August 20, 2012: The Waiting

I’ve got about ten days until I can try my Black IPA to see how well it turned out. As if I wasn’t anxious enough, I’ve been drinking in moderation lately and am kicking around the idea of not having anything until then. Of course, then I won’t be able to gauge it properly…

135 LTEs written in response to August 20, 2012: The Waiting

  • Spent the weekend in Colorado. Suffice to say Odells Brewrey is the shit.

    • meat

      My bro lives in Ft. Collins, and yes, yes they are the shizzle. Did you have any of the old ale?

      • I didn’t. I had the kolsch, the Honey Baron, and the Nitro Porter (WOW), and they gave us some Lupulin on the tour. Then we stumbled wandered to New Belgium.

        And everything gets a little hazy after that.

        • brianS

          that’s one hell of a birthday trip!

          • It reall was. I also saw this on Friday night (hopefully this embed works):

            Your browser does not support iframes.

            I had never been left speechless by a home run before that. All I could do was grab my buddy’s arm and point.

        • meat

          New Belgium is quickly becoming the macromicrobrew. I like their special releases, and 1554, but you can tell the dudes from Odell just like to get messed up on the music brew really, really good beer.

          • I used to like Fat Tire a lot, but I’ve mostly lost my taste for it. 1554 is still very good, though.

            • brianS

              I’ve never been a fan of Fat Tire, and they went off the rails somewhat when they stopped brewing their single, double, triple as a named set. The 1554, Lips of Faith series and other specialty brews, however….

            • AMR

              I thought Fat Tire tasted wrong from the start. I actually had friends taste it to decide if it was bad.
              1554 is my fave of theirs, some of the others weren’t too bad.

              From O’dells, I only know that Myrcenary is a cheaper substitute for Hopslam, which is high praise.

              • brianS

                Yea, on the few times I tried to drink it, Fat Tire evoked cigarette butts on my palate.

                • AMR

                  I was thinking burnt plastic.
                  Of course, the first time I had Summit, I thought it was “Aspirin-flavored”, so it could be an acquired taste.

            • I was never into Fat Tire a whole lot -- it’s loaded with too much caramel for my taste.

              Their secondary line -- which seems to me like it outsells the first (of course, the people I talk to are other beer snobs, so it’s skewed) is awesome.

            • It’s sort of my go to beer when I’m out since it seems to be everywhere around here now. I’m fond of it, but it’s not the best.

          • That was pretty much my impression. I never really got the hype surrounding Fat Tire and the tap room kind of reinforced that. But I had their seasonal -- The Hunt for Red Hoptober. And it was delicious.

            Odells is worth going out of your way for. New Belgium just sort of happened to be there.

            • meat

              Back when they first started NB was pretty awesome. The tour featured a pretty hefty “taste”, and you got four four oz pours of whatever was on tap afterwords. I’ve heard that they’ve since stopped giving out a taste.

  • The Dread Pirate

    The Minnesota Court of Appeals today affirmed a conviction (pretty much completely brushing off our arguments) of a case in which I worked on the appeal for credit last year. It was a very enjoyable experience even if the final result was predictable but opposite of what I believed.

    • Philosofer

      The Minnesota Court of Appeals … [pretty much completely brushed off our arguments].

      I have had this experience. Affirming lower courts is in the nature of the Court of Appeals, and not dealing with all of the arguments isn’t particularly unusual given their schedule and the SCOTSOM’s need for insulation. The more arguments they deal with, the more arguments there are to make before the SCOTSOM.

    • Jeff A

      My favorite part of being a lawyer was appellate practice. I didn’t get to do a lot of it, but it was something I really enjoyed.

      • Philosofer

        I agree with this.

        • The Dread Pirate

          Yes, it was a great experience and I would love to continue appellate work. We knew we had an uphill battle, but it didn’t help when the Court of Appeals pretty much completely created facts not in the record to affirm the trial judge. If they had actually tackled the issue we probably still would have lost, but it would have at least required some nice dodging by them and a published opinion (because we did bring a question of first impression in MN).

          • Philosofer

            Yeah… My experience was strikingly similar. I’m now of the mind that if you want to address a question of first impression you need to be ready to go to the SCOTSOM.

            • The Dread Pirate

              Well that was basically our plan all along. We thought we would lose, but have an appealable decision. The way the CoA wrote their opinion, the SCOTSOM would have to believe us that the CoA misrepresented the record to even consider granting review and that’s just not likely to happen.

  • hungry joe

    okay, you guys, what’s to do in montreal (days will be busy, but i should have evenings free)?

    inb4 poutine.

  • whiffers

    Wow, the WGOM is off the naughty list at work! Looking forward to being able to check in more often.

  • bhiggum

    I see the Twins starters for the Oakland series are Duensing, De Vries and Blackburn. Ugh. How bad is this going to be?

    • Jeff A

      If only there was a good starter in Rochester they could bring up…

      • brianS

        On the bright side, Oakland’s offense still isn’t very good.

        • brianS

          Oaktown is 13th in the AL in runs/g, 0.4 runs/g behind the Twins. ON the flip side, they are second best in runs allowed/g, 1.4 runs/g better than the Twins. Resistible forces vs. movable objects in one direction, mediocre vs outstanding in the other.

    • HomerDome

      Is Butera available?

    • Twayn

      In lieu of a game log for tonight, I’m just going to copy and paste this thread into a new post. Maybe I’ll add something about Bert’s love of expansive foul territory.

      • brianS

        Maybe I’ll add something about Bert’s love of expansive foul territory

        but enough about the Twins’ pitching staff….

  • HomerDome

    Everton v. Manchester United is on ESPN2 right now. The first half was riveting with Everton having chance after chance, but failing to put any of them away.

    It’s 0-0 at halftime.

    Watch the second half for the inevitable United winner at around the 87th minute.

  • Jeff A

    R. I. P. Phyllis Diller, at age 95.

    • Twayn

      That’s sad, she was such a fixture on TV when I was young. Still, she lived a long and interesting life, and made a lot of people laugh over the years. A person could do far worse with the time they get.

      • Jeff A

        Very true. I know entertainers don’t always have the best personal lives (who does?) but it has always seemed to me that bringing happiness to lots of people must count for something.

    • New Britain Bo

      Burt Reynolds once asked me out. I was in his room. P.D.

    • I was a big fan from a very young age. Cheers to her long life!

  • Who’s going to take the 3rd start in Oakland now?

    • HomerDome

      I, HomerDome, hereby put forward my name as a pitch-to-smash replacement.

    • ubelmann

      What a gift it would have been for someone to take Blackburn’s contract off our hands.

    • ubelmann

      Also, I like to think that my tables of suckitude in Friday’s gamelog had something to do with this decision.

    • If he’d gone one and a third more innings and given up another run (a near certainly if he had pitched another one and a third innings), he would have had the record for worst ERA+ by any pitcher with 100 innings or more since 1901.

    • Jeff A

      I’m really hoping Hendriks comes up (surprise!) and stays in the rotation the rest of the season. I have no idea if he’ll be any good, but he’s not getting better by dominating in AAA. The only way he’s going to learn how to get big league hitters out is to face big league hitters. I’d a lot rather see Hendriks struggle and perhaps learn than Blackburn struggle and keep struggling.

      • I’ve thought this the last few weeks. There’s absolutely no point in keeping him in the minors.

      • Bring up Vasquez while they’re at it. Why not. It’s not like anyone in the rotation (sans Diamond) is anything more than mediocre. It can’t get much worse.

        • Mediocre would be an honest to goodness upgrade from everyone other than Diamond.

          They need to move Duensing to the bullpen. This has been obvious since his first start. I’d rather see Swarzak in the rotation, because at least when Duensing’s in the bullpen, he has some value.

          • AMR

            Just don’t tell Slackspit he’s in the rotation. He’s still the swingman and then TR just forgets to call up an SP from Rochester. But then, after that game, there’s no need to call up an AAA SP for another five games, but then GMTR forgets again. Repeat until rosters expand and GMTR doesn’t even have that excuse.

        • ubelmann

          If reading Lookout Landing over the years has taught me anything, it’s that there is no floor.

      • ubelmann

        Hendriks has done well in AAA, but I’d hardly say he has nothing left to learn there. He has yet to pitch 200 innings in AAA and his strikeout rate is much lower than it was at every other level. At the same time, calling him up now would make a lot of sense given the overall situation.

    • AMR

      Noooooo!!!! Not Nishi!!!!
      HPR is with his grandparents in Glenwood for the first half of this week. He packed his Nishi shirsey.
      I think it’s lucky that the Twins are on the west coast and not the east coast. Grandpa won’t show him ballgames that start at 9pm, but would show him games that started at 6pm.

  • davidwatts

    I dont know if you heard about it, but there was guy who was struck by lightning near Brainerd. His parents live right down the street from me and hung out with his older brother most of my youth. Its just awful news, and hopes he makes a speedy recovery.

  • brianS

    I won’t link to the whole article because of Forbidden Zoneness, but I have to reference this:

    During an interview on Mike Huckabee’s radio show, Akin, who apologized profusely for his controversial remarks of a day earlier, also struck a defiant note:

    “I’m not a quitter. My belief is we’re going to move this thing forward. To quote my friend John Paul Jones, I’ve not yet begun to fight.”

    what what? Either (a) Congressman Akin is an immortal vampire, to have been personally acquainted with the Revolutionary War icon, or (b) he was a rock-and/or-roll groupie.

    Which is it, Congressman!!!?? America deserves The Truth!!!

  • brianS

    didn’t someone from around here post about the B-EZ estate sale today?

    Interesting factoid: “Collectors of fake plants were in heaven at the sale. From what I saw every plant inside the house was artificial.”
    Inconceivable.

    • jmarthaler
      Aug 20, 12 5:54 pm
      Since the Vikings switched uniforms, they have won ZERO Super Bowls. COINCIDENCE I THINK NOT

    • FirstTime "hitman" LongTime

      The Wolves jerseys are pretty awful.

    • davidwatts

      I am not a fan of the current Vikings jersey. The new collar make a dumb uniform design (oh look, piping everywhere!) even more dumb.

    • AMR

      If I’m being totally disinterested, I agree with Lucas. Twins won’t do that great, either, with the uni elements that don’t match well: Twins, TC cap, m cap, Minnesota Script road jersey.

      If I’m being biased, the Vikings have the worst jerseys in the Big 4 American leagues. (They’re in the same division as the Packers and Bears.) What DW says “Oh look! More piping!”. If they could stick to the style they had for like their first 30 years, They’d be better than average. Wear white at home (with white pants), and they’re top ten percent.*

      *I know I’m minority opinion here.