Slow news week

There’s a huge fuss this week over the President sitting down for a beer with Gates and the cop who arrested him. It’s bad enough that this occasion warrants at least one headline per day. Now there’s a whole new pointless argument to cover: what beer will they drink?

The White House, intelligently and thoughtfully, is planning to serve each of the 3 gentlemen whatever they prefer. Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal wants the White House to serve Sam Adams to everybody, even if none of them like it. Way to grandstand, Rep. Neal! Let’s take an over-hyped event and use that to political and economic advantage!

Sam Adams, of course, had to take advantage of this by saying they would (if they could, which they can’t, due to time constraints) make a special beer just for this event.

Other, completely unrelated breweries are trying to cash in, too:
Dan Kenary, president of Harpoon Brewery, told the paper they are working every “back-door channel” the company has.

Yeah. Because that’s what’s important… Fuck the issues of racial tension and profiling. Let’s market our beer!

FYI: Obama prefers Bud Light (and I lose some more respect for him), Gates wants Red Stripe or Beck’s (better), and the cop wants Blue Moon (finally, a decent beer).

Sam Adams would be a good choice, by the way… I just think giving them what they want is better, and pandering to companies in your constituency is just sleazy politics.

Shrewd beer drinkers

In the rain forest of Malaysia, scientists have found a small mammal, the pentail tree shrew, whose major source of food is a type of
beer.

Weins calculates that the tree shrew is imbibing what would be the
human equivalent of nine glasses of wine an evening. However, the
pentail tree shrew shows no signs of being drunk.

Yeah, that’s great, but I’m much more interested in the bertram palm. The plant which, apparently, is mother nature’s own brewery.

the flower buds function as brewing chambers — they have been invaded
by previously unknown species of yeast, which ferment the nectar into
frothy alcohol.

Heck, for that matter I’d be interested in getting my hands on that yeast and seeing what a batch of regular beer fermented with it would be like.

I’m converted!

What I have just learned about the Pastafarian religion (or “Flying Spaghetti Monsterism”, as some call it) seals the deal for me.

The Pastafarian belief of heaven stresses that it contains beer volcanoes and a stripper factory.

Based on the powerful question of “what if you’re wrong?”, I have no choice but to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because faith costs me nothing, but it would be awful if I missed out on an eternity of beer and strippers for lack of faith…

Photo Friday: Time Machine

For this week’s Photo Friday, I have selected a picture I took for the Human Clock, in “motivational poster” format.

Recap: Detroit Perl Monger social

Went to the Detroit Perl Monger social on Tuesday. I went to the inaugural meeting of the recently-resurrected Detroit PM group back in… November? Unfortunately, the group settled on Tuesday night meetings, and Tuesdays are kind of bad for me. This wasn’t a meeting so much as just a get-together. They announced they’d be serving beer and BBQ, so of course I had to go. It was good beer, too… a German import, and something I think was Mexican, and then I had another of the German import rather than the Rolling Rock…

Lots of coders have a language of preference, but I’ve really never seen anything like Perl out there. The social aspect of Perl seems to be head and shoulders above any other language. Up on the 4th floor deck of E-Prize, with a scenic view of a train track, I sat with a bunch of total strangers and drank and reminisced about geeky things and watched the sun go down. I didn’t notice the game of Texas Hold’Em getting started, or I would have joined in on that. Another group was playing Euchre. You just don’t see Java programmers doing that sort of thing, do you? They seem to lack that “you’re one of us” mentality.

I think I need to set aside one Tuesday per month to keep attending meetings, even if they don’t normally involve beer.

Why do we do it?

When I get done with a tournament, “war”, or practice, people ask me how did I do. The typical response is to give a rough summary of my kill-to-die ratio, recount any spectacular feat by or against me, and to list off the bruises, welts, swollen areas, or any other “souvenirs” I got. At that point, those who don’t get SCA fighting (or, presumably, any other recreational martial art) say something like, “and you do this for fun?” or, “why do you let people give you bruises?” (I’m trying to stop them, honest!). I’ve thought about putting together a “pros and cons” of SCA fighting versus MMORPGs, or SCA fighting versus watching pro sports, but I think it would come out sounding cheesy to anybody who isn’t a fighter. But today, in a blinding flash of insight, I came up with one damned good reason:

No beer ever tastes as good as the cold beer you drink when you are hot and sweaty and sore from a fight. Especially if that beer is given to you by one of the people you were fighting. I don’t care what brand of beer it is (and I’m pretty picky when it comes to beers), the worst swill will taste, at that moment, better than the best beer in the world tastes at any other time.
… of course, I still prefer the post-fight beer to be a good one. 😀

Back to work…

It’s been far too long since I’ve done the work that I like best: brewing beer! I just installed QBrew on my computer, and I’m shooting for a simple extract brew, no time-consuming mashing this time around. A little malt extract, some Fuggles hops, German ale yeast, and then I’m going to add not one but two of my favorite adjuncts. I’ve made some very yummy raspberry porters in the past, and an excellent vanilla ale… Now I’m shooting for raspberry-vanilla. Should be ready in time for Battle of the Inland Seas in September. I need to reclaim my reputation as one of the best brewers around.