Christmas Rant #1

"It's coming on Christmas, they're chopping down trees, putting up angels, singing songs of joy and peace."

Mostly bad ones.

Ok, I'm no Grinch when it comes to Christmas Music; I have a large pile of it myself. My problem is that every pop star idiot of the day thinks that they can and should make one. And most of them suck. Seriously, is anyone digging out their Mariah Carey Christmas disk and playing it year after year? I doubt it.

What really galls me is when you have some dubious talent (you know who you are Billy Idol, LeeAnn Rimes, Donna Summer, etc) take on a classic like 'White Christmas'.

Come on, Bing Crosby OWNS this song. It's burned into our brains. Your lame ass cover is not adding anything to it. It is an unwritten law that if you can't add anything to the original when you cover a song, you should not cover it at all.

With that in mind, here my list of xmas tunes that are already owned:

• White Christmas - Bing Crosby
  
• Blue Christmas - Elvis
  
• The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole
  

Ok, so there are TONS of songs that can be improved upon. Pick one of those. Seriously. Ever hear a version of 'Holly and the Ivy" that really worked? I didn't think so.

Christmas Songs I Hate
Santa Baby - Ick. A paean to greed.
The 12 Days of Christmas - I hear that they use this for torture purposes down at Guantanamo.

Holiday disks that I like:


Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful Christmas
Zat you Santa Claus?

Asylum Street Spankers - A Christmas Spanking
Good silliness.

The Chieftains - The Bells of Dublin
Worth it for 'The Saint Stephen's Day Murders' (with Elvis Costello) alone.

Vince Guaraldi - A Charlie Brown Christmas
What needs to be said?

Kristen Hersh - The Holy Single
What are the holidays without a little angst?



Aimee Mann - Another Drifter in the Snow
Aimee Mann did a Christmas album?!? Yeah, and it is surprisingly traditional and great where it isn't.

Dean Martin - Christmas with Dino
Dino has a great voice for the Xmas standards. His version of 'Baby its cold outside' is positively leacherous.

Leon Redbone - Christmas Island
The baritone is in fine form here. 'There's no place like home for the holidays' has never been done better. Hey, he even makes 'Frosty the Snowman' not suck, and that is saying something.

(various)- Blue Yule
Christmas aint all jolly; this is great when you get the blues.


[Apology to those who receive my annual e-mail based Christmas Rant - Yes, this is a retread topic.]

Throwing Beer Around

So Chris and I got together Sunday night to move 20 gallons of homebrew into kegs and secondary.

I spent a good chunk of Saturday breaking down and cleaning Corny kegs in preparation. There were a few scary ones in the batch--stuff left over from last spring turning funky at the bottom. Nothing that a long soak in B-Brite and a hit of Iodophor couldn't cure.

Because we split the last batch of stout into two (one a Chocolate Stout, the other a 'Mayan' themed one with Cinnamon, Vanilla Beans, and a Habanero pepper floating in the secondary). and we both wanted some of each, that meant cleaning and sanitizing four corny kegs.

Both tasted great going into the kegs. The Chocolate is a keeper recipe that I brew a couple of times a year. The Mayan was Samira's inspiration and was really interesting. The spices totally melded with the Chocolate malt and it was difficult to tell what was really in there. The habanero gave the slightest warming at the back of your throat. Very cool combination.

On top of the kegging, we moved the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale Clone from Primary to Secondary and dry hopped each 5 gal carboy with 2+ ounces of a mix of Chinook, Centennial and Cascade. It tasted awesome going into the Secondary. This baby should be ready right at the Solstice. I'm getting psyched about it.

All in all, a great night, but way too much cleaning.

Brewin'

Wow, has it really been since July since I last posted? Yikes.

So what have I been doin'? Brewin'.

Now that it is fall and we have acceptable fermenting temperatures in the house, my friend Chris and I have been cranking out a ten gallon batch of beer every two weeks. There's five varieties in the works and I can finally show my face again at the brew club meetings.

By the way, the Brown Porter kicks ass!

July 4th

Long weekend coming up...yeah!

How did it get to be July so fast? June was a blur.

I've got the classic 4th of July weekend lined up...a parade in the morning, just a few steps from the house. Not a serious parade, more of a local participation effort, featuring dogs, lawn tractors, a kazoo band and a couple of fire trucks to make it official. There's a family picnic at noon, with the traditional hand cranked ice cream. My good friend Hank is coming down and hanging out for the weekend.

I'm most excited about several days of unstructured summer fun. I love it when you get the chance to just let the weekend unfold, without it being full of plans. It happens all too rarely.

Enjoy the 4th!

How 'bout dem Celtics?!?

Only got 4/5 hours sleep last night, but it was worth it!

There will be a 17th Championship banner raised to rafters of the Garden.

Wow. What a domination of the Lakers last night. Doc Rivers had said earlier in the series that the team had not played four full quarters in any game so far. Well, they did last night.

Defense was amazing. Nineteen turnovers, eighteen of which were steals. Thirty two points scored on turnovers. LA looked shocked.

Offense was solid. Kevin Garnett had a big game, Pierce was unstoppable, and Ray Allen was lights out from the three point line. Even Rondo elevated his game. While Rondo was still a bit uneven shooting, his passing and defensive work were stellar.

The bench was great too, with a strong performances from House.

Let's face it, Doc Rivers out coached Phil Jackson in this series. Jackson looked baffled and was unable to make adjustments when needed. Someone should tell the zen master to check his hand, because Doc has just snatched the pebbles from it.

Pre-Finals Anticipation

After a twenty-one year drought, the Celtics are back in the NBA Finals. Let's pause on that for a bit. Twenty-one years. A generation has past since our last appearance against the Lakers ended in a loss.

It's payback time!

Once again, we are gearing up for a Celtics/Lakers series. Chants of "Beat LA" can already be heard on a nightly basis around here.

Over the past 21 years, there have only been 6 teams that have won the championship:

LA Lakers (5 times - 1987, 1988, 2000, 2001, 2002)

Detroit Pistons (3 times - 1989, 1990, 2004)

Chicago Bulls (6 times - 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998 - two awesome three-peats)

Houston Rockets (2 times - 1994, 1995)

San Antonio Spurs (4 times - 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007)

Miami Heat (1 time - 2006 )

That's pretty impressive--basketball seems to lend itself to dynasties. Its time to revive the Celtics dynasty.

Random Thoughts

Ok, I really don't have a cohesive driving thought consuming my brain cycles today. Instead, there's thousand little things, such as:

Let's give it up for John Lester, throwing a no-hitter for the Sox this week, when a couple of years ago, it was questionable if cancer would knock him out of the game (and life) entirely.

Let's also give it up for Jason Veritek, who has now called four no-hit games in his career. Coincidence? I don't think so.

It would have been five no-hit games if Schilling didn't shake off Tek's pitch selection!

I crewed on a race in Narragansett Bay on Tuesday night in a total downpour. Who said sailing was a pleasure sport?

Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer this week. He stated that he plans to sail the FIGAWE race this weekend. I wish him well with both challenges.

Go 'Bama!

Sick of the primaries yet?

A shout out for my friend Lynn, who is going through knee surgery for the second time. All those years of basketball do take their toll. I still remember the words heard on the pick up courts in Cambridge: "Hey, the bitch can SHOOT!" :-)

Speaking of hoops, this year has made me a Celtics fan again. You got to love a team that plays that level of defense and moves the ball so well.

And screw Mike Bibby and his "fair weather fans" comment. The Pitino years were too painful to watch. When "street ball" hit the NBA, it got really ugly.

I'll take Rondo over Bibby any day of the week.

Not to get on a rant here...

...so when did taking two steps and then passing stop being travelling?!?

...and do you have to install a handle on the ball to get "palming" called these days?

...and would it kill you to call lane violations on free throws?

...and you kids--get off of my lawn!!!

Coffee, Coffee, Buzz, Buzz Buzz

Got a cup of coffee in your hand? No? Get one. I'll wait.

You back? Ok, lets talk coffee.

I confess, I've got a little coffee obsession going on. Being from Rhode Island (State Drink: Coffee Milk) its kind of hard to avoid. They were slipping coffee syrup into my formula bottle while I was still in the cradle.

I'm hooked. Cappuchino, iced coffee, coffee oreo or mocha chip ice cream, espresso martinis--sign me up.

When we re-did the kitchen last summer, one corner was created as a little shrine to coffee. There's the espresso machine, the burr grinder, the knock box, and the drip coffee machine, all surrounding a corner sink. It's a little caffeinated nirvana.

Now at work I've got a funky seventies era Chemex brewer that looks like it is from a science experiment, but makes awesome drip coffee. Back at home, on weekends, we often break out the french press.

There's a few good coffee roasters popping up around us now where you can get some excellent fresh roasted beans. All in all, things were good on the coffee front.

Then somewhere around mid-winter, I came across a new coffee shop in Newport that ruined me. They made the best cup of drip coffee that I had ever had. They were using George Howell's Terroir beans and brewing them up beautifully. Suddenly, the old Braun drip coffee maker wasn't cutting it. (Sorry George, I'm not ready to pay $30+ a pound for beans!)

Luckily, the folks at CoffeeGeek.com are even more obsessive than I am. I mean seriously over the top. Nothing like a bunch of caffeine fueled maniacs hyper-analyzing things to the nth degree. It turns out that brewing temperature is critical for getting the most out of your beans. Water just off the boil (around 200-203 degrees) is perfect. And you want the water to have contact with the grounds for around four minutes. That's part of why the french press was making such great joe and my Braun was making bland dish water.

So the search was on for a drip machine that could actually make java at a decent temperature. There was a lot of arguing amongst the coffee geeks, but one maker kept getting rave reviews. Coming out of the Netherlands was a chrome and stainless steel art deco-ish beauty that made killer coffee. After a series of incredibly un-subtle hints, surprise -- I got one for my birthday.

This thing makes awesome coffee. The thermal carafe is perfect for me, because I like making a pot and hitting on it throughout the morning. Left on a burner, coffee seems to turn to crud in under an hour. It also has a switch to control the flow of water through the grounds--off, half, or full on. Basically, you can tweak your morning brew and dial it in to the way you like it.

Oops, my mug is empty...catch you later.

Spoke too soon

Ok, since my last post on the glory days of the Boston sport scene, the following has happened:

• The Bruins lost Game 7 of the playoffs to the Habs


• The Red Sox are on a five game losing streak


• The Celtics lost two in a row to the Hawks, tying the series.

At least the Patriots draft day was interesting--lots of shoring up in the linebacker and cornerback postitions. Jerod Mayo of Tennessee looks particularly interesting as an inside LB. As usual, there were a lot of inter-round and intra-round trades by the Pats, which kept things interesting. The most shocking thing of the day was seeing Bill Belichick in a suit.

The Sox were battling 20 straight days of baseball and a killer flu that was ripping through the clubhouse. Pitching by Beckett and Bucholz was impressive over the past two games, but the bats were dead. There's a good chance they'll be rained out tonight, which may work in their favor.

The Celtics? Well, it is tough to know which way that will go. Last night, there were periods of brilliance and then periods where they looked like they forgot how to defend. Time will tell.

Yeah, we know.

I was listening to some sports radio this weekend while I was in the driveway taking the winter tires off the car and putting on the new summer sneakers. (Spring really is here.) Sports radio for the rabid New England sports fan is akin to eating candy corn. It seems like a good idea when you start, but in short order you realize that you've had way too much.

Anyway, a caller from Denver was making a point about the current state of sports in Boston and how lucky we are to have all of our sports teams performing at a high level. "I hope you realize how good you have it."

We do.

Unless you are under ten years old and for your entire life the Red Sox and Patriots were always contenders, you've lived with good times and bad. We've gotten over the 86 years of Red Sox heartbreak, but we won't forget it.

Similarly, we don't even want to think about the Patriots in the 70's and 80's. (Ok, we thought we had a good team in 85/86, but the Bears showed us what a good team on all sides of the ball really was.) Even this past year, despite going 18-0, was crushing. After living on aural candy corn for every second of January, I had to go on a total sports radio moratorium for three weeks after the Super Bowl, just to reclaim my life.

Last night the Bruins lost game 7 in a playoff with the Habs, the most life that they have shown in decades. It is an amazing turn around considering that I was ten the last time the Big Bad Bruins held the cup aloft. It hasn't all been bad (the Ray Bourque years gave us hope) but it has been ugly lately.

The Celtics are the latest Phoenix story in Boston. After a miserable twenty years, there is life in the Garden. The C's walked through the Hawks in Game 1 of the play-offs and the wearing of the green is back.

Heck, even the Revolution did well.

I guess my point is, we don't take any of it for granted. A few injuries and bad breaks and the team that was on top can slide to the bottom. We've seen it and we've lived it. We won't easily forget it. Plus, we live this stuff. Stop a random person on the street and ask them who is starting today for the Sox and I bet you'll get the correct answer. (Beckett) They could probably even tell you about the Infield fly rule.

We love this stuff. We appreciate it. And we're not taking any of it for granted.

Spring Hopes Eternal

(All apologies to Alexander Pope and An Essay on Man)

Spring is one of my favorite seasons in Rhode Island. OK, to be precise, mid and late spring are two of my favorite seasons. Early spring in New England is a rainy, mud-filled affair that does not engender a lot of love.

But somewhere around mid-April, the real spring arrives. Sunrise shifts dramatically farther to the north each morning, the sun starts generating real warmth, and the temperatures slowly climb.

These days are full of promise, of hope, of life re-born. Germinations occur underground and gradually poke through the warming earth to greet the sun. All outdoors is energized and springing forth with life and growth. The world is full of potential.

Which brings us to the Red Sox. To use a tortured analogy, if spring training is a pre-natal experience, then opening day is birth, and opening day at Fenway is when the new season comes home from the hospital, ready to take over life as you know it.

Except this year, the pre-natal child was shipped to a hospital in Japan, delivered, got to see the world for a couple of days, and then put back in the oven. (I knew that analogy wasn't working.) You start the season in Japan, then resume spring training, and then start the season again in California?!? [Insert Seinfeld voice here:] Who is the marketing genius that came up with this one?

I guess that is why for me, the season did not really begin until last week, with the home opener in Boston. I was in town last Tuesday and the Hub was buzzing. What a sweet opener it was. A gorgeous spring day at Fenway. Vintage Boston sports champions (Orr, Russell, Bruschi) were on the field. David Ortiz calls Johnny Pesky over to raise the championship banner.

Bill Buchner throws the opening pitch to Dewey Evens.

Ok, it choked me up. I guess we are really over it; all of the pain of '67, '75, '78, '86, etc. One championship couldn't quite do it, but two did. Two really did. Boston forgave Buchner (whether there was anything to forgive is highly debatable) and Buchner forgave Boston. One championship could have been a fluke, but two in three years feels like a different era.

It should be an interesting year...

Monty Hall is the Devil

There was an article in the New York Times last week about how people rationalize their decisions and how the concept of 'cognitive dissonance' comes into play in human decision making.

The example that they used, 'The Monty Hall Phenomenom' was fascinating. Here's the scenario: You are on a game show and the host (Monty) shows you three closed doors. Behind one of the doors is a car. Behind the other two are goats. You are asked to pick a door.

After you pick a door, Monty will open one of the two doors that you did not pick, and reveal a goat. Now you have a decision to make: Do you stay with the door that you picked, or do you switch your pick to the other remaining door?

Most people will stick with their original selection. (This is where the cognitive dissonance comes in.) People that are math oriented will think that there are only two doors left, there is one car and one goat, so it is even odds.

They are wrong. You should switch doors.

WHA?!?

At this point, you are likely to think that I, the New York Times, and the scientists involved in the tests are all crazy. Just like my wife did. (does) But it is true, you are twice as likely to win the car if you switch your pick to the other door that remains.

Think about it for a while. Still not make any sense? Of course not! It is insanely hard to get past the 50/50 odds point. So do what I did... draw out the possibilities:

Cases Door1 Door2 Door 3
Case1 Car Goat Goat
Case2 Goat Car Goat
Case3 Goat Goat Car

The car can only be behind door 1, 2 or 3, so there are only three possibilities. Now lets assume that you pick door number 1. Put a rectangle around what is behind door number 1 for all three cases. Now act like Monty Hall. Circle one of the remaining goats behind either of the remaining doors. So far so good.

So the rectangles are your pick and the circles represent the door that Monty opened. You can see that you win in only one out of three cases, which makes sense.

Now look at the choices that don't have a circle or rectangle around them. Um, in two out of the three cases, if you switch, you win the car. In one case, you would give up the car for a goat. So the odds are better if you switch.

Let that sink in.

Still frustrating, isn't it?

Monty Hall is the Devil.

Taxes

A beautiful  April weekend.  Spring has finally come to southern New England.  All of the early yellow flowers  are in bloom--daffodils, forsythia, and dandelions.  House wrens are making nests in the eaves of my porch.  The Sox are playing the Yankees and it is the final day of the Masters.

And what am I doing at the culmination of all things Spring?

My f$&!@& taxes!

There's something horribly wrong with taxes due in mid-April.  Why not mid February? Everyone is miserable then anyway.  But no, we've got to blow the first nice weekend of spring besieged by bureaucracy and red tape.

Oh, I can hear the annoying "type-A' over-achievers saying:  "But I've had mine done for months."  Bite me.  I didn't get all of my tax forms here until three weeks ago (don't ask) and I did get the Federal done two weeks ago.  But you do need to review it with a clear head, so here I am.

Plus, there is the mandatory procrastination that has to occur before you can really start the taxes.  I've already taken a hike with the dog, bathed the dog after it rolled in cow dung, emptied the dishwasher, gone to the dump, and um, started this blog as stalling tactics.  There's a certain need to build up a sense of panic around how little time you have to accomplish the task that generates the proper focus.  I'm just about there.

Tune in later for a gripe session on how big of a slice the government has taken out of my life.