FlaSoxxJim

Better get through Labor Day first.

Zeppo Marx' brothers made me laugh. Well, not Gummo so much , but the other three.

Xaxxon is the Warlord of the Citidel deck. (No, I'm not that dorky. I used teh Google.)

Ride the rails on that Crazy Train.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 01:06 PM) Jim, I don't know if you've talked about this before, but what are your thoughts on buying beer(from a store) cold vs. warm? That's a good question. For the most part I have found that most beers do fine if they are warmed and cooled back down, as long as the beer didn't get hot. Warm temperatures absolutely destroy beer, but unless the beers have gotten warmer than 80º somewhere along the line, it's not an issue in my own experience. For a long time I considered some of the lower alcohol bottle-conditioned beers to be the exception to that rule. If Sierra Nevada shipped their beer cool and advised consumers to keep it refrigerated than I figured I'd heed those warnings. Anymore though, most of the Sierra products at the stores are in room temperature cases and not in the coolers, so again I think if the beer has not been manhandled along the way and cracked 80º or so, it will be alright. Consistent quality at the consumer end really comes down to how well the beer has been cared for along the way. If the brewery, the warehouse and distributor, and the end retailer all care for the beer they way they are supposed to, you'll get consistently good beer with one or two little bumps along the way. There are some beer stores where I have gotten old, deterioriated, lightstruck, etc., beer and now I've learned to go elsewhere.

Leonard missed L ('cuz I cheated) My bad

Kind of looks like rain is possible at Yankee Stadium tonight.

QUOTE (Soxy @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 11:33 AM) Xerxes! where to start; moved to duluth for a new job--LOVING it. You're all doctoral and $hit?

Where ya been, Soxy! Xylem is more important to trees than you might think.

QUOTE (G&T @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 10:59 AM) Your wife is a very understanding woman. When she agreed to take a vacation to England so I could do a real ale pilgrimage, and to Ireland so I could drink Guinness straight from St. James Gate I knew she was the person I was supposed to marry.

QUOTE (Tex @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 08:50 AM) Less than one on average How many times have you quit a vice only to restart? Wasn't this already covered in the "How often do you . . . Ahem" thread.

I have a 750 each of Allagash White and Ommegang in the fridge for a witbier throwdown tonight. I'll pick up a 6-pack of Hoegarden as the benchmark and maybe also some Chambly or White Rascal, Great White, or anything else that catches my eye. If the wife is up for setting it up, I may go blind on the tasting. Go out and get 'yer beer!

QUOTE (RibbieRubarb @ Aug 27, 2009 -> 01:50 PM) Oh...I thought announced the name of the next James Bond movie. They already had that woman as a Bond Girl. . . Ore was P*ssy Galore not a literal name?

Hellish long winter for us non-football fans.

QUOTE (knightni @ Aug 27, 2009 -> 11:34 PM) Five. '83, '93, '00, '05, '08. How many games did you go to at Old Comiskey? 1979 through 1983 my dad usually took us to 1 game during each homestand, so that's probably 60 games or so. Before and after that we'd mae a handful of games each year, so I think the total is around 75 games. How many times do you curse out loud during the average 2009 Chicago White Sox ballgame?

Stone Brewing Company's 13th Anniversary Ale is REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD! How's that for a beer review?

Wilbur Wood was fat.

Ray Durham was average at second base but I sure liked him leading off the lineup.

Beer Tasting Time! The recent back and forth here about Allagash Brewery prompted me to chill a corked and basketed 750-ml bottle of Allagash Hugh Malone Ale that I've been holding onto for about a year-and-a-half. First, a nod to the pithy name and an explanation to those who don't get the not-so-subtle beer geek humor. Hugh Malone is derived from humulones -- a family of alpha acids that come from hops (Humulus lupulus) and are among the key bittering agents in beer. It's uber beer geeky, and I like it. The homage to hops is appropriate for this beer which is categorized as a Belgian-Style IPA. This is a new, still-evolving Frankenstyle that epitomizes a lot of what is great about craft beer -- namely, don't be afraid to toss out the rule book in the pursuit of a good beer. You'll need your John Madden circles-and-arrows sketch tablet to follow this, but the origin of the Belgian IPA style consisted of some traditional Belgian brewers noticing that most American craft beer fans are absolutely gaga for all-out hoppy ales as well as complex, wonderful but underhopped Belgian brews. In response, they started brewing hoppy versions of beers that are otherwise distinctly Belgian in character, specifically for American markets. These beers were well-received enough to prompt Allagash -- American brewer of fine Belgian-styles -- to produce an American version of this Belgian beer style that borrows heavily from American IPAs that themselves are the over-the-top (in the best way) modern interpretations of a class British ale style. Follow all that? So, on to the beer. Poured into a Chimay chalace, the beer has an inviting cloudy orange hue that has a nice glow to it held to the light. An initial tight, 1-finger white head quickly subsides to a persistent thin cap of fine bubbles that are gearanteed to leave a respectable lace on the glass. The nose is very very subdued, but the little I'm picking up includes hints of lemon, candy sugar, and light hops. Tasting an initial serving over the span of 45 minutes and across a range of temperatures reveals a balanced beer that indeed melds discernable aspects of two very distinct styles. Malt is evident on first taste as are some pleasing cherry and apricot notes. Like many Belgian Tripels, the appreciable 8.5% abv alcohol is not at all aggressive, and you could almost consider this as a session beer if you didn't know better. Mild (by American pale ale standards) hop bitterness is juxtaposed against semi-tart dryness that is evident in the profile of several Belgian ales. The finish is dry-tart, and with not enough lingering hoppiness for me to assert that Allagash knocked this one out of the park. A very nice but not exceptional beer that I believe was a one-off. I'd have it again if the opportunity arises and, more importantly, if someone else shelled out the $16 for a bottle. This is the only beer from the Allagash "Tribute Series" that I've so far had a chance to try. I wish I had opened this bottle maybe 6-12 months earlier to see if the hops were more assertive in the younger bottles. I assume they were, and I may have missed the peak balance on this one.

"My Two Vaginas", Thursdays at 9 on SCTV.

Zucchini is one of the ingredients in the delicious caldo de res I had for dinner tonight.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Aug 26, 2009 -> 06:20 PM) This is for Nolan's Batman by the way. Not a new series. Has Warner Bros. officially announced that Nolan is coming back for the third instalment?

Xamia is genus of cycad that should be italicized but my iPhone won't let me.

Pardon me, but my comment on kangaroo genitalia was not at all random. Kangaroos had already entered the conversation.