Beer Jelly

I've always thought that the one thing missing after a few good Belgian beers and some fine dining was a decent dessert to round off the meal.

No longer ... behold Beer Jello!

Green Eggs And Wham

Just in time for St Patrick's Day comes this T-shirt.

For those not into web development, this page should help you suss it out.

My Alcohol-Blood Level Is Too High!

I definitely want one of these!

From the site:

The NEVER EMPTY BEER GLASS will repeat this three phases:

"Your beer is running dangerously low"
"Refill immediately – danger of sobering up" (with warning siren)
"Cheers!'"

I'll Wait For The Belgian Version

While I applaud the development of the beer launching refrigerator, my hops-infused beverage of choice does not come in cans.

What's more, I'm a tad concerned that a significant post-delivery waiting period would be required to avoid being soaked by the precious amber liquid!

Guinness Marmite

I'm a huge fan of Vegemite. I've even been known to make soup with Vegemite as the main flavour ingredient (just add a few spare herbs, whatever vegetables you have hanging around in the fridge, some fresh black pepper and a dash of Tabasco).

So, when I read on Cool Gadgets that Guinness and Marmite will be combining to bring out a special St Patrick's Day blend of the product, using the same yeast that goes into making Guinness, my mouth began to water!

I'll definitely be seeing if I can grab a jar.

Please Get Your Foot Out Of My Beer !!

I've seen some strange things during a night on the turps, but so far have managed to avoid bars with patrons like this little fellow.

His name is Perky. In this picture, he's five days old, weighs under two pounds, and is nine inches tall.

According to this article from The Sun, he's the smallest pig ever born at the Pennywell Farm in Buckfastleigh, Devon.

The Odyssey

Today (well, yesterday, really) was the first of the four that comprise my extra-long Australia Day weekend. If the rest are like this one, I may need another week off to recuperate!

I organised with Susan to bowl our phantom league games for this week in the afternoon. Before that, however, we popped into the Vietnamese restaurant across the road, which was once one of our favourite nosheries. It has since changed hands, but the food is still good.

After bowling ... I was well down on last week's scores, but Susan reduced her handicap considerably ... we went to see The Last King Of Scotland, which is a film about Idi Amin. Not bad, but your life will not be ruined if you happen to miss it.

After that, I had planned to go into the CBD and see a couple of other films, but when I checked the listings, it turned out that nothing I wanted to see was starting at a reasonable hour.

So, I rode the bus all the way to Circular Quay, thinking I might take a ferry to Manly. I missed the ferry by two minutes!

Not to worry ... it was Australia Day, after all. So, I took a stroll down to the Lord Nelson hotel in The Rocks. I was slightly disappointed that they were only serving their beer in plastic cups, but the Old Admiral I had soon made up for it.

I walked back down to George St, to pop into another pub, but they were all so packed that I just couldn't be bothered. When a 432 bus to Birchgrove appeared, on a whim, I jumped on it.

This took me to Balmain, where I alighted and walked down to the Unity Hall Hotel. I had a few schooners of Reschs and started in on the Sydney Morning Herald cryptic. Of course, yesterday being Friday, it was a DA, which resisted me strenuously.

Around 9pm, the horrible muzac that had been assaulting my ears disappeared, being replaced by some live jazz, for which the Unity Hall is famous. One of the musicians was Paul Furniss, an excellent woodwind player who is often involved in gigs with my mate Greg Poppleton.

When they took a break after their second set, I decided it was time to go, because the price of the beers had risen by over 25% since I'd arrived, which I felt was a bit of a rip-off. I strolled up the road, with the intention of grabbing a cab home.

As we know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions :-). I ended up at the Town Hall Hotel.

This was a serious test for my Etymotic ER6i isolating earphones. Fortunately, they were up to the task, very effectively shielding my Leonard Cohen, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions and k.d. lang from the doof doof "music".

I swear the number of damaged ear drums in that room must have been almost as large as the amount of semi-naked, gyrating female flesh!

This caused me such concern that I felt morally(?!) obliged to monitor the situation until the pub closed at 1:00am this morning. It's a good thing they had St Arnau on tap, to sustain me, otherwise I may easily have succumbed.

One down, three to go ...

Fluid Dynamics

I read this on Learning Curves (subtitled "Kind of Smart for a Girl), the blog of someone who appears to be a mathematics lecturer ...

"Recently I learned that my department has a 'Fluid Dynamics' seminar, to which I have not been invited. The 'fluid' in question is beer."

[I got to that blog via a post on Mathematics Under The Microscope]

I Think My Skull Shrank !!

I had another very full day yesterday ... in more than one sense.

First was lunch with Susan and Matt at the Grace Hotel's delicatessen. A very nice beef rendang and a couple of beers. An unexpected guest was Jeremy, an old work colleague who I've not seen for a number of years and Susan just happened to run into on Thursday.

Then, I went to see Blood Diamond. It was reasonable, but I wouldn't say "don't miss it".

I had an hour and a half to kill until I was meeting my mate Jeff for a catch-up. That's not really long enough to do anything worthwhile, so I just jumped on the first bus that came along and went for a ride to Drummoyne and back.

On my return, there were still 20 minutes to burn, so I popped into Dymocks for a browse. This was my fatal mistake, because while I was there I ran into an old mate, Paul, who I knew through work (although I've never actually worked with him). He invited me to drinks with a group of other people who I know in the same way.

Anyhow, I first went for my planned catch-up with Jeff. Over another four beers, we discussed many things, including the future of video downloads, the contents of our iPods, the NAS he'd bought recently, the possible announcements at next week's MacWorld and a number of other things I can't remember.

After that, I strolled off for those drinks with Paul et al. We ended up at a pub called the Crown on Elizabeth Street. About half an hour in, a guitarist started his gig there ... what an amazing repertoire! During the evening, every request the audience made, he honoured.

It was great to catch up with those guys; almost worth this hangover. I just wish I'd taken my camera with me, because the place was definitely alive last night. I'll be going back sometime soon ... but I think I'll stick to low alcohol beer next time!

As you can see, yesterday I most definitely had a skinful ... and a half :-).

I'm Definitely Getting Old ...

Today, our team had a fantastic end-of-year lunch at the Bayleaf Brasserie, an Indian restaurant in Crows Nest. Great food, wonderful conversation and a few quiet ales.

After that, I popped into the city to meet my mate Gavin for a few slightly noisier ales at the Belgian Beer Cafe, in The Rocks.

Gavin lives my dream ... a year ago he left the computing game to become a maths teacher and now works at a private girls' school.

We drank some wonderful Belgian beer and discussed mathematics for a couple of hours. Ah, so this is that Bah Humbug spirit people keep telling me about :-) !!

After that, we went to hear an Australian singer named Darren Hanlon at the Hopetoun, just up from Central station.

The music was good, the lyrics were interesting. However ... the concept of paying money to get into a venue, which is standing room only, and where one needs to push through the crowd in order to access the bar, is something this cranky old geek got over approximately twenty years ago (come to think of it, I can't actually remember when it didn't bother me).

I'd much rather buy the album and listen to it in the comfort of my own living room ... to which end, I've just purchased his latest, Fingertips and Mountaintops, and two EPs, via my subscription at emusic.

Obviously, I've turned into the kind of old fuddy-duddy I used to complain about when I was just a tad younger :-).

Anyway, it's time for my nap ...