Delirium Nocturnum
I've been saving this one for a special occasion, and New Year's Eve is as good as any. Instead of bubbly champagne, bubbly beer.
This one is dark and opaque, with a substantial head that hangs around all the way down the glass.
Smells sort of winey, but more robust, perhaps some wet leaves lurking.
Taste is a bit of tartness, with some plum or prune. Something else is there that I can't quite put my finger on. There's also a slightest bit of an alcoholic warming effect as it goes down, but not so overpowering that I couldn't drink the magnum myself.
A great way to ring in the New Year.
Overall rating: 4.45
2006 Favorites
I had a busy year of book reading and beer drinking. Lots of other stuff too, like curling, baseball, and you know, the birth of our son and all. Here's my favorite stuff from this year:
Favorite beer: Duchesse De Bourgogne. Fruity and tart. A fine Flanders Red Ale.
Favorite book: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Marukami. Second year in a row for a Marukami book to top my list. He was closely challenged this year by We and The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead.
Favorite movie: Bwahahahahahah! That's funny. Like I even went to the movies this year. I think we did see The Pink Panther, but that was pretty horrible. We also saw The DaVinci Code, which was decent, but not worth being on a list. And yes, those are the only two movies I saw this year. Sad, isn't it?
Favorite Theater: Well, we only went to one, but Spamalot was pretty good.
Favorite album: St. Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley. I admit I haven't gotten to listen to as much new music this year, but I really liked this one.
Favorite new TV show: Heroes. It really amazes (and pleases) me that Network TV is airing so much sci-fi these days.
Favorite event: The birth of Evan! If not for him, it might have been hitting my first home run, or Ellie starting school.
I'm looking forward to 2007 for sure.
Hello? Roger Clemens Please
The Giants signed Barry Zito today for 7 years, $126 mill. Thank you Gil Meche and Ted Lilly. I guess he didn't want to wait for the Yankees and the Mets didn't want to go past 6 years.
It should be interesting to see if the Yankees will continue to try to deal Randy Johnson, since any Roger Clemens deal would be starting in June or some nonsense.
Sports Briefs
If anyone can remember who used to do "Sports Briefs" on Chicago TV in the late 80's/early 90's, I'd appreciate it. He would do his little sports bit, then stand up from behind the desk and have these funky boxers on. I thought it was funny anyway. Update: Collaboration with my dad led me to remember that the sportscaster in question was Mark Giangreco, and the bit was called "Sports Shorts," not briefs.
So, on to what's going on in sports, or my world of sports.
Michael Strahan is out for the year on IR. The Giants are doing their best to back into the playoffs, and despite their best efforts to the contrary, STILL control their own destiny. If they beat the hated Redskins this Saturday, they should be in, barring a bizarre strength of schedule shift with the Packers.
Randy Johnson is on the trading block. Getting Andy Pettitte helped that cause, and they are apparently looking to free up his salary cap hit so that they can make a run at Barry Zito AND Roger Clemens. Oh the humanity!
On the opposite spectrum, the Nationals entire payroll is probably going to be less than what Randy Johnson is making. But damn, that stadium is already taking shape! You can check out the construction pictures here, and be sure to check the construction webcam on occasion as well.
Ow, My Wallet!
This year was the first year that we've spent Christmas at home. Usually we end up going to Michigan, but with a 6 week old boy and, especially, a 3 year old, we thought it best to stay home. And we had a really nice time.
On Christmas Eve, Ellie could hardly contain her excitement. We went downtown, sorta, to watch "Santa" waterskiing on the Potomac River. We had to watch from the opposite side of the river because it was so crowded. Oh well. Ellie had more fun watching the planes. We went to the "family mass" at church later that evening. They had a choir singing, but Ellie, having played with her Little People nativity all month, kept gasping in amazement every time anyone said "Jesus." After church, we went out for the traditional Dauernheim Christmas Eve dinner: mexican food. We went to our old favorite, Tequila Grande. All was very good. We came back home, and watched a bit of Norad's Santa tracking site before we convinced Ellie that she had to go to sleep so that Santa would come. She actually went to sleep surprisingly quickly, and so did we.
The next morning, I was the one who couldn't stay asleep. Ellie eventually got up around 8am, and had no interest in presents. She was still a bit groggy, to be fair, and eventually got excited as we started into her stocking. She helped Evan open all his presents too. Thankfully, most things seem to fit her and Evan, and even me and Lisa, so we won't have to brave the return lines. We managed to get through all the gifts in a couple of hours, with only one or two distracting gifts that had to be taken out of boxes and played with before continuing. The Little People Airplane and Mr. Potato Head seem to be the big hits this year. Lisa thanks everyone who got her slippers. She goes through them pretty quick, but she should be set for a while now. And I got lots of pants! Yep, I'm officially getting old when that's the most exciting thing I got for Christmas.
We spent most of the day lying around in our pajamas, playing with Ellie's new toys. My knees are seriously hurting from sitting cross-legged most of the day. We also took part in another Dauernheim Christmas tradition: no cooking on Christmas. We snacked on frozen hors d'ouevre type things all day, and partook of some fine glühwein. If you've never had glühwein, you must try it sometime. A Merry Christmas indeed!
So now, I'm back at work (a wasteland this week) and awaiting the arrival of Lisa's parents on Thursday night. Hopefully it will be a nice quiet week.
Pursuit of Happiness (the beer)
I admit to being biased toward this beer due to my fond memories of drinking it at the Potomac Curling Club. Thanks to George Shirk for introducing me to it. I found it at Norm's and had to pick up a six-pack.
Nice copper color with a strong hop aroma. There's a good bit of malty sweetness before the hop bitterness takes over. You can also taste some of the 8.25% alcohol in there too. Both flavors remain in the mouth afterward, but not to the adverse effect one might expect.
The alcohol does stay with you, but in the winter, that's exactly what you want in a warmer. Just don't drive afterward.
Overall rating: 4.1
Bug Fix
This one's for the geeks out there. I submitted a couple of bugs to a software company a while back, and they just released a new version that fixes them. Yep, I had a hand in bug fixes #8442 and 8033/39328 for DBArtisan.
I know, not a big deal, but it will make my life a little bit easier day to day.
Santa’s Butt
I swear, that's the name of the beer. Cool label too, which got it banned in Maine, which is part of why I picked it up. Check out the label picture at BeerAdvocate.
Like a lot of people, I picked this beer up in protest due to it being banned in Maine or some such. The label really isn't that bad, I mean, come on, people!
Anyway, it was a pretty nice beer. Deep brown color with reddish tones when you hold it up to the light. I got a malty aroma with some chocolaty overtones.
There's a bit of coffee in addition to the chocolate flavor. A tinge of bitterness crept in, but not overly so.
I expected it to be a little more full-bodied than it was, the flavor left the tongue quickly. Pretty good, but obviously not perfect.
Overall rating: 3.7
Un-freakin-believable
The Giants, thanks to the Falcons' loss on Saturday night, had the driver's seat to the Wild Card. Beat Philly at home, and they are nearly a lock to make the playoffs. Against a Philly defense that gave up 171 yards to Ladell Betts last week, and 239 yards to the Indy RBs a few weeks back, you'd figure the Giants would go with a heavy dose of Tiki and Brandon Jacobs. Instead, despite never really being behind by large amounts, the Giants threw the ball 40 times, and ran Tiki just 17. Their case was not helped by bad fumbles by Jacobs and Visanthe Shiancoe, and bad deflection-interceptions by Eli Manning (you could argue that the picks weren't Eli's fault, but he threw one directly into a stationary defender's helmet, and should have felt the pressure from a blitzer on the other deflection). The Giants' interior defense was exposed, as the Eagles popped off big runs straight up the gut and multiple occasions, including Brian Westbrook's 28 yard TD run. The Giants are still in the playoffs via a tie-breaker over Atlanta, but have a tough game against New Orleans this week while Atlanta plays stumbling Carolina. Not good.
My fantasy football season, while technically over last week, officially ended with a loss in the consolation bracket this week. My poor lineup choices caught up with me the last two weeks, and this week I benched Jay Cutler (19), Thomas Jones (14.5) and Laveranues Coles (25) in favor of Brett Favre (3), Chester Taylor (3), and Devery Henderson (3). I take some consolation in the fact that my team would have beaten 3 of the 4 playoff teams this week. There's always next year.
Paycheck to paycheck
Warning: The following post contains language that may be offensive to our younger readers. Reader discretion is advised.
An article on CNN about living paycheck to paycheck caught my eye this morning. I thought, "Maybe they'll have some good tips on what my family can do to get out of our own paycheck to paycheck rut." Then I remembered that this is the same outfit that recently ran a travel article titled "For the best in European skiing, head for the Alps." Seriously. And they pay people for this shit.
Anyway, I check out the article. They focus on a family living in Omaha, Nebraska, making $150k/year. How could they possibly be living paycheck-to-paycheck? They've cut out "luxuries" like cable and fancy coffee. Then they tell us: they own two rental properties that AREN'T OCCUPIED! Jesus H Christ. Not only that, they have a horse, that was a gift from their parents for the kids, that costs them "a few hundred dollars a month to feed and care for." Well no fucking wonder they can't make it on $150k.
I hereby issue a challenge to CNN Money. Come on out to my house, and tell me how I could do better budgeting my money. Until then, stop writing stupid fucking articles about idiots who have clear money management problems but don't have the balls to face up to them.
Books
My Goodreads ListAmazon Wishlist
GSI Outdoors JavaGrindLifestream
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Brian is back from the last day at the pool, having barely gotten wet.
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Brian is pretty sure the first day of school wake up call will be filled with grumpy.
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Brian Bitches Brew, Live Free or Die, Old Chub.
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Brian is coming to the realization that I am not a size XL. Or even a L. Time to donate some ill-fitting clothes.
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Shared The Thousand .
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Nordstrom's also has a free personal stylist, might trust them more than Banana Republic. (Can you tell I'm bored with my clothes lately?) [BrianDau]
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Who knew that Banana Republic had complimentary "personal styling appointments"? You know, if you go for that kind of style. [BrianDau]
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