Nothing to see here

So I haven’t gotten around to writing in a while, but I have an excuse. I’ve been extremely busy.

Last week was the Memphis in May World Championship BBQ Festival. This year, I joined the Ques Brothers team instead of just going to their tent and mooching off them. What this meant was a fair amount of work building the booth/tent/location, eating a lot of BBQ, drinking a lot of frosty beverage, and even bartending for a night.

While I didn’t manage to get the quality of pictures that Paul did, I did manage to snap a few shots on my cell phone here and there. You can find them on my Facebook page. For Paul’s large, large number of pictures, check his PicasaWeb page. You’ll find several of me drinking, dancing, and debauching the nights away.

The important news is that the team won third place in the shoulder competition. I tasted a bit of this prize winning shoulder, and it was easily the best pork I’ve ever had. Amazing stuff. Our head cook, Willie, got 12th last year in his first year in the festival, and then moved it on up to 3rd in only his second year. This is basically unheard of. Many teams go for 10 or more years without breaking into the top ten. So, major props to the cook. And if you’re in Chicago, go try his restaurant and tell him the Ques Brothers sent you, and congratulate him on his victory.

How can you go wrong with a beer festival?

I mean, it’s truly a brilliant idea to start with. You take about 5000-7000 people, pack them into a park area roughly the size of a city block, then give them unlimited free beer for a few hours. Taster glasses, of course, because we’re not here to get drunk but to try new and different brews.

So I went to the Raleigh Beer festival this weekend, and tried, oh, about 70-ish of the beers that were available. Lots of local brews, which I was happy with. I did not know North Carolina had so many microbreweries, but there were freakin’ dozens of them represented there.

Met some new people, had dozens of people compliment me on my choice of t-shirt (good choice dad!), and had a lot of quality brews.

Notably good was the beer from Top of the Hill in Chapel Hill, NC. Their Blueberry Wheat was excellent, and I quite liked the Old Well White too. The Leaderboard Lager was quite good as well, albeit a very plain and simple beer. Something you could drink a lot of, a quality lager. I sampled most of their beers, and those really stood out to me.

The Foothills brewery from Winston-Salem was excellent as well. I worked my way through their entire lineup that was there, and it was very good all around. The Pilot Mountain Pale Ale was extremely good for a simple brew, and their IPAs were awesome as well. The Hoppyum was quite hoppy in particular, but the double IPA that they had was extreme in this respect. I like IPA’s, but after a few of them I feel like I’ve been chewing on grass for a while, so I appreciated their Pale Ale a bit more. Also, I’d been to the Dogfish Head booth a number of times already, and their 90 minute IPA had already done a number on me there.

The next day we got mimosas.

The girls (and Rob) got theirs with pomegranate juice. I needed my OJ fix a bit too much for that sort of thing.

Also, note to self, cherries have hard pits in them that are not tasty to crunch.

Anyway, good time all around. Would have been perfect if Northwest had not screwed me over on the flight home to the tune of 3.5 hours worth of delay, but still I had a good time. Rob and Mandy’s place is awesome, and I hope to go back sometime soon. If only to visit Top of the Hill and try all the rest of the excellent beers that I missed out on this trip. Plus, gotta try that pool out.

Well, okay, not really. But apparently, despite a big nuclear explosion destroying most of it, the Bikini Atoll is doing okay.

According to the NewScientist, the Bikini Atoll is making a comeback that was somewhat unexpected. After 50 years, the coral reefs have grown back and there’s a thriving ecosystem underwater where the islands used to be.

Now, I expect this is mostly because nobody has been diving there since the place got vaporized. I mean, who wants to see nice glowing fish and then come out only to find that you’re now glowing as well?

Still, it’s probably safe for general usage. They say that the radiation levels are the same as any Australian city. Which isn’t saying much, quite frankly. Any radiation the aussies pick up in their seafood is probably quickly flushed from their systems due to sheer levels of beer consumption.

I’d dive the Bikini islands though. I think it’d be great. Although you have to stay away from the coconuts though, they’re saying that those are radioactive as all hell.

On the other hand, you could make nuclear Pina Coladas. Gotta be worth a try.

Right when I decide to leave town for a few days, the state decides to screw me.

Tennessee is having a sales tax holiday from April 25th through April 27th. I guess they do this for school supplies and clothing and such, but that would not stop me from taking advantage… except that I’m going to be in Raleigh, NC for the World Beer Festival that weekend.

Oh well, I guess a weekend of quality beer drinking is way better than getting a new wardrobe on the cheap.

Anybody else reading this going to the festival? Or any other beer festivals? Leave a comment, let me know.

Here’s a picture of the sign above the New Daisy Theater on Beale Street. Guess which show I saw tonight?

As Mikey would say, I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.

Henry Rollins was awesome. I highly recommend the show if he’s coming to your town any time soon. Really. Go. Now. Get tickets.

Although the show was slightly too political for my tastes, he uses the politics to jump off into segues about touring around with various bands and into the interesting punk rock scene, such as it is. Since I’m a huge fan of most every band mentioned (although clearly not as huge a fan as Henry is), it’s a hell of a good time. Comedy interspersed with fun stories about global travel to “hotspots” around the world. He also does a fine impression of Christopher Walken (not to mention a damned good impression of Iggy Pop).

So , if you are not particularly conservative (although the neo-cons are quite welcome, it’ll give them something to be pissed off about later), then really, go see the show. Henry is a damn fine storyteller, and an extremely interesting person. It’s a bit of a shame he’s so anti-beer, he’d be a fun person to hang out at a bar and chat with.

It rarely snows in downtown Memphis, but it’s doing a pretty good job of it right now.

I left work a bit early to avoid the insanity on the streets, and my car was fairly covered by that point. So I quickly came home and took some shots out of my window and on the rooftop.

Unfortunately, the rooftop shots show that there is basically zero visibility. I can’t even see the downtown core from here.

Ah well. Still, I expect some snowballs to be thrown tonight.

Have fun in Phoenix, Mandy!

You know, I really need to get in the habit of posting here at least once a week. I guess I’m just busy or lazy or something like that. Anyway, I figured a status update is in order, so I’ll run over a few quick one-liners to let people know what’s up.

First, for all the people in town this weekend, I won’t be here. Sorry, heading to a wedding on Friday. Be back late Sunday. This means I’ll miss Sunday Funday yet again, which I do hate to do. I do plan on going to the Saucer this afternoon though, for a little while.

Last weekend was a blast. The South Main Arts Festival was a heck of a good time. Although the art itself was rather expensive, the various food shops were spectacular. Had a good time at the various costume parties as well. Didn’t get any pictures, but Paul did, so that’ll do, for now. I’ve got some stashed somewhere, I’ll post them eventually.

The weekend before that I was in Atlanta, doing a combination beer festival and bachelor party. This event told me two things: a) I’m getting old and creaky, b) I can still hold my liquor with the best of them. While the pain was for lack of a better term, immense, at least I was still able to drink for 13 hours straight and remain mostly upright, with only the occasional stumbling. Pictures of some parts of this will be posted soon.

The weekend before that, my dad was in town for our local block party, or as I want to call it, the bi-ann-sou-mai-con. He had a good time, and got nicely wasted. Went to the Metal Museum the next day, for their annual Repair Days thing. Got some iron work he brought repaired, and then he left early, but not before picking up many pieces of Gus’ chicken to take back to mom.

The weeks before that I probably did some things too. Just not particularly important ones.

I will resolve to update more often in the future, I swear.

Let’s see, haven’t posted here in a while… what to say…

Lorelle invited me to make some guest posts this month on her blog. I wrote a short little technical ditty about how to integrate Microformats and WordPress Themes. If you’re into WordPress, or CMS’s in general, it’s worth a look. Since I use this site as a sort of test bed, I might also mention that it’s currently showing nine, count ‘em, nine different microformats. And a few other things that aren’t microformats as well.

Went to the Art on Tap beer festival this last weekend. Had a hell of a good time, but was rather disappointed in the food selection. Also, it was one of the only beer festivals I’ve ever seen where all the beer was poured out of bottles. The exception was the homebrews poured by The Bluff City Brewers, which were all really good. I recall getting back to the Saucer, I don’t quite recall going home. So clearly, I had a good time. Paul posted some shots of the fest, some of which include yours truly.

The Rapscallions won at Trivia tonight, amazingly enough. Pete has clearly been making the questions harder, as we only scored 79 out of a possible 160-something. Still, that was enough for a tie, and we won the tie-breaker. $50 in the pot for the next party!

I received an invitation to the wedding of Chris, a friend of mine currently living in Atlanta. I kinda wonder about it, the wedding reception is at a beach resort in Alabama, but it’s in November. Anybody know what the weather is like at Gulf Shores in November?

Along with the invite, I received a summons from Zach for the Bachelor Party in October. Unfortunately, I’m told that it’s the same day as the Great Decatur Beer Tasting Festival. That’s just poor planning, man. Although, a beer tasting in the afternoon, followed by a Bachelor Party all evening… I’m not sure I’m capable of that anymore. I’m not as young as I used to be. Still, it’s doable, and damnit, I think I’m going to have to try. And then this weekend, I have the Cooper-Young festival to cope with. Along with a keg party a block away from the festivities.

Oh yeah, and Raiford’s is reopening, with Raiford back at the turntables. Now that I live about 2 blocks away from that point, I can see many 40’s in my future.

So, the fall is looking busy.

Found a neat post a while back that described how to mess with Amazon’s URLs to find the best deals, like everything in a category that was 90% off and such. Then this morning I found a post with all the URLs pre-made for you. Very neat.

So, here you go:

Apparel & Accessories : 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Beauty: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Bed & Bath: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Books: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Camera & Photo: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Cell Phones & Service: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Computers & PC Hardware: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Computers & Video Games: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

DVD: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Electronics: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Furniture & Decor: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Gourmet Food: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

GPS and Navigation: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Grocery: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Health & Personal Care: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Home & Garden: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Jewelry & Watches: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Kitchen & Housewares: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Magazines & Newspapers: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Musical Instruments: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Office Products: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Outdoor Living: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Pet Supplies: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Shoes: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Software: 90% — 80% — 70% — 60% — 50% — 40% — 30% — 20% — 10%

Sports & Outdoors: 90% — 80% — 70% —