Stoudt’s Scarlet Lady ESB
Fairly nice color, decent head with good lacing. Just okay on the nose, slightly hoppy with mainly malty undertones. I found it hoppier than some have noticed, especially at first, but the flavors blended as I drank for a decent balance.
Pretty good, especially as it warms up, which is probably appropriate given the English origins of the style.
Overall rating: 3.5
Looj!
Geseundheit. Looj is the latest iRobot creation, a robot that cleans your gutters. At $99 and fall coming up soon, I'm so tempted to get one... Not looking forward to cleaning the gutters, that's for sure.
Friday Freebies
Two fun things to cheer you up on this Friday morning. First, a comprehensive list of restaurants and food places that give you something free for your birthday (scroll to the summary for signup links). Most require registering in advance of your birthday, so plan ahead. Second, maybe you've seen those video rental boxes in your local grocery store lately? $1 rental for 1 night, if you keep it extra nights, it's $1 each extra night. RedBox is one of those places, and this site is devoted to gathering free rental codes. You can also get a free rental code by signing up for their newsletter.
Old Man’s War
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
My review
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Old Man's War is kinda like Ender's Game, but with old people instead of kids. The premise is that once Earth-born humans reach age 75, they can enlist in the Colonial Defense Forces, who protect human colonists throughout the universe. The perks include getting a new body, but the downside is that you're probably going to get killed. The universe is a rough place. There were a lot of similarities to Ender's Game, and even Starship Troopers, but Old Man's War definitely holds its own as an entertaining read.
I'm heading to the library soon to pick up the following books for Banned Books Week: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, The Guy Book: An Owner's Manual by Mavis Jukes, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, and It's Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris. We'll see how many I get through in a week.
72!
By finishing off a sweep of the Mets last night, the Nationals have now won 72 games this year, one more than last year. I think it's safe to say that this team, expected to be one of the historically worst ever, can be proud of their accomplishments. In fact, since May 11 (after their horrid April start), they are now 63-62. Not too shabby for a team that had nearly no legit starting pitching, lost their starting shortstop, never got their starting first baseman back from injury, and had to plug in pieces from wherever they could find them. Manny Acta's done an amazing job, kudos to him.
The Mets would appreciate it if you would spoil the Phillies now, thanks.
Bionic Woman review
So I watched Bionic Woman last night and this morning. Sort of like the Heroes premiere went, it was largely a setup episode to get Jaime her bionic body, and introduce the Katee Sackoff character (she just wants to be loved, is that so wrong?) and a few others who will come into play later (her boyfriend's possible evil dad). It has potential, but I was pretty disappointed in the performance of Michelle Ryan. She was pretty good in the action scenes, but was fairly bad in anything that required, oh, acting. Hopefully she'll get better, but she's no Jennifer Garner.
I still have the Chuck premiere on Tivo to watch. But I did watch the Prison Break premiere, which was the best premiere for that show so far. Too bad the audience didn't show up for it (down 2 million viewers from last year).
Just for fun, check out user buckshotwon (aka Adrian Pasdar) on YouTube. Some good behind the scenes videos there.
Banned Books Week Coming Up
Just a heads up, Banned Books Week is next week! September 29-October 6. I'm trying to finish up the book I'm currently reading soon so that I can get to the library for at least two banned book specials. Check out the link above to pick out one to read yourself.
Shift Happens
My head asplode! The first minute of this video should be enough to wake your sorry American butt up this morning.
China will soon become the largest English-speaking country in the world.
Heroes is Back!
Unlike other TV faves Battlestar Galactica and Lost, Heroes premiered last night, like most normal TV shows, in the fall. I have to say it looks like it's going to be an interesting season. (By the way, you can get a bit of background on Maya and Alejandro by reading the graphic novels on NBC's website. Kind of confusing otherwise.) Aside from the god-awful Irish accents near the end of the episode, they put together a good episode, giving you an idea of what's been going on for each of them for the past four months. Oh, and how bizarre is it that Sark from Alias is Takezo Kensei, Hiro's hero?
Bridled Optimism
Before leaving work on Friday, I told my co-worker (a Notre Dame and Washington Redskins fan) that I'd be happy as long as MSU and the Giants didn't lose this weekend. I think we know how those two games worked out, but in case you didn't: they both WON! Thank goodness for that, because otherwise I would have had to listen to the 3-0 Redskins talk for two full weeks (they are on bye this week). Eli still worries me at times (get rid of the ball, and do it by NOT launching it 50 yards downfield into double-coverage), and MSU is still quite reliant on the running game, which may struggle against better defenses (like, oh, at Wisconsin this week?), but their defense has improved, particularly in their pass rush.
In baseball news, the Yankees managed to keep the division within 1.5 games, with one more home game against Toronto tonight. Too bad the D-Rays couldn't keep the lead the other night, or that the Yankees came back from 4 down only to lose in extra innings. Our baseball team lost yesterday in a comedy of errors. Only it wasn't so funny. We were way short on our regular (read: good) players, and though we kept it close for a while, our bats weren't getting it done either. I had a base hit on the first AB, walked, almost got a duck snort into short left, but was caught, and struck out on a good swing on a hard fastball.
We did do some fun non-sports-related stuff this weekend. On Saturday, we headed out to Bull Run park for the first (?) Capitol City Carnival. We didn't stay around to watch George Clinton, but we had fun hanging out with the medievally attired hippies for a few hours. Oh, and did I mention there was beer? I wasn't particularly impressed by anything. The Floris Wit was pretty good, as was the Troegenator (I got an awesome shirt from them too). I didn't take notes, so no official reviews, not that 4 oz was enough to review anyway. On Sunday after the baseball game, we saw Robbie Schaefer (from Eddie From Ohio) give a free kids concert (with free Moorenko's ice cream!), and Ellie was seen tapping her toes and joining in the singing (even though she didn't know the words). We also took the first drive (in pre-Redskins-Giants traffic) up to the curling club for the membership meeting. We did get a free dinner for my near-$500 check (ouch!), and I'm looking forward to getting out on the ice. Hard to believe in the 85-90 degrees and sunny weather that curling season is only a few weeks away!
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