Ha ha.

Happy St Patrick's Day, bastards!

O'Dave, you should still be drinking even if spring break is over.

Want

Seriously, how cool would a set of these pint glasses be?

Festivus Countdown Begins

[photo courtesy Dave's Childhood Archives]

And the winner is......alcohol, in a landslide.

So we thought it would be a good idea to drink a beer from each of the swing states. Couldn't find one from stupid Iowa so I had to make the Iowa Sunrise cocktail (refreshing!). Trouble is, my other half didn't like most of the beers, so it feel to me to drink them all. Plus, I had a little Jamison's in honor of O'Bama's Irish roots. Where's my aspirin? Did any of you other bastards stay up until the bitter end? Four more beers! Four more beers!

I don't know what this is from, but go to around the 2:35 mark. I dare you.

 Oh yeah, I saw Wilco on Friday night in Milwaukee! I picked up a shitty ticket (balcony) for cheap, the show was within walking distance of my hotel, and the bar was close to my seats. Nick Lowe was great and the his coming out to do Cruel to Be Kind with Wilco was certainly my concert highlight of the year.

NO-lier than thou

So . . . gumbo and bbq shrimp at Liuzzas by the Track; crawfish and fixin's from Big Fisherman; Abita Amber; 12-hour roast beef from Boucherie; Rue; Little Freddie King, Society Brass Band, Bucktown Allstars, Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots, and Trombone Shorty; A2's first fried shrimp, crawfish, and snowballs; and, for the road, Domilises' large fried shrimp, dressed. Mmmmmmmmm. Oh, and un-humid high-'70's all weekend.

Memphis keeps old fashioned swordplay alive

Apparently the traditional method of settling disputes with swords isn't over in Memphis schools. I'm just glad that this article contains the phrase "40 oz. bottle of malt liquor". There but for the grace of God....

** Please note that the above image likely does not accurately represent the sword wielder in question. It is meant for illustrative purposes only.

Irish-Americans Gear Up For 'The Reinforcin' O' The Stereotypes'

From The Onion - where else? Happy Saint Patrick's Day, you bastards.

Mmmmm, Beer . . .

Interesting article in the New Yorker this week about the guy who founded the Dogfish Head brewery in Milton, Delaware. The passage below is about how he invented the delicious 60 Minute IPA, to which I was introduced by Dave, and to which I re-introduce myself as often as possible. I like the definition of a "session beer." (Good soup tip, too.)

The turning point came in 1999, when Calagione was watching a cooking show on television. The chef, who was making a soup, was saying that several grindings of pepper, added to the pot at different points, would give the dish more flavor than a single dose added at the beginning. Not long afterward, at a Salvation Army store, Calagione came across an old electric football set—the kind with a playing field that vibrates to send miniature players skittering across it. Back at home, he found a five-gallon bucket and drilled some holes in the bottom. He laid a pair of wooden blocks on the football set, put the bucket on the blocks, and strapped the whole thing together with duct tape. (“Pretty high-tech M.I.T. stuff,” he says.) Later, when his kettle was boiling, he put hops in the bucket, perched his contraption at a slant above the kettle, and set the game vibrating. Soon, a steady stream of hops was falling through the bucket onto the playing field and sliding into the kettle.
The beer born of that experiment, known as 60 Minute I.P.A., is still Calagione’s biggest seller. He calls it a beer geek’s idea of a “session beer”—mild enough to be consumed in quantity, but with an unexpected kick. It has the bright, citrusy bouquet of a much hoppier brew, without the bitterness. Wine Enthusiast tasted hints of rose petal, tangerine, orange zest, and nutmeg in it, and rated it a “classic.”
The extreme-beer era was under way.