Speaking of Long Trail, they were so nice to us after the “tire incident” that we decided to stop on our way out VT for lunch. There in the brewery pub we opted for a sampler and got our fill of some new (to us) beers.
Double Bag
Interesting to me was the Double Bag; a year round brew that was dark and delicious. Description from the Long Trail Site:
This malty, full-bodied double alt is also known as a “Stickebier” – German slang for “secret brew”. Double Bag was originally offered only in our brewery taproom as a special treat to our visitors. With an alcohol content of 7.2%, please indulge in moderation.
Yeah, you read that right: 7.2%! It was delightfully deceptive and didn’t feel strong at all. That was made all the better when the bar tender brought me some Triple Bag!
Triple Bag
They don’t currently have stats on the website, however beeradvocate.com does. They rate it at a B (I know nothing about beer so who am I to argue) and 9.4%! The bartender said they regularly have to cut people off from Triple Bag because its so mellow that people assume they can drink it like a normal beer. Apparently on more than one occasion he’s had someone down an entire Vermont Pint in 5 minutes and ask for seconds; not realizing that they basically just chugged a bottle of wine.
A little disappointed in myself and the speed with which I’ve gotten away from the spirit of this exercise: to do something with intention every day and then write about it. This is my catch-up post. Feel free to flog me for my indiscretion.
Something New #13 – Lent Trap
This one’s pretty simple; new thing, new word. Lent Trap:
In couples where one party is Catholic and the other is not, the unwilling subjection of the non-Catholic to the 40-day ritual of penitence known asLent.
1. We were going to have dinner at this great new steak place on Friday night, but Joe’s got me stuck in a Lent Trap.
2. My wife Jane decided to give up sex for Lent. Worst. Lent Trap. Ever.
- Urban Dictionary
I wasn’t raised Catholic, so my attachment to Lent is weaker than some; however, I have had the experience of “so-and-so gave up ____ and now I don’t get to have it either”. Simple enough. To make this one count I used it in casual conversation and shared it in my (very cool & unoffended) office.
SN #14 – Bubble Tea
Yes, it’s true ~ before this week I never had a bubble tea. Weird, right? Well, I tried it ~ here ya go:
Please excuse the head-tilt… my boss wasn’t sure how to shoot with my phone.
SN #15 – Moulin Rouge Drinking Game
It also may surprise you to know that I’ve never played a drinking game to a movie before. That surly changed Tuesday night when I played the Moulin Rouge Drinking Game with a bottle of saki. We modified the “standard online rules” because, frankly, some of them seemed stupid. Our rules were as follows:
A girl lifts her skirt (gee thats gonna be tough to find)
Satine makes that awful noise. (what .. is she trying to be seductive with that? who knows…)
Christian says “all you need is love”
Satine refuses to love Christian
Toulouse uses “W” instead of “L” or “R”
Zidler uses a nickname for Satine (ie “gosling”, “strawberry”, etc)
The Argentinean becomes unconcious
Satine sings “Diamonds are a girls best friend”
The Duke twitches his mustashe
Nini is a …”witch”
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is ust to love and be loved in return” is spoken/sung
Hilarity ensued.
SN #16 – Garrulous
Another new word! Garrulous is an obnoxious, pretentious way to mean “talkative”. Now you know.
SN # 17 – Sliders
Or, technically, just tiny cheeseburgers because I wasn’t at a White Castle. But I’d just never had little burgers before. I’ve mean to; just didn’t order them. Well… now I have:
They were tasty as all hell. I’d honestly expected that they would be over-cooked and a bit tough (which is why I’d never gotten them), but they were perfectly done and I’ve been craving them a little bit ever since.
SN #18 – Killian’s Irish Red
It’s hard to believe that I’ve never had such a standard beer before, but it’s true. Thought it was tasty and hoppy and had a very rich flavor.
Phew! That’s a lot of new.
Bonus:
For your enjoyment, a video from the origami turtle experiment:
A busy couple of days has resulted in a lot of technology and a lot of beer, so I’ll get right to it:
#7: Troubleshooting Ubuntu
On Something New Day 6 Ubuntu 10.10 was installed on my old Windows desktop in a fairly clean, simple process; and then it promptly failed. There was a crazy little problem where if you opened a program you would work within it, but any clicking external to the program window wasn’t functional. Sure, you could use your keyboard to navigate and work within or close the program, but who really wants to do that? Ubuntu and I were going rounds.
Round 1:
My plan was simple: get in there and get as much information about the problem as possible. One problem: over night some magical gnome had climbed into my computer and messed with it enough that it would only boot to shell. Hard to identify the problem when you can’t even get that far. So it was suggested by my personal IT guy (you know who you are) that I revert back to 10.4 as it was the last stable.
Round 1 to Ubuntu.
Round 2:
Next up I reverted to 10.4. It was simple as the original install of 10.4; until I tried to reboot and ran into a string of “I/O Error”s. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d left the thumb drive with the installer on it in the USB port. Did I mention I’m a bit of a ditz?
Round 2 to The Amazon.
Bonus Round:
My husband felt that the ease with which I got a Linux install up meant that I didn’t get the full feeling of what it’s like to install a Linux OS; so he issued me an additional challenge. For extra credit I had to get Wine installed… enough to run Civ V. Wine is up, packages are installed, and I know that Civ V will work on Ubuntu 10.4; but I haven’t gotten my configuration tweaked right yet. For now the Bonus in process.
#8: Tripel Perfection
In response to Mike’s suggestion of Johnnie Walker for last Sunday’s new thing my buddy Chuck decided it was time I try some really good beer:
It was last years Ommegang Belgian Pale Ale and man is it tasty! It’s got a lot more flavor and depth than the beers I’m used to drinking (read: cheap) and some really good reviews. If you’re even a little bit of a beer snob I highly suggest you give it a try. Which leads me to…
#9: The Ginger Man
On 36th between 5th & Madison is a sweet little bar on the North side of the street. If you get there a little early in the evening (as my friend so knowingly did) you can settle into the back room ~ which he lovingly referred to as “The Reading Room”. If you’re not eating there are couches and low tables, but we were in for a long haul and had a good seat. Their house beer, a Ginger Lager, was awesome… but it was their hot dogs that really made me fall in love. ”The Ginger Dog” had bacon… bacon on a hot dog! Not to mention the awesome special sauce that came with it. Let me spell it out for you:
