I'm with Furious: Obama's decision to "reject" Wesley Clark's perfectly legitimate observation that the nature of McCain's military service was not something that in any way prepared him to tackle executive responsibilities is disgusting and disheartening. Moreover, it's exactly the kind of bullshit political cowardice that Obama and his campaign seemed so adept at avoiding during the primaries. Just a baffling decision all around. Definitely not change I can believe in.
Tags: Barack Obama, Wesley Clark, John McCain
From the "You Have To Be Fucking Kidding Me" files:
(CNN) - One of the members of John McCain's new Truth Squad - which his campaign says was launched to respond to unfair attacks on his record of military service - was a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and appeared in an attack ad for the group in 2004.
The group was created to attack 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry's military service record.
"How can you expect our sons and daughters to follow you when you condemned their fathers and grandfathers?" asked former Air Force Col. Bud Day, who was a prisoner of war with McCain in Vietnam, in a 2004 Swift Boat Vets spot.
Let me get this straight: McCain decides he needs to form a special group to "defend" his military record - because, you know, somewhere out there I think there might be a politician or a journalist who hasn't sufficiently bent over backwards to kiss McCain's ass for his service to his country - and who does he put on this crack squad but a member of the most spectacularly vile pack of liars ever to insert themselves into an election. Nice going, Straight Talk. Way to run a "decent and respectful" campaign.
Tags: John McCain, Swift Boat Liars
"Our debt problems today are of a magnitude so extreme that astronomers would be hard pressed to calculate them. By any rational measure our society is comprehensively bankrupt. From the federal treasury down to the suburban cul-de-sacs so much loaned money is either not being paid back, or is at risk of never being paid back, that the suckage of presumed wealth has passed through an event horizon out of the known universe into some other realm of space-time, never to be seen again in this realm." -- James Howard Kunstler
Tags: the Long Emergency
"I think Obama would be a disaster, and there's a lot of reasons. I understand he's from Africa, and that the first thing he's going to do if he gets into office is bring his family over here, illegally. He's got that racist [pastor] who practically raised him, and then there's the Muslim thing. He's just not presidential material, if you ask me." -- Leroy Pollard, resident of Flag City, USA, quite possibly the stupidest place on the face of the planet
Tags: incredibly stupid people
Okay, so Sunday is now Chore Day. It's an arrangement Tracy and I came up with a few weeks back: One weekend day for pleasure and partying; one weekend day for getting shit done. Today, I have mowed the lawn and cleaned the bird cage. The last thing I need to do is clean out the fridge. It's a pain-in-the-ass job, but someone's got to do it.
First up, a baseball-themed brew. I haven't had a Pete's product in some time, so when I saw their Rally Cap Ale sitting there on the shelf at Liquor Depot I thought, hey, let's rectify that sitchyation.
The Pour: Rally Cap delivers a huge off-white head of coarse-grained foam - several inches initially - that gradually fades to a half inch or so. A vaguely malty aroma comes off the top of the clear, golden body. Carbonation levels appear quite robust.
The Taste: The very first attribute that hit me when I cracked one of these open was "Eh... watery?" It's not generally a positive thing when your very first impression of a beer is a defect in the body, but there it is. Rally Cap feels a little weak. The flavor is so-so. There's a predominant caramel-malt note that expresses itself by sticking to your lips and the roof of your mouth. The hop characteristics, on the other hand, are sorely lacking. I get a tiny bit of grassy crispness here and there, but its efforts to peek through are largely thwarted by the heavy dollop of sweetness that dominates each sip. The aftertaste, such as it is, stays entirely in your mouth, and simply reaffirms the sensation of candy-water that you get from the moment this beer enters your being.
The Verdict: Meh. Pretty disappointed with this offering. Too sticky-sweet and cloying for a Summer beer, poorly balanced, and lacking any semblance of a body. I have no idea where Pete thought he was going with this, but he didn't get there.
Next, let's have a glass of Brooklyn Brewing's Summer Ale. These guys rarely disappoint.
The Pour: This beer doesn't even bother to build a head. It gives me about 1/2" of tan foam that is gone in thirty seconds, leaving only the barest hint of film on top of the light gold and translucent body. I got a nice hint of flowery hops off the top, but that was about it. Carbonation levels in the glass remain visibly strong, which seems odd considering the utter headlessness of the beer.
The Taste: It's a photo finish here as the malt and hop sensors fire at exactly the same time. Pleasantly sweet malts, featuring just a tiny hint of almond, complement a subtle but refreshing payload of flowery and slightly bitter hops. This beer feels plucky in your mouth. It's light without being superficial. Foams up with a swish of the tongue, and each swallow sends a crisp, sharp tracer down the back of your throat. The body of this beer is the perfect weight for Summer drinking. If it weren't for the tiny bit of cloying film around the lips I'd bump this up to a four-star rating. As it stands, this is a three-star that's worth your trouble.
The Verdict: Oy, is this beer drinkable. Nothing truly special, but just... nice. Nice weight, nice, non-overpowering flavor. I could drink a lot of these nice beers and not notice.
Our last beer of the day is from Gritty McDuff Brewing up in beautiful Maine. "Vacation Land" is Gritty's Summer offering, and if it's anything like the rest of their line I expect to be pleased.
The Pour: Vacation Land pours into the glass all coppery like, building a medium-sized head that fades away before you know it. I picked up a hint of worty aroma from the cavernous 22 oz. football-shaped glass. The body is not cloudy at all and carbonation appears middling.
The Taste: Oh, yum. Unlike our previous two entrants, this beer has a robust hop character. A slightly acidic and dry splash of herbal bitterness coats the sides of your tongue after each sip. The somewhat sour malt notes come in just behind this, filling out the mouth feel with a pungent and powerful weight. This beer is very well balanced and full-bodied. Like the last two beers, there's a bit of a sticky film that remains behind from the malt -- when did "Summer" beers become so sticky? -- but it's not so cumbersome as to be off-putting. The aftertaste is hoppy and fairly long, leaving your esophagus with a suggestion that bad-assery has been done to it.
The Verdict: My favorite beer of the day. A bit on the heavy side for a "Summer" brew - seriously, you'd be hard-pressed to drink more than a couple of these in a row - but quite rewarding.
Tags: beer
Sun - 4:20 PM: Mutts win the final game of the series, extending what is turning into a season of "Meh" from the Yankees. I dunno. I just don't see this team getting it going. And I don't know why.
Sun - 2:20 PM: I wish I was watching Mets vs. Yankees right now, but unfortunately I was presented with a dilemma. Wrote a song about it. Wanna hear it? Here it goes: "In the mid-day hour, she said Mow! Mow! Mow!"
Sun - 10:45 AM: Petey's Sunday baseball beat is worth your time, as always.
Sun - 10:20 AM: Yanks lead this weekend's Subway Series 2 - 1, with the final game this afternoon at 1:00 PM. Yesterday's 3-2 win was critical. Pettitte pitched himself to another solid start against Mets ace Johan Santana. (How's that workin' out for ya, Mets fans?) The game was interrupted by a nearly hour-long rain delay in the sixth inning, after which Pettitte, amazingly, came back in. Veras, Farnsworth, and Rivera closed it out. As an interesting aside, Pettitte and Rivera might be closing in on something special. The record for Win/Save combinations between a pair of pitchers is currently 55, held by Oakland’s Bob Welch and Dennis Eckersley. Pettitte and Rivera notched number 54 last night, and there's a lot of season left.
Sun - 10:00 AM: I love the guys at NoMaas, I really do. They're funny as hell, unbelievably gifted with Photoshop, and their analytical skillz are usually first-rate. Which is why it disturbs the pinstriped fuck out of me that they've started agitating for the Yanks to sign Barry Fucking Bonds. Please, guys, please stop. I do not want that arrogant, cheating, melon-headed bastard to have his name in any way associated with the Yankees, not even if he signs for the league minimum. I'd rather miss the playoffs. I think.
Sat - 8:35 PM: What the fuck happened to Kevin Youkilis' eye? Did Manny do that?
Sat - 11:00 AM: In other sports news, Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard worked another outstanding draft on Thursday, initially taking Brandon Rush but then packaging him with Jarrett Jack and sending him to Indiana for the 11th pick in the draft, Arizona point guard Jerryd Bayless. I don't know much about Bayless, so I'll have to rely on Bill Simmons' apoplectic reaction as a barometer of his potential talent level:
Damn the Blazers. Damn them to hell. They are working the rest of the league like a speed bag.
Heeeeeeee!!! Nice! I mean, if it pisses Simmons off that bad, it's got to be a genius move.
I don't want to get too far up on the top of the world here, but if Bayless can be trained to pass first, pass first, pass first and shoot second, he might be the final piece of the Championship 2010 puzzle. I'm thinking that he, Oden, and Spanish superstar Rudy Fernandez will need next year to adjust to the league. After that, those three plus Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge = Dynasty, baby.
Sat - 9:00 AM: Color me shocked. Sidney Ponson pitched a solid game last night at Shea, giving up five hits and zero runs as the Yankees took their revenge on the Mets for the humiliation they were dealt earlier in the day, winning 9 - 0. Pedro let up six of those nine runs, watching his ERA swell to 6.57 for the season. Might it be time for him to hang up the cleats and start the five-year waiting period?
Anyhow, it looks like Ponson may have pitched his way into the back end of the rotation with last night's performance, which would line him up to go against the Sox at home on Thursday. I'm not a big fan of the guy, but right now we Yankees fans aren't in any position to complain about the form our pitching help arrives in. And if he can win a few games in a row, who knows?
Fri - 7:00 PM: Well, Dan Giese and Ross Ohlendorf may have gotten their asses spanked 15 - 6 in the Bronx side of today's double-header, but over in Queens tonight we've got Sidney Fucking Ponson on the mound. That'll teach those pesky Mets. (sigh)
Tags: baseball
We're conducting a little experiment here today: How long will Birdstone cling to the mirror in the bathroom staring at her own image if neither Tracy nor I intervene?
My money's on "All Day".
There is absolutely nothing in this world that is more fascinating to our bird than her own image. Parakeets are renowned for their interest in mirrors -- it's why so many popular parakeet toys incorporate them -- but even knowing that fact our bird's obsession with herself is still something to behold. Now that 'Stoney has the run of the house, we'll frequently lose track of her as she takes off to do her thing. No matter. Can't find the bird? Just check all the mirrors. Upstairs bathroom first, then the bedroom, then the downstairs bathroom. If she's not in any of those places, she's either on top of her cage playing with the mirror toy or she's clinging to the front window, settling for those other, lesser birds outside.
Anyhow, it's been an hour now, and she's still checking herself out in the bathroom. The smart bet is she's still there when we go to put her to bed tonight.
Update: I was wrong. She just flew back into her cage in the office. Will wonders never cease?
Tags: parakeets
If you read one thing on this lazy, hot Sunday afternoon, make it this article by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker on perception, sensation, and neurology. Absolutely fascinating stuff. If you're still possessed by the delusion that "you" are sitting there in the bridge of your brain monitoring sensory input feeds like Spock at his scanner console, this piece should disabuse you of that notion. (h/t: Sully)
Tags: neurology
(Discussing what would happen if we won Lotto.)
Me: "Honey, plenty of people have gone through their lives drunk and wound up being successful and very well thought of."
Tracy: "Yeah, but you'd just be drunk."
Tags: truth
Earlier this afternoon, Tracy and I hiked up to Heublein Tower, which sits atop Talcott Mountain (or, if you're from someplace where they have actual mountains, Talcott "Mountain"). The tower is the single most recognizable landmark in our area, visible for many miles on either side of the mountain. It's part of the "summer home" that one-time booze magnate Gilbert F. Heublein built for himself back in 1914. Because, hey, if you're rich enough to build a sprawling second home on top of a mountain, why not throw a tower on there just for the hell of it? The house and tower are now part of Talcott Mountain State Park, and they are open to the public from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Unfortunately, as we found when we arrived, the tower itself is undergoing repairs and won't be open for a few more weeks.
The trail up to the tower from the Rt. 185 entrance to the park makes for a nice hour or so of hiking, round trip. All the climbing is in the first ten minutes or so, after which - if you know where to look for it - you can pick up a trail that takes you right along the edge of a long cliff for about half a mile, affording some great views. As you can see from the picture on the right, it was a hot and hazy day here in the Farmington River Valley. Temps were only in the high eighties but the dew point hit 70° and we all know what that means: oppressive stickiness. Had to take a cold shower upon our return to the abode, which we followed up with a couple of cold beers for good measure.
Tags: Heublein Tower, hiking
MmmmmmmmmmmmmargaREEEEtaaahhhhs!!! Yeeeeahh, peeps, it's a muggy Friday evening in the Shire and we are kickin' it at Casa de Toast. As you might have guessed from the extreme paucity of postage this week, I've been a little on the busy side, mostly due to an uptick in work-related-activities. That shit got officially kicked to the curb as of an hour ago, however, and it's time to flip the switch into Party Mode. I invite you to join me as I depress the lever and watch the coils heat up some Slices of Toast!
(Slice Track: Poison - (Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice)
I am happy to report that on Thursday morning of this week I clocked in at 212.5 lbs on the scale. Why, you ask, celebrate this random number? Only because it's the first time I've seen anything under "213" in eighteen months. The Toast Anti-Diet is starting to pay dividends. For those who don't know, the Anti-Diet consists of two steps:
Recognize that you are simply not capable of reining in your love of food and drink, and stop trying to do so.
Compensate by exercising a minimum of five days a week.
For the past two months, I've been doing three days a week on the weights, two nights a week at my martial arts class, and cycling or hiking at least once or twice a week, all while doing nothing whatsoever to change what I eat or drink. I've lost eight pounds so far over that stretch, averaging about a pound a week. This actually tracks pretty closely with what you'd expect. A pound of fat represents about 3,000 calories, and according to my training tracker at MapMyRide.com, I've burned 13,976 calories exercising this month. So there you go. It appears I can have my whiskey and drink it too, as it were. Yay, Me!
(Slice Track: Talking Heads - Girlfriend Is Better)
So the Supremes overturned the DC gun ban. I guess I don't find this especially troubling. I'm not particularly "anti-gun" for a liberal. I don't want to see every schmoe on the block toting assault rifles loaded with cop-killer bullets, but other than that if you want to build an arsenal of handguns and hunting weapons, knock yourself out. I think if Bowling For Columbine demonstrated anything, it's that the prevalence of guns in our country isn't the problem (Canada's is comparable); the prevalence of frustrated assholes with poor impulse control is. (Put another way, that old "Guns don't kill people..." bumpersticker isn't actually so far from the truth.)
What does trouble me about the ruling - if only in the sense that it gnaws at my analytical faculties - is the way it's been reported as "settling" the question of what the Founders intended by the second amendment. I mean, here's the amendment:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Maybe I'm being stupid, but I don't see how anyone could deny that the explicit purpose of the part after the comma is to fulfill the part before the comma. And yet very reasonable people (not just the Scalias of the world) seem to read it as conferring a general right to gun ownership.
If someone passed a law stating "The need to defend one's property being necessary to a civilized society, property owners shall not be restrained from punching trespassers in the face", you wouldn't blow off the first part and tell people they could just go around clocking each other.
I dunno. Again, I'm not against gun ownership generally, but I'm certainly not thrilled to see the maximal Gun Nut interpretation of it as a Constitutional Right established as precedent.
(Slice Track: Ratt - Way Cool Jr.)
Last year, Tracy and I "adopted" a kid in the Dominican Republic, one Daury Javier Ortiz Adames, through an organization called Children International. This is one of those deals where you sponsor a specific child and pledge to send his or her family a certain amount of money per month. We're chipping in $22 a month towards Daury's upbringing, which is about 25% of his mother's monthly income and around, well, less than .5% of ours. My cousin-in-law Tom has been donating to this group for years, and actually visited the child in India he sponsored, so they're legit in my book.
Anyhow, the important thing is that, today, we sent Daury a birthday present! His eighth birthday is July 22nd, and rather than simply send in an extra contribution so the organization can get him something, we decided to go the extra yard and do it ourselves. Assuming the U.S. and Dominican postal services can decrypt the ridiculously long address we were given, Daury should be receiving a boys' small Melky Cabrera Yankees t-shirt, a coloring/painting kit (his bio states that he enjoys drawing), and a set of Hotwheels stickers.
The funny thing is, as I'm packing this stuff, I'm thinking "Man, I hope he doesn't think any of this is cheesy or shit." And then I remembered, oh yeah, he's not an American kid. He lives in the third fucking world. Odds are he's not going to cop an attitude about our gifts.
I just wish we could see his cute little face when he opens the box.
(Slice Track: Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs)
I've been putting this off for a bit, but it's time for a rare Toast Product Endorsement: I'm givin' it up for Crocs™.
(Waiting for the waves of laughter and derision to pass... waiting... waiting... You finished? Good.)
Tracy got a pair of knock-off Crocs a while back and, barefoot and needing to run to the garage real quick, I chanced to put them on. What first struck me was their complete lack of weight, which was very nice. What next struck me was their excellent ventilation. What didn't sink in for several hours, however, was this single, amazing fact: My feet weren't ruining them.
See, my feet fuck shit up. Usually, anything I put on my bare peds starts to feel skanky after a couple of hours or so, due to the fact that the soles of my feet secrete a foul-smelling, highly-acidic, downright Alien-esque brand of sweat. This ooze has sent many a pair of slippers and sandals to an early grave -- seriously, I eat through slippers like there's no tomorrow; you should see (and smell) what becomes of the lining in them -- to the point where I had resigned myself to never finding casual foot gear that would stay comfy for more than a few weeks.
Crocs changed all that. They have allowed me to make a lasting truce with my funky juice.
I gave Tracy's back to her for good after getting a pair of my own in my Cancer Challenge Ride swag bag, and now my Navy-blue Crocs are the footwear of choice for chilling about the house. Yeah, they're somewhat ugly, and yeah they seem like an idea hatched at GlobalCorporateMegaTrends, Inc., but I don't care. I love 'em. They have rescued me from stinky-sticky Foot Hell, and for that I will be forever grateful.
(Slice Track: The Monkees - I'm A Believer)
Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.
I just got a letter from Jim Calhoun. As a "thank you" for participating in his Cancer Challenge Ride, all riders are being invited to a special closed team practice this October. Iamfucking stoked! That's awesome.
(Slice Track: George Clinton - Atomic Dog)
Tags: margaritas, exercise , guns, Daury, Crocs, UConn Huskies
The Supreme Court today ruled in a 5-4 decision that child rapists cannot be subject to the death penalty. The majority, including Justices Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, concluded that "in determining whether the death penalty is excessive, there is a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons, even including child rape, on the other." This is a position which I wholeheartedly agree with, as I noted in an earlier post when this case first came to my attention. While I am well aware of the argument that the lifetime of psychological suffering inflicted on rape victims generally and child rape victims in particular is excruciating in the extreme, I steadfastly maintain that these crimes are qualitatively less heinous than the act of deliberately and without just cause (e.g. self defense) relieving another person of their right to exist.
This point seemed so obvious to me as to be beyond dispute, so when I wrote about it previously I was quite shocked that several of my esteemed readers dissented, stating that they had no moral qualms with executing child rapists after due process had run it's course. Today, however, I thank you, dear readers, for cushioning the blow that was to come. For it seems that none other than Barack Obama has sided with the Four Justices of the Apocalypse against the majority ruling.
Color me somewhat chagrinned and mildy alarmed.
Tags: death penalty, Supreme Court, Obama
It's not often that I feel a rush of "state pride" -- especially given that Connecticut's mostly known these days for being the home of Zell Lieberman -- but when I read the lead story in today's Hartford Courant, headlined Many Of Us Unsure About God, the Nutmegger* within me just started beaming. Turns out that, according to a just-released Pew Survey of the religious landscape in America, Connecticut ranks third from last, behind only New Hampshire and Vermont, in the percentage of residents surveyed who say they are "absolutely certain" that God exists:
A poll released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that Connecticut (along with Rhode Island), though still home to many believers, ranks near the bottom of most indicators of religious fervor, compared with the rest of the United States.
When asked how many of us are "absolutely certain" we believe in God or a universal spirit, only 57 percent responded yes. Only the folks in New Hampshire and Vermont scored lower, at 54 percent.
Even the residents of Alaska, who pray less than we do and go to church less frequently, according to Pew, are more sure of God than we are, it seems. The national average for absolute belief was quite a bit higher, at 71 percent, although an additional 22 percent of those polled in Connecticut said they were "fairly certain" when it comes to God.
Oh, and which state's citizens were the most likely to proclaim their absolute certainty in the existence of You Know Who? Mississippi (91%). And it wasn't even close. They topped #2 state Alabama by 5 percentage points.
Update: Over at The Plank, Jason Zengerle plucks out this head-slapper from a New York Times piece on the same study (emphasis mine):
The new report sheds light on the beliefs of the unaffiliated. Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, 70 percent of the unaffiliated said they believed in God, including one of every five people who identified themselves as atheist and more than half of those who identified as agnostic.
What kind of person self-identifies as an "atheist" without understanding that the term is incompatible with belief in God? I mean, aside from "A very stupid person"?
Tags: Connecticut, God
Sun - 11:00 AM: For the Mets fans in the audience, Pete Abraham starts off his Sunday Baseball Beat with some advice for anyone seeking the Mets GM job. Interesting stuff.
Sun - 9:25 AM: Lawsuit! Lawsuit! I just clicked over to CBS Sportsline and on their front page they've got a picture of Daisuke Matsuzaka under the caption "Dicey-K". Guess who's been calling him that for almost a year? Pay up, CBS.
Sun - 9:10 AM: Of course, following my display of unbridled enthusiasm Friday evening, the Yankees go out and lose two straight to the lowly Reds.
Sat - 12:45 PM: Tracy and I are off to Massachusetts for a graduation party. On the way, we'll be listening to Dan Giese's first major league start. Well, if the Prius decides to let us, that is. (Been having some funky problems with the electrical system lately. Engage cruise control and watch the volume on the stereo go up by itself! Yay! Yah, we need to have that looked at...)
Fri - 6:30 PM: Hey now! It's Friday already! Time to talk a little baseball, assuming that you guys have any gas left in the tank after this past week's surprisingly robust diamond discussion. (Like Jason Varitek and Jorge Posada are in any way comparable. Smurf, please.)
So what's going on? Well, the Mets finally got around to firing Willie Randolph, a move everyone on the planet has been waiting for them to make since opening day. I don't follow New York's Other Team closely enough to have an opinion on whether they were justified in giving Randolph the axe, but you don't need to follow them to think that the way they did it -- on the road, in the middle of the night, after a win -- was spectacularly classless. I mean, the - HEY! STOP. Yeah, you, I see what you're doing. Move your hands away from the keyboard and back away. That thing you were going to write, lashing me for my "hypocrisy" at criticizing the Mets after the way the Big Bad Yankees treated Poor Joe Torre? Don't do it. Save it. Not remotely comparable. Anyhow, as I was saying, it's almost as if because Randolph's firing was so unshockingly inevitable the Mets said "Oh yeah? Well we bet you didn't see it happening this way." Well played, guys.
Meanwhile, up I-84 and out towards the end of the Mass Pike, 38Pitches.com is looking at possible career-ending shoulder surgery. Now, like any good Yankees fan, I fucking hate Curt Schilling. Irritating egomaniac with a mouth that never stops, particularly when anything about the Yanks comes up. Still, it's a shitty way for a Hall Of Fame career to wrap up. Ol' Ketchup Sock deserved a farewell tour. I'd have loved to hear him booed at the Stadium one more time.
By now, you might be thinking "Damn, Toast, you sound kinda chipper for a baseball post."
You're fuckin'-a right I am. Don't look now, but the Yankees own the longest winning streak in the majors at seven straight. Joba Chamberlain ruled yesterday, going 5-2/3 and giving up only one run. Prior to yesterday's game, the bats had struck for 13 runs, 8 runs, and 8 runs. Not too freakin' shabby. Shows exactly what this lineup can do when the regulars are all healthy, present and accounted for.
OK, it's not all Happy Happy, Joy Joy in Yankeeland. We don't have a fifth starter at the moment, for one thing. In a move that made my gorge rise, they went out and signed Sidney Ponson, recently released by Texas for being a douchebag, to a minor league contract. Rumor has it he's starting for Scranton tomorrow. Hopefully It is my sincere hope that that's as close as he gets to Yankee Stadium. Fucking loser. Still and anyhow and whatever, though. If the offense keeps clicking the way they have been, I could put on pinstripes and get a couple of wins. And I don't know how to throw over-hand.
Tags: baseball
Two and a half years after the Bush administration's illegal and unconstitutional warrantless wiretapping program was revealed -- an event which should have led to immediate impeachment hearings for both the Douchebag in Chief and the Vice Asshole -- Congressional Democrats caved utterly today, passing a bill which cements this gross violation of your rights and mine into law and covers the asses of the telecom companies that aided and abetted Bush's criminality to boot. The last dying ember of hope that these fascist thugs would ever be held accountable for this particular breach of their vow to uphold the laws of the land was just pissed on by Steny Hoyer and his Bush Dog buddies. To which I say: Nice job, Democrats. Way to make us proud. Way to reward the American people for giving you control over one of our three "co-equal" (must... not... snicker) branches of government. I hope you're real happy with yourselves today, you useless fucks.
Tags: FISA, political cowardice
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: Very fine performances by Kevin Spacey, John Cusack and the stunningly beautiful city of Savannah (yes, I'm including the city as an actor) are completely overshadowed by what has to rank as one of the most atrociously unfaithful screenplay adaptations of a "true" story in the history of screen writing.
Tags: movies, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil
For the second time in a week a movie arrives that seems so horrible it almost demands to be seen. New York Times critic A. O. Scott reviews Mike Myers' The Love Guru:
"To say that the movie is not funny is merely to affirm the obvious. The word "unfunny" surely applies to Mr. Myers's obnoxious attempts to find mirth in physical and cultural differences but does not quite capture the strenuous unpleasantness of his performance. No, The Love Guru is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again."
A few weeks ago I was listening to an episode of Slate's Culture Gabfest podcast where the participants were discussing all the big Summer movies and one of the commentators described the atmosphere in the theater as the trailer for Love Guru rolled as one of "uncomfortable silence". I remember thinking, yes, that is exactly the response it got from the crowd when Tracy and I went to see Iron Man. The preview rolled for what felt like eternity, and not one person so much as snickered. Not one laugh line worked. It was painful to watch. Painful to witness. I felt like I contracted a case of second-hand shame simply by being there in my seat, squirming at the awfulness. And this was the trailer. This is where they roll out the funniest scenes to get you to plunk down your money for a ticket.
What the hell happened to Mike Myers, anyhow? The last time he was funny was in So I Married An Axe Murderer (which was funny enough that I Netflixed it so Tracy could watch it). I mean, the whole Austin Powers series was just an atrocious pile of shit. How it was successful - how so many seemingly intelligent people laughed at that grimace-inducing, campy idiocy -- will always remain a mystery to me. This film, sadly, looks like Powers on steroids. "Hey, I'm Mike Myers being an over-the-top caricature! Laugh, dammit!" Sorry, Mike, but fuck that noise.
Maybe this movie will thud so loudly that it will be a wake-up call for this once-funny comedian. One can hope, I guess. On the other hand, maybe comedians are just destined to flame out way faster than the rest of their acting peers. Twenty years ago Eddie Murphy was the funniest man alive, but you couldn't pay me enough to watch Norbit...
Tags: The Love Guru
Trying to out-stubborn a parakeet is a mug's game, my friends.
It is morning and it is Friday and, as such, I am working from home. Earlier, the clasp on Tracy's charm bracelet broke. A day after we got said bracelet back from the jewelers because her Key West charm broke, and now I have to drive all the way to Manchester to see if the jeweler I bought the bracelet from will fix it under warranty. I am in a foul mood. I sit at my desk sullenly.
Suddenly, my precious bird bursts forth from her cage, as if to cheer me. She flies crazily about the office. The air from her wings stirs my hair, and my spirits. This is excellent. My mood lightens.
Briefly.
I need to shower. Thinking "Hey, the bird hasn't showered with me in ages!" I decide that she should come with. It will be wonderful. It will be Quality Time.
I pick her up and walk towards the bathroom. She flies downstairs to her favorite window. I follow and attempt to retrieve her. She steps onto my finger. I walk five feet towards the stairs. She flies back to the window. I follow and attempt to retrieve her. She steps onto my finger. I walk five feet towards the stairs. She flies back to the window. I follow and attempt to retrieve her. She steps onto my finger. I walk five feet towards the stairs. She flies back to the window. Repeat thirty or so more times.
I close the drapes.
We go upstairs. She flies to her cage in the office. I follow and retrieve her. She steps onto my finger. I walk into the bathroom with her and close the door.
She flies to the bathroom mirror. Her second-favorite place in the house.
I retrieve her. She steps onto my finger. I move to put her on the shower perch. She flies back to the mirror. I retrieve her. She steps onto my finger. I move to put her on the shower perch. She flies back to the mirror. I retrieve her. She steps onto my finger. I move to put her on the shower perch. She flies back to the mirror. Repeat a couple dozen times.
Attempting to leverage the revelation I had downstairs that the only way to stop a parakeet from doing something is to remove the provoking stimulus, I remove both panels of the bathroom mirror from the cabinet to which they are attached and lean them against the door of the bathroom closet. The bird flies to the bathroom window. I pull the shade down. She flies to the top of the door. I retrieve her. She steps onto my finger. I move to put her on the shower perch. She flies back to the door. I retrieve her. She steps onto my finger. I move to put her on the shower perch. She flies back to the door. I retrieve her. She steps onto my finger. I move to put her on the shower perch. She flies back to the door.
I give up.
I need. To take. A fucking. Shower.
And I'm tired of this shit.
(Maybe wing clipping isn't as bad as I thought? Nahhhh...)
I shower.
I finish. I reach around to grab my towel, which is hanging from the bathroom closet door. Which is ever-so-slightly ajar, because Tracy has fallen into a habit of not closing it all the way until it latches. The door opens an inch. The mirrors, which if you'll recall were propped against the door, are no longer propped.
They lean. They hang briefly in the air, as if to say to me "See, you stupid, stubborn fool? This is what thou hath wrought."
They fall. They shatter. Both of them. Into many, many pieces. We will now be needing, in all likelihood, a new bathroom cabinet, as finding a pair of mirrored doors for our current one strikes me as unlikely in the extreme.
The immediate lesson, again: Trying to out-stubborn a parakeet is a mug's game. Don't do it.
The deeper moral of the story: I need to learn to let things be. To go with the fucking flow, as it were. To not always attempt to force my will upon an obstinate and unyielding universe.
Yeah, that'll happen any day now.
(The bird is now sitting atop the picture that hangs over the stairs. I dare not bother her, because I don't want the stairs to collapse underneath me, causing the picture to fall onto my head, shattering the glass which then opens my carotid artery. Or whatever.)
Tags: stupid shit that happens, parakeets
Every time a new browser comes out - or, more commonly, a new version of an existing browser - the very first thing you're going to hear about from the people who released it is how fast it is. This makes perfect sense. Most browsers these days have equivalent features and that leaves performance as the ultimate differentiator. If you really want to get people to adopt your browser, your best bet is to convince them it's wicked fast.
If you're Microsoft this is hard work because Internet Explorer moves with all the swiftness of yours truly mowing the lawn on a hot July day after sucking down a six pack. If you're Mozilla or Apple or Opera, however, you can often get your enthusiasts to spread the word. Problem is, these people usually overstate the case, claiming blazing fast, qualitatively different, life-altering, melt-your-face performance gains for improvements that end up feeling pretty incremental in the real world. Even knowing this, of course, I invariably rush to download this Next Big Thing and check it out. And usually I wind up loading pages and clicking on links and going through a little dance in my head where I start out believing this new browser is totally fast as shit, but then a short time later I wonder, wait, is it really? So I click and load and click and load and, yes, I suppose it's faster than what I was using, except perhaps on this page or under these conditions, but mostly I'm positive it seems faster. I think. (This is how I wound up using Opera from 2003 through 2006 despite the fact several of my favorite sites, including CBS Sportsline, were buggy as hell on it. I convinced myself it was fast.)
It was with this well-rehearsed routine in mind that I heaved a heavy sigh upon viewing Fridge's announcement in a recent comment thread that Firefox 3.0 was "screaming" fast. I figured Here we go again. I have to download this - that's a foregone conclusion - but let's gird ourselves for the inevitable creeping disappointment. I even rolled my eyes a bit as I clicked through the install dialog. Seriously.
Well, peeps, fast forward three days and you'll never guess what I have to report:
Firefox 3.0 is fast.
Really, really, really fucking fast.
Like, I'm typing through a puddle of melted face that just dripped onto my keyboard. That's how fast it is.
Firefox 3.0 kicks the Christ out of every browser release that has come before it. Color me pleasantly surprised.
Tags: browser speed, Firefox 3
"I mean, 'whitey'? That's something that George Jefferson would say." -- Michelle Obama, highlighting the ridiculousness of the "Whitey Tape" rumor that's been plaguing the fever dreams of Wingers everywhere
(And on a related note, if you care about AMERICA it's very important that you forward THIS to every person in every address book you have.)
Tags: Obama
Congratulations to the Boston Celtics on winning the NBA championship with an emphatic beat down of the Los Angeles Lakers. With the win, the Celtics add a 17th championship banner to their collection, ending a 20+ year drought. More importantly, they kept alive my dream of Kobe Bryant retiring without winning a Shaq-unassisted ring.
Tags: NBA
Is it possible for a movie to get such terrible reviews that you actually end up wanting to see it out of morbid curiousity? I ask this because the critical response to M. Night Shamalama-ding-dong's The Happening might just be the worst treatment I've ever seen a major Hollywood release receive in my lifetime. Take, for example, this opening salvo from TNR's Christopher Orr:
M. Night Shyamalan's latest movie, The Happening, is not merely bad. It is an astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined. It's the kind of movie you want to laugh about with friends, swapping favorite moments of inanity: "Do you remember the part when Mark Wahlberg ... ?" "God, yes. And what about that scene where the wind ... ?
I don't know about you, but when I read something like that I'm sorely tempted to pony up $9 just so I can share the joy and take my own turn gleefully defecating on Shyamalan's fast-disintegrating career.
Tags: The Happening
Unlike John McCain, I will not veto every beer that comes before me. In fact, if you elect me president, I vow to sign every beer I can get my hands on into law.
Oh yeah, peeps. At long last, it is time to clear the fridge. Let's drink!
First up, a wheat beer from a brewer that I encountered in Savannah but which, until very recently, was not available in the northeast. Let's have a taste of Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat.
The Pour: HUGE aroma from this beer as it cascades into a room-temperature pint glass. Big, nose-grabbing hit of lemon and pear and malt. This beer smells awesome. The head built up to around 2 inches and then subsided to a half inch of dense, shaving-cream-like off-white foam. The body is an opaque golden wheat color. Very attractive.
The Taste: The first thing I notice is a sticky-sweet cloying feel. The overall impression is almost Unibroue-esque. Very sweet, very malty. There's a hint of the lemon taste and grassiness you expect from a wheat, but it's quickly subsumed by a candy-like intransigence. I detect no hops whatsoever in this brew. (I bet Tracy will like it.) The mouth-feel is a bit on the heavy side for a wheat. Aftertaste is sweet, but it doesn't make it down your throat at all. Really, it's an odd experience. This beer impacts the center of the tongue and nothing else. Bitter sensors remain unprovoked and nothing at all slides down the back of the tongue and into the throat. It's fascinating. I almost feel like it's disappearing in my mouth rather than being swallowed.
The Verdict: Not entirely unpleasant, and yet I can't say it's satisfying either. There's something very superficial about this beer. It gives a big first impression and then excuses itself. A little sad, actually.
Next up, a beer that's got your goat! No, seriously, it's got a little plastic goat hanging around the neck of the bottle. I think Tracy should make earrings out of them. It's Ayinger Brewing's Celebrator Doppelbock! (I'm excited about this. I've adored this beer since I was a wee lad.)
The Pour: A half-inch head of light tan foam emerges as this dark brown brew slides into the glass. Aromas off the top are intense and chocolatey. Very alluring, with an enticing hint of alcohol as well. The body is deep, dark brown and entirely opaque. Hard to discern the level of carbonation in the glass, but given that the head receded quite quickly I imagine it's scant.
The Taste: Oh, yum. Chocolate and cherry flavors predominate the malty goodness that impacts the beer glands and stretches into an intense and deliciously sticky aftertaste that feels like it stretches all the way down the esophagus. This beer has a very heavy mouth-feel to it; you're not going to drink more than one. But believe me, that one is worth the trouble. The confectionary intensity is balanced by just enough hop around the edges to keep this beer honest. Yes, it's all about the gorgeous malt, but Ayinger did not make a one-dimensional beer. Rather, this is a textbook lesson on how to build a beer that has a specific character without falling into cariacature.
The Verdict: If you love good beer, you probably already know how good this beer is. It hasn't changed; It's still a masterpiece.
This beer has been in my goddamned refrigerator since Tracy and I went up to visit Angelos and Erica in Saratoga last year. Yes, seriously. I'm a little embarrassed. But I'm ready to drink this bitch at long fucking last.
The Pour: Barnstormer pours smoothly into the pint glass, developing a meager 1/2" head that subsides to film almost immediately. The smell off the top is malty and "creamy" (Tracy's impression). Carbonation in the glass is non-existent, which might have something to do with me letting it age this long, I suppose. The body is a somber gold with the tiniest hint of cloudiness.
The Taste: Sourdough malt makes the biggest impression, followed by a goodly amount of bitter hops. The malt character is mouth-puckeringly intense. It dominates the flavor and takes you all the way through the fairly long aftertaste. It's a bit too sour for my taste, however. Again, this could be the age talking. I'm drinking this way past it's "Drink By" date. But yeah, too much pungency on the malt end. The hop character does a yeoman's job of rounding things out, but it's not quite enough. The body, at least, is just right. Perfect Pale Ale weight. Impressive but not overly heavy.
The Verdict: Not bad. Not great, either. I may have to give this beer an "incomplete" since I took 14 months to crack it.
Tags: beer
More than anger, more than hurt or pain, it's the feeling of strangeness, of dislocation and unreality, that strikes me as so weird and unbalancing when another person drops the mask and lets you know how they really feel about you. I wish I could focus on the anger and really channel it, but I'm too busy thinking "Bwwuuuuuuh????" (And no, this has nothing to do with Tracy; don't be silly.)
Tags: people suck
Sun - 9:30 PM: Hell of a win by the Yankees today, 13-0 over the Astros, and yet they took a big blow as Chien-Ming Wang left the game with a sprained foot. Wang seemed to have finally gotten his groove back after a bad stretch of starts, and with the rest of the rotation settling down the team seemed poised for that run that's eluded them. Now? Shit, who knows?
Sat - 8:00 AM: It would appear that the Yankees now have themselves a heck of a new starting pitcher in one Mr. Joba Chamberlain. A little light on strikeouts, but one earned run over six innings is nothing to sneeze at. How weird is it that, of the Big Three, the only guy to see any success this year is the guy that had to transition out of the bullpen?
Fri - 9:18 PM: People who boo intentional walks are fucking retarded.
Fri - 9:00 PM: Rooting for a .500 team is no fun. Especially when that team is a consistently .500 team. There's no drama. There's no ebb and flow. Not with this Yankees team. They haven't suffered any teeth-grinding losing streaks, and they haven't enjoyed any hope-inducing winning streaks. They've just been... average.
Annoyingly, persistently, ceaselessly... average.
I mean, I can't even get out on the Ledge with these guys.
Where's the freakin' Drama, people?
Tags: baseball
As you've no doubt heard by now, Tim Russert died of a heart attack today. This is sad news. Can't say I was a huge fan of the man's work, of course. It seemed to me like he was way too caught up in his reputation as a hard-hitting interviewer and so he fell into a routine where he practically made a fetish of petty "Gotcha" questions ("Last year you pronounced it 'toh-may-toe' but recently it's been 'to-mah-toe'; Explain.") Still, he showed more commitment to the journalistic craft than most of his peers, was by all accounts a decent man, and 58 is too damned early to go. Rest in peace, Pumpkinhead.
Tags: Tim Russert
"I am going to tell them that they have faith and they have trust and support the Constitution of the United States because they have optimism and hope and that is the strength of America." -- John McCain in Philadelphia today, pandering to Pennsylvania voters with a feeble attempt to resuscitate "BitterGate"
Damn, throw a couple of "freedoms" in there and that could be a Bush quote. I mean, "they support the Constitution of the United States because they have optimism"? Whuh? Way to start putting your rhetorical mark on the race, Straight Talk. Nice job.
Tags: John McCain, wingerbabble
Breaking News: The adult urinal/kiddie urinal configuration in my office's men's rooms will soon be a thing of the past. Scarcely a year after renovating all the restrooms in the building, the powers that be have decided to rip out the new urinals and replace them with the very newest in piss-catching chic, the waterless urinal. While the manufacturer claims these units are both odorless and more hygienic, an unscientific survey of my male officemates has thus far revealed an attitude that could charitably be described as "skeptical". Me? I'm willing to give them a chance in the name of conservation. And hey, at least both of our new ones are at proper peeing height.
(Adding: I'm so glad the damned primary is over so I can go back to focusing on important stuff for a while.)
Tags: waterless urinals
I have a question: Is it possible to buy "Russian" dressing at the supermarket anymore? The last couple of times I've tried to acquire some - in both instances for making Reubens - I've found nothing but "Thousand Island" on the shelf; no Russian. As to the question of their functional equivalence, Tracy says 'yes', but several anonymous sources on the internets say 'no'. What gives?
Tags: salad dressing
Now that my only unbreakable commitment to outdoor activity is behind me, I've got a new mantra: Bring the Heat!
Seriously, I'm all about having a nice, hot Summer. Followed by a nice, hot Fall. And then, if we're lucky, a nice, hot Winter that takes us all the way into next Spring.
"But Toast," you say, "We thought you loved Winter. You're a New Englander, a 'four seasons' kind of guy, are you not?"
Well, yes, I was that kind of guy. Then I opened the bill for our most recent oil delivery.
Seems that our lock-in contract for $2.69 a gallon expired as of May 1st. I was unaware of this. Typically I call our oil company and renegotiate every year around this time, and since the price we settled on was always in the $2 to $3 a gallon range I never worried too much about tracking deliveries or exactly when the contract ran through. That changed yesterday when I opened a bill for 172 gallons at $4.49 a gallon.
I immediately placed a "What the fuck?!" call to our supplier, who patiently "reminded" me that lock-in rates only run through the start of the Spring, with most contracts ending as early as April 1st. He then got on his soap-box and launched into a really long-winded discourse on oil markets and the price of futures and the cost of the oil they currently have on hand and how the oilpocalypse is throwing everyone in the business for a loop, all of which was just frothy, verbal turbulence atop the underlying message of "Sorry, but no, I can't give you a break on that bill."
Can't say I blame them. My bad for not getting something in writing and/or paying better attention to the calendar.
In any event, that's all oil under the bridge now. We've got a full tank in the basement and that should last us through October (especially if we cut back on hot water usage, which we're going to). The more pressing issue is figuring out what the hell we're going to do next Winter. Assuming oil prices don't come down to a far more reasonable level (I'd lock in at anything below $3/gallon at this point) we're going to have to take preemptive measures to cut our demand. That means that replacement windows move back ahead of a new driveway in the major home improvement queue. It also means I need to start getting quotes on having a pellet stove installed and hooked up to our heating system (assuming such a thing is possible). And it means I have to convince Tracy that getting through the Winter with the heat set at 68° rather than 70° is, in fact, a reasonable proposition.
We are entering some very interesting times. Could be a rough ride ahead.
Tags: climate, oil prices
When did they start doing early school dismissals due to hot weather? I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing, although that could just be because we almost never get weather this hot while school is still in session. Still, it's 2008; don't most schools have air-conditioning by now?
Tags: school dismissals due to heat
The morning of the Big Ride is upon us. It was 70° at 6:00 AM, which tells you what kind of day it's going to be like. Couldn't sleep for shit last night because I'm so stressed/psyched over this. Tracy and I did a full reconnaissance of the route in the car yesterday. Aside from the big (5-mile) climb into East Hartland, the remaining 37 miles of the ride offers some rollers, a couple of smaller climbs, and some really shitty roads up in Massachusetts. Bottom line, based on my training rides to date, I'd estimate this as being at the far outside edge of my abilities. Which is how it should be. It's a Cancer Challenge ride, after all, not a Cancer Fun Ride. I'll have updates when I get back, of course. Wish me luck.
Update: And I'm back. A little over 50 miles total. Ride time 3:46 for an average of 13.6 MPH. Normally I'd be disappointed in that, but given the length of the ride, the 1,200 feet of climbing, and the 90° heat I'm not about to beat up on myself too bad. Felt pretty good through the first 30 miles but the last 20 were considerably more grueling. I was sucking down Powerade and Powerbar Gel packs to keep the minimum flow of fuel going. Tell you something, that gel crap works. Couple of times I thought my muscles were just going to fall straight out of my legs and a packet of that in some ice water (plus a few minutes to take effect) got me through it. (I assume the Powerbar Gel stuff is similar to the more popular GU, but we couldn't find any of the latter at GNC). Anyhow, I crossed the finish line and I wasn't the last one back, so it's all good. I will say this, though: My next bike ride is going to be really mellow...
Thanks to all of you who donated. I raised $860, good for second place out of sixty employees from my company who participated. Not too shabby.
Tags: Cancer Challenge Ride, cycling
Sat - 7:45 PM: Andy Pettitte gave up ten earned runs today. Ten. OK, yes, the Yankees still won, so that part's cool. But did I mention that Andy Fucking Pettitte gave up 10 -- not one, not two, not three, not five, not seven, but ten -- earned runs? That's some crazy bad shit, yo.
Fri - 6:00 PM: Moving on to the state of things in the Bronx. Our pitching is -- how shall I put it? -- fucking awful. The Future Prime Minister of Taiwan has given up 23 earned runs in his last 23 innings of work and hasn't won a game in over a month. Andy Pettitte has finally settled back down, but he's got a 5-5 record and a 4.21 ERA. Darrell Rasner, after starting 3-0, has lost his last two. Joba Chamberlain pitched his first start like a wide-eyed neophyte instead of the overwhelming force of nature we'd become accustomed to seeing. Hughes and Kennedy both remain a long way away from their returns from the DL, and there's no guarantee that when they do come back they'll suck any less than they did prior to their injuries. Oh, and the bullpen? Farnsworth still induces heartburn, Hawkins sucks, Ohlendorf is going to be burned out by the All-Star break because of all the games he's been brought into early on, and the previously unhittable Edwar Ramirez couldn't get a single out in his last appearance on Tuesday. The only bright spot is Mo the Eternal, who has 15 saves and a "You have to be kidding" ERA of 0.35. If we didn't have Mo, we'd probably be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs by now.
Oh well. At least we've got A-Rod and Jorge back. And the bats seem to be livelier these days. So there's that.
Tonight the 500 Club starts a four-game series against the lowly Kansas City Royals. If they can't put some distance between themselves and sea level against the team with the 3rd-worst record in baseball then, hell, I don't know what to say.
Fri - 5:45 PM: How about that brawl in Beantown last night? That was something. Wednesday night, Crisp jammed his thumb on Rays' shortstop Jason Bartlett's knee while sliding into second. He gets pissed at where Bartlett put his knee and "responds" by smashing into Rays' second baseman Akinori Iwamura. So Thursday, Rays pitcher James Shields beans Dustin Pedroia in the first and then plunks Crisp on the hip in the second. (Shields has admitted both were deliberate.) Crisp charges the mound, benches clear, mayhem and hilarious hijinx ensue. I haven't seen clips of the precipitating events that happened on Wednesday, so I'm really not qualified to comment on who should bear the brunt of the blame for all this. But that's not going to stop me. Fuck the Devil Rays. Those pricks pretty clearly came into this season intent on establishing themselves as bad-asses, with Exhibit A being their maiming of Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli in a Spring Training game. (Fridge and I: Still right; The rest of You: Still wrong) So while I'd normally side with anyone against the Sox, not this time. Tampa Bay can get bent.
Tags: baseball
I was going to title this post "The Taste of Her Tears" since Tracy and I just polished off our bottle of champagne (well, prosecco, but whatever) while watching Hillary's speech, but I'm too classy for that.
OK, actually I'm not. (But you knew that.)
In any case... (deep breath)... FINALLY.
It is now officially over. With this speech, Barack Obama can finally march unhindered into the general election, his (and our) horizons undarkened by the spectre of a floor fight in Denver or a third-party Hillary insurgency. With this speech, we can, maybe, be one party again and get our goddamned act together.
It was a good speech. A strong speech. Tracy said "It was more than I expected" and I concur. There was no hemming or hawing or coded messages to her supporters (that I could detect, although, not being a supporter...). She even got into a bit of a rhythym with her refrain of "And THAT is WHY we must ELECT Barack OBAMA" (I'm sorry, but I'm sooooo not going to miss hearing that voice every day).
It was a solid effort. It was the right thing to do.
(It would have sounded even better on Tuesday)
Regardless. Time to move on. Time to roll up our sleeves and get down to the real business of taking this country back from the evil Winger Horde. Time to start kicking some McAss. Time to hope.
Tags: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
A funny thing happened on the way to the Cancer Challenge ride. See, we got our "team" shirts in this week. I didn't even know we were getting "team" shirts when I signed up. Frankly, I kinda prefer to wear my own cycling shirt of choice. You don't see too many riders out there wearing Gaelic football replica jerseys. It's got personality. But anyhow, when I found out we were getting official cycling shirts for our team I was like, okay, that's cool. I guess I can use an extra cycling jersey, and there's nothing wrong with showing a little corporate pride now and then.
So on Wednesday I walked over to the cubicle of one of the women on our public affairs team to pick up my team garb.
"What size?" she asked me. "XL" I replied.
She hands me a shiny, spandexy-looking top that looked like it was made for a ten-year-old.
Nonplussed, I took it and held it up to myself. "Um... this is an XL? Really?" Uncomfortably, she said "Yes, I think so." "Well, do you have... anything bigger... maybe?" She rummaged through the boxes and found a 2XL. I held it up to myself. It was about the size of a men's medium t-shirt.
"Uh.... Well, I guess I can try to stretch it out. Thanks."
Spandex, it turns out, doesn't stretch. I mean, it stretches -- that's what it's designed to do. But it is mightily resistant to permanent stretching. I washed it and then stretched it out over the back of my office chair while still wet and let it sit for a full day. No increase in size. Nada. For shits and giggles, I tried it on anyhow. WOW did it look awful. My torso is not defined in such a way as to be flattered by skin-tight garments. Tracy gamely offered "You look fine, Hon." I love my wife dearly, but I did not look fine. I looked like a balloon animal.
Anyhow, on Thursday we got an email saying that the vendor who produced the shirts had a "different idea" about sizing than we did. At the time this made no sense to me. What "idea" does one have to have about sizing* to produce child-sized cycling garments and claim they're "XL" and "2XL"? I was just glad to find out I wasn't the only one who thought the shirts they sent us were ridiculous, and I was further relieved that the vendor decided to help us out by rushing us some last-minute jerseys in larger sizes.
Small problem: The replacement jerseys, which they sent in 3XL and 4XL, were also a different "cut" (see below).
I went to pick up one of the 3XL's yesterday? It's as big as a house.
So I'm kinda screwed. I simply cannot wear either of these, and I'm struggling to figure out a suitable backup. Do I wear my red and green Maigh Eo jersey? A plain t-shirt of some kind? (A tank top, perhaps? It is going to be hot, after all...)
Ah well. I'll figure something out. Stupid shirt vendor.
Tags: cycling shirts
Paul Krugman, to my steadily-increasing dismay, has been conducting his own little journalistic crusade against Barack Obama over the last several months. It began innocently enough, with the good professor chiding Obama about the dangers of playing into right-wing memes, being too generous towards conservatives with credit for their "big ideas", and unilaterally disarming during an ongoing partisan battle. While I agreed with a good deal of Krugman's criticism of the candidate back then, I've since come around to the belief that he and I were wrong and Obama was (and is) right to have chosen the tactical path that he has. (A longer post on that subject is fermenting in the back of my brain.) Regardless, the problem is that this early, wholly-defensible criticism morphed over March, April and May into a ceaseless and increasingly ridiculous parade of articles that swerved between nit-picking attacks on Obama, shameless apologism for Clinton, and truly weird up-is-downism wherein Krugman cast Obama as the candidate playing divisive games to the detriment of party fortunes.
Now, I loves me some P-Krug. He was one of the very few journalists willing to call the Bush administration on their shit early and often. To borrow a phrase from t-shirt I recently saw, he hated Bush before it was cool. He is also, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, spot-on in his observations about the larger world of politics and economics. Like Furious, however, his Obama bashing has thrown me for a loop, causing me to question (albeit to a lesser degree than Mr. F.) the reverence I had for the man's awesome powers of analysis and judgement. As things ground on, I decided that the best policy was to give Krugman a "timeout" - just ignore him until all this was over to see if he'd come around. Kind of the same as I did with Avedon, who has also been difficult to read of late due to what appears to be a similar allergic reaction to Obama.
Now, at long last, the primaries are behind us, however, and so with bated breath I waited for Friday to roll around to see what Krugman would write in his first dollop of post-primary opinionating. Would he finally have something positive to say about the man who has been, to all who were willing to look at the race rationally, our de-facto nominee for months? Or would he continue the Oback-biting and Hillary-fluffing? I needed to know. I just. needed. to. KNOW... what the next page in the Krugmanomicon would reveal. And so on Friday, I pointed my browser at the New York Times to see what the once-Wise One had to say to his readership. And... and... and... It was an article about... electronic books.
Seriously, Professor K? That's what was on your mind this week?
(sigh)
Get well soon, big guy. We miss you.
Tags: Paul Krugman
Fri - 6:00 PM: Moving on to the state of things in the Bronx. Our pitching is -- how shall I put it? -- fucking awful. The Future Prime Minister of Taiwan has given up 23 earned runs in his last 23 innings of work and hasn't won a game in over a month. Andy Pettitte has finally settled back down, but he's got a 5-5 record and a 4.21 ERA. Darrell Rasner, after starting 3-0, has lost his last two. Joba Chamberlain pitched his first start like a wide-eyed neophyte instead of the overwhelming force of nature we'd become accustomed to seeing. Hughes and Kennedy both remain a long way away from their returns from the DL, and there's no guarantee that when they do come back they'll suck any less than they did prior to their injuries. Oh, and the bullpen? Farnsworth still induces heartburn, Hawkins sucks, Ohlendorf is going to be burned out by the All-Star break because of all the games he's been brought into early on, and the previously unhittable Edwar Ramirez couldn't get a single out in his last appearance on Tuesday. The only bright spot is Mo the Eternal, who has 15 saves and a "You have to be kidding" ERA of 0.35. If we didn't have Mo, we'd probably be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs by now.
Oh well. At least we've got A-Rod and Jorge back. And the bats seem to be livelier these days. So there's that.
Tonight the 500 Club starts a four-game series against the lowly Kansas City Royals. If they can't put some distance between themselves and sea level against the team with the 3rd-worst record in baseball then, hell, I don't know what to say.
Fri - 5:45 PM: How about that brawl in Beantown last night? That was something. Wednesday night, Crisp jammed his thumb on Rays' shortstop Jason Bartlett's knee while sliding into second. He gets pissed at where Bartlett put his knee and "responds" by smashing into Rays' second baseman Akinori Iwamura. So Thursday, Rays pitcher James Shields beans Dustin Pedroia in the first and then plunks Crisp on the hip in the second. (Shields has admitted both were deliberate.) Crisp charges the mound, benches clear, mayhem and hilarious hijinx ensue. I haven't seen clips of the precipitating events that happened on Wednesday, so I'm really not qualified to comment on who should bear the brunt of the blame for all this. But that's not going to stop me. Fuck the Devil Rays. Those pricks pretty clearly came into this season intent on establishing themselves as bad-asses, with Exhibit A being their maiming of Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli in a Spring Training game. (Fridge and I: Still right; The rest of You: Still wrong) So while I'd normally side with anyone against the Sox, not this time. Tampa Bay can get bent.
Tags: baseball
So the Big Ride is this Sunday. Been keeping an eye on the extended forecast all week, fervently wishing for a clear, sunny day. Apparently, the Weather Gods were listening because, Lo and Behold, the forecast for Sunday does indeed call for clear and sunny skies. And temperatures in the mid fucking nineties. Not just Sunday, either, but for the next four days and possibly beyond. Yup, we got ourselves a heatwave coming. In Connecticut. In June. Go figure.
No, it's not his trashing Obama on foreign policy. No, it's not the fact that he's heading up a new pro-McCain organization. No, it's not the fact that he lied to the citizens of the good (but kinda stupid) state of Connecticut.
It's that he's started using the phrase "Democrat Party".
Is there a more verbally pungent signifier that one is, in fact, a partisan Republican? I think not.
That he continues to tolerate this man at all, let alone allow him to retain his position atop the Homeland Security Committee and the rest of the perks of being a party member in good standing, is one of the enduring mysteries of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The Democrats do not need Lieberman to retain control of the Senate - that much was written into the 2007 Senate organizing resolution with the consent of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Further, the Democrats are set to make gains in the Senate in November, so quite soon Lieberman won't even be particularly critical to the party's ongoing numeric advantage. Why, then, does Reid continue to let him roam the country insulting and embarrassing his colleagues, his erstwhile party, and our nominee? For a vote here and there? I just don't get it.
Tags: Joe Lieberman, Harry Reid
You don't spit into the wind.
You don't pull the mask off that ol' Lone Ranger.
And you don't criticize Barack Obama's Middle East policy on a conference call hosted by right-wing ideologues if you're someone who caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate, beee-yotch:
[D]uring a Senate vote Wednesday, Obama dragged Lieberman by the hand to a far corner of the Senate chamber and engaged in what appeared to reporters in the gallery as an intense, three-minute conversation.
While it was unclear what the two were discussing, the body language suggested that Obama was trying to convince Lieberman of something and his stance appeared slightly intimidating.
Using forceful, but not angry, hand gestures, Obama literally backed up Lieberman against the wall, leaned in very close at times, and appeared to be trying to dominate the conversation, as the two talked over each other in a few instances.
Sure, in an ideal universe Obama would have popped Lieberman in what passes for his jaw, but seriously: When was the last time a high-profile Democrat -- and they don't get more high-profile than the party's presidential nominee -- stood up to that smarmy, self-righteous little douchenozzle? Looks to me like there's a new Sheriff in town.
Tags: Joe Lieberman, Barack Obama
Last thirteen:
Saliva - "Rest In Pieces" (Back Into Your System)
Saliva may be considered nu metal, but this song would fit right into any compilation of classic 80's Power Ballads. And yes, I mean that as a compliment.Ministry - "Stigmata" (The Land Of Rape And Honey)
Industrial is one of those genres I really have to be in the right mood to listen to. Thankfully, I am.O.K. Go - "Oh Lately It's So Quiet" (Oh No)
These guys tickle me. I have no idea how they've been critically received since the viral YouTube video of "Here It Goes Again" broke, but I love 'em. One of the better "impulse" purchases I've made on iTunes.Run-D.M.C. - "Sucker MC's" (Run-D.M.C.)
I remember walking around Melrose, MA as a high school freshman rocking this album on my rather small excuse for a boom box. I ruled.Tyler Bates - "Remember Us" (300 Soundtrack)
Is this movie on HBO yet? It demands rewatching. Great fucking soundtrack too.Collective Soul - "Untitled" (Collective Soul)
Under-rated 90's poprock.Neil Young - "Rockin' In The Free World" (Greatest Hits)
KEEP MAH broccoli in the FREEEEE-zur!Alice In Chains - "Nothing Song" (Alice In Chains)
Nobody ever made depression and nihilism with suicidal overtones sound better than these guys.Rob Zombie - "The Ballad of Resurrection Joe and Rosa Whore" (Hellbilly Deluxe)
Hmmmmmm. My iPod seems to be in a very particular iMood this afternoon.Dave Matthews Band - "The Stone" (Before These Crowded Streets)
If you'd told me two years ago that I'd do a total 180° on DMB I would have scoffed.Talking Heads - "Slippery People" (Speaking In Tongues)
No band brings me back to my iconoclast/eccentric phase in High School more than the Heads.Journey - "Be Good To Yourself" (Greatest Hits)
I always find it amusing when songs you've never heard before in your life turn up on "Greatest Hits" albums. Couldn't have been that great, fellas.David Bowie - "Velvet Goldmine" (Ziggy Stardust)
Concept albums shouldn't be re-released with "bonus tracks".
Tags: music
11:00 PM: Mixed feelings. Obama is the nominee. (Hey, did you know he's the first black major-party nominee? Good for us.) But Hillary refuses to leave the stage with anything remotely approaching grace or class or concern for her party. Hard not to feel troubled. And yet happy. Argh. Fuck it. Goodnight.
10:55 PM: Ezra finds the perfect metaphor:
In the first episode of the BBC comedy Coupling, Steve decides he's going to break up with his girlfriend Jane. He steels up his courage, strides over to her, and makes his pitch. "I'm going to put this very simply. It's over between us," he says. She looks at him quizzically. "You want us to split up?" she asks. "Yes," replies Steve. "Yes I do." She looks at him sweetly. "I don't accept."
Tonight, the Democratic Party essentially told Clinton that it was over. Obama crossed the magic delegate threshold and captured, for all intents and purposes, the nomination. Clinton had run a remarkable race, and come inches from securing the nomination, but she had lost. And tonight, Clinton took the stage in New York, and said, in effect, "I don't accept."
Yep. Loathesome sociopath. Horrible, to use Tracy's preferred adjective. Or to toss out my own analogy "Like an awful case of herpes that the body politic cannot rid itself of."
10:45 PM: CNN:
Moments after the polls closed, Barack Obama’s campaign announced the support of 26.5 superdelegates, releasing statements of support from:
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and Democratic Party Chair Don Bivens of Arizona; DNC Member (and daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) Christine Pelosi, DNC Member Rachel Binah, DNC Member John Perez, Rep. Sam Farr, Rep. Bob Filner, and Rep. Jerry McNerney of California; Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado; DNC Member Mitchell Ceasar and Rep. Ron Klein of Florida; Georgia State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond; President of the National Federation of Democratic Women Helen Knetzer, a Kansas superdelegate; DNC Member Patsy Arceneaux of Louisiana; DNC Member Sam Spencer of Maine; Rep. John Sarbanes of Maryland; Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan; Missouri Democratic Party Vice Chairwoman Yolanda Wheat; Nevada Democratic Party Chair Sam Lieberman and Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto; Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey; DNC Member Muriel Offerman and DNC Member David Parker of North Carolina; DNC Member Jay Parmley of Oklahoma; Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and Oregon Democratic Party Vice Chairman Frank Dixon; DNC Member Ian Murray of Pennsylvania; and Executive Director of the Virginia AFL-CIO Jim Leaman.
Get out of the way, Hillary.
10:43 PM: Wow. I'm nearly speechless after that ending. If that's the choice? If that's what's on the menu for November? John McCain is going to get his ass handed to him. Fucking brilliant.
10:35 PM: Three candidates. Three speeches. Let me tell you, bitchez, one of them was not like the others.
10:28 PM: Andrew Sullivan on Obama on Clinton:
As classy as she was classless; as graceful as she was rigid; as generous as she was stingy. And an indicator that he would gladly have her in his cabinet but not on his ticket. The character difference between him and her could not be better exemplified.
Oh, come on; they're both "just" politicians.
10:25 PM: The reviews of Clinton's speech are flooding in, and they ain't good. So far I like Jonathan Chait's the best:
Incredible. She justifies her continuing the campaign by saying that she finished the campaign. She doesn't concede that Obama has a majority of delegates, let alone that he's won. She repeats her bogus popular vote argument. She congratulates Obama's campaign on its "achievements," but barely musters a single good word about him.
I don't know what the fallout will be, but at minimum, I'd say that anybody on her staff who cares about their party has a moral obligation to publicly quit and endorse Obama.
Indeed.
10:21 PM: Damn, he's good. This is how inspiring a speaker Obama is: He almost made me believe that Hillary was a noble and laudable character. For about five seconds.
10:08 PM: Obama has suggested time and again that we need a clean break from the "politics of the past". Well let me tell the Senator something: Putting Hillary Clinton on the ticket as your VP would not be a clean break. It would be one of those messy wipes that consume half a roll. Don't do it.
9:53 PM: No champagne tonight. Not until this selfish fucking asshole clearly states that she's out of the race. To all those who, like me, picked option three in today's poll, I'm sad to say we were correct.
9:52 PM: Not even a hint of a concession. She even urged her HillBots to "go to her website" once again. Stay classy, Hillary.
9:48 PM: Unhinged Hillary supporters: "DENVER! DENVER! DENVER! DENVER! DENVER!" Ohs noes, I think I does despise these particular fellow Democrats...
9:45 PM: Gotta hand it to her supporters, they are jacked up. I mean, how do you manage to wind yourself up into such a frenzy for a candidate who lost months ago? Oops, sorry. No gloating...
9:41 PM: Now she's on the "count every vote" schtick. Unbelievable. And she said "I'm glad we stayed the course". What in the hell is that all about?
9:39 PM: You didn't win the popular vote, liar. Remember the biggest lesson of Bush's presidency: Repeating a lie doesn't make it true.
9:34 PM: Clap - clap - point... Clap - clap - point...
9:30 PM: BTW, McCain's speech? So-so on content. Someone called it a "pre-buttal" of the "Bush Third Term" meme. Good luck with that, Senator. I have a feeling that will be a hard sell. Anyhow, what really stood out was how awful McCain's delivery was, his presence, the forced rictus smile, weird chuckles before every "punchline" and steady stream of verbal miscues. He was like an awkward kid giving a campaign speech for class president. OK, here comes Hillary...
9:00 PM: Obama is the nominee. He's cleared the bar, and it would seem there's no way for the goalposts to get moved again. OK, so do we open the champagne now? Or should we play it safe and wait until Hillary actually concedes? (Which I'm still convinced might never happen.)
8:53 PM: "I hate war" rings a little false from the guy who sang "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb-bomb Iran."
8:48 PM: Am I the only one noticing that McCain's cadence and delivery at times sounds a bit like Andy Rooney?
8:40 PM: "Pundits and party elders have declared that Senator Obama will be my opponent." -- John McCain, uttering the first Big Lie of the general election.
8:15 PM: Ooooooooo. "McCain to target Obama in final primary night". I'm sure Obama's shaking in his boots.
8:05 PM: Great Avis commercial: Bunch of guys with New York City accents sitting around the break room talking about the results of the previous night's Yankees game. New employee comes in and introduces himself thusly: "Hey guys, I'm wicked psyched ta be heah. You guys ready to rent some caahs?" Well, hey, it's funny if you're from New England...
7:59 PM: MSNBC has this irritating thing in their crawl where they keep rotating between the total delegate count, the superdelegate count, and the "popular vote". What's irritating is that, in that last count, they show Clinton ahead by 3,000 votes. She is not ahead. The "popular vote" total is a bogus metric; a meaningless pseudo-fact for the reasons Ezra outlined yesterday. But more importantly, any calculation that shows Clinton ahead has to include the votes from the rogue primary in Michigan where Obama's name wasn't on the ballot and which the RBC made pretty clear didn't matter when they didn't make the delegate division line up with it. Basically, MSNBC is lying to their viewers.
7:48 PM: Joba works a 1-2-3 2nd inning. That's more like it.
7:37 PM: Nice graphic: "Obama (Needs 10); Clinton (Needs 200)."
7:34 PM: We're switching back and forth between YES (when Joba's pitching) and MSNBC (when he's not).
7:30 PM: Damn that was ugly. 37 pitches (21 strikes to 17 balls). 3 walks. 1 balk. 1 passed ball. 7 batters. And, absolutely amazingly, only one earned run. Of course, you know, I'm sure it's just a minor case of growing pains.
7:27 PM: Yankees have a guy up in the bullpen 2 outs into the game.
7:25 PM: How can a guy who handled the pressure cooker of the eighth inning like it was nothing come in and be so clearly freaked out in the first?
7:18 PM: Obama ten delegates away.
7:16 PM: Joba Chamberlain throws his first strikeout as a starter.
6:53 PM: Twelve, baby!
Twelve more minutes until Joba Chamberlain's first major-league start.
Twelve more delegates until Obama clinches the nomination.
This could be a pretty exciting night in the Toast household.
(Heh. And what do these two men have in common? Skeptics and nay-sayers have warned against viewing either as a "savior".)
Tags: Joba Chamberlain, Barack Obama
On this, the final day of voting in what seemed like an endless primary season, I give you the first-ever TwoGlasses poll: What will Hillary do?
I know that, given the irrational nature of her campaign's behavior over the last few months, these options probably don't exhaust every possible outcome. Still, I think these choices cover the three main categories of action she might pursue. And if you disagree, well, that's what comments are for. Have at it.
Tags: Hillary Clinton, polls
Ezra Klein, responding to Hillary's latest blathering about the importance of adding to her popular vote total tomorrow:
It's a little peculiar to even have to say this, but the Democratic presidential nomination is decided by delegates, not the popular vote. There's a good argument to be made that it should be decided by the popular vote, but for now, it isn't. And so both candidates pursued strategies meant to attain the necessary number of delegates. If the "votes" in the non-election in Michigan and the no-campaign election in Florida were going to matter, the two candidates would have campaigned in both places. If the popular vote was the key, the Obama camp would have ignored small state caucuses and spent that money running up their totals in larger states like Illinois. Indeed, to get a sense for how contingent it all is, head over to Poblano's place where he's got an unbelievably cool little gadget that lets you measure the popular vote while changing different assumptions and variables (like how to count Michigan, Puerto Rico, etc). All these questions and uncertainties exist because the primary process is not set up to measure the popular vote. It's set up to measure delegates.
Yes it is. Ezra knows this, I know this, Barack Obama certainly knows this -- it's why he's winning -- Hillary knows this, and most importantly, the Superdelegates know it, which is why they keep piling up in Obama's column despite Hillary's incessant, mendacious crowing about her popular vote "lead" (not counting certain caucus states, including both rogue primaries, including territories where people can't vote in the general election, and counting every fifth Hillary voter for two votes, kinda like the moneyball in the NBA's three-point shootout).
That said, we can expect to keep hearing about the "popular vote" from team Clinton for the foreseeable future. Because she doesn't just want to win the nomination; she wants to make us all a little stupider in the process.
Update: If Marc Ambinder's reading of the tea leaves is correct, the "foreseeable future" might be a much briefer span than I feared. Please let him be right...
Tags: Democratic presidential nominating process, Hillary Clinton sucks
We just returned home from our first weekend away with the bird. My cousin Kim's firstborn Caileigh had her first birthday and so we were up in Boston (well, Reading and Stoneham) for the weekend. Rather than drop the Moodster off at the kennel, we decided to bring her along.
The trip up was quite amusing. It took Birdstone an hour or so to settle in, but after she did she started having a ball. We put a towel at the bottom of the bird carrier we bought -- it's unsafe to let the bird travel in a full-sized cage with toys and other stuff banging around -- and towards the end of the trip she started doing this hilarious thing where she'd grab the cage grate with one foot and flip over onto her back with her belly up in the air like Al Birdy. Oh, and when she started burrowing under the towel, forget it. I was worried I was going to crack the car up 'cause I kept looking over to see what craziness she was up to.
She did reasonably well at my Mom's place. Aside from the adjustment to unfamiliar settings -- 'keets do not take to new things easily -- there was the small issue of the mirrors. See, parakeets don't really get mirrors. They see them as space, as entryways into another room. And most importantly, they see another parakeet in them. As it happens, my mother's condominium is filled with lots and lots of big-ass mirrors. We had a couple of cringe-inducing moments as our bird bonked into the mirrored closet and the huge mirror over the dresser and the mirror in the living room. After an evening of this, she finally seemed to grasp that these surfaces were not portals into flyable space, and she learned to approach them slowly, hover, and check things out. Then the real fun started.
See, you put a parakeet in front of the mirror, and they practically start making love to themselves. Our bird tried to groom her döppleganger, sing to it, hell I even think she tried to regurgitate on it, and that's the height of adoration. It's hysterical, if a little bit heartbreaking. (Really, when I see her in front of the mirror, I'm convinced we have to buy a companion for her.)
Today, Birdie Nums is back home and doing wonderfully well, thank you very much. In fact, she's doing too well. She's learned to navigate the entire house, which means that when we bring her to the office to spend time with us she'll just get up and fly downstairs to her cage if she's bored. And "bored with us" seems to be her dominant mode at home these days. I think she's turning into a teenager.
Oh, the pic: Tracy had just gotten out of the shower at my Mom's place. Her moist hair struck the Ounce of Joy as a perfect little fort to hide in. Can't say I blame her.
Tags: parakeets
Yeah, that's right, I'm back on the job, people, committed to clearing the embarrassing backup of bloggable beers that have collected in my refrigerator. There's no reason I can't get back to blogging a beer a week, and given my recent slackitude I'm hoping for more than that. Let's go.
First up is Blue Point Brewing's Hoptical Illusion. Blue Point had a rep out at Liquor Depot last week, and their wares proved mighty enticing. We picked up a six pack of this brew as well as a six of their Toasted Lager, which I might get to later if there's any left.
The Pour: Filling a tall, frosted pilsener glass, this beer builds up a meager 1/4" head which quickly fades away. Despite sticking my nose close enough to the head that I inadvertently snuffed foam up one nostril, I couldn't detect much in the way of a scent. My backup sniffer, Tracy, helpfully offerred "Mmmmmm, beer!" as a description of the bouquet. The body is lightly colored for an IPA (which, unsurprisingly given its name, is the class that Hoptical falls into); kind of a slightly cloudy golden wheat color. A steady stream of fine-grained carbonation streams upwards at P-plus-5-minutes.
The Taste: Nice introduction as the hops make their presence known immediately yet manage to do so politely, rather than punching you in the mouth the way most beers with the word "Hop" in their name tend to nowadays. The character of the hops that I'm getting is hard to categorize. They're not full-throttle bitter but they're not strongly flowery either. Consulting the brewer's beer information page, I am told they are "a rare hop exclusively grown on a farm in Oregon." There, that explains my flummoxation and my infatuation, because we all know how friggin' cool Oregon is. The malts here are sweet and fulsome, yet subdued. One might call them "Stepford Malts". The beer has a great mouth feel that's ever so slightly creamy in texture and will foam up nicely if provoked. The overall effect is one that's pleasantly full without being heavy, in line with the excellent overall sense of balance I'm feeling here. Each sip leaves a bit of stickiness around the lips (uncommon for this style) and there's a pleasingly bitter aftertaste that swells up in intensity a few seconds after the swallow.
The Verdict: Really nice job here by Blue Point. They took one of Beer's greatest styles and put their own stamp on it, giving it a nudge here and a tweak there to craft something quirky enough to be memorable while still maintaining a very high drinkability index (i.e. I could have six of these and not be tired of them).
Next we've got another beer that's been lingering in the fridge since December, Olde Burnside Brewing Company's Ten Penny Reserve Ale. This is going to be funky.
The Pour: Deep brown in color - just bordering on black, actually - this beer slides into the wide-mouth frosted mug just as I realize that I probably wanted to use a non-frosted mug for this style of beer. My bad. A half-inch head of clumpy tan foam builds up and stays of a few moments. I try to catch the aromas as I'm pouring but my nose is in bad shape today. Once again querying my backup sniffer, I am told that this beer smells like... blood. No, I'm totally serious, that's what she said. Um, the body is totally opaque, so it's hard to tell what we've got for carbonation levels on mere visual inspection.
The Taste: Oy, vey. I fear something has gone terribly amiss with this beer. Here's how the brewer describes it:
The tasting experience begins with a splash of caramel like flavor on the tongue, but quickly melds into a full bodied roasted-malt taste. As you savor this fine ale you will also encounter subtle hints of chocolate and a smoked-malt essence. After you have finished your bottle you will realize this beer is truly a wonderful merging of high alcohol content and rich full body flavor that will make you want another pint to drink.
I have to strongly disagree with that last assertion. See, I'm not getting any caramel, chocolate, or roasted/smoked anything. Rather, the sides of my tongue are getting pummelled with an overwhelming taste of over-ripe fruit. There's no other way to accurately describe it. It's a tart taste, but not at all in a good way. Each sip of this beer makes my face pucker up in a sad, fearful expression. I'd love to describe the hops, but I don't taste any. I'd love to describe the malts, but I don't really taste any of them, either. This is like a funky, bready, mealy fruit punch. Christ, I can't even say I taste the 10% ABV, which might count as a saving grace. Wait, is that a hint of Coca-Cola? Oh shit, something's wrong with this beer. This cannot possibly be what it's creators intended.
The Verdict: I'm going to assume that this beer malfunctioned during the fermenting stage and somehow slipped by Burnside's quality assurance checkers. I've had their regular Ten Penny and it's good. This is epically bad. Something's gone awry here.
OK, we definitely have to do one more. No way we can end the weekend's efforts on that last note. So let's take a trip back in time, all the way back to February of 2007... Ah, here we are: Brooklyn. Tartfest. Chemist is in town with a SoCal sampler. Very exciting! And yet, somehow, the last of that worthy assemblage of brews has lived in my fridge for 16 months. (shakes head) Ah well, time to give this beer its very belated due.
The Pour: Mr. Strauss' current offering boisterously slides into a tall, non-frosted glass, building into a wispy inch-and-a-half head that quickly drops down to a half inch or so and then fades to a residual sandy-colored foam after a bit. Carbonation levels are intense at the outset - this beer sounds like a fountain soda as you pour it - but drop off to below-average levels once the head has dissipated. The body is a pretty bronze and partly cloudy. Aromas off the top suggest caramelized sugar.
The Taste: Mmmmmmmmm. Yummy malts, and lots of them. This is a very sweet beer. Smooth, too, with a big mouth feel. The malts feature flavors of caramel, sugar, and a strong nutty note. This beer actually reminds me of the crunchy, candied peanuts you can buy from street vendors in New York City. Very little in the way of hoppiness is coming through. DRADIS is picking up a remote hop signature, but the configuration is not readily identifiable. The body has its ups and downs. It's smooth as hell to swig down, but it leaves a cloying film after it's gone. I'd almost classify this as a desert beer. It certainly is not a mainstream amber ale.
The Verdict: Tasty at first, but I got just a little bit tired of it halfway through the glass. Not nearly enough hop character to balance out the intensely sweet malts.
Tags: beer