Did you ever wish your life was like a Woody Allen movie? Conversations would be full of effective, sarcastic, one-liners. You'd be free to view the world from that detached and cynical perspective - and what's more, people would pay you loads in notoriety for it.

Deep down, however, secret fears your wife was leaving you for another man would emotionally cripple you. Or you'd be dating a sixteen year old girl.

Have you ever wondered where dalmatians come from?

Or how regional phone companies in America work?

What do HSBC, SBC, AT&T, and ING stand for? Do these ubiquitous acronyms mean anything?

Why am I not happy that my credit card was just bought out by Bank of America? Will this mean higher rates? Experience suggests almost certainly.

Do middle school teachers do work? I can think of one sub who spent all his free time (5 periods) learning about Croatian politics and large corporations. Thank goodness for Wikipedia.

Oh well. Today I'm bottling a brew based on New Belgium's Fat Tire Amber Ale, a glass of which I first tried in San Fransisco.

Celebrating a year of blogging.

The earth is a cold, dead, place.

Ok folks, here's a beauty of a post from April. I'm not sure why this was never published. But here it is now, for your reading enjoyment:

Quick, three guesses as to which plant I did not try to smuggle into the States.

I'll give you a hint: the answer is not tulips.

Actually, my innocence was proved by the scientific method, y'know the old 1. make an observation, 2. form a hypothesis, 3. test that with an experiment, 4. repeat the experiment to see if the results are the same, and (now for the best part) 5. make a scientific law!

In practice it goes something like this:

1. Who's this rather attractive-yet-tired-looking 23 year old male travelling alone from Amsterdam? 2. I bet he has tried to smuggle drugs. Let's earmark his boarding pass for a search.

3. As leaders in the industrial revolution, the British were first to test the hypothesis, the result: no drugs (or bombs for that matter), one package of Camembert cheese. The cheese is better here than in the states? me: of course. Thanks for letting me go. The most exciting part of this search was being told to remove my shoes and then put them back on in the same minute. All the annoyance of an american airport with none of the shoe security.

Of course the Americans will never let themselves be outdone by the British. We'll give all of step 4 to the Custom & Border Patrol (I saw them arresting an Italian in Boston). Again the suspicion, again the search, but this time with some interesting questions that caught me off guard, mostly hinging on whether or not I had met any "friends": So how long were you in the Netherlands? me: 3 months. And did you meet any "friends" there? me: blank stare, uh sorry? Did you meet any "friends?" Uh, there were other people there - yeah, some of them were my friends. But were they from the Netherlands? me: some of them, some of them were from Portugal and Lichtenstein. Did they give you anything? Uh, I don't remember, I mean some chocolate at some point maybe, a book?... coughdrops?... Anything else you'd like to declare before I open your bag? 3 Heineken glasses that I got for free. rummage, rummage, rummage... ah ha! what's this? That sir is Camembert cheese, I believe it's a French cheese sir. (and now for the dramatic denoument) French Cheese! but I thought you were in the Netherlands...

Thusly was discovered weber's law: at any time during my trip I had not marijuana in my bag but rather french cheese, which I got in Holland.

From the Annals of Beer: Chapter VI The Strange Case of the Migrating Brew

Well, finally, it's here as promised. The terrible tale frought with woe and loss, though no doubt ending on a higher note for some involved. The beginning of the end starts on a cold summer day in Haines, AK. Our hero, one brewmaster K. M. Weber, arises at 4AM to serve breakfast (alas early rising may prove to be his only hubris).

Well, really, the story's a bit too long. Suffice to say my beer made it all the way to the D.C. area with some newly-weds on account of not enough room in my car for a return trip to CT. Of course there's a bit of intrigue about losing my favorite hat on a quest for a growler on the set of "White Fang." Tragedy struck when the aforementioned growler burst in my trunk-coating everything (including my wedding tie) in beer, thus nullifying the sacrifice of my favorite hat. Yes, Alaska was invovled, yes, I only got to try one or two bottles of my favorite beer. But hey, let's not dwell on past failures. I'm still a bit touchy about the hat (I get attached to a good accesory) - H & M evidently changes their clothing line every season so it's irreplaceable.

But I'm already halfway through another brew and I'm sure you guys want to hear about that 'cause it's coming out awesome. Five points to Gryffindor if you can guess this picture (no points if you cheat).

Part of Blogging is cross-fertilization, i.e. when someone has some good thoughts or great writing you post a hyperlink to their site, thereby sharing ideas as well as increasing someone's audience. In the end everyone wins.

So, if you're interested in tradition as the franchise of the dead (and who wouldn't be), please check out G. K. Chesterton's thoughts as voiced by Miner.