Fugly Tap Handle

This is the ugliest tap handle I've ever seen:

"...contemporary adults who visit bars, taverns, pubs and restaurants this spring will be greeted by the beer's eye-catching tap marker - a brightly colored, sunglasses-wearing orange that sports a spiked-wheat hairstyle." (source)

Can Anheuser-Busch make a Witbier that tastes worse than Blue Moon? We'll see, I guess.

'Love It' Slogan Dropped From N.H. Signs

'Love It' Slogan Dropped From N.H. Signs
(AP): "AP - New signs on New Hampshire's borders tell visitors, 'You're going to love it here.' The only problem is the governor and other top officials hate them."

(Via Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough.)

Thank God. Those signs are awful. I don't know if they really need to have "Live Free or Die" on the new ones, but anything is better than "You're going to love it here!"

Olympics

I guess I'm the only one in the world enjoying the Winter Olympics. All I hear is that ratings are down and everyone is complaining about Bode Miller not living up to the hype. For the ratings, well, it's hard to get psyched up for a broadcast where the results are readily available on the net the moment they happen. I've tried hard to avoid them, but it's pretty much impossible. What really bugs me is that even when NBC has a chance to show something live on a weekend afternoon, they tape delay it anyway. Gotta get that Daytona 500 in! Call me crazy, but I'd rather watch Curling than NASCAR.

As for Bode, I think the problem is people don't know that Bode last year was the best skier in the world, and the best US skier in a long time, maybe ever. So the first they ever hear of him is on 60 minutes saying some crazy stuff and then they see him on every magazine cover and they decide right up front they don't like him. Eric Wilbur, who blogs for NESN, had a great post up about this very subject. Oh well, I guess I'm just a Bode apologist.

The Rocket

Ug...count me in as one of the millions of Sox fans who doesn't want Roger to come back. Can we make a video that says how much we hate him, to counteract the one management is making?

Super Bowl

I'm having a hard time getting into this Super Bowl. I guess 3 out of the last 4 years with my team in it has spoiled me. And the commercials will never be as good as they were in the dot.com heyday. But I do have one question - what ever happened to the superstition where players wouldn't dare touch the trophy before they actually won it? Every one of those promos would be making me cringe if I cared about either team in the slightest. Somehow I think the Pats would be having no part of that.

And how bad were the Rolling Stones? You'd think after 70 years of playing Satisfaction they might know how to tune their guitars.

Ann and I finally got back into brewing this weekend after a long hiatus (one that mostly coincided with Sadie's first year). We brewed an IPA, and the time it took to get things boiling made me realize that I definitely need to get a turkey fryer. We used some locally grown Cascade hops (an oxymoron, maybe) for aroma, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.