Stray Hawkeye

This is a part of the dino saga, if it doesn’t make any sense, read these.

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After a good night’s sleep, we got up early to go tailgating.  Okay, not that early, it was an 8:00 PM game, but the point here is we went tailgating, and Parker got things started off right.

Does anyone else ever wonder if the beer (Land Shark) was named after this really old Saturday Night Live skit, and for that matter, if they had this particular clip in mind when they got naming right for the stadium where the Dolphins play?

No? Just me? Okay, moving on with tailgating then…

A few hours of tailgating later, night falls, and we learn that Parker can apparently hold his beer substantially better than Sinclair.

Yes, Parker was also standing on the car.  Life lesson?  Never buy a used car that was a rental.  Ever.

So, it was getting closer to game time, and we decided to head into Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphin/Land Shark/Sun Life Stadium, up the giant spiraling corkscrew ramp, which gives a pretty good view of the tailgating festivities.

Now you may be saying, “Kearn, those last two pictures don’t have Parker in them at all, and tailgating seemed to go by rather quickly.”  Did I mention we were tailgating, and I was drinking?  Good, now that we’ve cleared that up, I’d like to point out that arepas may be the best drunk food ever.  It’s like you took cornbread, but made it into a sort of pancake form, and then once that was cooked, you heated it up on a grill with cheese (um, a kind that’s white, I have no idea which kind) between two of these cornbread pancake things until it was all gooey and warm.  Delicious.  They serve them at Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphin/Land Shark/Sun Life Stadium.  Anyway, after that delicious break, we made it into the stadium, and back to Parker.  Luckily we left ourselves plenty of time to get to our seats.

“To be in the Hawkeye section, yes.  And to be on about the 45 yard line on the Hawkeye side, absolutely.”

Now, you may notice that between those two pictures, Georgia Tech went about 40 yards on offense.  This was basically the only time this happened during the game.  This was also basically the only time Parker was watching.  Now, I tend to not be too superstitious, but this was enough to make me convince Parker to stay in my pocket for the rest of the game, thus the lack of more game pictures with him.  Once it was safe again, he came came out to watch some more.

This is a part of the larger dino saga, if it doesn’t make any sense, read these.

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After our time on the beach, Parker and I decided to explore the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall in South Beach.  We were a little slow getting there, as Parker decided to stop for a snack.

And of course the bushes are always greener on the other side of the pedestrian walk way, so, we had to try those too.

I let Parker take all the time he want eating those bushes.  “Aren’t plants delicious Parker?”

“Phew, good.”

“What’s that Kearn?”

“Oh, nothing.”

South Beach – where even the mannequins have implants.

Let it be noted that the store Parker is posing in front of in this picture was selling Hawkeye gear.  And only Hawkeye gear.  No general sports merchandise.  Just Iowa Hawkeye clothes and memorabilia, and nothing else.  In Miami.  There was absolutely no Georgia Tech (the other team in the Orange Bowl) stuff, or any other store like it selling Georgia Tech stuff.  And it wasn’t a sports store that just rotates through whatever team is visiting for whatever game – it was an empty store front on Saturday, it was a full fledged Hawkeye store on Monday.  Apparently word gets out about how well our fans travel.

We had walked a ways, so Parker grabbed another snack.

“And you’re sure you’re okay with just eating plants, right Parker?”

“Oh, good.  I mean, I think we can find you something to drink.  How about that fountain over there?”

So we kept walking down to the end of the block, until finally we found…

After Parker had his fill, we decided to head back to the hotel and relax for a while.  We wanted to be well rested for tailgating the next day, so we decided to turn in early.  I tucked Parker into his little dino bunk…

And we slept with dreams of Hawkeye bowl wins in our heads.

Not to be confused with previous Free Idea Friday Cold Beer, this would be a website that lists bars, and their beer prices, only.  No pictures, no reviews or editorials.  No descriptions of the crowd that gathers there and how cool/trendy/hipster/tattooed/townie/gay bar/dance club/meat market/dive/etc it is.  Just a list of what beers the bar serves.  It would also need to note which are on tap, in bottles, and in cans, and the price of each.  It should also list if the bar ever charges a cover charge.

I’m a little up in the air still on if specials should be noted, or if it should just be the maximum price you will ever pay for a given beer at a given bar.  I’m also a little up in the air on if it should include other types of drinks they have (cider, wine, cocktails, shots), and if so, do you limit it to what’s on the menu, or whatever they’ll make.  I would lean towards including all alcohol that’s listed on the menu (if there is one), and noting specials but not real prominently.

The website should also allow you to search by distance from a given location, by which bars have a particular beer (for instance, Guinness on tap, PBR in a 20 oz can, Fat Tire in a bottle, etc), price for a given beer, and any combination of the above (for instance, find a bar within a mile that has Guinness on tap for $5 or less, doesn’t serve 20oz’s of PBR, and has some kind of hard cider).

I think this would be interesting not only as a great way to find a cheap place to drink with your friends and a handy way to find place that serve any obscure beers you may like, but also for how much you could tell about a place by what beers they have there and the price of each.

Make a refrigerator that consists of several horizontal draws, kind of like a clothes dresser. This would keep the cold air in better when you open it because the cold air would attempt to go down, but is stuck in the drawer, so it can’t pour out the bottom like in a normal fridge. It would also only expose a small amount to the fridge to heat, so when you open it, at worst you’re only letting out about a fifth of the cold air. Air could circulate between drawers through the rear of each, allowing for one cooling unit, and each could be sealed off pretty simply when they open.

This design would also make it easier to clean (take out one drawer at a time without needing to let the whole thing warm up). It would also help eliminate the waste of having empty space at the back of shelves, and letting cold air out as you try to dig to the back of a shelf looking for something.

You could also then adapt the idea so that the fridge could be more horizontal that vertical (maybe 6 feet wide with 3 columns of drawers, and a couple of feet tall) so you wouldn’t need to bend down to get to the bottom, or stand on your tip toes to see the back of the top shelf.  This would take up some valuable counter level space in the kitchen (or could be just below counter level, as the food would be in drawers that you would still want to look down into), but the fridge is easily the most accessed part of any kitchen (except maybe the sink), so I think it justifies the space it would take.

It would also keep kids and pets from attempting to climb into the fridge every time you open it.

• The Bloomberg Way – A short quote, but I’m pretty sure it proves I will never write for, or most likely, enjoy reading anything from Bloomberg News, however, I admittedly don’t know all that much about them.
• I like Wendy’s logo / brand, in no small part because of their total lack of modern update.  And as ultra cheap fast food goes, it’s not bad.
• What do you call someone who compulsively stores jars full of baby poop in a freezer for over 30 years, adding to the collection on a regular basis?  Um, a scientist.  They apparently also go for fruit bat blow jobs.  And hell, while we’re at it, growing rabbit penises in a lab.  Because really, that’s what the world needs, more rabbit penises.
• Brawndo begins it’s assent to world power.  Here’s the commercial they reference in that article:
  
  And, of course, where to buy it.

Start a bar simply named “Cold Beer”.  Bonus points if it’s in Minnesota or an equally fridged state.

Yes, it’s the guy who does Mr Bean:

Make a show / podcast that features very, very basic, bare bones recipes. Things like how to make scrambles eggs in the microwave, or how to use a George Foreman grill to make a full meal. Also include some of the more creative / interesting, yet simple, recipes for single serving cooking. Think dorm room and bachelor cooking.  Call the show “Probably Edible”.

I know milk is more the standard, but have you ever tried dunking your Oreos in orange juice?  It’s pretty good.

• Cool cake 1 – This piano cake is clever and looks pretty easy to make. (Via Craftzine)
• Cool cake 2 – This Van Gogh cake is quite a bit more advanced, but really cool.  If you click through that one to the cake maker’s (megpi) Flickr portfolio, she has all sort of other cool ones too.  I especially like this peacock cake with accompanying cupcakes, and this UFO one- the cow detail is awesome.
• And, a cute, non-traditional penguin pumpkin for Halloween. (Via Craftzine)

So, I feel bad pointing out errors in web design publicly, because I completely realize how hard it is to get it right across all browsers, and operating systems, and all their different quirks.  This site admittedly has its bugs from time to time as I mess with it (just fixed one (I think) that’s been bugging me forever with IE where it says “to here” under the date on each post), and I’ve worked on plenty of sites at work that have had far larger issues.  However, for a really, really little spacing issue, that happens to line up just so, this one made me laugh, so I thought in good humor, I’d share it.

I was reading about the new Lyndale Tap House on Because Emily Says So, and it sounds absolutely delicious.  So, I clicked through to their website to see where exactly it is, so I can go some time.  And, on my particular computer, with my OS and web browser, and, in particular, whatever fonts I happen to have installed on my machine, the home page looks like this:

It looks fine in IE on Windows (the title is notably more narrow), in Firefox on Windows it’s wider but still okay, but in Firefox on Linux, well, I’m not sure that’s the image they’re going for, though sort of a nice overlay effect none the less.  And I really like the cow in the bottom corner.

Something randomly occurred to me, which may well be beyond common sense for most people, but I had never thought about it before.

I was always told you shouldn’t drink really hot things (like hot cocoa or tea) through a straw, because they’d burn your mouth that way. It was one of those things that got ingrained as motherly wisdom, but on first blush, it makes absolutely no sense. How would something passing through a plastic tube make it hotter?

However, while drinking my toasty warm coffee, I noticing myself blowing on it, and two and two came together. Even if you don’t blow on it, the liquid at the bottom of the mug is much better insulated than the liquid at the top of the mug. The stuff at the bottom (assuming it’s not being stirred a bunch), has all of the liquid above it to insulate it from the colder air above it, as well as the mug insulating it on the sides and below. So, it would make sense then that the liquid at the top is cooler, as it’s not as well insulated and it’s transferring heat to the surrounding air. So, when you take a sip off the top, you’re getting coffee that has had some of the heat removed by the air around it, and you are basically taking a slice off the top of the coolest liquid. However, when you use a straw, you’re piping the most well insulated liquid (and therefore hottest part) directly into your mouth.  Thus, burnt tongue.

Amazing how counter-intuitive folk-ish wisdom can make so much sense. Or maybe everyone else figured this out when they were five, and I’m just slow.

Now if someone could explain to me why eating apples, or apple derived products, gives me bloody noses the next day.  Seriously.  Anyone?  Because it’s really annoying and I kind of like apples.

It was announced on Monday that the Star Tribune, one of the Twin Cities two major newspapers, has finally emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Not a whole lot of news there, they’ve been struggling for a while, had lots of layoffs, and as long as I’ve lived here there’s been speculation about their impending doom (you know, being a newspaper and all).  Especially with competition from bloggers, who can publish stories immediately and who can update their stories to be absolutely current as new facts come to light, where as, due to the printing and distribution process of newspapers, everything in newspapers is necessarily from the previous day.  Perhaps the traditional news industry could compete better if they just rebranded themselves as the recents.  The Star Tribune, one of our two major recentpapers.  That sounds about right.

But one of the things that has always struck me as a little odd since moving to the Twin Cities is that we have two major recentpapers here, the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press.  It would seem that with the challenges that are facing the dead tree edition of the news, that it would make sense to combine these papers – half the writers / double the potential circulation for each.  It would seem like the smart business move.  I’m sure there are tons of reasons this hasn’t happened, and admittedly I’ve never really cared enough about ink on pulp action to really investigate why this is, but it does set my mind wondering, to the really important question facing the recents industry…

What would they name it if they combined the two?

Now obviously, they couldn’t just keep one name and let the other one die.  Too many hurt feelings that way, wasted name recognition, and it doesn’t really signal the new start they need.

No, they need a whole new identity, something that would really give them a presence that people would take note of.

The Star Press?

The Pioneer Tribune?

No, neither seems quite right, still pretty bland.  Maybe we could combine the names more…

The Stress?

No, though not bad.

The Piobune?

No, sounds like a new medication or a medical condition.

What about….

I’ve got it!!

Now that would put those pesky bloggers on notice.

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

Via Swiss Miss

Do they have these at the State Fair yet?  How about now?  Now?

Via Craftzine