pretty

i must once again wax poetic about beer.

tonight, i had no intention of having a beer, but as the evening progressed, and i'd hauled in some firewood (which my neighbor "stole" and had to return - they'd left it on his lawn because of the dumpster in my driveway, and he was also expecting a delivery), i decided that a trip the local liquor store was in order.

on a side note, i love living in washington county, where the liquor stores are open until 10pm every day! it has made me gleeful on many occasions.

so anyway, i was duly rewarded for my trip - some winter brews were in already! yippee! i picked up winterhook, and it's wonderful. it has a full bodied, complex flavor, with hints of chocolate and caramel. mmm-mmmm. one of my perennial favorites.

but that's not all! the bottle is beautiful! just take a look at the photo. there is a sharp-looking dual label that bounds hops-in-relief that circle the midsection of the bottle. the redhook logo is also textured on the bottle.

i am so happy with my purchase.

i'm glad that the little things can still make me happy. life is awesome that way.

offer ends 10/31

from the dumb little man: get a $25 gift certificate to a restaurant for $2.
details here: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008/10/how-to-get-25-gift-certificate-for-2.html
caveat: restaurant.com seems to be down at the moment. the servers probably went down because everyone who reads dlm is trying it out.

of eyebrows and regrets

i think i laughed out loud when i read the following sentence in a magazine: "one of my biggest regrets in life: over-plucking my eyebrows."

let us keep a small bit of perspective here. it is statistically probable that today, some people gambled away their life savings. some folks behaved badly and got fired. some driver talking on the phone hit and killed someone.

honey, if your eyebrows are one of your biggest regrets, you are one of the most fortunate people ever to live.

that said, over-plucking is certainly a personal grooming tragedy. i've personally never found the pencil-line brows to be the least bit attractive, but that's just me. i had a girfriend that religiously waxed her eyebrows, and occasionally overdid the tails to nothing, looking a little like spock. rowr - not. however, professionally shaped and groomed eyebrows are certainly quite nice. kristian alfonso gets my vote for best eyebrows ever.

so if you are reading this and you are vain ;) and you live in the st. paul/minneapolis area, you can visit extrados to discover a brow shape that will complement your face shape and structure.

doing something else

can anyone explain the psychology of feeling like you should be doing something else? if i go climbing, it nags me that i'm not working on the house. if i work on the house, i feel like i should be doing grading. if i'm grading papers, i bemoan the fact that i won't be able to ride. if i ride, i think maybe i should have spent the time working on barni the bus. if i work on barni, i'm ignoring the puppy.

and so on.

perhaps i should go climbing instead of sitting her blogging.

the secret

the secret movie is online. the basic premise is that of the laws of attraction. you attract what you think. thoughts become things.

one point they make that i especially like is that if you get all stressed about how you don't want to be late, you will probably be late, because the universe hears you focusing on lateness. i was just talking with the opposing skip yesterday about how i never say "don't be light" - because all they hear is light. i'll always say "it's okay to be heavy."

if you think physics and metaphysics and you are all interrelated, check the movie out.

caveat: no full screen mode.

time warp

have you ever (of course you have) done something that was a flashback from another time? just this morning i was doing laundry. i started up the machine, then poured my liquid soap into the cap. i filled the cap.

whoa, honey! we haven't done soap that way since the last millennium.

where did that come from? what made my brain dig back two decades to a time when the appropriate tide dosage equated to fill-er-up? why did this happen today? now that this latent memory has been refreshed, will it happen again tomorrow? has my innate ability to handle mundane autopilot tasks been undermined? sheesh.

perhaps my inner bobby brady is just manifesting itself.

tough getting old and (more) senile

does it ever happen to you (of course it does, this is a rhetorical question), where you simply can't remember a word? and a fairly common word? i was trying to remember a word earlier, and for the life of me just couldn't come up with it.

it means to not have sex.*

sobriety was the only word coming to mind. obviously not it.

abstinence. yes, you could practice abstinence, but that still wasn't it.

total blank.

about 15 minutes later, the light bulb finally came on.

celibacy! that was it!

good thing i've been senile since birth, or i'd worry that i was losing my marbles.

*yah, i know. why would i even need to use such a word? pretty silly. but anyway.

gratuitous post

i need to do a post just out of principle. so put on your blog goggles.*

i'm finally semi-retired again. no more day job, just teaching two classes at hennepin tech. i wish i hadn't still been working at the start of the semester. i want to cry every time i think of how far behind i am on grading.

and the weather has been holding up, but i've still not got the upstairs insulated. or wired, which needs to be done before i can finish insulating. or internally framed, which needs to be done before i can do wiring. on the up side, the outside is almost finished. just a few dabs** of paint left.

on the simple dollar blog, trent reviewed a book called a perfect mess, professing that sometimes disorder is better than order. while i have historically been a pretty tidy person, i've had to learn to live with disarray while in the midst of remodeling. i'll have to check out the book to help me cope. or at least feel better about my loss of order.

until my blogging mojo is back, peace out.

*cousin of beer goggles
** to the untrained eye of someone who is not doing the work