It looks like Real has just released its Rhapsody To Go — portable music subscription service. I have used Rhapsody for over a year and really like it. I can't wait to tryout their portable service.

I would really like to have a set of Tetris Shelves along the wall of my staircase. There is no way that however, that I am going to shell out $7k for these.

Brew Fest 2005 or how I learned to love the HazelNut Brown Nectar

Another Brewfest has come and gone and I have survived. Our group combined with Herschel and April's amassed a small army of seasoned drinking veterans most notably both April and Erin's mom and dad and April's Uncle Buck. The turnout was great. The event as a whole started out as it often does as little over crowded and uptight but, by the end of the event the attendees we were all swaying in unison and conversing as if we were long lost friends. Speaking of long lost friends I ran into the expected group of people that I usually see at Brewfest Andy H, Andy F, Nico D, Jonathon J, Clay D, and Craig H. Many of which I may not see again until next year - Same Brewtime, Same Brewchannel.

I have a short list of favorites. Not that I didn't enjoy many of the others but, these were exceptional in my book.

• 
  Rouge Ale's HazelNut Brown Nectar
  


• 
  Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale
  


• 
  Oskar Blues' Old Chub Scotch Ale
  


• 
  Big City Brewing Co.'s Lion Heart Stout
  

As always leaving Brewfest had me doing two things. Looking for a meal to soak up some alchol and looking forward to next years Brewfest.

So until next year ... Cheers!, A votre sante!, Alla Salute!, Egé szé gé re!, Kanpai!, Na Zdrowie!, Ooogy Wawa!, Prosit!, Salud!, Saúde!, Skal!, Slainte!, Wen Lie!, Yasas!, Za vashe zdorovye!, Zivili! and Zum Wohl!

Russell Beattie Notebook - What's on my Nokia 6600/6620 is another good list of series 60 apps.

To paraphrase a wise man "I believe someone just went to Philadelphia...so ...uh... BLOG."

Erin and I just got home from Philly. We went to visit our friends Kate and Josh. There were several things that could have spoiled our weekend but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.

To start with we missed our flight. I am not talking about running up to the gate as the door is shut in your face; on top of leaving the house a half hour after we planned we had to stand in a 30 min baggage check line and then an hour plus security line, mostly due to the Spring Break crowd. We had to fly standby. The problem with flying standby due to a busy airport is that you are not the only one flying standby. There were about 10 people in addition to us who were on the list. We missed the 10:45. We missed the 3:15. The 5:45 came around and we were looking pretty good. A lot of the "others" had either made a flight or given up and gone home. We stood at the gate as the confirmed passengars were loaded and the attendants made the final counts. 2 seats left ... Mr. and Mrs. Leggett enjoy your flight. So, we jump for joy and then board the plane ... only one problem ... only one available seat. Apparently someone was in the bathroom or something during the count. So, I get back off the plane and send Erin on ahead. I am now looking down the barrel of another 5 hours until the next flight which I am still not confirmed on. Thankfully the gate attendant felt bad for the miscount and offered me a confirmed seat on the 10:45. Hurray, now all I have to do is kill the time between now and then so in the immortal words of Ford Perfect I decided that "[I] must get drunk immediately!", so I did.

I can't tell you everything that I did for those few hours primarily because I can't remember. I would like to thank DND from The Dawn and Drew Show! for helping me kill a couple hours. I got a few funny looks when I laughed out loud at the funniest parts.

Finally, 10:00 aproaches and low and behold my flight is delayed due to the weather wherever my plane is coming from. It is rescheduled for 12:15. The plane finally does show up and as I am boarding the plane my clock chimes 1:00. I tried unsucessfully to sleep during the 2 hour flight and landed in Philly a little after 3:00. One $20 taxi and a cold beer later I curled up to sleep in K and J's apt.

I said that there were several things but, I have rambled on so much I will give you the high points: Sideways Rain on Saturday, 33 degree wind chill on Sunday, beautiful on Monday as we left for the Airport.

After all of that though I would like to stress that Erin and I had a really good time. Kate and Josh were a blast (I miss seeing them). We saw the Dali exibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art which was awesome.

Well I guess all of this just gives us an excuse to go back soon. I guarantee that I will make it to the airport about 7 hours early next time.

iCopulate, funny ... very funny.

Odes to hair:

• Flat-Top Crewcuts


• World Beard and Moustache Championships


• Mullets Galore

I recieved this very funny bit attributed to John Cleese today in an email:

John Cleese: Notice of Revocation of Independence
2005-02-13 Politics

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your
failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern
yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your
independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other
territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new Prime
Minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who
have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders)
will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further
elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire
will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To
aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules
are introduced with immediate effect:

You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then
look up "aluminium." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed
at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be
reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'; skipping the
letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you
will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You
will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not
'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise." You
will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh.

You are! welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope
with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary
to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven
words interspersed with filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you
know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up
"interspersed." There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer
show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you
shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary,
then you won't have to use bad language as often.

There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on
your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take
account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It
really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,
upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to
learn how to understand regional accents --- Scottish dramas such as
"Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're
talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as
Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist
in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g.
Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the
_good_ guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play
English characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or
"Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy
American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political
incorrectness.

You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen",
but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get
confused and give up half way through.

You should stop playing American "football." There is only one kind of
football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good
game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your
borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You
will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper
football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It
is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed
to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not
involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar
body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US
Rugby sevens side by 2005.

You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event
called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of
America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond
your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you
will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders," which is
baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or
hotdogs.

You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer
be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a
vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to
handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you
wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new
national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive
Day."
All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your
own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we
mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts.
You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same
time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit
of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you
understand the British sense of humour.

You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call 'French fries'
are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though
97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe)
are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on
calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick
cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is
beer which should be served warm and flat.
Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all
tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be
doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually
beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter
will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted
provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known
as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's
Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser
company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's
Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last
1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as you
will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with
the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former
USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly
$6/US gallon -- get used to it).

You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or
therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows
that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be
handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without
suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not grown up
enough to handle a gun.

Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to
ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.

I have finally found a version of the Bible that I can read: The Brick Testament

I am going to sound a little Boy Scout here for a second but, it made me feel good so I am going to relate the story.

I was walking on campus earlier today and came across a Flash Drive hanging on a fence post. My first thought was devilishly: "Cool I just found myself a new Flash Drive!" When I flipped the thing over however, I found that much to his credit the owner had put a label with his email address on it. So, I stuck the thing in my pocket and brought it back to the office with me.

I sent an email as soon as I got back and, within an hour, had received a response. We arranged a meeting time and location and within another hour he had it back in his hand. He was understandably very happy to have it back and the smile on his face was priceless.

Remember: Do a good turn daily.

P.S. I would like to thank the other good samaritan in this story; the one who hung the drive on the fence post, instead of stealing it, when they found it.

Erin surprised me with a visit to my work late on Friday. Which is the one and only reason that I look this happy at work (... well that and the fact that it was late on a Friday). 

On Thursday, March 10th, 2005 @ 3:11:06 PM a new high in trash talk, in what was until then a relatively friendly banter, was reached.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words what is a picture of 6 words worth?

Rafe's Blog: Series 60 Freeware is a very good post about freeware series60 apps.

I can't quite figured what I am looking at here: Waterford Crystal. This isn't the first time that I have seen something like this on a blogsite. I realize that it is some form of advertising and I assume that the blog is feed into someother site somewhere but I can't figure out the benefit of doing it this way.

So, I was thinking to my self the other day I wonder what is going on over at "FnkyBuda's Blog" but, then I realized that there is jack squat going on because in order for something to be going on I have to be doing it.

Erin and I went to see Elvis Costello at the Tabernacle Sunday night. The energy was amazing, they played for 2+ hours straight the band even played through the quick guitar changes every few songs. Elvis used no less than six guitars including a "$150 piece of rubbish". That particular guitar sparked one of the most memorable parts of the night when Elvis sang through the pickups on the guitar, that's right held it up and sang into the bridge. It seemed to be impromptu because I noticed that the guy at the sound board got a big kick out of it (and picked up the voice nicely I might add).

As much as Elvis and the imposters were rocking I spent alot of time checking out the Tabernacle. This was my first time back since it was the House of Blues during the olympics and I was happy to see that they kept all of the cool paint. Every surface in the place is patterned with stripes or dots or other designs and there is random cool stuff everywhere. Definately one of the best venues in ATL.

I love google!!! Check out their new "movie:" Search Keyword.

I think that being able to Order pizza from within Everquest is very cool. I have ordered pizza online before so ordering directly from within a game seems like a logical next step.

I can't believe that it has been over 3 months since my last post. I am not sure where I have been.

HUEY-CHIAO.COM offers a Bluetooth Home-phone adapter. I wonder if it works.

There's no place like Home.