Posted by Skrud at Wednesday, June 13th 2007 at 2:02am
Our schedules at this Finals competition basically consists of:
10 BREAKFAST
20 CODE
30 LUNCH
40 CODE
50 DINNER
60 CODE
70 SLEEP
80 GOTO 10
Now, it’s not so bad. I think my team is pretty cool and we’ve gelled pretty well. This morning we got a visit to the Microsoft Company Store, where you can buy copies of Vista Ultimate for $40 or Office Student and Home 2007 for $35. I bought a copy of Office, a hoodie, a t-shirt, and a luggage tag (because I didn’t have one). We also went down to the Microsoft Visitor Center, which I would describe as a “Museum of Microsoft History”. There were even demos of Surface to play around with.
Aside from being perfectly happy to sit around and geek out all day, I love beer. The Seattle are happens to be a hotspot for microbrews and beers of all kinds. The hotel itself has four taps that I’ve never even heard of: Alaskan Amber Ale, Pyramid Hefe-Weizen, Manny’s Pale Ale and Mac & Jack’s American Amber:
The previously mentioned Rock Bottom Brewery is but one example of a brewpub. Right next-door to it is the Taphouse Grill, a restaurant which boasts having over 160 beers on tap. One hundred and sixty!!!! I met up with Vivian, who just started as a Project Manager at Microsoft (and whom I already missed from Montreal) and we checked it out.
Beers I’ve tried at Taphouse:
- Fish Tale Organic Amber: Delicious. Vivian thought it was the best of the bunch. It was very tasty, and just sweet enough.
- LazyBoy Hefe: Not as good as some other Hefe-Weizens I’ve had. I thought this one was too fruity, but still pretty good.
- Rogue Chipotle Ale: A hint of smokiness and smooth flavour. It was damn good.
- Skagit Valley IPA: An excellent, extremely hoppy and bitter IPA. Just the way I likes it. This was my favourite of the “Northwest Sampler” (which included this beer and the others above it).
- Franziskaner Hefe-Weizen: A German Hefe-weizen that Harley highly recommended. I thought it was okay, and I prefer Paulaner.
- Alaskan Oatmeal Stout: I was a little disappointed with this beer. I think the McAuslan St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout is much better.
- Diamond Knot IPA: Recommended by the waitress when I asked for a good IPA. This one was fantastically bitter and utterly delicious.
I also tried Manny’s Pale Ale, the Humpback IPA (from Rock Bottom) and Rock Bottom’s Wheat Beer.
The IPAs that I’ve had here have been king thus far. I love bitter, hoppy IPAs, and I’ve been extremely impressed with the quality of IPAs that I can get out here in Bellevue, WA. Seriously, these are some of the best beers I’ve had. The Skalit Valley IPA reminded of Benelux’s Imperial IPA, only it was smoother, yet just as flavourful. It’s like heaven.
Tags: 2007, beer, events, imaginecup, travel | no comments
Posted by Skrud at Monday, June 11th 2007 at 1:49pm
Getting from Montreal to NYC wasn’t the problem — even though our plane was put into a holding pattern around JFK airport for an extra 40 minutes or so, and once we landed at 4:25pm I noticed my boarding pass for my connecting flight to Seattle was at 4:55pm. In a different terminal. The map they had in the American Airlines magazine did not do the distance justice. I must’ve ran for about 5km, going through security again, reaching the departure gate, before realizing that 4:55pm was the boarding time, not the departure time. I managed to eat half a crappy airport-depanneur sandwich before boarding the plane.
It’s a good thing I ate that crappy airport-depanneur sandwich, because the seven-hour flight from NYC to Seattle had no food except for crappy airline snacks and crappy airline sandwiches, of which I believe they had four of. Obviously, not enough to feed a 757 of hungry passengers. It didn’t help that the plane was grounded for about an hour after the intended departure time, either. I more or less finished the book I was reading (the Ghost in the Shell manga by Masamune Shirow) before we took off. Having finished that, I watched the movie on my laptop. Yes, it makes much more sense now. (And there’s a lot that was left out of the movie, though the movie certainly does the manga justice).
Then I played some Moeru Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2, the sequel to the greatest video game ever, which was happily waiting for me at home when I got there. I beat it on Normal during the flight, and it was one of the most satisfying video game experiences of my life.
Early on in the flight, I befriended the woman sitting next to me. (Seriously, when you’re sitting next to the same person for 7 hours, and when you’re spending an entire 10 hours communicating with no one but security personnel telling you to take your shoes off, you need to talk to a real person). She’s a Seattleite that was returning from a vacation in NYC with her friend (in the next seat). They were nice enough to chat a bit and point out some interesting things out the window: Mount Saint-Helen poking up through the clouds, Bill Gates’ house, etc. I asked for some restaurants that might be open this late and she told me some places I could walk to.
When we finally landed, at 9:00pm Seattle time (midnight), I caught my shuttle to the hotel and finally met my teammates.
I was hungry. Famished. The Starbucks in the hotel was closed. (Although the hotel bar has some beer taps that I’d never seen before and I will try them all before I leave. Especially the Pyramid Hefe-Weizen.)
We started wandering around outside. Then I remembered that the lady on the airplane told me about a place next door to Barnes & Noble. As one teammate was plugging it into Google Maps on his wi-fi phone, we saw Barnes & Noble. Kept walking, and came across the Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery. I love how the first place I end up as soon as I get into the city is a brewpub!!!
I order a Thai Chicken Pizza (their late-night menu wasn’t so extensive), and an American Wheat Beer. The beer was decent, but not particularly tangy or tasty. It tasted pretty bland for a wheat beer, actually. I know American Wheats aren’t supposed to have much fruity flavouring, but they usually have a decent hoppiness. This one didn’t. Then I tried the Pale Ale, which was exquisite. Fantastic hoppiness and extra-bitter, just howI like it. As we were leaving I noticed they had another beer called the \”Hop Bomb IPA\”, made with 5 different kinds of choice hops and won all kinds of awards. I announced to my team that we’re going back there. They agreed. :)
Things to do today:
* Plan our attack so that we can rock the competition to its core.
* Get my welcome package (includes Zune).
* Meet all the Microsofties involved with ImagineCup
This is shaping up to be an awesome-fun trip!
Tags: 2007, beer, events, imaginecup, travel | no comments
Posted by Skrud at Sunday, May 13th 2007 at 4:20pm
At the ECA Change of Power Retreat this weekend, at a cottage in the middle of nowhere, we were playing a standard game of Asshole. It wasn’t long before we realized that this can be combined with beer drinking. And thus, I present to you the game of Drunken Asshole.
(One “drink” is typically a finger of alcoholic beverage, or more or less as your players decide)
The Rules of Drunken Asshole
- Whenever a 3 is played, everyone who did not play the 3 has to drink.
- In the case of multiple 3’s, everyone drinks.
- You cannot say “pass.” Instead, you must drink.
- If play a 5, you can pick one person to have five drinks.
- Multiple 5’s mean multiple drink assignments, so if there are as many 5’s as there are players, then everyone has to have five drinks.
- No swearing, or else you drink.
- When you play a Jack, you can pick someone to have four drinks. Likewise, multiple Jacks means you can pick multiple people.
- Whenever a Queen is played, everyone has to point to another person and call them a “queen”. The last person to do this has to drink.
- When you play a 2, you must take two drinks.
- When you play a Joker, you must take five drinks.
- People who are not playing Drunken Asshole may still be made to drink when a Jack or a five is played.
- When you have to get up to use the bathroom, you must drink first.
- If you’re the last to finish (i.e., the “Asshole”), you have to drink.
Obviously, new rules will be added during play. ;)
Tags: asshole, beer, cards, drinking, games | 2 comments
Posted by Skrud at Wednesday, April 18th 2007 at 3:59pm
Scientist Charlie Bamforth, Professor of Brewing Science at University of California has declared that beer is the driving force behind civilization and technology. No one was surprised. You can read the full (hilarious) article on Gizmodo.
Tags: beer, civilization, humanity | no comments
Posted by Skrud at Friday, March 2nd 2007 at 12:58pm
To hops
To malt
To yeast
To barley
To the Mesopotamians who invented it,
To the Egyptians who continued it,
To the Germans who perfected it
To us who love it
To beer!
Written at Brutopia, at approximately 12am on March 2, 2007 by Harley Cooper, Chris Beebe, and yours truly.
You can change the fourth line to whatever characteristic of your beer that you want to point out. So if you’re drinking a wheat beer, you’d say “to wheat” instead of “to barley”, or “to raspberry” or whatever.
You can also change the 7th line, in case you’re not drinking German beer or beer brewed in the German style. So if you’re drinking Belgian-style beer you’d say “to the Belgians who perfected it” … or substitute for Czechs (especially if you’re drinking Pilsner).
We also added a line before “To us who love it” to pay homage to our fabulous bartender:
To Kimberly who serves it
I love beer.
Tags: beer, Friends, life, poetry | no comments
