Note: if you’ve been getting a nasty message when you have tried to comment on this blog lately, it’s because I managed to put any comment which had a “.com” in the email address into my Blacklist. Dooh! Sorry!
Thanks to Doug (Doug the Comment Angel, as opposed to Doug of Skullsplitter fame) for pointing out that it was a problem.
Well, it’s officially spring. The first lamb of the year was born on my parent’s farm in Pennsylvania.
The weather here in Massachusetts has been pretty nice for almost a whole week, and was actually fantastic today. Spring is indeed in the air!
The Cambridge Chronicle runs this story about preschoolers defending Frank Gehry’s Stata Center at MIT (which I work across the street from):
When Ben Donaldson and his mom picked up the Cambridge Chronicle two weeks ago, 5-year-old Donaldson immediately had a bone to pick with the paper.
“The Stata Center is not ugly! The Stata Center is not ugly!” he recalled shouting in response to a front-page article.
You are wrong, young Ben Donaldson, the Stata Center is actually very ugly.
Important note: I do not endorse the purchase or consumption of Skullsplitter Ale. I’ve been meaning to make this post for a couple of days now, but haven’t had a spare second.
It’s hard to explain how terrible it is. Basically, it tastes like dirt. But it’s worse than merely tasting like dirt, because it smells kind of nice. So there’s this blatant misrepresentation, in addition to the actual dirty taste. Also, most beers that I would classify as “bad” are bad because they’re brewed by the millions, and anything which might actually taste good in it is watered down. So the badness is really a disregard for taste. Skullsplitter’s taste, though, seems totally intentional. But it’s… it’s just not… good. It’s really strong. It’s like dirt. And there’s this belligerent aftertaste.
Why did I think it was good? I guess Doug and I had already had a great deal of something else when we tapped into the Skullsplitter.
Thank goodness it wasn’t a six-pack, just a four-pack. Based on the bizarreness of the label, I at least was able to foist off a bottle as a collector’s item on our friend John on Sunday. Two more to go. Anyone want one?
While I was in Scotland visiting Doug of Doug fame, we bought a bunch of this stuff, for two reasons: the copy on the packaging, and the alcohol content. I feel like it was over 10%, but the stuff I bought last week at Davis Square Wine and Spirits is only 8.5%.
Here’s to the seventh Earl of Orkney!
For many centuries Orkney was ruled by the Vikings, not least of which was Thorfinn Hausakliuf (Skullsplitter) who reigned around 1000 A.D.He was the seventh Earl of Orkney and we have dedicated our strong ale ‘Skullsplitter’ to his memory.
Live vicariously through the guy fron Ain’t It Cool News, who got to take a tour of the fabulous Pixar studios.
Ed’s recent posts about the unfortunately named Worcester Tornadoes reminded me that I’ve been meaning to mention that I was happy to see, during our recent jaunt to New York, that Brooklyn has gotten a minor league team, a Mets affiliate, the Cyclones (named for the famous Coney Island roller coaster, not a natural disaster).
I think this is good. I’ve often wondered what I’d do for baseball if I lived in New York. Obviously, rooting for the Yankees is not an option. It’s like rooting for Microsoft or Glaxo Smith Kline or something. Being nostalgic for the Brooklyn Dodgers is not an option. It would be kind of ridiculous for me, being born decades too late and hundreds of miles too far west. The Mets, well they’re not an option either, but the reasons are sort of harder to explain. They just seem like such a soulless expansion team whose only purpose is to be there for people who can’t stand the Yankees and who lost the Dodgers.
Anyway, as manufactured as the Cyclones might be, it seems like a slightly more inspired, real kind of fake, which, as you might guess, I think is a noble ideal.
(The Hardy Boys)^1.618 = The Da Vinci Code
Gravity’s Rainbow – The Crying of Lot 49 = Infinite Jest
Stephen King – HP Lovecraft = Don Delillo
[via Blog of a Bookslut]
Man, this is going to be great television. If you were looking for proof that the Globe sucks, look no further than their version of this story. They take not one, but two dull angles: first, this is an example of the Sox’s turnaround from being historically intolerant, and second, these world champion Red Sox are overexposed. Spare us the moralizing, folks, this is Queer Eye; we want double entendres and stupid gay jokes, and, by God, But that’s what the Herald is for. The Herald also set me (uh) straight on the spelling of “tszujed”. I thought it was zhuzhed. But maybe it’s like a word from a language with a different alphabet, like Russian, where different transliterations are acceptable.
How did I miss this? Neal Pollack (another writer who I like but who I realize is crap) has a blog. He also happens to be announcing the further growth of the -ist blog empire.