A rare Tuesday report - courtesy of my company and their vacation benefit - starts out like any other - with a Cone Smoker. It's back to style #1, which is very good, especially after having to endure the BBC porter I've had for the past few days.

After my Cone Smoker I tried one of NABC's Beaks Best ESB beers. For a beer with the word "bitter" in the name it wasn't bad at all. A lot darker and more complex than I expected.

One interesing thing (to me at least) was that MisunderstoodGirl plays both the guitar and the bass guitar, and speaks Arabic. She also painted the numerous new pieces of artwork adorning the walls at Rich O's. This girl has more sides to here than a D&D dice set. Sigh. If only she wasn't so far out there in weirdo land.

Next I had a Community Dark just to have something to drink. I detected some roast malt character this time that I hadn't noticed before. Still pretty good and still pretty bland.

After Rich O's closed I went to another bar with LaptopGirl and a couple of other Rich O's regulars.

For some odd reason that I cannot recall I decided to have a PBR. It, like the Falls City I had a couple of months ago, wasn't nearly as bad as I remember. Not a lot to describe about it. It was just good and mellow.

Meanwhile, I find LaptopGirl to be more and more fascinating every time I talk to her. She has shown some really shallow sides to her personality but at other times, like tonight, she has shown some depth beyond her years. Her extreme intelligence, along with her dorky cuteness, makes her the official hottie of Rich O's and the woman that most makes me wish I were ten years younger. I get the impression that age is an issue with her, though I can't imagine too many guys her age being able to keep up with her mentally.

I didn't expect to have a beer report tonight. For one thing, I'm playing in a pool tournament (see the pool blog), and for another, I didn't expect the hotel bar to have anything worth drinking.

Well I finished my only match of the day before 7:00 PM, and the hotel bar had BBC Dark Star Porter.

I've had this before, a long time ago. It's not my favorite. A little too bitter for my taste, and the roasted malt was a little weird tasting.

Still, it was a lot better than anything else in the hotel bar. Just not quite as good as the Bad Elmer's I had a few weeks ago.

This entry is a day late for a simple reason. My Internet provider sucks. I was offline for about 8 hours total yesterday, and during those brief periods when I was online I had to use the time for some real work.

Saturday I was in the mood for a little experimenting. I first had a beer that's been recommended to me several times by MisunderstoodGirl, Delerium Tremens. I guess I liked it, but I can't really explain why. There was nothing remarkable about it except its smoothness.

Next I had a little Chouffe Nice. Again, this was okay, but I think a little too fruity (tasting) for me to ever have another.

Next I ended my experimenting by having a Cone Smoker and an Anchor Christmas Ale.

One particular item of interest was LaptopGirl, dressed like a homeless person as usual, is proving to have quite a hot little body under all those rags and hippie clothes she wears. CoffeeDude agreed with me on this, as did some other guy that I don't know.

The humidity in my house is 26%. That would be ridiculous under any circumstances, but it's even more ridiculous since I have a fancy humidifer doohickey as part of my heating system.

Looks like I'll need to get the guys that installed the system out here to see why it's so dry.

Last night was perhaps the most crowded that I've ever seen Rich O's. It was standing-room only for most of the night.

To start off I had an Anchor Christmas Ale. I wanted to make sure I had at least one more before they ran out.

While drinking that first pint, I overheard the owner of Rich O's tell someone that they'd just tapped a new keg of Cone Smoker. I found this very interesting as it was the first time that I was definitely aware of a change. Of course I had to have one.

It was good, style #1 I'd say. I'm very curious to see how this new keg ages over the next couple of weekends - or however long it lasts.

"Dude, if it takes that many flushes you need to see a doctor."

-- A guy on fark.com referring to a Texas man who'd gotten a water bill for $7,714,510.21.

Anyone who knows me well enough will realize that this is a no-brainer.

My December 5th Hottie of the Day is the incomparable Larissa Meek from Average Joe 2.

I was playing with DarkTree and Bryce this evening and made my first image for 2004.

I've been told that I write too much about beer - that it seems like all I do is drink. Apparently this is a problem, though I don't know why. Hic.

Let's see, non-beer stuff. Hmmmm. Oh yeah, today I went to Home Depot to buy some new flourescent lights for my pool table. I wanted 8' 60-watt lights to match the two that weren't burned out. This idiot at Home Depot started an actual argument with me about what length lights I wanted. He said that pool table lights are 48" and not 8' and he knows this because he's some kind of pool god apparently. I guess he just works at Home Depot between big-time gambling sessions. The fucker was actually snickering when I walked away with my box of 8' lights.

On a completely unrelated note, what's up with all this damn rain we're having here? It's January godamned 4th and all it's done for the past week is rain. If it was thirty degrees colder, like it's supposed to be on January goddamned 4th, we'd have a foot of snow covering the other few feet of snow we'd have already had if it had been colder last week. If I wanted rain in December and January I would have stayed in Seattle.

Apparently in my pre-Christmas cleaning I managed to lose my November bank statement. So tonight I'm sitting here with December's, all ready to balance my checking account, but I can't because November's statement is gone. I suppose I can get a copy from my bank tomorrow. This just pushes me even further into the "Bah, Humbug" camp of Christmas observers.

Started out simple tonight by having one of NABC's Community Dark pints. In the recent past this beer has been treated unfairly because I've been drinking it after much stronger beers - it always pales in comparison.

Well tonight it got in the first shots at my taste buds and I remembered why I liked it in the first place. It's full of malty sweetness (or sweet maltiness) and not much else. It has a low enough alcohol content to make it a very good session beer.

Next I had an Anchor Brewing 2003 Christmas Ale. I spent the entire pint trying to decide (a) if I liked it or not, and (b) what the hell I was drinking. Apparently Anchor changes the recipe for their Christmas Ale each year, and they keep that recipe pretty secret. If I had to guess I'd say the best way to describe this year's version would be "smoky nutmeg" but I could be way off base about the nutmeg part. There was definitely some smoky something in there. At the end I decided I did like it, but more than one in a given session would probably be too much.

Lastly I had a Cone Smoker, partly to verify that it was indeed smoke I'd been tasting in the Anchor Ale. It was, though it was more like the smoke in Schlenkerla Urbock Smokebeer than the smoke in Cone Smoker. Grapier.

About halfway through the Cone Smoker MisunderstoodGirl and TrumpetDude started talking about jazz. Every damn third word for over an hour was jazz. Blah blah jazz? Blah blah jazz. Blah blah jazz! If I ever hear the word jazz again in my life I may kill myself. Or maybe I'll just kill whoever says the word jazz instead.