Is the US the only place with air conditioned public transit? Actually, I think I've decided that Europeans (or at least, the places we've been) generally eschew A/C altogether, and are generally more comfortable being warm than I am. Copenhagen's subway looks, acts, and feels like an airport tram. Apparently, Brian Posehn (a comic we really like) is in town, and playing a show tomorrow night. Also, he's staying at our hotel. I think we may have to take in that show.

Please stop putting my food on *top* of the napkins. Love, Craig.

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. We went to a show at the Lakeshore Theater watching a lineup of some comedy music trio whose name escapes me, Hannibal Burress, Daniel Kinno, and Dan Levy. The show was great, but there were a few assholes in the audience who seem to think stand-up comedy is an interactive, audience-participation gig.

It's not. Trust me. Unless the comic asks you a question, keep your mouth shut and laugh at the funny stuff. It guarantees a good time for all.

But I digress. The comics were good, the show was good, but the end result is that we didn't get home until 1:30 or so, which means I didn't actually hit the pillow until 3. Yet, somehow, I still was up before 10 AM. Sigh.

So, instead of the traditional breakfast I tend to make for Tisha and I (a wicked egg & fake sausage scramble that rocks), we tried some Pancakes-In-A-Can.

It wasn't bad. Certainly little clean-up, but it took awhile to get the hang of making pancakes the right size. I'll probably try them in the little waffle-maker thingy my brother gave me for Christmas a couple of years back and see how it does in there.

Wow, okay, it's taking me a long time to cut to the chase, so I guess I'll just cut to the chase.

Instead of working in the back yard as planned, it was hot and I was tired, so I took a nap and decided to work on the bar area of the house this afternoon.

Yesterday, I picked up my kegs -- Belhaven Scottish Ale for the nitrogen tap and Unibroue Maudite for my smaller fridge. This afternoon, I did the Tap-The-Keg dance, which means a lot of sanitation to make sure all the components are microbe-free, then hooking everything up. Took a while, but was totally worth it.

The Maudite's still a bit foamy, but the Belhaven is glorious. Until I can get a keg of Kilkenny flowing (note the mirror above the taps), the Belhaven is a welcome addition to the bar.

And now, I'll rest up a bit, enjoy a pint or two, and finish cleaning the bar area.

Adieu.

Okay, things look to be pretty much moved to the new server. I'm in the process of splitting stace.com and robotmonkeypants.com into two separate sites, and I ran into some trouble getting things to work over at bluehost. So, I've moved this site over to NearlyFreeSpeech.net to give it a spin. Hope to have something worthwhile on stace.com soon. Stay tuned.

If you have the opportunity to have Ommegang Three Philosophers on tap, take it. It is, without question, yummy. That is all.

Ever have one of those dreams where you wake up and you just can't shake the thing? It follows you around all day making you question your assumptions and ideas? I hate those.

Enough with the dancing football robots. K? Thanks.

I try to not watch too much TV. I've got myself whittled down to a select few shows now, but I thought I'd give a handful of new shows a test to see what I thought. I'm not going to go over plots and premises here -- that's covered ad nauseum elseweb. Given that I'm completely hooked on Battlestar Galactica, I thought Bionic Woman was worth a look, since it's from the same creative team. Big mistake. After a couple of episodes, I'm just done. The characters' actions make no sense, there's way too much 'ACTING!' and there's not a single sympathetic character. Katee Sackhoff takes the things that made her Starbuck character from BSG unique (and *just* on the verge of annoying), and ratchets it up into the realm of the über-merde. It's sad that BSG has to sit on cable while this tripe gets the prime time high-definition spotlight. Ugh. Avoid. The series is high profile enough that they may let it ride out the season, but I think it'll be done by Christmas. From the trailers, Journeyman looked like my kind of show. I'm a sucker for time travel, mucking with histories, that sort of thing. I finally got around to watching the pilot Friday night, and I'm, if nothing else, still on the fence. I like the concept -- sort of a Quantum Leap meets The Butterly Effect -- and so far it's well written and acted. The casting is inspired, the characters act in believable ways, the mystery keeps me hooked, and I wasn't looking to hurt my TV set when it was done. (Did I mention Bionic Woman is a turd?) It earned a "Season Pass" on my TiVo, but because I didn't watch the pilot until Friday, I've missed one episode. I hope it's not too serialized. I suppose I could buy it from iTunes, but I'm angry at Apple right now. NBC lets me watch it in a browser, but ugh. The last new show I tried out this year is Chuck, and it was completely by accident. The promos convinced me that it would be a waste of time... that it was one of those shows I'd find completely annoying, and it would be gone before November. Well, one of those times when the TV was on while we were doing other things last week, the Saturday rerun of the pilot came on. I was out running an errand, but Tisha caught enough here and there while half-watching to figure out it was something I'd like, and she hit record on the TiVo. Sure enough, she was right. This show is smart, funny, well acted, and well written. It's a fantastic blend of comedy and action, which allows the show to not take itself too seriously (IMHO, a big failing with the aforementioned turd Bionic Woman). Worth watching, by all means. But again, and I can't say this enough, Bionic Woman is an affront to entertainment. I wanted to like it, much like I wanted to like Studio 60 last year. Luckily, this year, I caught on early enough to the crapulence and shan't get hooked on a bad show.

I've had a single tap kegerator for some time now. I really like it, but I was finding myself wanting to have more of a variety on tap. That, combined with the fact that I love Trois Pistoles and can actually get it on tap, inspired me to build a second fridge. Read the story here. Here's what the finished product looks like.

One of those bizarre late-night browsing sessions led me to, of all things, a write-up of a social event I'd attended (hell, I arranged it) from over 18 years ago. Reading it was surreal. I was transported back to a time when everything was yet to occur -- when I'd had no idea of the life that was to come. Before ruined friendships and the burden of actually living a life; when the most important thing in the world then is something you'd find absolutely inconsequential today. It was weird -- and bittersweet. I felt, for a second, like that 18 year old. That doesn't happen to me very often, getting lost in a nostalgia like that. It was really nice, but the crash afterwards of all the things that have happened since then -- that it's now a completely different person looking back on that... it was sobering. Ah well, it was fun. Cheers, my friends from 1989! May we always have that much fun before life gets in the way.