short takes
Mar. 17th, 2005 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioSeen at the entrance to an automated car-wash: "Do not enter car wash on foot". Um, yeah. I think I'd be happier living in a world where that's obvious.
I've been listening to Roundworm, a collection of Bob Kanefsky's filk parodies, in the car recently. (The linked page includes some MP3s; I particularly commend "Eternal Flame".) There's a lot of fun stuff on that album, and it's making me think upgrade thoughts about my Kanefsky cassettes. (Oh, drat -- it looks like this is his only CD so far. Oops.) He is particularly good at writing parodies that stand on their own but are even funnier if you know the songs he's parodying. A lot of parodies out there require knowledge of the original; his usually don't. Another nice touch is that he generally gets the original performers to sing the parodies on the recordings.
In January I sent in the rebate coupons for my new computer. Today I got email from HP telling me they'd received them and I should get my rebate in 2-4 weeks. Took long enough -- and I have yet to hear from CompUSA about the one they owe me. I begin to see how this works; not only do they make money from the people who forget to send the coupons in, but they make money on the float (as compared to just lowering the price in the first place).
The last beer buy included a side buy of Belgian lambics. Linedmann's has something new -- a "naked" lambic without any of the fruit additives they're known for. It's called Gueuze (no, I won't hazard a guess on pronunciation) and it's really good. My favorite fruit flavor is Peche (peach) and I didn't expect to like the plain version as much, but I do. For those of you who like beer that doesn't taste strongly of hops, and who can buy single bottles, check it out.
Being a beer snob
Date: 2005-03-22 06:31 pm (UTC)Real lambics are produced by spontaneous fermentation - so not really amenable to huge productions, consistent taste and process engineering. Unfortunately the appellation of lambic isn't protected so it's being used detrimentally in my opinion. I wish they could name the fruity beers something else than lambic!
Cantillon (www.cantillon.be) makes a great lambic - the plain stuff is gueuze, the ones with fruit flavours start off with the gueuze. i.e. Kriek is cherry flavoured. Cantillon has a raspberry one too I believe. I'm really partial to the gueuze flavour. Something about 2 years of aging in an oak casket and well knowing the beer was fermented by that Brussels air! If you are ever in Brussels - the tour of their brewery is worth the detour!
Re: Being a beer snob
Date: 2005-03-23 02:52 am (UTC)Thanks for the pointer to Cantillon.
Re: Being a beer snob
Date: 2005-04-04 04:31 am (UTC)It's kinda like the difference between Abbey beers and Trappist beers. The trappist ones still involve monks (although sometimes only in quality control as in the case of Chimay...)