If you like beer and freedom (and who doesn’t?), you’ll love this short Reason.tv video about the rise of the craft beer industry. It’s a tale of the success of individuals in the face of bland corporate giants, all spurred by government deregulation. Yay!
7 minute BeerFest
June 2nd, 2010
Pledge Allegiance to the Bun…
May 29th, 2010About four years ago, I had this idea to build a burger-review site that would serve as a convenient location for those searching for great non-franchise burgers all over the United States.
After talking it up for a year or two, I think my friends were getting a bit impatient, either for the site to become a reality, or for me to shut the hell up. So I shut the hell up and started researching how to go about building NationsBestBurgers.com.
It took a while, but it finally came together within the last year, and today I’m finally taking it live.
What really helped make the site a reality was the existence of Content Management Systems (CMS). These are open-source community website building tools (usually free) that help people like me with varying levels of coding expertise develop rich community sites. Of course, it’s easier said than done (and we’ll have to wait and see if NationsBestBurgers.com grows like I hope it will). In the case of my site, I chose Drupal, a very popular, very capable CMS, if a tricky one to work with for a non-coder.
To be honest, I’m still not sure I did everything using the latest best practices for Drupal. But the site appears to work, which is a good sign, even if the underlying code is, in places, stuck together with duct tape and chewing gum.
So if you like burgers, please visit NationsBestBurgers.com, join up, and contribute a review. I’m going to need all the help I can get to make that site a success.
Brussels Spouts
May 25th, 2010The sun is up. The day is new. And that can only mean another quotidian Biden moment:
It’s not unheard of for Vice President Biden to get lost in the moment, but during a speech earlier this month to the European Parliament his flattery of the host may have gone a bit overboard, ceding Washington, D.C.’s role as the world’s center of liberty.
The U.S. vice president, opening his address in Belgium, argued that Brussels — considering its rich history and abundance of international institutions — could well be the “capital of the free world.”
He suggested that Washington, D.C., his home, is undeserving of that title — notwithstanding its wealth of global organizations and the countless international summits that take place there.
“As you probably know, some American politicians and American journalists refer to Washington, D.C. as the ‘capital of the free world,’” Biden said. “But it seems to me that in this great city, which boasts 1,000 years of history and which serves as the capital of Belgium, the home of the European Union, and the headquarters for NATO, this city has its own legitimate claim to that title.”
Yeah, whenever there is trouble in Middle East, a hurricane in the Caribbean, a tsunami in Indonesia, or financial problems anywhere else, where does the free world turn? To Brussels, of course.
Our previous Vice President was known for shooting off his friend’s face. Our current Vice President is known for shooting off his own mouth. Which is worse? Well, Cheney’s friend only had one face, but Biden’s mouth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Hey, Kids! What day is it?
May 20th, 2010It’s Draw Mohammed Day!
Trade Lee to Cincinnati? Hell yes!
May 19th, 2010The one bright spot in yet another dismal season for the Seattle Mariners is the acquisition and resulting brilliant performance of 2008 Cy Young Winner Cliff Lee. Unfortunately, Lee’s talents have been wasted by a team that can’t hit, at times can barely field, and can’t hold on to leads the few times they have them. It’s clear that Lee will be gone by the end of the season – if not sooner – and according to John McGrath at the Tacoma News Tribune, a likely mid-season trading partner could be found in the Cincinnati Reds.
Trading Lee sooner than later won’t guarantee the Mariners will be a better team, merely a different one, with more intriguing pieces on board for the future.
What the Mariners need is a trading partner eager to make a splash in 2010, yet blessed with a stockpile of talent on the farm. More specifically, the Mariners need a trading partner convinced Lee can be the difference between a good season and an unforgettable season.
A trading partner such as the Cincinnati Reds.
The Reds haven’t finished with a winning record since 2000. They haven’t qualified for the playoffs since 1995. On Sunday, while the Mariners were wasting away in Tampa Bay, the Reds were overtaking St. Louis for the lead in the N.L. Central.
Cincinnati has a Rookie-of-the-Year candidate in starter Mike Leake, and another starter, Johnny Cueto, threw a one-hit shutout last week. But the rotation remains dicey. Put Lee into it, and the Reds are upgraded from a pleasant surprise to an odds-on favorite.
Wow! Put me down in favor of this deal. I’d love to see Lee pitching for a contender like the Reds (my new favorite team). He could be just the addition they need to push themselves past the competition in the NL Central for the first time in 15 years.
Reds live!
May 18th, 2010I’m listening to the Reds game live! Yahoo!
UPDATE: The Reds win in the bottom of the ninth, tying the score with a 2-run homer and winning with a deep hit off the right field wall. These guys have all the appearance of a team that expects to win, and they come through… big time!
On a side note, the graphical interface for the GameDay and At Bat service is awesome. It’s filled with stats and all the information you need to follow the game. It updates nearly instantly with the action (with some of the more complicated plays, it does lag a bit – though you still have the audio which is always immediate). They even include video highlights of the big plays. I got to watch the homeruns, and the game-winning hit just a minute or two after the fact. The only thing missing is streaming video, which I don’t care to pay for.
For a mere $20 bucks, this is an outstanding product. I’m gonna get a LOT of good baseball this year.
This is exciting!
Dear Reds – I’m home
May 17th, 2010It’s been thirty-three years since I last followed the Cincinnati Reds, but now I’m coming home.
I’ve had it with the Seattle Mariners. They are a poorly run, joyless, incompetent bunch of bums that couldn’t find their ass with both hands.
Today, I purchased a membership for audio feeds of pro baseball using the MLB.TV At Bat service. It’s only $20 for the full season, and I can listen live or to archived audio. Right now, I’m listening to the archived game from earlier today between the Milwaukee Brewers and the first-place Cincinnati Reds.
Wow! So this is how a real professional baseball team plays!
Additionally, I went to the Reds homepage and downloaded a Cincinnati Reds toolbar for Firefox that provides scrolling news updates and links to various Reds stuff. In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose. Pretty soon I suppose I’ll be ordering extra large Reds jammies.
It feels good to be back. Now I just have to learn all the players names and positions.
Sex and Gasoline
May 14th, 2010I like this song by Rodney Crowell, though the video isn’t all that great.
Sweet Dreams, Junior
May 10th, 2010With his, age, injuries, slow bat speed, inability to judge pitchers, and utter incapacity to move runners forward, it’s not as if we need another reason to ditch Ken Griffey Jr. And yet… here is a report from Larry LaRue: on Griffey’s special clubhouse presence..
Last week, when some members of the press corps asked manager Don Wakamatsu why he hadn’t used Griffey as a pinch hitter for Rob Johnson late in a game, Wakamatsu was vague.
Two Mariners players, however, weren’t. Both are younger players, fond of Griffey. Neither had an ax to grind.
So why didn’t Wakamatsu go to Junior off the bench.
“He was asleep in the clubhouse,” one player said. “He’d gone back about the fifth inning to get a jacket and didn’t come back. I went back in about the seventh inning – and he was in his chair, sound asleep.
”The other player, who knows Griffey a little better, tried to rationalize.
“He doesn’t sleep well at night, he’s away from his family, he’s comfortable in the clubhouse,” he said. “They could have awakened him …”
Lessee, that works out to how many thousands of dollars per “Zzzzz”?
At least we can hit
May 7th, 2010
We had our first softball game of the season last night. Despite the cold temperatures, our bats were smoking hot. We always play doubleheaders, and we won the first game 12-4 and the second game 16-1.
I pitched the first game and then played shortstop for the second. Shortstop is my favorite position, but age has caught up with me and I usually let the young whippersnappers play short. Last night, however, our regular shortstop couldn’t make it, so I got to relive the glory for one night. Not much came my way, unfortunately, but I did participate in a great double play. As shortstop, I live for double plays.
Before the game, I was chatting with the umpire and we got on the topic of Major League Baseball, and I expressed my detest for all things Yankee, at which point he remarked that I must be a disgusting Red Sox fan. I set him straight, telling him that I hate both teams, but the Yankees slightly more. He then asked what team I liked, at which point I uttered my most brilliant line of the day…
“Well,” I said “I’d be a fan of Seattle, if only they had a major league team.”
“Ouch!” he said as he walked away.
At the suggestion of my friend, Ideawave, I’m considering moving my allegiance to the team I followed religiously in my youth. Back in the 70′s, it was all about the Cincinnati Reds. Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, George Foster, Tom Seaver, Joe Morgan, Dave Concepcion, Sparky Anderson… The Big Red Machine was the team to watch.
Currently, the Reds are in 2nd place in the NL Central with a .500 record. Sounds like a real MLB team to me. Certainly, they can’t be any worse than the Mariners (because nobody is worse than the Mariners).
I think I’d look good in a soft-top CincyReds hat.
Wanted: MLB team to root for
May 6th, 2010Looking for exciting, motivated MLB Team to watch and enjoy. First Place contention not required, but must be fun to watch, win or lose. Ideal team will be filled with exciting players who clearly have a love for the game, and a desire to perform both defensively AND offensively. Teams showing an ability to HIT THE FRIGGIN’ BALL are preferred. Teams built around over-the-hill future Hall of Famers need not apply. NO BOBBLEHEADS. Send inquiries to Safeco Field, Seattle.
War Crimes
May 5th, 2010I’m not a pot smoker. I’ve never used the stuff and I probably never will. And I admit that the intricacies and motivations behind government drug policy have not been the least bit fascinating to me, and that my interest in the subject has never been very great.
I am no longer indifferent to this subject.
Yesterday, I read about a dramatic, full-on SWAT Team raid on a house in Missouri in which government representatives, armed with a warrant and automatic weapons, busted into a private home, killed the family dog(s) in front of a seven year-old child, forced the father at gunpoint onto the floor and ransacked the residence. What did they find? Enough pot to charge the man with a misdemeanor.
When did the War on Drugs become the War on Common Sense? I ask that with complete sincerity, because by any reasonable measure the harsh and violent tactics, the destruction/killing of property, and violation of privacy conducted here and, apparently in similar raids across the nation, is far removed from what any rational, freedom-cherishing citizen would consider proportional to the crime.
It’s governmental abuses of the Fourth Amendment like this that place me firmly on the side of legalization.
Think I’m blowing things out of proportion? Perhaps you should watch the video. While you are watching, keep in mind that this was all done for a misdemeanor offense.
Thanks to Ideawave for alerting me to this story.
It’s like 2008 all over again
May 5th, 2010I’m glad I skipped the Mariners last night.
What do you do when you’ve got no offense, and your defense breaks down? This early in the season, there’s not a whole lot you can do. Fortunately for the Mariners, they happen to be in what is arguably the worst division in the majors. As such, they have been able to continue stinking the place up night after night and can still wake up to find themselves a mere 2 1/2 games back.
As I noted before, the starting pitchers are carrying this club with some consistent performances bordering on brilliant. But that can’t last forever. When will the rest of this team (composed of reputed “professionals”) actually step up and start playing like pros? I’m thinking the answer is “not anytime soon”. And according to Geoff Baker, serious problems are looming for Mariners.
I feel like we’ve been here before. A team with dreams and promises of contending falls flat on its face in the first couple months of play and spends the rest of the season circling the drain.
It’s like 2008 all over again.
These aren’t the droids you are looking for…
May 4th, 2010But they’re still pretty darn cool. I can think of lots of practical uses for a robot that can balance on a ball.
Quick hits
May 3rd, 2010In the interest of brevity due to deadline crunch, here are some random thoughts and links.
- The Mariners offense stinks. The starting pitching has been phenomenal the last couple weeks, but the offense has lost every game by not providing run support, and the bullpen has blown several opportunities for wins. A shake-up is in order. Today, according to Larry Stone at the Seattle Times, the M’s have sent Tuiasosopo down to AAA for more playing time, released Byrnes, and brought up Josh Wilson and Ryan Langerhans. Fine. I just hope they see some playing time and aren’t simply riding the pine while Griffey, Lopez, et al continue to stink the place up.
- Bloomsday was yesterday, and while I didn’t design the T-shirt this year, I did create the Official Bloomsday 2010 Souvenir Poster, which I like a lot.
- Speaking of Bloomsday, their numbers were up again for the second straight year. Over 55,000 people registered this year, up significantly from last year (which in turn was up from previous years as well). Perhaps it’s a little self-serving to suggest that our Bloomsday Finisher ad series (noted here, here, here, and here) had something to do with the increase, but try as we might, we simply can’t think of a better reason.
- If you can, you should pick up a copy of the most recent issue of Reason Magazine, if only to read the column by Veronique de Rugy entitled “Our Unsustainable Debt”. I wish it was online, but they gotta sell the magazine (it will no doubt be posted to their website in time). Nevertheless, de Rugy lays out in simple terms how we are heading for a really big financial disaster. It’s amazing to me how few people seem to know or acknowledge the danger. Our country is rushing towards a steep cliff, and no one seems to care.
- Have you noticed how the disastrous oil spill in the gulf has silenced the Palin-inspired chorus of “Drill, Baby! Drill!”? Now, I’m not anti oil-drilling, but it just reveals to me the shallowness of what passes for political discussion these days. Everyone knows (or should know) that drilling for oil involves a certain amount of environmental risk. Despite this terrible tragedy, the fact remains that for the foreseeable future we need oil. But now such discussions of oil drilling are impossible, and we are stuck purchasing oil from countries that hate us.
- Finally, I watched The Hangover again last week (we’ve got it on DVD). It’s a hilarious movie, and serves as a cautionary tale regarding the opening of strange vehicle trunks.
Boris and Reggie #2
April 26th, 2010Here’s another quickie sketch/digital painting. This took about three hours. I’m not crazy about Reggie – she’s looking right at the viewer, which makes her look flat. I might revise this in another version and turn her head a little. Boris has a huge head, which is actually pretty much the way he looks at times. Overall, I’m liking the composition and the forms work well together. The size of this image 18″ x 10″. Even though it’s a loose sketch, I think it will look good framed.
On future images in this series, I’m going to try to keep the loose strokes and color areas. They lend a real spontaneous feel to the image, which is very desirable. At any rate, these are very fun to do, and I don’t see an end to this series anytime soon – there’s a lot of interesting things to explore with these two characters.
Painting: Boris and Reggie
April 23rd, 2010Just finished this digital painting/sketch of my two dogs, Boris and Reggie. I’m thinking it would be fun to do a series of these. I spend a lot of time with them, watching and being entertained by their antics, so a series of paintings seems like a low-risk, high-return proposition.
Additionally, I’m itching to do some traditional painting again. I’ve got a ton of blotter paper that, with a coating of gesso, could work well as a base for the series. I think after a couple more digital sketches, I’ll dive into the traditional media. I see these paintings working well in watercolor or even oils. Could be fun.
Recommended Daily Allowance of Cute
April 21st, 2010I visit James Gurney’s blog on a daily basis. The author and illustrator of the Dinotopia series of books posts daily notes on art, painting, and daily happenings in his neck of the woods. Yesterday, he posted a charming video of a friendly duel between some farm animals near his home.
In this corner: Bo, the young bull. In that corner: Billy, the black goat and Lucky, the white goat. And offering between-rounds entertainment: Joy, the miniature donkey. Read the brief description, then scroll to the bottom for the video.
Too many good pitchers
April 20th, 2010
No, I’m not talking about an evening at my favorite brew pub, I’m referring to the current (and very strange) dilemma facing the Seattle Mariners.
In short, the problem is that the young pitchers the M’s are using seem to be doing rather well the last couple starts (Fister had a no-hitter for seven innings last night). But with the eventual return of Cliff Lee, one of these guys is gonna lose his spot. The difficulty is picking which guy takes the hit. Honestly, it’s nice for the M’s to finally be contemplating this kind of problem.
