Brian

Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland
My review
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I'm really not sure what this book wants to be. Is it sci-fi/fantasy? Is it inspired by Buffy (the TV series)? Is it a romance novel? I'm almost leaning toward the last option, because half the book is just sex scenes.
I did like the rest of it though: seers and demon killers and half human/half whatever breeds. Those parts were fun to read. Unfortunately, the preview for Book Two (at least it says right on the cover that it's a series) indicates there will be more chasing after lost love and angst, so I don't feel any need to read further in the series.
Next up is Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi (yes, What God Can Do For You Now has been postponed indefinitely).

Coppery red color with good head retention and lacing. I actually get a good amount of malt sweetness along with the predominant hop aroma.
Very well-balanced flavor, though tending toward the hop side of things. Pine mostly, a bit of citrus, countered with a caramel undertone. Left a sort of butter coating on the tongue, and I felt the crisp drying hop finish was a nice touch.
Sometimes I think we give too much credit to the extreme alcohol beers and not enough credit to these "low" alcohol brews. This is a good example of packing a lot of flavor and nuance into what many would think is a "simple" beer category.
Overall rating: 4.45

I had been a little disappointed with my first foray into Magic Hat beers a couple of years ago, but I decided to jump back in with their fall and winter offerings. This time, I was more pleased with the results.
Jinx pours a scant head with no lacing, but is a fine ruby red color.
The aroma is strong, smoky and malty at the same time. Perhaps even a bit of a whiskey or bourbon in there?
The first time I drank this I thought it tasted almost chocolatey. There's more to it than that. There is a good hop bite to it, peppery really. Underlying it all is a solid malt sweetness. And finishing it off is that lovely warm alcohol ester.
Smooth drinker, and a damn fine beer.
Overall rating: 4.55

Lovely sticky lacing on a good frothy head.
Not much aroma detected, and the initial feel is watery. But the beer comes back strong, with a nice hoppy bitterness. It is balanced a bit by a bit of malt sweetness, but still is mainly the hops that dominate, and not much else. Still pretty good for all that.

Overall rating: 3.95

I haven't been so excited about the results of an election... Well, ever.

Now, let's get to work.

I got in line this morning shortly after 6am, waited about 30 minutes, and cast my vote for Obama. Not too shabby for what's expected to be a huge turnout.
No matter who you support, get out and vote today.

What a fun weekend. On Saturday, we went to the La Maison Française at the French Embassy to see a Czech performer doing a show with bubbles. Yeah, the soap bubble kind. It was really cool, and Ellie and Evan LOVED it. I came home to catch up on the Michigan State game, and promptly scared the kids with my yelling at the TV. It would have been fine if the MSU receivers could have caught the freakin' ball a little more often! Still, a win is a win, and we're unbelievably 8-2 right now, with Purdue at home next, before the big game at Penn State on November 22. It's a pretty exciting time for MSU football, shockingly enough.
We finally decided on Saturday to pull up the old crappy carpet on the stairs, so that we could get rid of the drywall that's been sitting around forever. I pulled the carpet up on Saturday evening, and there were actually pretty nice hardwood stairs underneath! A little TLC, and they'll look really nice. On Sunday morning, I tore down the paneling on one side of the stairs, so I could drop the drywall in. The demolition was fun (Lisa remarked that she's glad I have protective eyewear: there were a lot of splinters flying around!). It was a little frustrating though, just because there always seem to be gotchas whenever we try to redo something around our house. But we ended up managing to get the drywall mostly in place before I had to leave for curling.
Yes, the curling season has begun. For most people, it even started a couple of weeks ago, but I scaled back my schedule, so I'm only playing on Sundays. My team jumped out to a 3-0 lead, then a 6-1 lead, before wrapping up the win at 12-2. It's Pizza League though, so I wouldn't say I played great, or read anything into the results. We could just as easily get killed next week. But it is fun, which is how I like it right now. And it was especially fun coming home and watching the Giants whip the Cowboys. Man, do they need Tony Romo back or what?
So, to the subject of this post. Our local Safeway has a gas station. They give you $0.10 per gallon off for every $100 you spend in the store, or $0.03 just for being a member. We apparently had been racking up the credits and had spent $400 in the past couple of weeks, so we got a $0.40 discount. Off the $2.44 price. So we paid $2.04 per gallon. Wow. We spent only $25 to fill up the tank of our Odyssey, just a few months after routinely paying double that. Crazy.

Pale orange color, with a nice head filling to the top of the glass, and retaining well throughout.
Aroma is of pine and very floral hops. Perhaps a touch of lemon too.
The flavor is a mouth full of flowery goodness, grapefruit, and bitter hops. The sharp hop bitterness lingers at the back of the mouth, but is just pleasant enough, though perhaps not so for non-hop heads.
Really nice beer, I could just sit and sniff it for hours.
Overall rating: 4.8 (new record!)

The weekend actually worked out fairly perfectly, all things considered. On Friday night, we had tickets to go to "Boo at the Zoo": trick-or-treating at the National Zoo. It was already pretty crowded by the time we got there, but the lines weren't all that long. Thankfully, there were a few monkeys awake for Evan to see (read: freak out about). And while the pandas were asleep, they are cute when asleep. Plus, we got a lot of candy. I don't think we need to go around to the neighborhood at this point.
It rained pretty much all day Saturday, which was okay because we had indoor activities planned for the most part. Unfortunately, Ellie also had to go to the doctor, but she seems to be perfectly fine now. It was her friend Claire's birthday party that day, so she had some fun playing there, and then we were off to the "Air and Scare" at the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space museum. Not as fun as the zoo, but way more crowded due to it being free (aside from parking). We were lucky to get there early, because by the time we left a little before 6pm, the line to get into the place was insanely long, almost 2 miles backed up onto the road to get in. And there was nowhere to park once you got in either. So lucky us for getting there early. After that, since it was still pouring rain, it seemed like a good night to head to an Irish pub for dinner. I had fish and chips and a Guinness, and they were good enough to put the MSU-UM game on the TV for me, so I got to see the fourth quarter and MSU close out a big win. Loved the look on Rich Rodriguez's face every time the Wolverines made another stupid play. Thankfully, the idiot replay official's call on the first U-M touchdown didn't cost us either.
Finally, yesterday was a beautiful fall day for another birthday party, which wrapped up just in time for us to head home and catch the Giants beat the Steelers. I was so worried that the Giants would dominate every statistic and yet find a way to lose thanks to two big plays by the Steelers, but they managed to do just enough to pull out the victory. It was a big win, as they are about to head into an absolutely brutal stretch of games to end the season.
This should be another busy week for us. The Town of Vienna's Halloween parade is on Wednesday, Halloween itself is on Friday. And curling starts on Sunday! Oh, and Guitar Hero is scheduled for delivery on Tuesday. Aw yeah.

Big substantial head. Nice reddish-brown color. The head gives the illusion of murkiness underneath.
Mostly malty aroma. Full-flavored with raisins and maybe even a tinge of dark chocolate in the back of the mouth.
Thin layer of alcohol coats the tongue and there is a nice bite from the carbonation as well.
Tremendous beer, the only disappointment was the aroma, but it doesn't distract too much.
Overall rating: 4.3