Cup of Coffee

August 20, 2012: The Waiting

135 Comments

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 thoughts on “August 20, 2012: The Waiting”

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

      1. 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.

          1. 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.

        2. 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.

            1. 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....

            2. 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.

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

                1. 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.

                  1. Of course, you also have opined that the Torpedo is bad. So maybe I don't want to stand next to you during the beer evaluations. 😉

            3. 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.

            4. 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.

          2. 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.

            1. 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.

  2. 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.

    1. 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.

    2. 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.

        1. 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).

          1. 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.

            1. 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.

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

    inb4 poutine.

    1. The Notre-Dame Basilica and Vieux Montreal area are pretty awesome if you dig architecture, or so Mrs. Twayn reports. I've heard good things about the Museum of Fine Arts, but one of the resident artists probably knows more about that than I would. Also, you can probably find a decent place to have a Cuban cigar and an espresso or pint of ale if you ask around a bit.

      2. hmm, that's doable. just a subway away.

        i've heard good things about cresent street also...

          1. It's steep, but not too steep. Okay, I was on an expense account with a limitless amount for client dinners... it was really, really good.

                1. Start saving your pennies now. Seriously, I'll send you a twenty to call me and describe how good it is.

      3. Seconds on the duck in a can. Or their Pied du Cochon with fois gras and poutine.

        On the lighter side, there are a number of Belgian crepes places in Le Quatier Latin.

      1. actually, i just had a smoked meat sammich at a small place over by the port. it was pretty fabulous. schwartz's isn't too far from where i'm staying.

        i have a friend that went to mcgill that told me i needed to try some shish taouk from amir's.

        1. Didn't try that, so I'll be curious what you think.

          All of my recs would be a decade old, but AuntieWalt and I drank gallons of Cragganmore 12 at L'ile Noire during our week long stay.

          http://www.ilenoire.com/

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

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

        1. 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.

    3. 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.

      1. Maybe I'll add something about Bert's love of expansive foul territory

        but enough about the Twins' pitching staff....

  6. 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.

    1. I would love nothing more than to have the Toffees start the year with three points against ManU.

    2. I'm not a big fan of goal celebrations where the scorer avoids his teammates, presumably to draw more attention to himself.

      1. I imagine you get a huge energy burst and you don't want your sweaty teammates to destroy that feeling.

    4. I find it a bit sad that the 7th-place finisher from last season can be dismissed as having no shot at the league title, but I guess it's hard to argue. It took roughly an 80% winning percentage to win last year and 7th place was at 55%.

      1. If Everton would just stop punting the first half of a year, they could definitely compete for the Champions League. It always takes until January for them to get going.

        1. Isn't January when the fixture congestion starts in England? Or are there UCL and Cup games earlier than that?

          1. Last year the FA stopped doing the 3 matches in a week between Christmas and New Year.

            But you're right, rescheduled games are often in January because of the break in Champions and Europa League.

            1. Wait, January is when there is a break in secondary competitions or when they start up? I have trouble keeping all of the schedules straight.

              1. The FA Cup starts its Third Round Proper(first round with EPL and Championship teams) in January which takes place on the weekend and pushes EPL games to midweek reschedules.

                2. I guess I'm just getting at that it seems some teams do better with a little fixture congestion. I don't know what it is, if the players are sharper with more games or if beating some lower-level teams boosts morale, but it seems to happen.

          1. It's funny to think that the 3 people at both of those games were Timmeh, Chicharito and Ian Darke. I wonder if they took the same plane.

              2. Doesn't USSF pay for him to fly to the international games? I can't imagine club teams footing the travel bill for players to go get hurt in non-club exhibition games.

    1. 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.

      1. 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.

  8. Who's going to take the 3rd start in Oakland now?

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

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

      1. If you go by fWAR, Blackburn has the worst pitching season since 1980, minimum of 80 innings, at -0.8 fWAR. John Pacella accumulated -1.5 fWAR in 51.2 innings in 1982. Tom Burgmeier had a slightly worse -0.8 fWAR in 1977 in 97.1 innings.

    4. 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.

        2. I'd like to chip in $10 or $20 to start a Minnesota Twins Sunk Cost Fund, ensuring that below replacement-level players stay off the roster, regardless of their contract status.

      3. There's still another month left in the season! Blackburn still has time to break various records.

    5. 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.

      2. 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.

        1. 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.

          1. 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.

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

          1. I would have thought that you would have learned that Jeff Sullivan is a hilarious, hilarious person.

      3. 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.

    6. 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.

  10. 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!!!

      2. I'm not sure what he said can be considered politics, although I'm cool with the lack of links. He said things that are, beyond doubt, untrue.

  11. 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.

    2. Some of the artificial plants had strange burn marks on them however...

      1. I think the same about the current iteration of the Vikings, though I think they've had some pretty solid uniforms in the past.

      2. I don't feel like there's anything that bad with the Wolves' uniforms. It's a matter of perspective, I suppose. Consider these uniforms, which actually had fringe--fringe!--on the jersey. Fringe!

        And as much as I like watching the Sounders play, I haven't been able to bring myself to buy a jersey. The original "rave" green jerseys were a bit too bright for me, then Adidas updated them with silver bra-like techfit straps, their last third kit was highlighter yellow, and their latest third kit must be seen to be believed.

        1. I really thought those jerseys ended at the fringe. That would have been terrifying.

          1. Terrifying, sure, but it would also have been a brilliant combination with the ChiSox's '70s softball shorts.

    3. 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.

    4. 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.

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