welcome to the candy store. I never realized how heavy this ale was on the confectionary malts. Creamy, malted milk balls, a strong caramel note, and just a bit of apple in the background. Old Peculier is foamier in the mouth than its appearance would suggest, and each sip leaves a bit of cloying film around the lips. The body feels somewhere between a Scotch Ale and a Belgian, and it goes down very smoothly. The slight dryness as the aftertaste fades is the only real sense one gets that the Fuggles hops are participating in the proceedings. ABV is not listed, but I'm guessing we're around six percent or so.
The Verdict: Richer, creamier, and more complex than I remembered it, Old Peculier is quite the flavorful experience. It's actually got some strong dessert beer qualities, which means you won't be drinking more than one or two. Recommended.
Tags: Home For The Holidays, Old Peculier
It's almost time for the best post-season in pro sports to commence, and though once again my Jets won't be among the participants, I'm still pretty stoked. Like I say every year: I can take or leave the NBA playoffs or MLB post-season when my teams aren't in the mix, but I never miss a down of NFL action in January. Woo to the Hoo, people. Bring it on.
Here are my predictions (in caps) for the Wild Card Round:
ATLANTA (pick 'em) at Arizona: I was shocked to log into my sportsbook account just now and see this game as a pick 'em. I think the Falcons are going to smoke the Cardinals. If they don't win by two scores, I'll be shocked. Atlanta has the league's number two rusher and a rookie QB who's playing with un-rookie-like poise. Arizona's offense, meanwhile, is totally one-dimensional. And let's not forget that they're coming off one of the most pathetic performances ever witnessed on a football field.
INDIANAPOLIS (-2) at San Diego: The Chargers finished the season on a four-game winning streak and looking very strong, so normally I'd be loathe to pick against them at home. I am basing this pick on nothing more than a gut feeling that MVP Peyton Manning will not be denied right now - not after everything he and his team had to overcome early in the season.
Baltimore (-4) at DOLPHINS: Sure, Baltimore's 11-5 record has come with a lot more dominating victories than Miami's identical 11-5 record. And sure, the Ravens have one of the best defenses in the league. But you know what? I believe in Chad Pennington. I think he gets it done here.
EAGLES (-4) at Vikings: At some point very soon everyone is going to start believing in Donovan McNabb again, at which point he will fold like cheap beach chair. But that point has not arrived quite yet. The Eagles are playing fearsome football right now, and the Vikings have felt like a mirage all season long.
Wow, three road teams out of four. And I'm probably wrong about the fourth one. We'll see soon enough.
I am ready for some football.
Tags: NFL
We've been catching up on movies around here recently, taking advantage of the break in television programming and the extra downtime that comes around the holidays. Here's what we've seen in the last few weeks.
I Am Legend: It's funny, I enjoyed this movie as I was watching it, but in retrospect I'm getting stuck on all the things I wish they had done differently. I would have preferred a linear narrative over the approach they took of switching back and forth between pre- and post-plague worlds. I wish the story had spent a little more time focusing on what the city had turned into absent the care and maintenance of human beings and a little less time on the protagonist's efforts to fight off hordes of rabid plague victims. I wish the ending hadn't been so abrupt. Still, those complaints aside, this was a very watchable action/disaster film. There were plenty of tense, riveting scenes and the pacing kept me engaged the whole time. Will Smith, great as always, had some solid human-canine chemistry going on with his sidekick. Oh, and the critically-panned denoument didn't bother me at all. I honestly have no idea what those early reviewers were complaining about.
Tropic Thunder: I'm always a little bit on my guard going into a Ben Stiller movie, given the, uh, uneven resume that he's built. You never know if you're going to get the comedic brilliance of Something About Mary, the utter dreck of Zoolander, or a mildly-funny mediocrity like Meet the Fockers. I am quite pleased to report that this movie falls in the first category. A ton of hilarious dialog and great one-liners interspersed perfectly within scene after scene of eye-popping, spit-take-inducing visual comedy. The absurd plot provides an ample framework for a slew of colorful and memorable characters. Stiller himself is merely good as the dumb action hero on the downside of his career. Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. are fantastic, with the former playing a B-Comedy actor stuck in a career rut and the latter a "serious" actor (think Russell Crowe) who undergoes pigmentation therapy so he can inhabit the role of a black soldier. The grand comedy prize, however, goes to Tom Cruise - yes, Tom Fucking Cruise - for pulling off one of the funniest performances I've ever seen as the Hollywood studio mogul. I'd heard he was great, but it didn't prepare me for the actual experience. This was a great movie the first time around, and it promises to have a solid rewatchability factor.
The Simpsons Movie: I don't watch The Simpsons regularly, so I'm not in a good position to judge The Simpsons Movie relative to the best of the show. To me, the first half hour or so - culminating in the Bart skateboarding naked scene - was non-stop funny, and then after that it seemed to drag a bit, especially when they got into the borderline awkward emotional bits about Bart and Homer. Some good riffs, to be sure. Spider Pig; Lisa and the Irish environmentalist kid; and, of course, the bits about the state of Alaska, which I'm sure were even funnier after l'Affaire Palin. (Not sure why, but I thought the President Schwarzenegger bit fell completely flat.) I just feel like this might have been a little more satisfying as an hour-long television special as opposed to a feature-length film.
Transformers: Two words: Kick. Ass. Of the four movies in this post, this is the one I would have predicted would get the biggest "Meh". Instead, it was hands-down the most enjoyable. The plot is your basic Good Robots versus Bad Robots story, but a strong casting pick of Shia LaBeouf as the outsiderish kid who unwittingly buys an Autobot disguised as a crappy old Camaro immediately helps ground the movie, connecting the viewer with the narrative. Oh, and, um, yeah, there's also the fact that the robots are wicked fucking cool. It was funny, watching it, because while adult me was thoroughly enjoying the film, I could feel thirteen-year-old me right there going "Holy shit! Holy shit! That's Optimus Prime! Only he looks real!" Absolutely amazing job with the graphics and effects. They took a cheesy 80's robot cartoon and literally brought it to life on the screen, making for a positively giddy experience.
Tags: movies, I Am Legend, Tropic Thunder, The Simpsons Movie, Transformers
Rumor has it there's some college football on today. In our household, there will be much Wii'ing, some napping, possibly a movie or two, a little parakeet watching, quite a bit of drinking, some serious noshing, and maybe, just maybe, a trip to the store for soup ingredients. Know what won't be going on in the Toast Household? Anything remotely resembling work or chores.
Tags: football, vegging out