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The things in my head go 'round and 'round

This is my life. You can't have it.

Archive for the ‘beer’


Friends don’t let friends drink Bud lime

What the heck is it with Budweiser and lime? I am not getting it. Same with Miller and lime.

People are not to drink beer with fruit in it. Limes are for gin and tonic. Not beer.

If you have to put fruit in your beer, that pretty much means that the beer sucks. Big time.

If you need to do something to your beer to make more people drink it. Improve the taste.

Don’t put lime in your beer. Especially since it won’t be a real lime, it will be lime flavoring. Chemicals on top of chemicals. Blech.

Namaste.

A fine cigar, and an excellent beer

Sat on the deck tonight watching the fireflies. There are times during the summer, right after we have had rain and it is nice and humid out, when the fireflies congregate out behind our house like a congress of fairies.

Our property borders a municipal park. There is a copse of trees with a lane running through it. When the fireflies are out you can walk down that lane and they cluster around you. And it is beautiful.

L8R

One Week Until Jubilee Day

I did my last reminder about Jubilee Day on my Pennlive blog.

The first one I did drew a couple of reactions that were pretty funny to me. There I times that I do write tongue-in-cheek. And that can be misconstrued. Too bad. I still think it is funny.

Jubilee Day is a one-day street fair that has been going on in Mechanicsburg since the 1930′s. It is a really big deal around here. This year The Princess will be at the Outer Banks and unable to go with me. And this year will be the first time in about 5 years that I won’t be working on that day.

Yah!

Sausage sandwiches, fries, beer, and I forgot to mention the deep fried mushrooms. You can’t have Jubilee Day without fried mushrooms. I love fried mushrooms. Almost as much as I loved the burgers that I made last night that had cheese, and portobella mushrooms mixed in them. They were the absolute best.

I am making myself hungry with this talk.

Must stop now.

Namaste.

Special Announcement!! Special Announcement!!

Announcing a new exploration into the minds and stomachs of Central Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Beer and Brewing Guide.

A journey into this insanity that makes some of us brew our own beer, and then foist it on our friends and neighbors. And a look at those who do it successfully.

It is new, but come back every couple of days and you will find things that will astound you.

Promise.

Namaste

My place, or Your Place?

When you move into a new area it is interesting to find out what the local food favs are.

When I moved from the west side of Michigan to the Deroit area, I learned about the lusciousness that is White Castle.

And cold Stroh’s beer.

When I moved to Columbus, I learned about chili and spaghetti. Yum.

Moving to Pennsylvania I have learned about Lebanon Bologna, red beet eggs, and stromboli from Your Place.

Not specifically YOUR PLACE. But the restaurant here in Pennsylvania called Your Place.

Their stromboli, or strombaloney as The Princess used to call it, is absolutely out of this world. You have got to try it.

I am thinking about this as we try to decide what to have for dinner, as all of us forgot that Chik-Fil-A is closed on Sundays. You would think that at least one of us would have remembered.

Namaste.

Gotta get this done

As I have directed a bunch of people over here to read this.

Like “this” is an actual place and not a graphic representation of a bunch of electric impulses. Sheesh.

Whatever….

Last week Saturday MLW and I along with some friends, and some of their friends all went to a brew pub in Harrisburg called Appalachian Brewing Company. Our friends, not to be mistaken for THEIR friends, (who MLW and I know and like quite a bit….) had made reservations for our large party of 10.

Did I mention that there were 10 of us? Hungry, thirsty guys and gals. Just keep that in mind.

So we get to the Brewery, which also has a restaurant, only to find that they had messed up our reservations. Pretty much forgot about them. So they put us at a couple of different tables seperated by a wall. One that you could talk over. You know what I mean.

So there we sat. Us, and our friends. Waiting for the remaining 6 to join us. Waited. Thirsty. 4 of said friends came in and sat at the table that was seperated from us by the talking overable wall. And we did talk. And my table watched as a waitress came to their table and took their drink orders.

Have I mentioned that we haven’t seen a waitress yet? Very thirsty. And this is a Brew Pub.

Then their waitress took their appetizer order. And my table is getting thirstier.

When their appetizers came, I had had enough. I went up to the Manager and introduced myself. Reminded him that our reservations had been screwed up, and that he had us seated in an area where there is no waitress. Asked him if he wanted our busines, or should we go up the street. Said Manager assured me that he wanted our business, and got a waitress to come to our table.

A surly waitress. You know the kind. You wonder if they are spitting into your drinks before they bring said drinks. Which we hadn’t gotten to yet.

Moving on. Said waitress took our drink orders. FINALLY!! And we were momentarily happy. MLW and the her wife counter part had ordered water, and wc ordered root beer, while MLW ordered ginger beer. Both brewed on the premises with the beer. My husband counterpart and I ordered a sampler of the house beers. 8 different beers. Keep that in mind, as it will come into play here in a few sentences.

The wives drinks arrived. Well, 3/4′s of them. The water was their, and so was the root beer for WC. But no ginger beer for MLW. Not good. MLW inquired where her ginger beer was and surly waitress says, “we are out of it. And you probably wouldn’t have liked it to begin with.”

Not a good move. MLW does not like it when people presume to know what she does, and doesn’t want. Especially when she doesn’t even know the person. And she informed the surly wench of such, and ordered a root beer.

Surly wench drug her knuckles back to her lair of despair.

She came back with MLW’s root beer, and our sampler of beer. Or should I say 3/4′s of our sampler. Yes, you guessed it. 6 out of 8 beers. When asked where the other two glasses were, she said that “they have run out of glasses.”

I asked how could a pub run out of glasses, and got a shrug for my trouble.

At which time I told her that maybe she could go to the front of the restuarant and get 2 glasses out of the case where they are selling the glasses to the public, wash them, and get my the rest of my fricking beer!! It was bad enough to have screwed up out reservations, seated us in a waitress-less section, and then give us a knuckle dragger as a stand in, mess up MLW’s drink order, and finally mess up a beer order.

Have I mentioned that this is a Brew Pub? Inside a working brewery?

With all of that said and done. The food was excellent. Top notch.

The beer, not so much. I was not thrilled but by one called a zoileg lager. It was really good.

And that was the story of our Big Saturday Night Out. We went to see Steve Earle which is another story.

Namaste.

The buffalo theory

In one episode of “Cheers”, Cliff is seated at the bar describing the Buffalo Theory to his buddy, Norm. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the concept explained any better than this:

“Well you see, Norm, it’s like this . . . A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the heard is hunted, it is the lowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”

Tell me this isn’t a recipe for disaster

A trio of 19 year old boys.

In Canada.

Where the drinking age is…wait for it….19.

It’s almost like a really bad “Cops” episode.   I’ll be sitting in front of the tv some Saturday night, quaffing an adult beverage of my choice, and that familiar theme song will come on…

“Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”

Admit it, you were humming along weren’t you?

Moving along.  Told the boy that he would be in the country for 4 hours if he was lucky, before he would hear the words:

“Hands against the wall you filthy, american hippie, eh.”

And to top it all off.  He asked me to go along.  Yeah right, I want to chaperone a a trio of boys who have “Trouble on Two Legs” written all over them.

Not likely.

Namaste.

Good Music from New Friends

One of the benefits of having a daughter who has a musician for her boyfriend is meeting his musician friends. I was listening to a band called Internal Defect out of Peoria, Arizona this evening.

Check out this video: Stray’s Breakdown!

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I was telling their guitarist, John, that I thought that their sound was very reminiscent of Linkn Park while we were drinking beers this evening. He didn’t disagree too much, though I shouldn’t have tried to categorize his music like that. The band can also be found of their MySpace page at:

http://www.myspace.com/internaldefect

Go listen and tell them how wonderful they sound.

Tell them Phil sent you.

Namaste.

I hear the whisper of the rain

Took a look at Pennlive.com today to see that there is supposed to be some major rain coming in.

That makes me glad that I am in Arizona.

I came to visit my eldest daughter and her boyfriend/significantother/futurehusband/whatever. I can never figure out what to call folks any longer. Kinda goes along with everyone calling boyfriends/girlfriends their fiances. In my day (My GAWD, I am getting old) you only had a fiance when we gave her an engagement ring. Seems now that after the first date you are calling her significant your fiance.

I don’t get it.

What I do get is that the weather out here has been wonderful. A little on the windy side, but the sun is out, and there isn’t any snow or slush, and no rain.

I could get into the habit of liking this.

A whole lot.

Went to the Arizona Renaissance Festival on Sunday, and ran into 3 different vendors who also do the Pa RenFaire. Go figure on that one. Drank a lot of Harp ale. A LOT of harp ale. I love that stuff. Wish that I could have had a local beer, but there doesn’t seem to be a local brewer around. At least one that was at the festival.

That sucked. But the rest of the day was wonderful. Two more days here, and then back to the wind and rain. Other than seeing MLW, and The Princess, that sucks.

If only I could convince them to move out here.

Namaste.