Post #341

This is the 341st post on Kicked Puppies. That's significant.

You see, 3+4+1=8


8 is the number of my favorite Red Sox player, Carl Yastrzemski.

Crush is the 8th song on the Dave Matthews Band album Before these Crowded Streets. It's a good song.

Also, significantly, 3+4=7
Combine that with the number left over from 341 and you have 71. In 1971 Led Zeppelin IV came out and Tupac Shakur was born.

What does all this mean? I don't know.
Happy 341st post, kicked puppies.

oh, did I mention its actual significance?
I think it will probably be the last post here on the old blog.

The Idiot has kept this up far longer than he ever dreamed he might way back when he started this silliness. It has been a lot of fun, but coming up with something to say day in and day out has been far too much like work.

For those blog artistes who I've come to read and enjoy, fear not, I'll still be around, and my idiotblogger e-mail address still works. E-mail me.

It's been real, it's been fun, it's been real fun.

Beers # 52-77

It's been a while since I've updated my beer list, mostly because I haven't been drinking much, and the beers I've been drinking are already on the list. For those of you who are new here, I'm trying to drink a million different varieties of beer before I die....
Why? Because I'm an easy mark for people armed with peer pressure.

Read the original post here. Read about beers 1-10, beers 11-22 here, beers 23-36 here, and beers 37-51 here

52. Ravell from Magic Hat- This beer is available only at their brewery and a friend brought me back a growler of it. This beer absolutely dispelled any question I had that the people at Magic Hat might not know what they're doing. This is a heavy beer with a vanilla flavor and I'm a big big fan.

53. Rosie Red Bitter- This was brewed by a friend of mine. I think it's only his third batch of beer but it was remarkably complex. He used so many hops (3 infusions) that it's so dry and tart it makes your lips want to pucker, then, the malt kicks in an it finishes nicely. Well done, sir!


54. FestiveAle from Rogue- A Belgian saison ale, some ginger and other spices make this a fine sippin' brew. As I said a while ago, I tried Rogue beers a decade ago and wasn't impressed and now I can't get over how much I like a lot of their stuff.




55. Sam Adams Cherry Wheat- I got seriously hooked on this years ago, it was really the first beer that made me realize people could do cool and tasty things with beer.


56. Red Hook ESB- I have a chum who lives in Seattle and I drank a lot of Red Hook when I went out for his wedding. Good stuff. We were at their local brewery and I was hoping to try their Nitro, which they were out of, but the ESB was a fine substitute.

57. JW Dundee's Honey Brown Lager- Friends of ours took us out to dinner a while ago and the husband came back from the bar with a giant schooner of what I think was Honey Brown. If it wasn'y it's ok, because I consumed somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 gallons of this stuff at Cincinnati Reds games over the years. Very smooth, very drinkable, very good beer.

58. Anchor Steam- This is one of my all time favorite beers. I also like that it goes with anything and any with any temperature or activity. It's light and crispy enough to taste great on a hot day and heavy enough to appeal on a winter day. Those San Fariscans really found a good thing when they cooked up the first batches of this stuff.





59. Kona Brewing Co. Fire Rock Pale Ale- I keep finding myself writing "I don't like Pale Ales, but I like this one" so it might be that I actually like Pale Ales. This is a good one from a brewery that we actually visited in Hawaii a couple of years ago. It's not too hoppy, crisp and smooth.






60. Kona Brewing Co. Longboard Lager-This is a good beer, not a great beer. It's flavorful but very smooth. I think it's a little pricey for what it is, though I'm sure they sell a lot of it in Hawaii to the tourists, and to those of us who come back from our trips and want a little of that Hawaiian vibe.





61. Magic Hat Blind Faith- A perfectly respectable Pale Ale. If I'm not careful I might start liking Magic Hat beers, based almost entirely on the strength of their Revell.

62. Unibroue Cranberry Ephemere- Not as tart as a lambic, but still a nice beer. It's like Sam Adams Cherry Wheat only with cranberries.

63. Milly's Tavern Brown Noser Brown Ale- By the time I got to this one it was pretty late in the evening and I honestly don't remember anything about it, other than the fact that the tap had a fake nose on it with a brown tip.

64. Milly's Tavern Oatmeal Stout- A perfectly respectable oatmeal stout. The bartender said it was an imperial stout, but I think he was fulla crap. As an oatmeal stout, it was delicious, as an imperial stout there would be a problem.

65. Smuttynose Farmhouse Ale -A saison that was very good, from their big beer series, (though I had it on tap). I like Smuttynose beers, I'm trying to get them back to the top of my list after unfortunate yeast incidents with some of their beers.

66. Smuttynose Barley Wine '06- I had a bottle of this stuff in '05, but since this is a new batch and I had it on tap, I'm counting it again. Their barleywine in excellent.

67. Rogue Old Crustacean Barley Wine- Excellent stuff. I'm really getting to be a big fan of Rogue Beers.

68. Franconia Notch Mountain Stout- The bartender said that either the company is no longer in business or they've stopped brewing this particular brew. Either way it's a shame, because this was a delicious stout with a lot of chocolate in the flavor.

69. Moat Mountain Hoffman Weiss- Very sweet and tasting of bananas. I had a sampler of this and then went with the bartendress's suggestion of turning it into a black and tan.

70. Hoffman Weiss/ Guinness Black and Tan- Yeah, I know, it is a little cheesey to count this as a separate beer, but it's my list so piss off. The two were a good match, by the way, though I was more focused on getting my ass kicked at darts than the beer at that point in the night.

71. Harpoon Summer Beer- This is a good beer, though I have almost no recollection of anything special about this particular glass of the stuff after the barley wines mentioned earlier.

72. Unibroue Maudite- Very high in alcohol but still tasty. This is a beer you want to be prepared for, it's not light and crisp- it's heavy and sweet.

73. Rogue American Amber- An excellent beer that goes down smooth, maybe a little too smooth considering the price. Maybe it would be better if this beer weren't so good, then it could sit in the fridge undrunken, and I'd save money. Does that make sense?


74. Rogue Dead Guy Ale- See the note for #73 above. Rogue makes good beers.





75. Blue Moon Belgian White Beer- We bought a twelve of this for a friend that was visiting. I like "whit beer," though I like the hard to find Celis version of the style better. This is a nice beer, especially in hot weather.

76. Geary's Summer Ale- I drank several of these yesterday thanks to a cousin who brought them to the Memorial Day celbration. It's nice to have family who have good taste in beer.

77. Geary's Hampshire Special Ale- I had such a good time with the Summer Ale, I had a Hampshire Special Ale when I got home. These are quite good, though the high alcohol content shows up in the taste.

NASA doesn't care who you call

Mrs. Idiot and I had a heated argument because I was pretty sure that NASA was collecting a database of phone numbers that we call. Yes, now I know it was the NSA, not NASA, but let me tell you, for a while I was pretty scared.

I mean, imagine what NASA could do with our phone numbers!? They could beam my number out into space and I'd have telemarketers from other planets calling trying to sell me subscriptions to The Beteulguese Times and accident policies against phaser mishaps. I was quite relieved when Mrs. Idiot showed me article after article that confirm it's the NSA.

Being diligent, I went out and researched the NSA, wanting to make sure that they won't sell my phone number to aliens. I found the following site that I think you'll like, especially if you have any questions you'd like to ask of the NSA. DearNSA.com

Abba-solute Power!

I was browsing the headlines, being the newshound that I am, and found this story:


All I have to say is that it's about time! I mean, Abba was a supergroup that wrote all those great hits! Who better to settle hamas problems than the group that gave us Fernando and Take a Chance on Me?

I also agree that it's high time that we establish some hamas boundaries so I'm glad to see that Abba is playing hardball and establishing a firm deadline. I often find that the local grocery's hamas is a little light on the tahini and lemon juice and they overcompensate by using too much paprika. Some standards will be a most welcome change.

I really hope that that they deal with the spelling issue too. I mean, I've seen hummus, Χούμους, houmous, hommus, humus and now hamas! It's all the same thing people! How many ways do we need to spell it, it's a frickin chick pea dip!

So, as I said, I'm glad to see that someone has finally given Abba some power and that we're finally addressing the real issues of modern life.

Drunken American Idol

For those of you who've not been scoring at home, or for those of you not reading this blog, Blog Artiste Hanni has been holding a contest in which we rabble scum can choose the drink she drinks whilst watching tonight's American Idol Finale. Each week for eight weeks, readers got to vote, and the drink with the fewest votes each week got kicked off until there was only one standing.

The drink that sounded the most dangerous to me was called Stephanie's Coke Lobster, because it mixed two liquors as well as cranberry juice and coke. I figured that this combo would make the poor girl do weird things and then throw up, which would no doubt amuse us all. I quickly became a champion of this drink, and in the end it prevailed.

Somehow, as is normal for me, I got wrapped up in the excitement of the contest and volunteered to drink whatever drink won along with Hanni. Though we're a bazillion miles apart and I don't give a rat's ass about American Idol, a party is a party and I'm down with Stephanie's Coke Lobster, (which, it turns out, is just a Rock Lobster with Coke in it).

I went out and bought the ingredients:

To play this at home you'll need some Crown Royal (though any blended whiskey will do) and some Chambord, which is a raspberry liquor which I had to try a shot of. It's VERY tasty.
Hanni has a full recipe up on her current post about tonight's American Idol festivities.

I've mixed up the first Rock Lobster and am suitably impressed, it's red, it's tasty and it goes down easy. If I drink enough of these I may soon start to care about American Idol, and if I keep drinking after that I'll probably try out for American Idol.


Since the Yankees are playing the Sox tonight, the closest I'll get to watching Idol might be the occasional check in between innings. I will admit that I've gotten to like the first couple of weeks of each American Idol season, and this year I even watched it a bit. There's something cruelly entertaining about the hundreds of people who can't sing and yet audition for the show anyhow, especially when they get mad at being told that they can't sing. I liked the gray haired guy from way back then, and the girl that's still in it was nice enough to show America her underwear with a wardrobe malfunction, so I should probably tune in for just a few minutes just to see how it all comes out. I mean, if I don't see it live I'll probably wonder who won as I doubt the world's news agencies will cover something trifling like a TV talent show when there are wars being waged and such!

So there you have it, Me, Rock Lobsters and the Red Sox. Mrs. Idiot is on the fence as to whether she'll participate, so I've made a drink for Wally. She did, however, promise that she'll update the blog should I get too out of hand and do stupid stuff.

There you have it Hanni, have fun, be safe, and Cheers!

Quick, Go Vote Now!

My Blogger friend Hanni is having a contest to decide what she'll drink while watching the American Idol Finale. Foolishly, I've agreed to drink it too, Chez Idiot. I'm rooting for the Lobster Drink, and right now the vote is a tie. Go vote for the lobstah, on the right side of her webpage. Voting ends tonight, so do it now!

Bling From the King

It's time for me to get this campaign for king thing moving again, and this time, just to show you I'm serious, I'm starting with these little logo thingys for people's websites.

Once the donations start rolling in I'll make up some stickers and t-shirts and stuff. My plan is to spread these icons all over the place so that pretty soon everyone is asking "What the hell is that?" (I think I may have gotten the idea from Turk 182, but I saw that so long ago it's kind of hazy, so instead I'll say I got it from Bon Jovi).

Since y'all are in on the ground floor, you know that it means you want me as your king. (get it? Village Idiot=V.I.=VI=Roman numeral for 6?) Clever eh?

Free Idiot Art, getcher free idiot art here, get it while it's hot. Put one on your webpage and link it to here. We'll start the revolution one blog at a time.

Pick whichever one you like. Let me know where it winds up and I'll link back to your site too.

The King Is Back

That's it, the gloves are off and my hat is back in the ring.

Yes, that's right, I'm firing up my campaign for king of the world again, and we can all thank Paris Hilton for it.

You've heard of her, right? Rich heiress? Tall, skinny blonde dumb bimbo?



For a long time, I just didn't "get" her. I mean, she's really not attractive at all. She looks like a bird. She obviously doesn't have a brain in her head.

Then I realized her penchant for getting drunk and screwing things up in public, and I saw at last her entertainment value as a clown. I mean really, she's NOT hot, NOT smart, just egotistical, rich, drunk, mean and stupid- the perfect combination of things to bring on and then exacerbate a really amusing downfall. Am I right? The most awesome thing about Paris is that she actually thinks we're laughing with her!

Apparently, last night, she and some rich idiot that no one has ever heard of, launched a diatribe against Lindsay Lohan in public. There's a video of it here, though I warn you, the drunken young man's language is quite salty.(It's all bleeped, and truly reveals what a pair of morons we're dealing with). As the website says, brilliantly, I might add, the young man who is with Paris is "best known for his drunk driving arrest."

Nice, very nice.

So here's the new campaign platform.
In the Idiot's new world order: If you are very rich, that's fine, and it's even encouraged, but if you didn't earn the money yourself then you have only a few choices as to how you will live your life;
a) quietly, without bothering the rest of us.
b) philanthropically, giving a lot of your money to worthy charities, which gives you the right to go out and make an ass of yourself in public.
c) as a clown. If you want to be the rich jet-setter like Paris and her idiot boyfriend, (he's the grandson of an oil baron), you are in fact agreeing to let us use you and your image for whatever goofy crap we feel like putting you through. I think it would be horrendously entertaining to put these two idiots through a few rounds of Fear Factor stunts, and then maybe make them wear superhero costumes for a year.
d) with class. This is kind of A and B combined, but if you have class and dignity, I'm ok with you spending Grampa's Billions and expressing your opinion. I mean, the Kennedy's tend to get a little clownish, but at least they've got class.

Brandon Davis, grandson of a billionaire and seemingly a world-class pisswit.

Here's an example of class-less: In the video, Paris' boy says of Lindsay Lohan: "I think she's worth about seven million (dollars), which means she's really poor. It's disgusting. She lives in a motel."

Indeed, Tubby, you're right. But at least SHE earned her money. Now, shall we look for the Husky Boy section to get you your Assman Costume?

..there's gonna be a floody-floody...

If you've been following the news then you already know that the weather here in New Hampshire got a little extreme over the weekend.

The Idiot family and all of its collective crap came out unscathed, though we had to suffer the indignity of having our road closed for a couple of days due to high water across it and the fact that the road it connects to washed out. (This made life especially interesting for our friends who were visiting from away, especially since they had to get to an airport to fly back to the rat race in the middle of it).

I want to give a special shout out to the emergency workers in New Hampshire. We had firemen on the doorsteps of all the homes in our neighborhood three different times to keep us informed as to what was going on and to offer us help should we need it. Y'all did a great job and we thank you.

This Bud's For... a Player to be Named Later

A friend of mine sent me this list of recent minor league player transactions. Check out the one that's highlighted. (Click on the image to see one that's big enough to actually read).

Pickled Hanni

One of my favorite Bloggers, Hanni, is having a contest. She started with a list of drinks, and each week she lets us vote one off, just like American Idol. She will drink whatever we finally vote on at an American Idol finale party and post pictures of all the stupid things she does.

As I'm all in favor of drunken stupidity, here's a link to her voting thingy.


Personally, I'm pushing for the Lobster Drink because it sounds more alcoholly than the others, which could lead to both freak dancing and vomiting. Cast your vote today!

How Sweet It Is

The Sox beat the Yankees last night 14-3. The best part was that the Yankees gave up six unearned runs on errors and wild pitches, including two by A-Rod and a dropped fly ball by right-fielder Melky Cabrera.

Yes, his name is Melky.

Recommended Reading

One of my favorite bloggers, Badaunt, shared the following link in her comment about poor Fluffy X's wounded hiney. Having read her blog regularly for a year, I knew that if Badaunt recommended it, it would be awesome, and it was.

Go here, and read this little story.

Fluffy Rethinks that Jihad Idea

Those of you who have been reading about the adventures of our cat Fluffy will remember that several months ago he cast off his slave name, then launched a jihad.

Well, there have been updates in the ongoing struggles of Fluffy.


Some of you might even remember Fluffy's arch nemesis, the neighbor's cat Leo.


A couple of months ago, our other cat, Toby, came in with his ear bleeding profusely. Being good cat owners, we ignored it and hoped like hell that it didn't get infected and start to smell. Toby, being a good cat, ignored it too and the thing healed nicely. Toby was left with a massive notch in his ear and a rather impressive scar that I'm sure he makes the most of when he goes drinking with the boys or whatever it is that cats do for fun.

A few weeks after that, Mrs. Idiot took the cats to the vet for their annual check-up. The vet noticed Toby's ear and was duly impressed by the scar.
"We dunno how he got it," said Mrs. Idiot, "we think probably Leo got him."

Now, Idiotville, which we now call "Redbud" (after the Chevy Chase movie Funny Farm), is a large town or small city depending on your view, but sometimes it's freakishly small.

"Leo?" the vet asked, "big orange cat?"

Well, Mrs. Idiot was appropriately stunned that the vet not only knows Leo, the neighbor's cat, but also treats him and also treats a number of his victims. (Like One Eye McGillacutty down the street).

So, with mighty Leo camped out on our deck as much as possible (or cunningly camped under a tree just out of reach of Buttercup's tether), our brave Fluffy X has been running his jihad since February from the comfort and safety of the younger one's bed.

A couple of weeks ago, he snuck out to go to the bathroom and apparently met up with Leo, because there was a hellacious caterwauling from the front yard and then a loud thud at out door, which we think may have been the brave Fluffy trying to ram his way back in. When we finally did let him in, he was a mess, with a pretty substantial amount of blood coming from the base of his tail.

Being good cat owners, we looked him over, decided he was more or less ok, and tried to ignore it, hoping it wouldn't get infected and smell. Sadly, our hopes were dashed.

I should note here that this is the second time that Fluffy has come home with a wound that got infected and required a trip to the vet. I tried to ignore that first wound too, even when various members of the idiot family volunteered, independently I might add, that "the cat's head smells like ass, dad." Poor Fluffy spent week after that with half his head shaved and a drainage tube sticking out of it. He also got to wrestle with me twice a day as I attempted to jam droppers full of anti-biotics down his throat.

Well, Mrs. Idiot, having learned from the previous episode, took Fluffy to the vet before the smell set in this time, because it became clear that the wound simply wasn't healing.

The vet was impressed and promptly shaved him down, evaluated his wound and gave us more antibiotics to give him. If we're lucky, and I'm sure we will be, we get to take him back and have them give him a drainage tube again.

Our brave warrior, wounded on the ass.

Bars #21-

Here we go in my lame attempt to reach 100.
(read the story here).

#21. The Cataqua Public House- This is the pub at the Red Hook Brewery in Portsmouth. It's nice but very professional looking and uninteresting. I had their ESB but was ticked off because they were out of the beer I was hoping to try, their Nitro Stout.

#22. The Tiki Bar, The Liki Tiki Water Park, Orlando, Florida- We stayed in a condo on the property and they had a water park with a bar, which, with kids I see as a Win-Win situation. They had a seriously crappy bartender who whined and cried about his hours so much it was like spending time with Marvin the Depressed Robot from The Hitchhiker's Guide, but it was nothing that some distance and a couple of pitchers of Bud Light couldn't fix for me.

New Hampshire's New Motto

There's talk in New Hampshire's ginormous legislature, (which is in fact so big in a state so small that it seems they're actually going for true democracy), of changing the signs that greet motorists when they enter the state. Currently the signs read "You're going to love it here". I was reading America's best news source, The Onion yesterday, and found the following infografic

(This was taken from the Onion)

What Would Johnny Damon Do?

The Red Sox had their own rock star in Johnny Damon, who in the off season went for the big bucks to play for the Yankees. Last night he made his first return to Fenway in his new Yankee duds. He got booed, the crowd chanted "Traitor" and he went hitless.

Going into the game, Damon had said that he expected that some fans would cheer him because he helped them win a World Series but a lot of fans would boo him because he's now a Yankee. I think it was one of the Sportscenter guys who quipped, "yeah, he's gonna have to rethink that 'cheering' thing."

Oh yeah, the Sox won, 7-3.

In an even better story, the Sox made a trade with San Diego to reacquire catcher Doug Mirabelli, who had been sent to San Diego in an off-season trade. Mirabelli's primary job on the Sox is to catch knuckleball pitcher Tim Wakefield. The guy they'd hoped could replace him, Josh Bard, was simply unable to do it and had like ten passed balls in four games.

Mirabelli boarded a plane in San Diego, landed in Boston, and got a police escort from the airport to Fenway. He changed into his uniform on the ride from the airport, arrived at Fenway 13 minutes before game time and started the game. (Wakefield was pitching, after all). He didn't allow any passed balls and even threw out a baserunner.

Welcome back Doug, Boo Johnny, and Go Sox

Driving Miss Disney

Y'all haven't heard from me lately because we packed up the fambly and drove to the Happiest Place on Earth. Well, I'd actually say that the happiest place on Earth is Fenway after a big thumping of the Yankees, but anyhow, we drove to one of the happiest places on earth- Orlando, Florida.

I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to talk more about the trip once I've recovered from all that happiness, (right before the credit card bills roll in, no doubt). Actually, I'm waiting until Mrs Idiot gives me access to the pictures from the trip to write about it. She always screens the pictures carefully before giving them to me to be sure that I haven't snuck in any pictures of me mooning things.

In the meantime, let me throw out a couple of observations I made during the 1,400 miles of driving southward, and then some more that I made during the subsequent 1,400 miles driving northward. (On Saturday I drove what I feel is an astounding 930 miles between the reasonably comfortable hours of 8 am and 10 pm).

Anyhoo, the one thing that struck me is that New Hampshire absolutely leads the world in creative vanity license plates. You can't swing a cat in this state without hitting someone with a funny license plate, whereas there's a dearth of them once you leave the cozy Granite State's borders.
(And no, this has nothing to do with the "Live Free or Die" motto.)

In fact, in all those thousands of miles, there really weren't any memorable vanity plates at all. Well, actually, there were a couple of memorable ones, but for the wrong reasons.

For example, in Virginia we saw a Dodge Durango RT with the license plate "IM CRIST" which stands out in my memory. Now, I too own a Dodge Durango RT and it's a fine vehicle and I'm proud to own the official vehicle of the messiah, but I was a little disappointed as I figured that Jesus would either drive somethingt totally flashy and cool, or else do the other route and drive some piece of crap old VW bus or something. I totally understand about the RT, the 5.9 litre fuel injected engine does sing a beautiful song.

Another memorable plate said GOP4ME.
I said "this must be a urologist" (GO PEE For ME).
Mrs. Idiot said "Oh, I thought it's a Republican" (G.O.P. for ME).
Given that the car was covered with stickers for Republican candidates, I think Mrs. Idiot had that one pegged. (And I'm not kidding about this: one of the candidate's names was "Woodcock"). Perhaps they were both a Republican and a urologist?

Finally, there was a license plate that absolutely appalled me.
The state of Florida (and in doing subsequent research I've learned they're not alone) has issued license plates that say "Choose Life"

Now, leaving totally aside the sticky wicket of being "pro-life" or "pro-choice" for a moment, does it strike anyone else as odd that a state is using an official instrument to put forth a political opinion? Again, I won't even get near the fact that this same opinion tends to run along religious lines.

I'm all in favor of license plate drives that help raise money for schools or manatees or wilderness conservation, but this seems a little too politicized to be right and proper for a state to do. In a nutshell, the court has said "it's a woman's choice, everyone else shut up until we change our mind," and here we have a state (several states, actually) putting the issue on their license plates? Are these states then openly advocating that a Supreme Court ruling be overturned? Can they do that? Should they do that?


Are these states offering Pro-Choice license plates? How is this different than the requirement that radio and television offer equal access to both political parties?

Finally, will there be other issues that states can put on their plates? What if Florida starts chafing about the ban on assault rifles? Will we soon see Gun Nut Plates? How about states that want to get rid of the No Child Left Behind Act? How about all the states looking to deal with the immigrant issue, I can see what they might want for that plate now.
I'm not a very political person and I don't get fired up about this stuff often, but this one disturbs me because I think that putting a political cause on an official instrument like a license plate is wrong. The states are supposed to protect our rights, not steer our policy.

So, GOP4ME and all the rest of you drivers out there, call your congressman and tell 'em you think your state DMV should either get out of the political arena or open up the license plate arena to ALL the political causes out there.... how about this one?