Old School Ann

This picture was taken when Ann was about 8.5 months pregnant at 5 Olde Nugget Alley in Hanover. It's funny to think that we used to just be able to go out any time we wanted - I really don't even remember what life was like then. On the other hand, it seems impossible to me that Sadie is turning 2 on Saturday. Memory is weird that way, I guess.
That's one reason I'm glad I have this blog. I can click on the archives and find out that I saw "Punch Drunk Love" with Doug and Kristin on Oct. 19, 2002. That's something I never would have remembered otherwise. Anyway, it's been fun posting every day in November, but it was a bit of a grind. I'll try to keep the posting schedule semi-regular, though - I had really been slacking for a while there.

Jack Black's Celebrity Playlist

Rolling Stone has Jack Black's celebrity playlist. What bums me out is that when you click to listen, you need to install some player, and then you don't even get to hear the World Saxophone Quartet. I was really looking forward to it!

The Tenacious D movie looks pretty damn funny (the website is great, too). If it is anything like "Butt Baby" (not safe for work) you know it will be good.

Intensity

Men on a mission. Ann thinks we look kind of dumb. But I call it intensity.

Word of the year

So what is your pick for word of the year? You can vote at Merriam-Webster online. I highly recommend "macaca", since it pretty much singlehandedly swung the Senate to the Democrats. What other word can lay claim to such influence?

To keep up with the recent trend in my posts, my beer word of the year is "Simcoe." It seems like more and more beers are using this crazy hop. I'm still not completely sold on it, but it does have an amazingly unique taste.

Pats vs. Bears

Good win by the Pats today. Ugly, but good. I think they are finally starting to settle in. I guess that says something about me as a fan that my team is 8-3 and I'm only now starting to think that they are pretty good. We Pats fans have been pretty spoiled the past few years. If you had told me in 2000 that they would win three Super Bowls in the next 4 years, that they would come to be seen as one of the dominant franchises in the NFL, with their 3rd string backup quaterback drafted in he 6th round as one of the top five players in the league, I would have thought you were crazy. I'm feeling pretty good about the rest of the season.

Bigfoot.

Ann and I had a chance to go out to David Copperfield's last night, a bar near her parents' apartment in NYC that has a pretty extensive beer list. They had just tapped a keg of Bigfoot, and I am assuming it is one of this year's, although I can't be sure. It sure tasted fresh, and it reminded me just what an amazing beer it is on draught. Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye is really tasty too, but Arcadia Hopmouth Double IPA is kinda bad. I was glad our waitress let me have a sample of that one before I ordered an entire pint.

Anyway, I don't have a whole lot else to say, since I haven't had time to surf the net and collect my usual entertaining links. I should have some for you tomorrow, since I know you are all eagerly awaiting them.

Borat

Ann and I went to see Borat on Wednesday. Oh my god. I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time - I almost died during the wrestling scene. Highly recommended. His website is pretty great, too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! Hope you all had some great food and fun!

Dartmouth Mascot Controversy

The Native Americans at Dartmouth are angry about the fact that the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux are coming to play in the annual New Years hockey tournament. The athletic director wrote a letter of apology to the student nespaper about this. Normally, something like this would end there, but imagine my surprise when my favorite sports blog, Deadspin has a post about the controversy. Of course, they didn't take the complaints very seriously.

One interesting bit of trivia about UND Hockey is that a wealthy alum gave several million dollars for the contruction of a new arena - however, he stipulated that the Fighting Sioux symbol be placed all over the arena, so that if the university decided to change there mascot, it would cost thousands of dollars to remove them all. I think there are literally thousands of the symbols. Crazy, huh?

Keith Olbermann Goes Off

Wow...here's a great video of Keith Olbermann going off on President Bush for his misguided comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam.

The greatest beers in the world...

A few months ago, Ann picked up a book for me at the used book store: The 50 Greatest Beers in the World by Stuart Kallen. It was published in 1997. Here are his top 20 beers (BeerAdvocate score in parenthesis):

1. Delerium Tremens (88)
   
2. Kulmbacher Reichelbraü Eisbock (89)
   
3. Rogue Shakespeare Stout (91)
   
4. Duvel (91)
   
5. Caledonian Golden Pale (83)
   
6. Chapeau Gueuze Lambic (not enough reviews, but so far, not good)
   
7. Sam Smith Taddy Porter (88)
   
8. Aventinus (91)
   
9. Lindemans Kriek (87)
10. Murphy's Irish Stout (85)
11. Chimay Cinq Cents (88)
    
12. Grant's Scottish Ale (retired)
13. Corsendonk Monk's Pale Ale (86)
14. Erdinger Pinkantus Weizenbock (86)
15. Guinness Stout (83)
16. Orval (89)
17. Sam Smith Imperial Stout (91)
18. Saison Dupont (90)
19. Pinkus Ur-Pils Organic (85)
20. Grant's Imperial Stout (retired)

Overall it is a decent list - you can't go wrong with any of those beers, although that gueuze seems a little suspect. Having Murphy's and Guinness is probably unnecessary, as well as having Duvel and Delirium Tremens. There are better tripels than the Chimay, too, and Corsendonk is good but not great. I haven't had the Kulmbacher or the Erdinger, but I am sure that they are good, although the Aventinus Eisbock is pretty amazing, and it would be tough in my book for any Eisbock to beat it. Give me Cantillon Kriek over Lindemans Kriek any day; I guess there is a place for the Lindemans, but it wouldn't be in my top 20. Here is a quick list of my top 10 beers that I have rated on BeerAdvocate: Bigfoot, Celebration, Stone Imperial Stout, Leifman's Goudenband, Westvleteren 12, Rochefort 6, Trois Pistoles, Allagash Interlude, La Terrible, McNeills Imperial Stout. Of course, if I were writing a book, I would probably include a bigger variety of styles in my top ten, and I probably wouldn't include beers that one can only buy at the brewery (i.e. Westvleteren 12). All in all, the book is pretty interesting from a historical point of view.

Brew Day

Brewed up a batch of beer today. I am aiming for a hoppy foreign extra stout - the starting gravity was 1.068 (yes, I finally bought a thief to check my gravity), which should give me an ABV of about 6.7% and the IBUs calculated out to be about 67. Hops were Northern Brewer/Bullion for bittering (why these two? Because the recipe I used as a starting point called for them), and Cascades for aroma/flavor. I'm probably going to dry hop with Cascades as well - but not the crappy locally grown Cascades I tried a few months ago. I'll let you know how it turns out, although chances are if you are reading this, you'll get a chance to try it.

If the weather turns cold, I think my next beer will be my first lager. My basement is usually about 55 degrees in the winter, which is just about perfect for fermenting a lager. I still haven't decided what kind of lager though - maybe a bock or a Schwarzbier. But I'm open to suggestions.

Our next place to live...

Big news everyone! Ann and I have decided where we will live after I graduate. Check it out!

Box Elder

For Malkmus lovers only:



There is a great video for "Baby C'mon" on YouTube as well, and of course check out the video for "Mama" (Real format) from the Matador web site, which Ann loves.

Farnum Hill Cider

Tonight at Beer Club we went to Poverty Lane Orchards to have a private tour with the head cider maker from Farnum Hill Ciders. It was fascinating - I've been on so many beer tours that they really have become redundant, but this was a whole new ball game. They grow apples at this orchard that no one else in America grows, just for use in their hard cider. We got to taste unblended hard cider straight out of the barrel - so delicious. One of the most interesting tours I've been on - it isn't every day when the tour guide mouth-siphons product out of a fermenter and pours you a sample.

Tonight's Activity

Ann is having a girls night out tonight with Laurie, Rachel and Laurence at the Tip Top Cafe in White River Jct. So my activity for the evening is burning a bunch of live shows I have downloaded in the past year that I've never got around to. Phish, Ryan Adams, Wilco, MMW, Built To Spill, Pavement, Uncle Tupelo, GRAB - in all it is around 10GB of losslessly compressed music that has been taking up space on my hard drive for a long time. Luckily I have a surplus 48x Firewire CD-RW drive that I took home from the help to help out - if only I had a faster computer to decompress the .shn and .flac files I'd be done in no time.

I know, sounds like a really exciting night, huh? At least I have a Sierra Nevada Celebration to help me through it. Once I finish, I can go here and fill up the hard drive again.

Are you autistic?

Wired news has an autism quiz on their web site. I got a 21, which is above average, but way below 32 which is where most people with autism score.

I mainly took the test because Ann is always telling me I have autistic traits. Now I have proof that she is mostly wrong!

Macaca!

I am Macaca! "Macaca" is definitely word of the year, although Ann is pushing for Brangelina. (Apologies for the lame post, I have a paper due tomorrow.)

Pic of the day...

Here's one from way back in the archives. Ann and I at a Halloween party in 1999 in Somerville, MA.

Saturday Links Vol. 2

• Damn doctors trying to rename all of the cool genes - if I had a mutated sonic hedgehog gene, probably the only thing that would make me happy would be to know that the name of the gene was "sonic hedgehog"
  
• Impressive New Honda Inspires John Mellencamp To Write Song About Japan - God I hate those commercials.
  

Albums of the year...so far...

Here are my picks for albums of the year, so far, from someone who hasn't heard that much new music this year:

• Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass: by far the best album title of the year, and damn good music as well. You know a band is pretty confident when the first song on their album ("Pass the hatchet, I think I'm goodkind" - another great title) is a 10 minute long jam with minimal lyrics. You can download the whole song here, if you like.
  
• The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America: not quite as strong as their previous effort, Separation Sunday, but still a great album. Bonus points for the Kerouac inspired title. Check out a live version of Stuck Between Stations, the first song on the album.
  
• Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit: the first half of this album is really great, it sags a bit in the middle, but thats a minor quibble. Here is a great video for "White Collar Boy."
  
• Honorable Mentions: The Flaming Lips - At War With the Mystics; Pavement - Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition (reissue, so it kinda doesn't count); Bruce Springsteen We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions; Neko Case Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
  

I'm actually kind of disappointed in myself for not checking out more music this year. There are a lot of albums that have come out that I've been meaning to get (Sonic Youth, The Decemberists, Willie Nelson w/ Ryan Adams, others), but I just haven't had a lot of time to wander around the record store. If any of you have any suggestions, let me know.

Scary

Robot thinks human flesh tastes like bacon. Does this worry anyone else?

Spin in Action

It's rare that one gets to see media spin in action, but here is how the AP changed their story on the reaction of the stock market to the Democratic victory yesterday:

The red text is how the paragraph initially read, and the green text is what it changed to as the market rebounded.

Maybe how it should really read is "the market is undergoing normal daily fluctuations, and we are desperately trying to attach political significance to it!" They are also choosing to ignore that fact that in the last 70 or so years, the market has done better under Democratic rule than Republican. But the conventional wisdom says Democrats are bad for business, so it must be so!

Election Junkie

I'm a total election junkie. I'm reloading CNN incessantly, flipping back and forth between news channels, refreshing all of my political blogs on NetNewsWire. I'm hopeful that my choices win, but even if they don't, I think it is one of the great nights of the year.

When I was in high school, I was hired during the 1994 election by my Sociology teacher Mr. Makris to collect election results from my local ward, which were then passed on to the national media. I think it payed $20 for about 10 minutes of work. Ever since then, I've whenever I see election results I think of the thousands of high school kids hanging out at every precinct in America waiting to collect numbers. Just thought I would pass on a little bit of election trivia you may or may not know about.

Blast from the past...

That's me on the right, if you can believe it. I found this picture in my saxophone case, of all places. What I can't remember is who took the picture...was it a timer? Jake, do you know?

(And yes, the main reason I am posting this picture is because I don't want to talk about this.)

Alex Gonzalez was Robbed!

Seth Mnookin makes the obvious case for Alex Gonzalez being robbed of the Gold Glove by Derek Jeter. I fucking hate everything about Jeter. Sorry for the language, but there is no other way to put it.

Date Night

Ann, Sadie and I were in Concord yesterday to visit with Nana and Bob-Bob and a whole bunch of cousins (you can read all about it on the baby blog). My parents were nice enough to babysit Sadie, so Ann and I had a rare date night. We wanted to see Borat, but unfortunately it was only playing in Hooksett at inconvenient times. Ann had read in the Ale Street News that Penuche's in Concord had refocused on beer and, more importantly, became no smoking. It still has a nondescript windowless door to get downstairs, and still smells like stale smoke, but at least there is no fresh smoke. They have the best beer list I've seen in NH, including a couple Belgians (Duvel, Affligem and Lindemans), and very cheap prices - a bottle of Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA was only $4, and Spaten Octoberfest was only $3. Pretty sweet jukebox too - lots of Phish, Dead and Widespread. A good place to hang out if you are in or around Concord - much better than the Barley House.

As we were getting ready to leave, this band Otherwise showed up. They had more equipment than any other bar band that I have ever seen - huge loudspeakers, a DJ with two turntables (no microphone), a keyboardist with a vintage Hammond Organ and 3 other keyboards. I asked the keyboardist what kind of music they played. He says "It's kind of reggae, electronic, some originals, kinda jammy." After hearing that, Ann and I really wanted to stay, but unfortunately, we had to leave.

Saturday Links

• Quien es mas macho? Brady o Manning?
  
• The best denial of all time - yeah, I called a gay prostitute for a massage and bought some crystal meth from him, but we didn't have sex and I threw the meth away. Right...somehow I think there may be a bit more to this story
  

Politics

Note: political message follows. Close your browser now if you don't want to read it...

So if polling is any indication, it seems like the American public is finally figuring out that the war in Iraq was a dumb idea by a bad president. Unfortunately, over 2800 Americans had to die for people to come to this conclusion. I'm not an ITMFA person, but I really hope the Democrats take the House and Senate, so that maybe Bush will only be able to take away half of our civil liberties in the next 2 years, and we can get people in the armed forces out of the quagmire the incompetent Republicans got them into.

A bit closer to home, I'm happy to see the recent polls showing Paul Hodes either ahead or just behind of Charlie Bass. I used to not really mind Bass - he seemed like a social libertarian/fiscal conservative in the traditional New Hampshire republican mold. But ever since Bush has been president, Bass has come down on the his side of every single vote that mattered. I encourage all of you who are reading this and who live in New Hampshire's 2nd District (all three of you?) to vote for Paul Hodes on Tuesday.

This year's pumpkin...

So I decided to go with a sad/scared pumpkin this year. Sadie was pretty upset and worried about it and wouldn't go near it once I lit it. She also kept talking to her teacher at day care about "Daddy pumpkin sad." Another great moment in parenting...

Eric Wilbur is Great

Horse of same color- Boston Sports Blog - Boston.com - NESN: "I can just imagine the Patriots coach watching game film of the Colts this week, cackling hysterically, smoke pluming from his lips like Max Cady in Cape Fear. No sooner had everyone finished removing their puckered lips from Manning's derriere after the Colts' win at Denver Sunday, than Tom Brady upped the ante with a four-touchdown evening at Minnesota. And just like that, the Colts are shivering in fearful anticipation.

Yes, after Sunday, Peyton Manning will fall to 3-11 vs. the Patriots and just 1-8 at Foxborough. Is there any doubt of that after what we witnessed last night? The Patriots defense was relentless against the Vikings, and while Brad Johnson certainly isn't comparable to the likes of an All-Pro like Manning, we've seen enough of this script to know what to expect. And that, my friends, will be multiple angles of the Peyton pout, unsnapping his helmet in disgust after another interception. After the game, he'll want to be a good teammate, but will inevitably throw somebody under the bus."

God, I love Eric Wilbur when he gets snarky (doesn't hurt that he throws a Phish reference into 1/2 his posts). Should be a great game next weekend. I see the pats going after the Colts with the exact opposite strategy they used against the Vikings - run, run, run instead of pass, pass, pass. The Colts are ranked last in the league against the run - Dillon and Maroney are going to run all over them, the Pats will eat the clock, and Manning will have no time to score.

I'm going to try to post every day this month like Ann is trying on Sadie's blog. So expect more boring posts about sports, music and beer until December!