Beer Wednesday: Pipeline Porter by Kona Brewing Co

I love Pipeline Porter by Kona Brewing Company. Love. It. I wouldn't call it a perfect beer, but it is perfect for my palate. I love smooth beers; Pipeline Porter is very smooth. I love rich malty porters; Pipeline Porter is nice and malty. I love coffee, particularly light roast Kona coffee; Pipeline Porter is made with "100% Kona coffee" giving it a really enjoyable coffee flavor. I could go on, but I'd embarrass myself.


Tech Thursday: Hiatus!

Good Morning FIWK! Just dropping a quick note that I'm off to Europe for the next 2.5 weeks - YIPPEE!!! I know you'll all miss my participation, so I'm leaving you with this: suck it!

Beer Wednesday: Lobotomy Bock by Indian Wells Brewing

There is a flavor that is not hops and is not malt. In my experience it's associated with beers with high alcohol content, but it's not alcohol-y either. It tastes like dark cherry, dried peaches, maybe cranberry and a little bit of candy. It lacks the smoothness of a malty beer but it doesn't have much bite either.

That's basically what the Lobotomy Bock by Indian Wells Brewing Co tastes like. The beer has a mild flavor profile, light body, and a very mellow mouth feel. Yet the Lobotomy Bock is one of those high alcohol beers as I describe above - it's listed as 10.8% ABV. That percentage will surprise you if you drink it, because it doesn't taste that strong.


Happy Friday! Circle the Cat

By popular demand: Circle the Cat. Took me about 20 tries... good luck

How the Mayo Clinic Uses Social Media

For me, the Mayo Clinic is in the Buffett Zone - I will read anything about them, because I find their achievements so interesting. I was surprised to discover how extensively the Mayo Clinic uses social media, as Guy Kawasaki (who is great, by the way) describes in his interview with Lee Aase, the "syndication and social media director" for the Mayo Clinic.


Tech Thursday: Website (un)imagination

This could also pass for weekend comedy, but I'm stealing it for this week's view into the "tech world". Matthew Inman is the author of The Oatmeal, a rather random, yet highly entertaining one-stop shop for comics and quizzes (21 seconds, btw). His latest post talks about the 8 websites we/society need to stop building, and I have to agree with him (particularly 1 and 4). I think it's about time the world stops creating stalkerbook clones to allow me to follow random acquaintances, but only if I register so that they can spam the living daylights out of me. Your thoughts?



PS If you think this post is really just a lazy, half-assed (yes, those are different) attempt at a Tech Thursday post, you'd be the opposite of wrong. I'm exhausted. Sue me. (Please don't, though, cause it would just be a waste of all our time - I've got nothing of value).

PPS This post from the NY Time Bits blog is an interesting look into just how dominant Microsoft is in the business software department: 94% market share and $19B in annual revenue - even with free products in abundance? Impressive.

Beer Wednesday: Prohibition Ale, Big Daddy IPA, and Payback Porter by Speakeasy

Recently I've had three different beers by Speakeasy Ales & Lagers brewing company (by the way, their website is www.goodbeer.com, how cool is that?) and I have enjoyed them all. They were the Prohibition Ale, the Big Daddy IPA, and the Payback Porter.



Tech Thursday: RIP Microsoft Courier

Gizmodo first leaked information about Microsoft's Courier last September, and, I have to say, the thing looked friggin' awesome. Last week, Gizmodo announced that Microsoft had officially canceled the program (a program, I might add, that never officially existed, according to Microsoft), which makes me sad. Now, all we've got left is the iPad, which is just an over-sized, less-functional iPhone. However, many other companies are trying to enter the "tablet" market, but the latest big news is HP's purchase of Palm, and the supposed tablet that could come out of that deal. Either way, I'm sad to see the Courier go, but hope that Microsoft continues working on the concept; who knows, maybe they can create something tablet-like out of their impressive-looking Windows Phone 7 OS?

Beer Wednesday: The FIWK IPA Tasting

Towards the end of April, Aaron came down to LA. We decided to celebrate this occasion by assembling a crew and drinking some beers. Aaron loves IPAs so we focused the tasting mainly around those. Here is the list:

IPAs
- Longhammer IPA by Redhook (6.5% ABV)
- Blind Pig IPA by Russian River (6.1%)
- Pliny the Elder IPA by Russian River (8%)
- Torpedo IPA by Sierra Nevada (7.2%)
- Hop Ottin' IPA (organic) by Anderson Valley (7%)
- Big Daddy IPA by Speakeasy (6.5%)
- Ruination IPA by Stone (7.7%)


Non-IPAs
- Noble Pilsner by Sam Adams (5%?)
- McGarvey's Scottish Ale by Left Coast (5%)
- El Camino (Un)Real Black Ale by Stone, Firestone Walker, and 21st Amendment (9.5%)
- Red & White Ale by Dogfish Head (10%)
- Victory at Sea Vanilla Coffee Imperial Porter by Ballast Point (10%)


Pictures are forthcoming. Feel free to add your comments in the meantime, especially if you've had these beers before.

Music Tuesdays: Your Love Is My Drug by Ke$ha


When I'm in charge of Music Tuesdays, there's a good chance I'm going to feature a video that you have already heard. In fact, there's a decent chance that the songs I pick are so popular that you may be tired of hearing them. So we're going to break this down a little differently.

Listen to the entire song, then listen to the following parts individually: 0:09, 0:25, 0:40 and 1:45.