Being a recent beer fan, I’ve begun to review various types of beer. Those of you that follow me on twitter may recall a few of my tweets announcing a new beer review over at BeerAdvocate. Well tonight has lent itself to a beer review of a coworker’s home-brewed stout, and Beer Advocate doesn’t have a good method for submitting home-brew reviews. I’ll begin now.

Appearance (20%) – Espresso colored body with a medium tan head. The head is fairly tight and hints that it may leave some lace behind, though only leaves small gatherings of froth. Carbonation cannot be detected behind the dark body.

Smell (20%) – Pine spirited hops on the first drift, though frothed milk and some light coffee can be detected when it warms.

Taste (40%) – A smooth coffee and cocoa flavor at the start leads to a piney hops finish. Very impressive.

Mouthfeel (10%) – The hops stays behind on the tongue but it’s not a sticky hops presence like in other beers. Coffee and cocoa bitterness is discovered on ructus (when I burp).

Drinkability (10%) – The first presentation of a Stubborn Man beer left some to be desired, this was by far a much better presentation. With some tuning and a bit of experimentation this could be a favorite of mine, definitely a great start. I’m looking forward to more of his dark bodied ales.

The Marks
A – 3.5
S – 3
T – 4.5
M – 4.0
D – 4.0
TOTAL – 3.9 B+

So there you have it, a solid B+. Looking back at all the beers I’ve reviewed, anything I’ve given a ‘B’ or above is well worth another visit. So visit his blog, send him a tweet, or otherwise let him know you’re interested in having one of his stouts.

Don’t let the title mislead you, I’m not going to review the latest porn (sorry, Osiris). What I am going to do is put my perspective on Kevin Smith’s latest film, “Zach and Miri make a Porno”. Having just recently seen it maybe now isn’t the time for me to put my review out there, but I can come back later with a new post and grab more attention to it after it has a chance to simmer.

I’ve found Kevin Smith’s movies fairly enjoyable over the last few years, but it’s usually the person himself that far exceeds the humor of his writings. I enjoyed his open forum discussions “An Evening with Kevin Smith” to be far more amusing than the content of his films. Things that define Kevin Smith are what make his works good. “Clerks”, to me, wasn’t nearly as enjoyable until I understood the adventure it took to become the movie. Jay and Silent Bob is more of a meme, though it played an excellent role in “Dogma” which I finde to be one of his funniest works. Chasing Amy is the best movie he’s ever done, and I was hoping for one as high a quality as it in “Zach and Miri”. (more…)

and I think he’s on to something here:

Mr President from LL Cool J and Boomdizzle on Vimeo.

What do you think? 1st amendment introduces the song, before some questions are asked. Lyrics to follow.

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In wake of the release of the new 3G-capable iPhone and the content I’ve been spidering about the Android SDK (Google phone) I’m going to let you in on a few of the things I use almost daily. This article also comes to you per suggestion on Skribit from Paul Stamatiou which has received some other votes. I’m adding the programs I use because to be honest, I don’t carry many gadgets around.

Firstly and most importantly, I have my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry 8830 “World Edition” phone. After using a generic LG flip phone for two years, when my contract was up for renewal I had come to the conclusion that I was ready for a smart phone or PDA. Research In Motion had a new, fairly powerful, handheld and what appeared to be the most capable for what I wanted to be able to do; so far it’s done a great job.

So what was I looking for in a new handheld? Firstly, a QWERTY keypad. You don’t understand the want for this until you’ve been using “T9″ or some other predictive text on a standard numeric keypad for two years and have a chance to toy with a friend’s QWERTY keypad. The next thing I looked for was (more…)

I didn’t realize my connection to “Into the Wild”, a film adaptation of the bestselling non-fiction book of the same name until after I finished watching it. For those of you that haven’t heard of the film, it is an exhilarating tale of the adventures of Christopher McCandless, a college grad having majored in history and anthropology. After graduation he ignores the norm (beginning his career), donates most of his savings to charity, and sets out on an adventure to find himself; much in the same fashion Henry David Thoreau did when he attended Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s property inspiring his works titled ‘Walden‘. What transpires is deeply engraving.

At the time the movie was showing in theaters I couldn’t find anyone that was available to go see it with me, mostly because there were other movies of higher interest to the persons I attend the theaters with. When I first saw the previews for the movie “Into the Wild” months ago, it piqued my heaviest interest being an Eagle Scout (with merit badges including Wilderness Survival and Camping), and an experienced backpacker. Though I’ve found RottenTomatoes to be unreliable for most of my “gems of film making” of recent years, they scored this film an 83% giving it a ‘Fresh’ rating. Thanks to NetFlix, who recently added the film to their available titles, I had a chance to sit down and enjoy “Into the Wild” on my own time without leaving the comfort of my own living room. (more…)