Random Sunday

Busy week. I actually went to work all five days. I hit up two out of three major cities in Ohio starting with a C. Didn't blog about anything.

The Christmas or Holiday Season brings with it a lot of things to hate but let's try to focus on the positives here. I'm a big fan of Christmas lights. In general I appreciate the effort almost any homeowner takes to decorate their house. I prefer just lights to an inflatable display. Well I wasn't sure were I was going with that anyway so I'll leave it at that.

Well I have a good two weeks of links to get through.

For once, U.S. gets relatively lucky draw for World Cup

The World Cup is pretty much the only time I make an effort to watch soccer. On top of that the U.S. team final got a good draw. The U.S. team's first-round games: vs. England on June 12 in Rustenburg, vs. Slovenia on June 18 in Johannesburg and vs. Algeria on June 23 in Pretoria. Algeria and Slovenia were two of the biggest surprises to make the World Cup so those games are looking good and semi-surprisingly the U.S. and England haven't met in a World Cup since 1950: a 1-0 U.S. victory that is considered perhaps the greatest upset in World Cup history. Also having the actually good opponent out of the way first is probably a good thing too. Anyone remember 2002 when the U.S. faced off against Portugal in their Cup opener.

The best films of the '00s

I'm going to spoil the movies I have seen excluding the top ten in a second just so you know. When the A.V. Club ran their best albums of the 00's I was surprised I hadn't heard of 15 of them. But I'm not too big into music anyway. However the best of the decade movie list features 18 movies I've never heard of. Here's the ones I've seen not in the top ten.

46. Adaptation (2002)

A pretty good movie. There is a car crash in this movie that was so jarring that I still remember it as vividly as any really car accident I've been in.

41. The Dark Knight (2008)
40. City Of God (2002)

In my opinion City of God is way too low on this list.

39. The Prestige (2006)

The Prestige was good but not this good.

34. American Psycho (2000)

An interesting movie yes and I like dark humor.

32. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Really?

30. WALL-E (2008)

Awesome movie which kind of is let down my the actual plot.

29. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

I think I may own this movie but remember very little about it except it has a lot of flying in it.

26. The Incredibles (2004)

Yes it is a Pixar movie which has to be for kids at some level, but this is just a good movie on any level.

19. The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

They only could pick one Lord of the Rings movie and so they went with number two.  Two Towers is my favorite book but I'm not sure which movie is my favorite.

18. Mulholland Dr. (2001)
17. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Not that good a movie.

16. Almost Famous (2000)
13. Grizzly Man (2005)

Grizzly Man being number 13 should tell you a lot about this list from the A.V. Club.

Almost the best films of the '00s: orphans and personal favorites

I'm pretty sure I'm going to like this list than the previous one.

Hey Shaun Of The Dead (2004) made Keith Phipps list.

The best bad movies of the ’00s

Supposedly these are the most entertaining bad movies of the decade. I have not seen a single one.

Our favorite film scenes of the ’00s

The only real comment I can muster is Wet Hot American Summer is a funny movie.

Wikipedia's Brain Drain

Wikipedia despite being more popular than ever has seen a steady decline in editors since the beginning of 2007.

Thousands of Strange Sea Creatures Discovered

I'm linking to this article for one reason. This is almost a Onion headline. Unfortunately I'm a little underwhelmed by the fact that we can discover thousands of species just by looking.

Song of the Week: Coldplay - "Fix You"

I really should start a spreadsheet of the Song of the Week titles.  I have not idea if I could have posted this song before.  So yes my first post in almost two weeks is my favorite Coldplay song, "Warning Sign" is a close second.

Random Sunday

I made a trip to Target this week and happened upon a Monster energy drink representative and what I suspect was the Target food and drink manager having a conversation on where to put the Monster energy drink rep's display. What struck me at first was how the Monster energy guy totally looked like Randal from Clerks. Upon finally finding a place for the energy drink display I was a little surprised when the Target managers stated that the selected location was appropriate since is was right next to the booze aisle, saying "well this [the energy drink] ties into this [cases of Bud Light]." Are energy drinks a alcohol gateway?

Wow, I've got a few links to get through from this week. Let's get to those, shall we.

The best music of the decade

Let's get the big one out of the way first. The Onion's A.V. Club devoted this week to music and here is there best music of the decade. While I don't consider myself a well rounded music critic or even a good critic I've still got an opinion or two here.

47. Girl Talk, Night Ripper (2006)

This is not the Girl Talk album I would have selected. They do summarize Greg Gillis’ musical genius nicely but Feed the Animals is a way better album with Night Ripper being the first hint of what Gillis could do with music.

41. The Killers, Hot Fuss (2004)

Awesome album. Years before my wife was even pregnant I would ask if we could name our daughter Natalie. Yeah I don't think that's going to happen.

Well that's about it for me. I guess I don't buy good music, but I kind of already knew that. As a bit of trivia of the top fifty albums of the last decade I had never heard of fifteen of the artists.

Best music: the orphans

Kind of an addendum to the previous list. Let's see if I own anything on this list.

Andrew W.K., I Get Wet (2001)

Andrew W.K. is an absolutely confounding performer, which, hilariously, tends to make some people mad instead of just confused and/or happy. But open hearts can’t possibly refuse the insane, multi-layered electro-pop of I Get Wet, the album that launched a million parties. Not every single track is a winner, but “Party Hard” and “It’s Time To Party” are indelible pop moments that should’ve been much bigger hits than they were.

Totally agree.

Snow Patrol, Final Straw (2003) / Coldplay, Parachutes (2000)

Putting these together is fair enough.

Fall Out Boy, Folie À Deux (2008)

Yes, they keep making music and it has continued to get better.

The decade’s best metal

The best electronic music of the ’00s

I find it funny they broke out lists for metal and electronic music but no other genre. I guess this is a look into the musical leanings of the A.V. staff. Oh I own or have heard like nothing off either of these lists.

OK, Now I'm Nervous About the Large Hadron Collider

The LHC is a far better understood machine than it was a year ago. We've learned from our experience, and engineered the technology that allows us to move on. That's how progress is made.

Thanks CERN director for that quote. I suspect building a billion dollar machine is a tough job and doesn't work exactly like you thought. I wonder how long the Death Star was in final check outs.

Joe Sixpack: A beer a day for 10,000 days

Dale Van Wieren has recorded every beer he has drank since March 19, 1971. Soon he will cross the 10K mark.

The Decade's 50 Most Important Recordings

Another music list this time from NPR.

Honestly I like the NPR list more than the A.V. Club. However Britney Spears making this list might be a a stretch.

Gaddafi tries to convert 200 women to Islam

"Seeking 500 attractive girls between 18 and 35 years old, at least 1.70 meters (5 foot, 7 inches) tall, well-dressed but not in mini-skirts or low cut dresses," read the ad by the Hostessweb agency and quoted in Italy's Corriere dell Sera newspaper in its story.

So some 200 Italian ladies thought they were going to be paid to attend a party. But what they got was about $90, a two hour lecture on Islam, and not even a glass of water. Gaddafi is a weird dude (as referenced in this blog before). But his weirdness for ladies is slightly understandable, in a 14 year old boy way.

Only One Thing Is Worse Than "Pairing" Beer And Food...

A fine take down of people who fall all over themselves in regards to beer pairing with food. I like beer but taking it extremely seriously is off putting.

The best comedy albums of the decade

More A.V. Club listing. I'm sure all these albums are funny.

Ghostbusters

Imagine never seeing Goonies, or Indiana Jones, or Ghostbusters until today. Well that is what this series from The Onion's very linkable A.V. Club is about. I think the criticism here of Ghostbusters is fair. Check the earlier articles in this series for what probably is the fairest fresh take on these movies you can find. Too bad the writer couldn't avoid years of pop-culture references. Imagine actually being worried Indy isn't going to escape that big stone ball.

Well enough from me. I better go get ready for Thanksgiving. Maybe too much drinking Wednesday night and then too much food on Thursday. Best, Holiday, Ever.

Song of the Week: My Morning Jacket - "Off the Record"

Beer 101: Seasonal and Limited Release Beers

In my Nugget Nectar review many months ago I touched on idea of what a seasonal beer was. The Nugget Nectar is a beer released and consequently available in the early part of the year. Why would a brewery do this? Well like most things that is probably a difficult answer.

One interesting thought is most craft beer drinkers are always on the lookout for something new to try. By putting a beer out for only a few months a year your guaranteeing yourself a portion of the market who haven't seen it on the shelf in nine months will probably not even think twice about picking up a six pack.

Another idea is that maybe the materials to make such a beer are slightly seasonal. Still another hypothesis being that a beer like Nugget Nectar (really hoppy) could start to wear on the beer buying market and eventually lose a large part of its cache. This just made me wonder if the lime beers of Bud Light Lime and Miller Chill are available all year round. But I suspect having a limited production ability lends itself to seasonal and limited brewing.

The fall is actually looked down upon as far as beer releases. The fall is a season of pumpkin ales and Oktoberfest beers both which are not what most beer enthusiasts consider the height of interest.

Winters brings ales that tend to have a little more alcohol and that fall into the category of winter warmers, which I think is a pretty nice name. Winter is also the season of barleywines and stouts both much appreciated for their big flavors and higher ABV.

Spring like fall is considered a shoulder season for beer. In a similar vein, spring brings with it maltier.

Summer is a time for lighter more refreshing beers that include witbier, kolsch, and pilsner. However, summer beers like these are so popular in general that many of them are no longer constrained to a winter schedule.

Limited release beers are a little murkier in my opinion. These beers are only available for a few days or just one day where people stand in line forever. If the beer is good and people are buying it, constraining availability can only make sense as a self restricting plan for a brewery. Much like car manufactures making a halo car, think Dodge Viper or Nissan GT-R, breweries can obviously have halo beers. Making a halo beer released once a year with limited distribution and availability, and usually a high price too, keeps a brewery’s awareness high without saturating a market. That and people on the internet can talk about it over and over again, but I suspect that is an unintended consequence I have to live with.

Beer Review: Pabst Blue Ribbon

In my attempts to find a schedule or rotation for everything in my life I realized this beer review would have to be a more common everyday beer to review.  However looking through the old beer notebook I couldn't find anything that I thought would be considered a common beer.  I do have a review for Foster's Premium Ale but even that isn't exactly common, not being the regular Foster's Lager you actually see everywhere these days.  However as luck would have it I had a party last weekend.  Not wanting to confuse or offend anyone I decided to stick to a stable of tried and true beers for the party.  So Bud Light, Corona, PBR, and Yuengling were the beers of choice.

Actually my dad suggested we get some PBR for my friend Andy.  I said "sure how about a six pack of bottles." And that's how I ended up with a 30 pack of cans on top of a case of Bud Light, 18 Corona, a case of Yunegling, and assorted other beers at a party where the level of drinking was moderate at best.  In the end I had some PBR left over to sit down with and properly review for the blog.

In addition to all that, PBR has been of the news lately because it is for sale.

Pabst Brewing Company, with its roots firmly in Milwaukee, but now with executive offices in Woodridge, Illinois, is up for sale. The company was acquired in 1985 and is currently owned by Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation, located in California, which must sell it as part of an IRS mandate that forbids charitable organizations to own for-profit companies. Apparently, the charity has attempted to sell the brewing company since an initial 2005 ruling with a 2008 deadline; no buyer has been found and the foundation was granted a 2010 extension. Estimates of the company's asking price are reported to be approximately $300 million.

So what are we suppose to do.  Well you could go pledge some money to crowd-source buy the company.  But I'm not too sure that's a viable long term investment.  So instead of pondering this let's get down to the actual beer.

The beer's own can states:

This is the original Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. Nature's choicest products provide its prized flavor. Only the finest of hops and grains are used. Selected as America's Best in 1893.

The 1893 Columbian Exposition is what this statement is referring to.  I wonder what the beer was called before 1893?  Maybe just Pabst, which is just a funny word to say. The Pabst Wikipedia page indicates PBR sales peaked in 1977 and have been on a steady decline up until the late 90's.  Currently PBR is seen as a hipster's beer of choice for its ironic nature and appearing to be out of the mainstream thanks to relying on a more niche marketing strategy instead of a big sports based campaigns.

My can of PBR had a best by date on the bottom of the can of 1/11/10.  I suspect the expected shelf life of PBR to be anywhere from six months to a complete epoch.  So let's just assume this beer was canned 11 July 2009.  The aroma of PBR is pretty light lager with expected levels of corn and adjunct.  The beer itself pours a golden yellow with a big fluffy head that quickly dissipates.  I was surprised how little carbonation was visible after pour.  My first impression upon tasting PBR is "this is nothing I equate with good beer", but that statement is completely unfair to PBR.  PBR's flavor has a sweetness that gives way to a hint of hops in the middle but the finish is a return to sweet.  The aftertaste has some staying power which isn't a bad thing in PBR.  PBR has a good amount of flavor without getting in the way of a plain old beer drinking experience.

Pabst Blue Ribbon

- Reviewed: 11/13/09
- Style: American Adjunct Lager
- ABV: 4.74%

Overall: B

Beer Advocate has this at a C but one of the guys running the sight reviewed at a B- calling it better than the big three (Miller, Coors, Bud).  PBR is simply a good beer and I've often wondered why people showed brand loyalty to the big three but PBR is a completely different situation.  What'll you have?

Random Sunday

You want to know something I almost totally blanked on. The fact that next year is a whole new decade. Yeah I know it is not that important but another decade is impressive, since I have only lived through three. No longer can I refer to the year as aught seven or something similar. I will keep my year rant against New Years for a later post but I cannot believe this did not cross my mind until I saw the following article.

The best TV series of the ’00s

I watch what I consider a moderate amount of TV a week. DVR assisted as well. So while there a number of shows on the list I've never seen I totally agree with the selection I have seen.

3. Arrested Development (Fox, 2003-06)
5. Mad Men (AMC, 2007-present)
7. The Office UK (BBC 2, 2001-03)
8. Lost (ABC, 2004-present)
11. The Office US (NBC, 2005-present)
13. 30 Rock (2006-present)
14. Futurama (Fox, 1999-2003)
18. How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 2005-present)
25. Buffy The Vampire Slayer (The WB/UPN, 1997-2003)
27. Flight Of The Conchords (HBO, 2007-2009)

Buffy is obviously so low thanks to its best years happening in the previous decade. I still have episodes of the last season of Lost to catch up on and I think this list convinced me to try to get around to watching #15. Veronica Mars (UPN/The CW, 2004-07).

So the The Onion A.V. Club is doing this series through out all of Novemeber so here are the other lists they've run.

The best TV episodes of the decade (from shows not on any of our other lists)

Hooray for South Park, “Scott Tenorman Must Die” (July 11, 2001) making this list.

The best reality series/competitions of the ’00s

Not my sort of TV. Though Good Eats and Mythbusters made the runners-up list, I watch those on occasion.

The best made-for-TV movies/miniseries of the ’00s

Hey look who is number one. 1. Generation Kill (HBO, 2008) a miniseries I've raved about no less than two times on the this blog. 9. John Adams (HBO, 2008) was also very good. Yeah the list is a little HBO heavy.

The best late-night comedy/talk shows of the ’00s

This ones a little odd, well I guess like the reality series one as well.

1. The Daily Show/The Colbert Report (Comedy Central, 1996-present/2005-present)
2. Chappelle’s Show (Comedy Central, 2003-06)
3. The Soup (E!, 2004-present)

Actually yeah those are really good shows. Well Chappelle was good for at least one season of hilarity.

The best one-season wonders of the ’00s

Unsurprisingly I haven't seen one episode of any of these series.

So with those lists out of the way I'm really looking forward to the music and movie editions. I suspect they might break them down into multiple lists like they have for TV. Go lists!

Experts: Placebo power behind many natural cures

The placebo effect is amazing and kind of annoying. According to the article: The placebo effect accounts for about a third of the benefits of any treatment — even carefully tested medicines.

Americans and their taxes

Just a quote and we'll move on.

there is a disconnect between the payment of taxes and the receipt of services; those paying the bulk of the taxes aren't the individuals receiving the bulk of the services. Partially in response to this dynamic, Congress has tended to fund spending, when possible, by indirect methods, including various deductions and credits. This added complexity further drives a wedge between perceptions of what is paid in taxes and what is returned in government services.

Why U.S. Wireless Pricing Sucks

This is actually a Gizmodo article about a New York Times article. Basically our need for predictable and regular billing has caused us to probably overpay for cellular service.

Humans Still Evolving as Our Brains Shrink

Go evolution! One theory here is our modern society allows us to be more specialized individuals and this leads to smaller brains.

Enjoy the last month and a half of this decade.

Song of the Week: Tone-Loc - Funky Cold Medina

Best song about Spanish Fly I can think of.

Rock Band ruined this song

Maybe I haven't had enough interaction or success with music rhythm games like Rock Band or Guitar Hero but I'm not a fan how my mind now associates some of the songs in the game with the game.  So The Killers "When We Were Young" comes on and all I can visualize is those fake band members of mine moving around on the stage.  That's not to say I don't like these games, but what I don't like is totally associating those images with the song.

Small Town Wisdom #46

Boilerplate Intro: My hometown newspaper the Times Reporter runs a column on the opinion page titled "30 Seconds." The idea is for anyone to call a phone number and leave a 30 second commentary and maybe the TR will put it in print. Now I comb through the TR almost every day looking for only the finest comments the population of Tuscarawas County has to offer and provide a usual sarcastic comment, enjoy.

It should be obvious to anyone who pays utility bills that global warming is a myth. All these leftist policies are designed just to gain control over the people and their way of life. Wake up people.

This guy finally cracked it.  Melting ice caps and receding glaciers are nothing compared to the fact that this guys utility bill has gone up.

Why should our schools take up their time to learn the Chinese language? Most all of them will never use it. And if they come over here, let them learn our English language. How long will be it before we might be called the China of the United States?

You're right learning a new language is stupid and never made anyone a smarter person.

I think the casino issue is pretty simple. If you want to pay higher taxes, vote against the casinos. If you want to lower your taxes, vote for the casinos.

If you think you taxes are going down because casinos will be built in Ohio then I'm sure the casinos would love to have you stop by sometime.

Instead of worrying about animal rights and regulations, people should be worrying about sex offenders. As I read in the newspaper Monday, another child was missing and there were 161 sex offenders in a five-mile radius in her area.

You're right I can't worry about more than one thing at a time. Won't someone think of the children.

Since Ohio has the smoking ban, how will the new Ohio casinos handle this? Will they be allowed to have a smoking section like the other states’ casinos have the non-smoking sections? Smokers really frequent the casinos, so the smoking section would have to be much larger. Can’t believe they would make the smokers go outside to smoke.

You can't believe they would make smokers go outside? Oh the horror!

We urge a “Yes” vote on Issue 1, which would give bonuses to Ohio veterans of the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iran. Considering the sacrifices they have made on our behalf, they deserve it.

While this wasn't a 30 seconds comment I felt I should publish it here for your enjoyment. Those poor forgotten Iran War veterans.

Song of the Week: Jay-Z - 99 Problems

Every time I hear this song all I can think of is the Grey Album version that I like better.

Random Sunday

Excuse me as I slowly reacquaint myself with writing.

Fall is a straight up kick ass season. Cool weather rules after summer and busting out winter clothes is a reminder I kind of like wearing sweaters. Fall is easily up there with the first few weeks of comfortable weather in spring for pure enjoyment.

I've had a laptop for two years now that came with Windows Vista as its operating system. While slightly annoying I never saw why people hated Vista so much. Sure you could nitpick it but this is a Microsoft program, I could write a missive on Word alone. In short I didn't mind Vista. However I've upgraded the two main computer at my house to Windows 7. I got a pretty good pre-order price and I have a thing for operating systems. I've owned and used every version of Windows since 3.1. I often look at it as an investment since some day I'm going to have to use this OS in a work setting and I might as well get use to it on my own time before hand. It has only been a day but Windows 7 is pretty cool. The task bar has finally been converted to a dock, like Apple has had for years. On top of that is just feels smoother that Vista. Even the computer converted over from XP hasn't shown any ill effects. Despite the commercial on TV telling you how sharing files and printers over multiple computers is easy I actually found it harder than under Vista and XP. It is probably easier for people who have never set up a home network before but it has significantly changed from the previous versions which threw me for a loop for an hour.

In other computer related news I was forced into a new home printer today. Yes the regularly scheduled 4 year breakdown of a home printer occured and so HP got some more money.

Why Is It Called The Hague?

Slate looks at The Hague, The Netherlands, and The Bronx. Definite articles in front of names wasn't an announce until The Hague entered my conscious thanks to everyone's favorite war crimes trials.

Prisoner's dilemma of the day

As usual I'll just borrow from The Economist. In the standard prisoner's dilemma, the defect, defect outcome is a little better for a player than the negative outcome in a co-operate, defect result—the defect strategy strictly dominates in the standard version, but merely dominates in the game show clip above. I wonder if the programme began with the standard set-up but found that too many people were behaving rationally for the show to be interesting.

Ouch, was my main reaction. Well that and Golden Balls is a funny name. That game show is a wonderful insight into the human mind.

From ecological Soviet-era ruin, a sea is reborn

Hey that destruction of the Aral Sea is coming to an end. Well at least for a portion of the lake anyway. Where will National Geographic go for pictures of ships stranded miles inland?

Blackmail, Inc.

Most people agree blackmail should be illegal, right? Why?

Song of Week: La Roux - Bulletproof

I'm pretty much in a music wasteland right now. Hopefully this video works, because I could never get it to play.

I stole this entire post from The Economist

AMERICA is the wealthiest country in the world and its rich keep earning more. In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, the top 1% increased their share of the country's income to 23.5%, according to analysis of tax returns by a pair of economists, Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. The concentration of income earned by this top percentile now stands at its highest since 1928. Two-thirds of the country's total gains in the five years to 2007 accrued to the top 1%, whereas the bottom 90th percentile saw only 12% of the extra income.

I'm not trying to draw conclusions here but I'm a sucker for data.

Art I Like

This painting is by Ivan Shishkin. Everything I know about him comes from his Wikipedia page.

Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (Russian: Иван Иванович Шишкин, 25 January 1832 – 20 March 1898) was a Russian landscape painter closely associated with the Peredvizhniki movement.

Song of the Week: Fall Out Boy - Dead on Arrival

Some classic FOB.

Small Town Wisdom #45

Boilerplate Intro: My hometown newspaper the Times Reporter runs a column on the opinion page titled "30 Seconds." The idea is for anyone to call a phone number and leave a 30 second commentary and maybe the TR will put it in print. Now I comb through the TR almost every day looking for only the finest comments the population of Tuscarawas County has to offer and provide a usual sarcastic comment, enjoy.

Not everyone is celebrating the anniversary of Woodstock – 106 American warriors died during the three-day festival.

What, who was celebrating Woodstock? Furthermore does this mean we can't celebrate anything that happened between the start and end of any war? What about that long Irag War Part 2? No celebrating then either?

The militarization of our police departments in this nation is ridiculous enough, and now the Uhrichsville Police Department thinks it needs an armored personnel carrier. Next Dover will want an Abrahms tank, or maybe New Philadelphia will think it needs to obtain an Apache helicopter. This is unbelievable.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Several similar calls were received.

This reminds me of a Simpsons when Mr. Burns finds out he has a son, voiced by Rodney Dangerfield. Burns wants to send him to Yale to help make him more socially acceptable.

In Burns' office, a man and woman from Yale Admission go to Mr. Burns'
desk to discuss Larry.

Burns: Well, did you meet Larry?
Man: Oh, yes. He made light of my weight problem, then suggested my motto be "semper fudge." At that point, he told me to [making quotes with fingers] relax.
Burns: How were his test scores?
Woman: Let's just say this: he spelled "Yale" with a six.
Burns: I see. Well, I -- ooh, you know, I just remembered, it's time for my annual donation. [brings out checkbook and pen] I wonder how much I should give.
Man: Well, frankly, test scores like Larry's would call for a very generous contribution. [opens book] For example, a score of 400 would require a donation of new football uniforms, 300, a new dormitory, and in Larry's case, we would need an international airport.
Woman: Yale could use an international airport, Mr. Burns.
Burns: "Are you mad? I'm not made of airports!"

Dover could use an Abrahms tank.

Just because your kid uses a privacy setting on Facebook doesn’t mean the people you’ve invited in do. Any curious child can go to an open site on MySpace or Facebook and get an eyeful. These social networking sites were geared towards adults originally, now 5th graders are using them. We’re all just about one click away from pornography. And most parents are asleep at the wheel with this stuff.

Won't someone think of the children! If your child is somehow seriously warpped by the internet I suspect their grasp on reality wasn't too strong to begin with.

Why is it that people were so upset about soldiers dying in Iraq, but now don’t say a word about soldiers dying in Afghanistan? Is it because Iraq was Bush’s war and Afghanistan is Obama’s war?

Yeah I know. Both were wars begun under Bush. I know it's hard to remember the early days of 2003 but I wish I could go back and remind people of what they thought and how they felt.

I cannot believe The T-R published the political cartoon like it did in the paper on Monday. What are you people trying to do, influence people against national health care, which we all need?

Look if you're not smart enough to get the idea behind the purpose of the editoral page and cartoons then I may have to call your opinions in general into question.

Song of the Week: Foo Fighters - My Hero

This is easily in my top five Foo Fighters songs. It is a pretty good song to run to as well. "There goes my hero! He's ordinary!"

Song of the Week: Does It Offend You Yeah? - Epic Last Song

You might remember this band that I actually saw in concert last year in NYC.  Anyway I can't believe I didn't post a song of theirs until now.  Here is "Epic Last Song."

Small Town Wisdom #44

Boilerplate Intro: My hometown newspaper the Times Reporter runs a column on the opinion page titled "30 Seconds." The idea is for anyone to call a phone number and leave a 30 second commentary and maybe the TR will put it in print. Now I comb through the TR almost every day looking for only the finest comments the population of Tuscarawas County has to offer and provide a usual sarcastic comment, enjoy.

I’m sure the North Koreans are going to be quaking in their boots because of the slap on the wrist they’re going to get from President Obama for testing nuclear weapons. We’ll probably give them more aid to get them to stop.

I don't think people realize how few options we have in dealing with the North Koreans. What does this person want us to do? I noticed they didn't offer any suggestions. Military action is impossible with so many South Koreans living so close to the border. Should the North Korean people be punished because their government is so disagreeable?

I read constantly and hear on the news all the efforts put into searching out and arresting drug dealers and stopping the drug trade, and I agree with that. But you look at The Times-Reporter Monday morning, and all the arrests in all the areas, and it’s all alcohol-related. All the time and money spent taking care of drunks and inebriated men beating their wives and fights out in the street and nothing said.

Did prohibition not teach this person anything? Has this person not learned anything about our current war on drugs?

My description of President Obama’s beer summit is “tacky”. The president of the United States should be above entertaining at a back yard beer bash even though the beer is served on silver trays. What is the rest of the world thinking of us and our naiveté?

I'm often confused about what people want out of their president. Some see Sarah Palin as a more working person's politician. People conistently said that President Bush was a politicatan they would like to have a beer with despite George W. Bush's former alcholoism. I've occasionally thought a president should be as smart as possible but unfortunately in today's media driven world being relatable is desirable too. People like to feel they have some sort of connection to politicians, particularly the president. Anyway back to the comment, who cares what the world thinks? I'm sure the world is more concerned about our foreign policies than our president holding a discussion over a beer.

Most of my life I’ve been a liberal Democrat. Then liberals and Democrats banned smoking in bars and it angered me so much that I became an independent. Now I see that a conservative group is fighting to restore smokers’ rights in bars. This is amazing. I never imagined that a smoking ban would turn me into a conservative Republican.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this man may be too easily swayed by one topic to call himself any type of political person. So all the things that a liberal Democrat stands for were wiped out by one decision? I'm betting this guy doesn't care much about politics in general.

I was never a fan of President Bush but I will have to admit that my husband and I were both employed the entire eight years he was president.

But he had nothing to do with the current economic situation?

Song of the Week" Ingrid Michaelson - Maybe

Sorry for missing last week but nine hours in a car will do that.  I like a lot of wussy pop music and Ingrid Michaelson's new album is the first album I've bought the day it came out since Coldplay, I think. While I'm not exactly a 16 year old girl I imagine we share more music than I would like to admit.  Anyway here is "Maybe" off her sophomore album Everybody. Interesting enough "Maybe" is the last song on the album. I hate when the first single off an album is the first track.

Beer Review: Aventinus

If you remember I've tried to stay pretty broad in my beer review.  Sure I could geek out here and just review beers that normally people don't drink and haven't heard, since I can't imagine an actual beer enthusiast coming to this blog for advice.  So that's why I try to review stuff like Genesee Cream Ale like I did last week.  Having covered a more common beer last week, I am now free to discuss a beer you're not going to run across unless you were looking for good beer.

Aventinus was one of those beers that really surprised me the first time I tried it. Of course like most beer drinkers I was stuck in a world of Miller, Coors, and Budweiser.  That's not to say they make bad beer just that they're pretty much the same.

Aventinus is a Weizenbock beer.  Which is described by Beer Advocate as:

A more powerful Dunkel Weizen (of "bock strength"), with a pronounced estery alcohol character, perhaps some spiciness from this, and bolder and more complex malt characters of dark fruits.

Typically these beers have a ABV strength between 7 and 10 percent and Aventinus is in the solid 8.2 range. For those readers of mine in the greater Ohio area Great Lakes Brewing Company makes a Weizenbock every spring I believe called Glockenspiel, which isn't a too enticing name to tell the truth.  I've never had the pleasure of trying Glockenspiel but Aventinus isn't too hard to find at most quality beer stores.

Aventinus starts out with a sweet aroma that also had touches of an earthy quality.  Overall the taste leans more towards the sweet side, but with hints of raisins and dark fruits.  What I liked the best was the level of spice in this beer's flavor.  I'm not a huge fan of an over spiced beer and Aventinus has enough of a good base flavor that the spice level is more a compliment and not the main show in this beer's flavor.

Aventinus

- Reviewed: 3/27/09
- Style: Weizenbock
- ABV: 8.2%

Overall: A-

Beer Advocate has this as an A and I was slightly surprised my aggregate score equaled an A- but I'm sure it wasn't by much. I know when I cover beers people usually haven't heard of I often say that this "is a beer you have to try." That's just me trying to share a wider world of beer with people. I'm not a fan of proselytizing at any level. I don't even like suggesting music to people. So the bottom line here is I really like Aventinus.

Small Town Wisdom #43

Boilerplate Intro: My hometown newspaper the Times Reporter runs a column on the opinion page titled "30 Seconds." The idea is for anyone to call a phone number and leave a 30 second commentary and maybe the TR will put it in print. Now I comb through the TR almost every day looking for only the finest comments the population of Tuscarawas County has to offer and provide a usual sarcastic comment, enjoy.

I've done my best to not turn this completely into a making fun of Obama bashing comments.

The only lesson to be learned from the Crowley and Gates incident is “don’t forget your keys.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: The door was broken.

I love this comment and its associated editor's note. First this represents the usual level of research put into a 30 seconds comment. Second I love how the TR printed it solely to point out how the caller was wrong.

I’ve lived a lifetime in Dover. I will soon have served a term of 88 years. One of the few pleasures left to me is an occasional trip to the Wheeling casino. Last year I was lucky and was a winner of several thousand dollars. Now the state of Ohio will get a share of my winnings along with the city of Dover. I feel I am being punished for doing the only pleasure left to me. I think 88 years of paying taxes to Dover is enough.

Sir, paying taxes to Dover for one day is too long.

What is wrong with our government? They want to ban teenagers from tanning booths yet they are going to provide teenagers with the morning after pill. Are they all just a bunch of nuts?

Wait, what?

It was one of Obama’s campaign promises that he wanted people to not drive as much and not waste as much gasoline, so he was going to make the prices go very high. That’s just the way it is and that’s what he promised us so it should go a lot higher than this.

I can't believe Obama promised that he wanted people to drive less. That's not so much of a promise. I bet Obama could have also promised he wanted world peace.

Children in grade school are on MySpace, which is full of adult content. I just want to tell them: Children, respect yourself. Sex is sacred. You don’t need to be discussing sexual things with each other.

I doubt any children are either reading this comment or going to listen to its advice. They're are too busy trying to have sex, natch.

Random Sunday

This might be surprising but the best headphones I have ever had for my two and a half year old iPod were the standard issue ones that came with it originally.  However those broke last year while walking up a flight of stairs.  they had fallen out of my pocket but were still attached to my iPod in my pocket.  One ear bud caught on a step and I kept walking a pulled the ear bud clean off.  Since then I've gone through at least three different sets trying to replace those originals with very dissappointing results.  After the last breakdown I decided to just go back to the Apple originals.  However Apple seems to have moved on and no longer have just the plain old headphones available.  Luckily a Canadian company iDemiGods still has some in stock and had shipped me a new pair in a week.  I'm and pleased to once again have a set of headphones that I agree with.

Not too many links this week.

Mind the pennies

Entertainment shopping is an amazing concept that I wish I had thought of. All you do is provide a product for auction and only allow the bidding to increase in small amounts, like a few cents, and charging a dollar fee for every bid. So while you might win a TV for $20 dollars it could have taken hundreds or transactions.

Drowning in it

The U.S. might very well have a huge supply of untapped natural gas and what exactly does that mean for the greening of our country.

How can New York City hot dog vendors afford a monthly rent of $53,558?

At first I thought maybe the city of New York was trying to drive out the vendors by charging such high rent, but that snap assumption on my part. Actually they auction off this prime location. Ultimately the article is an interesting insight into the street food vendor business.

Zombie Ants Controlled by Fungus

It is tough to imagine how a fungus takes over a ant's brain to kill it in a way and place so to encourage even more fungus growth, but that is what this study reports.

The Economist has videos now too! I could embed all of them but I'll just pick one to not bore you.

(Photo Credit: Thomas Wollex (I think))

Pictures I Took - Fountains Abbey

This is the second time Fountains Abbey has appeared as a picture in this series. It really was a really nice place, that was dissolved in the 16th century and was originally founded in 1132.

Song of the Week: White Zombie - More Human Than Human

I haven't really had a kick-ass song here in a while, or ever. So I think this one will do.

Tribe drop two in a row to lose series to Rangers

Look a crappy but accurate headline. In light of these last two defeats and my general lack of interest in writing what is probably my 31st Indians series wrap this year I'm not going to go over the individual games but just hit some general points of interest.

- Aaron Laffey might as well be the best pitcher we have right now. In a recap of his win to open the series some Indians writer said Laffey was making a good case to be included in the rotation that already will include Fausto Carmona and Justin Masterson. Hell, Laffey might as wel be our opening day starter if I had to pick someone right now.

- Fausto wasn't too bad the other day. However the Indians couldn't give him any run support.

- Tom Hamilton informed me that the Indians have not hit a homerun in the last six games at home and this is a Jacobs/Progressive Field record.

- The Rangers pitching coach came straight out and said the Indians are a bad offspeed hitting team. Straight ball we hit very much.

- The Rangers are a good team and has a number of good young arms pitching for them.

- I hear it was in the mid-70s today in Cleveland. I would have really liked to been there today, except for the losing part.

- Hey did you know Jamey Carroll has more post All-Star Game starts than Kelly Shoppach? Niether did I until I read the most recent post from the DiaTribe.

- Chris Gimenez is now hitting .190 and looks to be having a rough go of it in this his first callup.

- 17 of Luis Valbuena's 50 hits are doubles.

- Despite his dominating performance at AAA Rafeal Perez has given up three runs in 1.2 innings since being recalled.

Game 1: Justin Masterson, RHP (3-3, 4.22) vs. Scott Baker, RHP (9-7, 4.85)
Game 2: David Huff, LHP (6-6, 6.72) vs. To be announced
Game 3: Aaron Laffey, LHP (6-3, 3.25) vs. Nick Blackburn, RHP (8-7, 3.99)

The Indians head off to a three game series at the baggy dome against the Twins of Minnesota. Yes it is another three game road trip. Last time Masterson was cut off after 60 pitches and interim-Manager Eric Wedge has indicated that Masterson will probably get to go 75 or 80 pitches this time out. Hey look who it is, my favorite opposing pitcher TBA. Originally last week Carl Pavano looked to be on tap for Game 1, but instead took his first loss as a Twin today. Moving on we have staff ace Aaron Laffey taking the mound to close out this road trip.

Go Tribe!

(AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

Small Town Crime #13

This is probably the last Small Town Crime for a long time. It appears as if the Times Reporter no longer includes the police log in their local news RSS feed. Enjoy these gems though.

An 18-year-old Carrollton area man was arrested in the lobby of the sheriff’s department Friday when he went to get a background check for residential purposes, and deputies found a warrant for him from Municipal Court for driving under suspension.

Did they really need to include the location of his arrest?

Investigation is continuing after a Cross St. resident said Monday that his wife was slapping him.

I'm interested in the level of detective work going into this case.

A W. High Ave. resident said Monday that his apartment had been broken into since Thursday night and that $5,000 in cash was stolen.

Who keeps $5,000 in their apartment?

Officers confiscated and destroyed a New Philadelphia woman’s fake Alabama identification after she went to the police station to visit her boyfriend in jail Sunday afternoon.

Wow, this lady doesn't have much going for her.

A 64-year-old Dover man said he would go to Union Hospital to be checked after he reported Sunday that he tried to hug a dog that was tied outside a W. High Ave. business while its owner was inside, and the dog bit his face. A report will be sent to the health department.

My advice to this man would be if you must interact with a tied up dog first try to pet it, then go in for the hug.

Beer Review: Genesee Cream Ale

There are bunch of beers that can be categorized as "beers your father drank" and I'm just not talking about my dad, though he has drank his fair share.  No these beers are more regional type lagers that were the final holdouts against the likes of Miller and Budweiser.  Beers like Genesee, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Blatz, Storhs, Schaefer, and the list goes on and on.  Most of these beers aren't too different from one another but they have a certain nostalgic value.  The Genesee Cream Ale website even plays up this beer of your father angle.

Now Genesee shouldn't be confused with Genesee Cream Ale.  While both are made by the Genesee Brewing Company of Rochester, New York.  Plain old Genesee is a lager on par with Budweiser.  So what is a cream ale?

Cream Ales, spawned from the American light lager style, are brewed as an ale though are sometimes finished with a lager yeast or lager beer mixed in. Adjuncts such as corn or rice are used to lighten the body. It is not uncommon for smaller craft brewers to brew all malt Cream Ales. Pale straw to pale gold color. Low hop bittering and some hop aroma though some micros have given the style more of a hop character. Well carbonated and well attenuated.

If that wasn't enough for you the Genesee Cream Ale Wikipedia page adds

Genesee's brewmasters take an extra step of kraeusening, a process in which finished beer is primed for carbonation with wort instead of sugar.

So enough explanation how does Genny Cream taste.  My tasting notes are pretty straight forward here; this beer is smooth (if that is a real characteristic), I was waiting for the cheap adjunct bite but it never showed up. Mostly sweet and smooth. Yes, watery too but not offensive. This is a sweeter beer with a slight dry and crisp quality too. Not really a beer you can hate. This is an OK beer and the nostalgia doesn't hurt either.

Genesee Cream Ale

- Reviewed: 7/9/09
- Style: Cream Ale
- ABV: 5.1%

Overall: C

Beer Advocate has this as a C too and someday I should set up a group of four beers that I've never reviewed or read a review for and demonstrate how often I come close to matching Beer Advocate's rating.

Genesee Cream Ale is a beer I would happily accept at a summer picnic and it's drinkablity is pretty high.

August and Everything After

August isn't the the best month for sports. The weather tends towards the warm side and the only real game in town is baseball. Those people excited about NFL camp are generally ignored. The fact that our Indians are having one of their worst seasons in fifteen even twenty years doesn't help either.

Last week I mentioned the fact that the Dolans look to lose $16 mil on this 2009 version of the Indians. That, along with the fact that it seems all we can hope for is making the playoffs every four to five years, still is weighing on me. I even thought about making a whole post about it but the last thing this blog needs is more Indians coverage (by me at least). So I decided to just roll it into a series recap. Previously I had thought of the Indians as the only real smart kid on the block (yeah I know that's silly in hindsight). Sure, we were never going to have a big payroll but we would have smart decisions on young guys and make decent decisions on signing grizzled veterans to cheap one-year deals. The more I think about it, though, the Indians can't possibly be that dissimilar to other clubs, right?

The good news is the Al Central will never be as big spenders as the East and West coast teams. Although the White Sox picking up both Jake Peavy and Alex Rios this year may look like big money, their decision to pick up Rios and his remaining $60 million make me actually feel more secure in the Indians' front office decision-making process. As long as the Indians aren't one of those teams that appears to not be trying or just throwing occasional crazy money at the problem (Why did the Cincinnati Reds need Scott Rolen again?) then I should be happy.

Speaking of those White Sox of Chicago the Indians had a weird three-game road trip wrap yesterday and boy have these last few series taught us a lot about the AL Central. Friday was the Jeremy Sowers/Mark Buehrle pitching matchup we had all been looking forward to. And you know what, Sowers probably pitched his best game this year and I will not criticize him for the rest of the season. Sowers went seven innings limiting Chicago to just two runs on six hits. Buehrle, on the other hand, hasn't been the same since his streak of recording outs. Kelly Shoppach pretty much was a one-man offense accounting for three hits, two runs, and four RBI on a two home run night. Tribe (47-62) win 6-2.

Saturday's game was pretty much a spring training game. Having traded Carl Pavano last week the Indians had to find a spot starter. I asked FCF writer and editor Andy who he though would start - Justin Masterson or Tomo Ohka. He later informed me that Masterson was the announced starter. This was a little surprising since I knew Masterson couldn't have gotten enough work in to go very deep, and I was right. What I forgot about was how these games don't really matter as wins or losses. No, this game was more an opportunity to get Masterson some work as a starter. So the good news is Masterson did pretty well. He reached his 60-pitch limit after four innings but only gave up one run on four hits and four strikeouts. Not too shabby. The bad news was that he was replaced in the bottom of the fifth by Ohka. Ohka lasted 0.1 innings and allowed four runs on four hits. This, unfortunately, squandered a decent effort by not only Masterson but the offense as well. The doubles machine that is Jhonny Peralta continued on driving the Indians' success at the plate, but it wasn't enough to overcome asking our bullpen to cover the post-Masterson innings. Indians (47-63) lose 5-8.

Sunday's game was most notable for the offensive outburst (outburst) of Jamey Carroll. If the Indians hold to their usual 2009 script, that can only mean Carroll should be claimed off waivers any day now. Carroll only had two hits but one of those was a home run, just his second of the year, and the other was a double that scored two to give the Tribe a 4-3 lead after trailing 3-0. Pitching-wise, David Huff had one of those ho-hum games. He was tagged for three runs in the second but settled down and ended up going 6.1 and allowing four runs. I guess not imploding is a good thing. White Sox pitcher Jose Contreras, on the other hand, could only muster 4.2 innings. Reportedly manager Ozzie Guillen was quoted as saying that the Cuban-born Contreras didn't pitch well due to the heat. Really? Because doesn't make a lot of sense. They got summer in Cuba right? Tribe (48-63) win 8-4 and take another series.

I don't remember the last time I looked at the Indians in the standings. Wow my preseason prediction of the Royals not finishing in last place isn't looking too good.

Game 1: Dustin Nippert, RHP (3-0, 2.73) vs. Aaron Laffey, LHP (5-3, 3.58)
Game 2: Tommy Hunter, RHP (4-2, 2.63) vs. Fausto Carmona, RHP (2-6, 6.66)
Game 3: Scott Feldman, RHP (11-4, 4.01) vs. Jeremy Sowers, LHP (4-7, 4.75)

Hey you remember the Texas Rangers right? They were that team the Indians faced on the crap-tacular opening series way back in April. Look at those Ranger pitcher records, weird. You know who I like in game 3? That's right, Jeremy Sowers.

(AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)