Nutrition Update
I have found lately that I’m not eating much for dinner. I have further found that food takes up valuable stomach real estate, that the Free Market best allocates to beer. A 12-pack of Hamm’s in a can goes a long way to meeting the body’s caloric needs.
49 bottles of beer on the floor
That’s what you’ll see when you walk in my kitchen. In 2 weeks, The Glove’s Extra Special Bitter will be ready for the imbibing. I’ve learned a few things in past brewing attempts, and I have a pretty good feeling about this one. It actually tasted pretty good flat and warm. If anyone out there knows how to filter beer, so that it doesn’t have a little layer of yeast at the bottom of each bottle, please let me know. From what I understand if you don’t have some yeast in the bottle it won’t carbonate.
Today’s summer recipe: sautee some zucchini, onions, garlic and rosemary, place it on top of some greens with a dollop or 2 of yogurt. It is especially good if you grew the zucchini, rosemary and greens in you own garden. Yes I am a total tool. Does anyone want some zucchini? I have enough right now to choke a camel.
The North American Organic Beer Fest
Sweet mercy, I love this city.
If you ever go to one of these beer fests, chances are you will have to buy tickets, and 1 ticket gets you a taste, 4 will get you a fill (a 10 ounce cup you paid 5 bucks for). I discovered yesterday that the taste is the only way to go. Some people are a little more generous than they should be. I probably tried 15 different beers in under 3 hours.
But I am paying for it…this blog post is the most productive thing I have done all day.
I like Ted
The governor of Oregon, Ted Kulongoski, is a typical career politician. He was a legislator, a Supreme Court justice, and has been the guv since ought-three. A lifelong bureaucrat, and a tool of the labor union lobby, he is the Democrat’s Democrat. But he is also a fundamentally decent person. This is how you know.
Looking to call attention to the state’s ongoing battle to reduce poverty and hunger, Kulongoski and his wife, Mary Oberst, pledged to spend a week eating only the provisions they could buy for $42 — the average allotment for two people on food stamps. As Kulongoski discovered when he grabbed three boxes of off-brand mac and cheese, it’s tough going.
That’s what they’ll eat and drink this week — no exceptions. Kulongoski has sworn off meals at conferences and restaurants. He’s even forbidden to tap his “beer fridge,” a separate cooler at Mahonia Hall filled with various labels of his favorite beverage.
What I want to know is, where is this unguarded fridge?
In Honor of Fat Tuesday
Here is another quote from Mr. Franklin, about his first trip to London in his mid 20s:
At my first Admission into this Printing House, I took to working at Press, imagining I felt a Want of the Bodily Exercise I had been us’d to in America, where Presswork is mix’d with Composing. I drank only Water; the other Workmen near 50 in Number, were great Guzzlers of Beer. On occasion I carried up & down Stairs a large Form of Types in each hand, when others carried but one in both Hands. They wonder’d to see from this & several Instances that the water-American as they call’d me was stronger than themselves who drank strong Beer. We had an Alehouse Boy who attended always in the House to supply the Workmen. My Companion at the Press, drank every day a Pint before Breakfast, a Pint at Breakfast with his Bread and Cheese, a Pint between Breakfast and Dinner; a Pint at Dinner; a Pint in the Afternoon about Six O’Clock, and another when he had done his Day’s-work. I thought it a detestable Custom. But is was necessary, he suppos’d, to drink strong Beer that he might be strong to labor. I endeavor’d to convince him that the Bodily Strength afforded by Beer could only be in proportion to the Grain or Flour of the Barley dissolved in the Water of which it was made; that there was more Flour in a Penny-worth of Bread, and therefore if he would eat that with a Pint of Water, it would give him more Strength than a Quart of Beer. He drank on however, & had 4 or 5 Shillings to pay out of his Wages every Saturday Night for that muddling Liquor; an Expense I was free from. And thus these poor Devils keep themselves always under.
Rants and Observations
Pabst Blue Ribbon is shitty beer. It’s the schwiggiest of the schwiggy. I don’t care how much you charge for it, how many faux-vintage tchotchkes you have hanging up in your little hispter bar, how thick your Buddy Holly glasses are, or how cool you think you look with your “PBR Bowling Team 1957” jacket that you bought at Walmart, it’s shit. Always has been, always will be. There’s a reason it hasn’t won an award for 125 years.
I find it interesting when friends who are secretly attracted to you display low-key hostility whenever you mention that girl you went out with last week, or the chick you have had a crush on all year. It’s happened to me twice in the past 2 days. I’ve been on the other side of that equation but still I find it annoying.
I’m getting really tired of supposedly high-society Oregonians who don’t know their governor’s name. Last night on the City Club of Portland at least 2 speakers referred to him as “Governor Kulongowski.” Read the fine print, ladies…there is no “W” in Kulongoski. (Hey, if he decides to run for pres. someday, that could be a good campaign slogan) Sure, it ain’t Smith, but I don’t understand why you Americans can not say my name. Nay-ah-na-na-ja. Nayananajah.
Androgyny is the new black. I have lost count of how many people I see walking around who would easily make SNL’s Pat jealous. I am specifically looking at the cadre that included the afforementioned PBR bowler. It must take hours to make your hair look that shaggy and unkempt.
If you are a budding female folk singer/songwriter, don’t open your set with a sappy ballad that has “Jump into his broken heart” as the first line. Yes, I led the exodus back to the bar, but the 12 people behind me weren’t lemmings.
Internet porn just ain’t what it used to be. Sorry fellas, but it’s not a free trial if you ask for my credit card number. Even if you don’t charge anything. And for the love of god, skip the photo shoot if you are having a herpes outbreak.
Summer is officially over. The clouds rolled into Portland yesterday, and experts are predicting that they will break sometime in May. But that could only mean one thing…football! I have never looked forward to a season more than this one. Not only because I am about to win 80 bucks from the chumps in my fantasy league, but this also marks my first season as a huge Oregon Ducks fan. If, following this year’s “Civil War,” there is a riot in Corvallis and the whole damn town burns to the ground, I for one won’t be shedding a tear. Oh, and Michigan really needs a new quarterback.
Jalalablog 