Ratsofrass

When I was 17
I drank some very good beer
I drank some very good beer
I purchased with a fake ID
My name was Brian McGee
I stayed up listening to Queen
When I was 17

Okay - It wasn’t quite that long ago, but I did drink some very good beer from Big Rock sometime ago. It’s been gone a long time now…

But it’s back! May 1st! In stores! The beer is… Magpie!!! (Read the link if don’t know about what is one of the few rye ales out there)

I regularly visit Big Rock Restaurant, and the beer store attached to it, both of which are well worth a visit if you are looking for lunch in the 52 St / Glenmore SE industrial area. I have been lamenting the loss of Magpie pretty much every time I drop into the beer store. I kept getting the same response for the last while. Something along the lines of ‘We hear that a lot. Have patience, it might be back sometime.’ Thus, my continual lamentation. Teasing Ralph with beer bad. Ralph no happy. Ralph keep pestering Big Rock to bring back beer.

Last time I was in the beer store I get a different response. Do you have a few minutes? Come with me. We go upstairs to what is normally used as a wind down space after the beer tours, where they have some taps that you can sample the normal Big Rock products. Except now there are no normal products there, only a bunch of new beers I have never seen before, except the Magpie. My excitement is building - Magpie returns AND a bunch of new specialty beers? Could Big Rock be back to it’s roots of brewing good beer, domestic be damned?

We belly up to the bar, where sample glasses are being poured. Magpie must be had first - it is true to what I remember - must stock up when this one comes out, May 1st I have been told. I continue down the line and quickly come to the conclusion that Big Rock is back when it comes to brewing unique specialty beers that are different from the standard domestic mold. It’s been a month since I sampled them so forgive my beer and age inhibited memory.

There is a picture of an IPA that I believe is the new bitter. According to Big Rock, it’s very bitter. For you hop heads out there I would say it’s on the bitter side, but not extreme. It mellows to a nice floral aftertaste as you have a few sips. Could pair very well with a curry. There was a cherry beer that is going to be popular with the ladies - these tend to be too sweet sometimes, but Big Rock has resisted that and made something a little more citrus like, not to heavy on the cherry flavor. It will make an excellent summer beer for when you can’t decide between a cooler and a beer. There was an oak aged beer that I wasn’t too fond of. If you like that oak aged Innis & Gunn’s beer you should check this one out when it’s out. There was another heavy roast beer than had a wonderful smokey flavor - complex with changing flavors that I can’t even peg until I sit down with a whole glass. Woe is me - so much beer to choose from in front of me I didn’t have time to properly enjoy them. I can’t even remember the others. I think we were at around 7 taps, so there is at least one more, there might have been a tap of Trad or such mixed in there I didn’t notice.

According to the Big Rock Blog, it’s all part of there new Brewmaster’s Series of beers. Everyone of them different, with the first one being the triumphant return of Magpie. Now, unfortunately, it’s not a permanent return - it’s supposed to be one of a seasonal rotation of beers. The blog only has a hint of what is to come, (post to follow soon according to them). At least when the Magpie rotates out, I’ll have others to look forward to!

{edit Apr 15th} Went to the Big Rock for lunch today. Due to production issues with the new packaging, Magpie is delayed until the end of May. The good news is that Magpie is available on tap in the restaurant now!

Google Streetview for Calgary got released today. I ended up blowing away more time at work looking at this that I should have, but oh well, it’s not every day that Streetview gets released for your city, and being a big Streetview junky, I was going to have to look up a few hundred things first before I could sate myself and get back to work.

In the process I noticed a few things. Quite a few things. Some of which I’ve investigated further this evening and am now posting on.

For starters, I’m pretty sure that Streetview plots its’ images automatically by matching the GPS co-ordinates of the road map with the CPS co-ordinates of the car at the time the picture is taken. This should work quite well, until there is a problem with the road map being off. Road maps are off in a lot of places in Calgary due to changes, and I have found that the current Google map seems to be skewed a bit in general.
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I bought the Canon Digital Rebel T1i, the 10-22mm Canon lens and the 70-200 F4 L lens + 1.4 extender, along with the kit lens, 18-55mm.

Having previously owed the original digital Canon Rebel, I found my T1i to be light years ahead of the original. But I was expecting that, having researched things so completely, while I was waiting for the dollars to be able to buy the thing. I could have bought the T1i earlier, but I was actually considering Nikon briefly, since I was starting from scratch after being robbed of all my original gear. So, I was actually buying into a system - and that’s very important to think about in a camera if you are doing more than family snaps. You need to look to see if the system has the range of lenses and parts that you want for your photography.

So what do I think, having had this thing for a month and shot a thousand odd photos? (more…)

def: meta Something of a higher or second-order kind - AskOxford.com

Or, this is a review about review sites. Specifically, photography equipment review sites.

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I got a Wacom tablet this spring to help stave off carpel tunnel on my mousing wrist. I was expecting to use it only for drawing site maps, where the continual mousing all day drawing was becoming a strain. I have yet to draw much with it but I find that I’m using it more for day to day software, including the database software we use that has the crappiest interface I have seen on business software for sale. I SHOULD be able to do anything I want with a keyboard, but I am forced to use the mouse, for all those missing keyboard shortcuts. Once I start using the mouse, I tend to finish what I’m doing using the mouse. As of late, I’ve gotten very good at quickly heading the right hand over to the mouse, clicky-draggy on the one or two items I need to get with the mouse, then go back to the keyboard.
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‘Ya know, having to buy computer stuff for work means you end up buying a lot more stuff for yourself. But based on the previous 2 days happenings, I think I have a pretty good excuse. Besides, $150/TB of external HDD goodness seems like a good deal, but what do I know? I don’t follow this stuff regularly.
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I don’t know why I’m not big into the Calgary comic expo, because I do like comics. I attended in 2008, and mostly went for the SF BSG, and ST:TOS guests. But for the comic part of the convention? Meh. I suppose a lot of it has to do with comics focusing so much on super heroes and manga, both of which I’m not that interested in. I classify myself as interested in “other” or “Sunday Funnys” comics, which, at least the Calgary convention, does not pay much attention to. So, being the holidays, and being that you might just possibly have some free time to peruse the funny pages, I give you my list of comics that I follow on a regular basis:

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And so it begins:

We will let you know by email after each item in your order ships. If you ordered multiple items, you may receive separate shipments with no additional shipping charges.

I had just ordered a Mac mini to be the first component in what will ultimately be my new multimedia entertainment system, plus a wireless Apple mouse and keyboard. I ordered the keyboard mouse despite some misgivings about the quality of the keyboard versus the price, but the old school techie in me still thinks that you can’t have an IBM keyboard touch a Mac device (the Mac would be dirtied). I *know* better, but sometimes emotions will cloud the judgment of even the most die-hard spec-comparing-component-configuring- geek. Who am I kidding - geeks are just as ruled by emotion as anyone else. I wanted a “pure” Apple system, and by Jobs, I was going to have one!

Sure enough, as the order acknowledgment warned, my keyboard and mouse showed up this last week, a good week before my Mac mini (base model, with 1GB RAM upgrade for you scccg’s out there).

Now, you have to understand where this next part comes from. I’ve always liked Apple computers. The first computer I ever used was a black Apple ][. When I was young I wanted an Apple ][, //, //e, //c; I was really close to buying one until my Dad offered to pay for 1/2 a computer because he needed one to help run his business. You can guess what we ended up with. When I grew up and had to use computers for a living, I always wanted to buy an Apple computer, but could never justify the extra cost of a Mac, especially for something that wasn’t mainstream for the kind of computing I was doing - games, spreadsheets, and databases. Now, finally, I have both a reason and enough spare income to justify this little extravagance - I mean, it’s going to be mostly to watch bitto- I mean legally downloaded videos and streaming stuff off of the ‘net upstairs away from my “work” computer.

So, I’m just a little bit like a kid opening a Christmas present, my first Apple component of my very own. First the box it came in was *light*. We are talking so light I was wondering if Apple just shipped me an empty box to fuck with my mind. I open the box. Inside are two iWhite smaller boxes, that also feel like empty boxes that Apple shipped to me to fuck with my mind. I start with what would be the mouse. Lo - a mouse is inside! Part of the reason it’s so light is that it comes with Lithium AA’s - should last a long time, and feel like they’d float away compared to regular AA’s. The mouse iWhite, with that understated design that just looks like something organic. It feels pretty good to click, the whole mouse actually pivots forward when you click, so I have no idea how it picks up left vs. right click. I’ll need to use it to actually see how good it is.

There actually was a keyboard in the box that looked like it might hold a keyboard. I wasn’t sure at the time because the box was so darn small, and you guessed it, so is the keyboard. It was one of those times where shopping online just doesn’t prepare you for what you are getting. Yes, I saw a picture of it from the top and poo-pooed the chicklet looking keyboard, saw the side profile and went, oh it’s kind of thin, but I didn’t actually look at the dimensions. My first reaction was ‘holy crap - it’s small!!!” Oh, and if you didn’t guess, it’s light too. It’s a solid little sucker, being made of actual anodized aluminum frame, and iWhite chicklet keys. I’m not expecting to actually have to type more that www.blahblahblah.com on this thing, so I wasn’t too worried about the feel, but it’s actually pretty good, not the full travel of a real keyboard, but pretty good feed back, an actually a bit clicky versus mushy. Also none of this binding you get with some cheap keyboards if you don’t hit the keys right on the center. Oh, when I say it’s small, the keys are not small, it just doesn’t take up any more space that it has to for a query set of keys and a set of function keys on the top plus the option / modifier keys on the bottom. I opened up the battery component and was again impressed with the solidness of the components. Apple started with a solid piece of round steel bolt for the battery cover, then machined out the grooves and the tensioned ball bearings that keep the cover in place. I showed the thing to my Dad, and even he said, “oh yah, dat is very nice”. So if an old German thinks it’s solid, it’s *solid* let me tell you. It’s very pretty too, the shiny anodized aluminum with the white keys looks very stylish. But I’m a sucker for solid simple design too.

So after having played with this thing for about ten minutes, I got to the next stage: lets fire this wireless puppy up and connect it to the iMac… Drat. I want to play with this thing - it’s not just a tool that sometimes gets in the way of getting stuff done - this actually might be *fun* to use, something I haven’t really felt for some time with computers now.

I can feel my Mac weenie growing already.

So last week I flew Westjet east to Ottawa and returned west on Air Canada. That sounds like it’s backwards, but hey, it’s the way it worked out. The situation being such that Westjet didn’t have a flight at a time I wanted, it’s been a while since I’ve flown with the airline. I hadn’t seen the leather seats and in-seat-back screens they have been harping about, but I had an experience with an early version of Air Canada’s screens - which favorably impressed me.
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Pub Makes Amends and Proves the Personal Touch can Still be Found in Calgary

Address: 5340 2nd St. SW Calgary

I love management that actually cares about what people think of their establishment. They know that word of mouth can be the kiss of death or the hot inside tip that spreads like wild fire. In these days of blogging, a new twist has been thrown in: managers can comment back on blog entries rather than just hoping for the best with old-style word of mouth.
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