Beerce

I tried a couple new brews recently.

Cecil had bought some Lucifer Belgian Ale to try and he shared one with me while we were hanging out at his place a few days ago. Only after tasting it did we go back and notice it was 9% alcohol, or about double the strength of the German lagers I drink on a regular basis. Honestly these kind of long fermented ales are a little hard to enjoy when you're feeling like drinking more than one beer in a sitting. It goes down slow, getting more flavorable as it warms slightly, but by the time you feel that extra kick, the taste is a little much already. Comparable to Fat Tire's Trippel Ale but maybe not as delicate.

I grabbed a 6-pack of Independence Pale Ale, which I assume is the flagship of the Austin-based Independence Brewery. The label has a nice painting of Angelina Eberly, the inn-lady wot saved Austin in ye olden times with a single blast from her cannon. The first thing I noticed was the fairly substantial head it produces even when poured very slowly. It doubles as a timer that lets you know when this one is at about the right temperature. As it recedes, it leaves fluffy formations of foam that dance lightly on the drinker's moustache in an altogether pleasant manner. I definitely like it but the price was a little much ($7.99/6). The flavor reminds me of Sam Adams. There's a tour on the first of December with a complimentary tasting at the end, and I was thinking about checking it out. I'm interested in the Austin Amber and Freestyle Wheat brews and that sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon.

Browsing the Hoard, Contd

Shapes and Sizes - Shapes and Sizes - Eh, not so much. Sort of a weak Of Montreal.

The Clientele - Strange Geometry - Now this I got into. Kinda like a really well updated Byrds. Good British pop. "Since K Got Over Me" and "Impossible" are probably my favo(u)rites.

Blonde Redhead - 23 - Yeah, they're good, I guess that's old news. I liked this one also.

Still on a strict Bitburger diet as beer goes.

Hey shit, how about that Wimbledon final? Almost too entertaining. Querido Roger, I'll be back next year wey, love, Nadal.

I Heard Transformers Sucks Ass

Yeah. From a couple of different sources. And they didn't completely shit on it either, but the things they didn't like about made it sound like exactly the kind of movie I don't want to pay to see. So, I hereby pre-meh Transformers.

We watched Nightwatch over the last couple of evenings, and it was a real mess. Like a confused Russian Underworld. Nonetheless I will still try to rent the sequel, which the director says will be significantly different in speed and style. There were maybe a few interesting elements lost in the mix but overall the first of this apparent trilogy was disappointing.

I've tried a couple new restaurants in the past 2 weeks or so. Me and c2 went to North By Northwest (or NXNW to you, broham) in the middle of the week. It wasn't anything special. Tries really hard to be fancy. The crowd was lame, too: split down the middle between skinny, faceless Austin chickadees and the rotating cast of all the old Bill Brasky skits on SNL. If you like to eat at places that specialize in things like pan-laminated pork castles and basil-elucidated fish nard ambrosia, then you'd probably love this place. I had the cobb salad and it was ok, c2 tried the pasta fazool (or something, I don't remember the name), and it had an overly sweet tomato-onion cream sauce that got real old real fast. I had their "Northern Light" (beer!) and it was a light beer, nothing more, nothing less. I expect I'd try the rest of their line if someone else was paying, but I don't really feel like going back so it probably won't ever happen.

I also ate at Moe's Southwest Grill. Had a chicken club quesadilla and it was mighty fine. Queso was thick and tasty. All in all very satisfactory for a decent price; I'll go back.

Foxjerky

As I was picking up some Stella on the way home from work yesterday, I stumbled into this unfortunate mess: official Jeff Foxworthy beef jerky. I was honestly stunned for a couple of seconds. Could this possibly preclude my enjoying beef jerky for the rest of my entire life? When my mind was done wrapping itself around the concept of a comedian-endorsed meat product, I laughed heartily and drew my camera phone. I'm still not certain whether you get 10% more jerky or 10% more sleeping-ferret moustache. In other news, I still like Stella very much but after having them both in a short time frame I think Bitburger continues to be my No.1 preferred lager.

Schlotzsky's gives you a pickle spear now! I don't know when they started doing this because before yesterday I hadn't eaten there in quite a while. In any case, it's a damn good pickle! I can't find anything about it on their website but it was really fresh and had an interesting flavor. Their sandwiches are still very good, and I went ahead and doused mine in a bunch of their hot sauce, which I hadn't done before. It was excellent. It was a relatively new location out in a big strip mall development near work, all pimped out inside with lots of big wood beam framework and free-use computers and wifi. I remember hearing that they were having some kind of bankruptcy situation or something a while back; I guess nothing substantial ever came of that cause the place was about as big as the one down on Lamar. I remember that seemed like it was going to be their home base back in the day, as big as they could get. Now that I'm thinking about it, me, Aner, and Mutton all went there on the last day of high school.

from the vonnegut

I finished Bluebeard today, and it occurred to me that in my last post I may have given it, as well as Jailbird, somewhat too short a shrift (interesting etymology there). I wanted to go on record as saying that they are fine examples of Vonnegut’s style and skill. He always emphasizes the (sad) beauty in life that even a cynic can enjoy, which is probably why his books appeal to me so much. I’m about to start Slapstick, the last (and most officially autobiographical, if that makes any sense) of the three old Vonnegut novels I picked up from a garage sale a few weeks back. After that I’ll probably try to kill the two Anne Rice books I bought on the same occasion – Pandora and Vittorio the Vampire. I'm not staking any claims about their quality, but I've enjoyed one or two of her works before. Still, it's very possible she's completely sucked the genre dry at this point.

I had a pint of draft Live Oak at Papadeaux's the other day. I've had it before but couldn't remember the taste. I'm almost positive it was the pale ale. To me it tasted like a slightly weak Newcastle, which I guess is a good thing.

The very end of the Wire Season 1 finale was awesome. Fuckin' Omar!

What's the word, turd?

I went to a tournament at Battleforge Games last weekend. There's a write up on my 40kology blog.

Books: I recently finished Imperial Life in the Emerald City, an inside look at Bremer's coalition provisional authority that set up in a big palace in Baghdad's green zone at the beginning of the occupation and proceeded to spend buttloads of money while accomplishing next to jack shit and many times making the situation worse. It was shocking, depressing, etcetera. A blissfully naive effort to create an insta capitalist democracy in what sounds like a backwards, corrupt(ed) dump. Oh well, launch all zigs. For great justice. Thereafter I read Vonnegut's Jailbird, which was good, but not especially funny or memorable. Now I'm reading Bluebeard which so far feels about the same. Both are told from first-person, both are loaded with coincidence and irony, and both feature playful little digs at different elements in American culture. Labor and economics in Jailbird, art and literature in Bluebeard. At least, that's my early take.

Movies: It's been a while since I reviewed any movies, let me play catch-up here and spin a few quick ones:

Daria: Is It Fall Yet? - Lame. I netflixed it for some goddamn reason, forgetting that we'd actually watched it already. It wasn't any better the secondtime around.

Flags of Our Fathers - OK, but it's no das Boot.

Land of the Dead - Decent, definitely in the idiom of his earlier movies (e.g. Day of the Dead). Some interesting innovations in zombie mythos.

Pan's Labyrinth - Meh. What was with all the big hoopla about this one?

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days - Definitely worth watching, depressing but very tense and dramatic.

28 Weeks Later - OK sequel to my current favorite zombie movie. Very violent, sometimes a little too extreme for extreme's sake.

Smokin' Aces - Meh. Who shot what now?

TV: Lost had the best 2007 season finale, hands down. Can't wait for the next season to begin. Heroes wrapped up fairly nicely, maybe a tad anticlimatic. The Shield and The Riches final episodes were both kinda lame, nothing really revelatory or cliffhangery. My current netflixed HBO series is The Wire. I'm nearing the end of the first season and it is fucking great. I can't believe the person that just got shot just got shot! Fuck!

Beer: Real Ale keeps me coming back for more Rio Blanco Pale Ale and Fireman's #4. Damn!

Fish: We picked up a couple new Oscars, very little but already showing the same kind of bossy, fearless personality as their predecessor. Behold, Romulus and Remus.

Tool 2006, er... 2007

Tool finally made good on their commitment to the AT&T Center in San Antonio last night, and I was in attendance. It was a damn good show. The highlights: frikkin laser beams, spotlit bass riffs, and the ridiculously amazing Danny Carey. Sick, sick, sick. Still, excepting the very impressive laser light/smoke effects, it was a little too much like their last local concert (Austin 2002). The stage arrangement was very similar (MJK in the back parallel to the Carey's massive drum set, with Justin Chancellor and Adam Jones in the front) and they had the same late-show dueling drummers bit, which is cool, but like 10,000 Days itself, I was honestly expecting more innovation. I guess if I was an artist that would be a dick thing for someone to say about something I worked hard on, but that's, uh... that's just a bummer, man.

Beforehand we ate at Pico de Gallo on Commerce & I-35. It was a pretty decent sit-down mexican restaurant. The carne guisada was ok but a little on the tough side. C.'s enchiladas rancheras were just ok too. The chips, salsa, and tortillas were very good. Then we met Macks and Stacks at the Lion and Rose Pub on Broadway. Nice brown pub. I had four different drafts, starting with a black and tan, then a Belhaven (Scottish - pretty decent ale). Next I ordered a Franziskaner, but I forgot their draught was a hefeweisse; I wasn't really in the mood for one but it turned out to be a nice detour. I finished up with my current all-time favorite beer, a Stella Artois. I definitely like ales, but downing all those various pils with meals in Germany really fixed my tastes on lagers. I used to think bud light was a clean taste, but now it tastes like fucking piss. Mexican beer is about as light as I can take; I like it best with spicy food and a little lime. My favorite ale right now is Rio Blanco Pale made by Real Ale out in Blanco. A really great taste and it's named after the goddamn Blanco River. Providence.