Friday Grog Blogging: Bell's Lager Beer

Hello and welcome back to Friday Grog Blogging. This week, the last week of April, I’ll be discussing Bell’s Lager Beer, a "Lager of the Lakes". Continue on to More Dwarf for my review and scoring.

I wanted to go for something lighter this week, after last week's 'classic' red/porter. I wasn't disappointed. It's definitely lighter.

Impressions: Clear and yellowy, this is just beer. Your grandpa wouldn't be afraid of this beer. Heck, I bet even my cousin who won't drink anything but Miller Light couldn't find anything to hate about this beer. It's actually kind of bland. Light, foamy, it disappears down the throat effortlessly and tastelessly. Almost too much foam. A bit disappointing in its directness.

Final Score: Two out of Four Pints.

May 4 Rating Update: On the new scale, this translates into a 3 1/2 out of 8 pints.

Dem Primary Debate - Live Comments

Go watch it yourself. I'm just going to put comments up here so I don't scream at the television.

6:02 - Kucinich is a creepy elf.

6:03 - Kapow! Lightning Round!!

6:05 - Hillary says a good, blanket, bedrock statement.

6:08- Biden says we must 'change the fundamental premise' of the occupation. Oh, god. Segregation and partition of the lands probably won't work. Kurdistan is a non-starter in the region. Obama toots his own horn about opposing the war as a state senator. Woot, I guess.

6:11 - Kucinich makes a good point - we should put the frakking war funding in the DOD budget, and not bootstrap this shit.

6: 15 - Richardson is my President Crush at the moment. I don't know if he can win the nomination, but I think he's a great choice for Secretary of State given his recent foreign policy wins. As of now, I'm planning on caucusing for him. 10 months out, though, so who knows.

6:38 - Sorry, but I'm back now. Steak and potatoes called out, and were suddenly silenced.

6:41 - Hillary wants more gun control. At least we can reinstate the assault rifle ban. At the very least.

6:44 - Hooray for a show of hands! Biden supports the assault rifle ban. Good.

6:47 - I wish there were more time for specifics about each health care plan. Obama didn't say how we'd pay for it.

6:52 - The Confederate Flag belongs in a museum. Right on.

6:57 - Biden says smaller classes and increased teacher pay. Personally, I'd be for breaking the relationship between seniority and pay.

7:05 - Gravel's kind of coot-ish, but at least his low polls give him the freedom to say interesting things.

7:07 - Is Richardson kind of a Dean-ish figure for this race?

7:11 - Dodd - stateless terrorism is the biggest threat we face, not nations, and needs multinational action.

7:18 - Dodd is pro-civil unions. The first person to broach the topic tonight.

My roommate won't let me switch over to the new Smallville. I wish my old tv was up and running.

Last Update: We switched over to Smallville after we got fed up with off-topic responses.

Penny Arcade - QFT

Todd Goldman - Art Thief.

Jack Thompson - Crazy Obsessed Lawyer-like Creature.


But then again, we already knew those things.

The Future Is Now

Just a few quick links, one quirky and one utterly amazing.

Kryptonite found in Serbia
Okay, cool, just a bit funny, fiction and fact colliding. But wait. There's more.

Earthlike 'Squid Planet' discovered around Gliese 581

(h/t Pharyngula[sorry, Phil, I read there first])

Monday Miseries

I'm working on setting up something so I can tuck things 'below the fold'. Continue on to get More Dwarf.


Well, here we are. I've never been much of one for programming, but I suppose I'll have to start pulling myself up by the bootstraps. Meh. I bet I'll use it sparingly, but it's pretty nice having the option.

Friday Grog Blogging

Avast, and ach, and ahoy! Nothing's more dwarfey than a good pint of beer, and so from now on I'll be blogging about a brand of beer I'm drinking this week. Some might say I'll be sampling each week's pick as I blog about it. This is an amateur beer lover's opinions. At this point I'm not going to delve into beer jargon, because I don't know any.

For the most part, I'll be talking six packs purchased at my local specialty wine and beer store, but I may spice up things with a trip to the local pubs.

This week, I picked up Fort Collins Brewery's RetroRed, "A Classic Ruby Red Ale".

Impression by the packaging: A red ale, huh? Well, I like Killian's, so let's go for it. I take it home and open her up.

First drink: Phbbt?! This ain't no red ale! It's a mislabeled porter. I was expecting Killian's, and I got something nearer to Guinness. Okay. Expectations not met. What about the actual beer?

It's not bad, expectations aside. As a full, dark beer, it sits less like a brick in the stomach like Guiness can, and without the impenetrable foam. There's a whole bunch of expansive flavor that settles about the roof of the mouth, and has a little jolt of bitterness without going whole hog into the barleywine or IPA madness.

Consensus: Unexpected, Enjoyable, flavorful, growling, will last longer in the fridge than a Killian's or a wheat beer, but that's a good thing.

Two and a half (out of four) pints.

SCOTUS Screws Over Women

Shamelessly stolen and abridged from The Simpsons:

"kid: Well why can't we just make a law against [abortion]?

Amendment: Because that law would be unconstitutional.
But if we [stacked the Supreme Court with Loyal Bushies who installed Dubya in office in the first place]....

kid: Then we could make all sorts of crazy laws!

Amendment: Door's open, boys! Yee haw!"

Short-Ride Lieberman and the Democratic fucks who voted for cloture on Scalito are responsible for this.

As an aside, don't give money to NARAL. They suck up pro-choice money and do nothing for our efforts. They backed Short-Ride Lieberman and Chafee, for frak's sake. NARAL can go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

EDIT: Pandagon gets it right, again.

Gonzales

Disappointed that our friendly neighborhood AG, TortureSnoop, didn't go up before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. With all the 'I don't recall' and 'I have no recollection' in his pre-released opening statements, Gonzales is either Leonard from Memento or the world's worst liar. Either way, he's got to go. Preferably to prison.

The only thing Abu Gonzales is good at is loyal toadying.

Over the Edge

I am beyond rage today. Usually, I can summon up the spark of indignation in response to the latest O'Reilly idiocy, or fascist theocrat talking point, or Malkinizaton of the facts by Reich Blogistan.

But today I'm just spinning my wheels. The deaths in western Virginia and the subsequent capitalization on them by pundits and talking heads and gasbags is just too much. "If we all had Uzis and 5o cals on us at all times, each and every Murkan coulda wasted that guy in no time." Just. Fucking. Stop. For today. Just. Stop.

They can't. I know. It's what they do: capitalize on tragedy. One of the recent examples I'm reminded of is O'Reilly taking advantage of a drunk driving accident to further inflame his Low Information Viewers against Teh Brown Menace, and Geraldo's Moustache calling him on this shit.

Late Friday X Blogging

Well, as people are wont to do hereabouts in Blogtopia (thanks skippy), Fridays are rife with series, such as Friday Cephalopod, Friday dose of Woo, the Friday kick to the face (thanks Chris Sims), and so on. And so forth.

Well, I'm hopping the bandwagon, just not this week. I swear, by next week or the week after I'll have come up with my own special Fridayism.

Maybe the Friday Dwarf Rant, or something equally dwarfey. Not 'The Secret History of the Seven Dwarves' because that'll last only about two months, but something dwarfey. Yeah...

First Impressions of Super Paper Mario

The lack of turn-based battles makes the game seem, well, quicker.

It's still a bunch of fun, don't get me wrong. And I'm constantly low on flipping power because it's totally sweet. But I'd like something, well, longer.

Then again, I'm only on world 3. Maybe there's a twist and a second group of Mystical MacGuffins will need to be collected. But probably not.


And when will we finally get Super Mario RPG (SNES) on the Virtual Console? Gorram you, Square-Enix, I want my Geno fix!

LiveBlogging TDS

Paraphrased:

McCain: "I'd rather lose a Campaign than a War."

Jon 'Don' Stewart: "Luckily for you, Senator, you might not have to choose."

Daily Show For The Win!

Hear the Good News

Rejoice! There is no God! What matters are our actions! God is a Fiction, a Shame on our collective intellect. Push him Out The Door, along with oh so many others, too many to name. Isis, and Odin, and Loki, and Anansi, Quetzlcoatl, Ra, Brigit, Camulus, and all the rest of those frickin' goa'uld.