Who Are You Gonna Believe, Me Or Your Lyin' ADM?

THIS IS NOT today's lunch. It is (was) also not yesterdays' lunch, which was a cheese-burger with my friends at the local pub-- and, note to beer drinkers in my area, a copper altbeir from the Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, which I had not even heard of before yesterday-- and, note to beer drinkers anywhere, the Sam Adams Noble Pils, which I had been meaning to try for a coupla months or so. No, this is/was Monday's lunch. I show it to you now because I wish to brag. I made a simple, pure double cheeseburger in my own home. And it was delicious. (The alternate line here was "This is my cheeseburger; there are many like it, but this one is MINE.") The Sweetwater IPA went along with the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale rather precisely, and both went more than decently well with the burger and fries. (And yeah, there are two different kinds of fries there. Cleaning up, if you can dig that.) The conclusion of the Sweetwater Experiment, by the way: IPA yum, EPA not bad but not great, the Blue(berry) beer stands just this side of the line of yuck, and the Imperial Stout simply tastes like they were trying too hard. 'nuff said.

The real reason I bring you this image today is that I wanted to take the oppor-tunity to show off my brand new, way-funky, technically-not-running shoes. These are the Nike Rockwaffles: the foreportion of the sole, about three-fifths of the length of the shoe, is a soft rubber compound built to stick to hard surfaces; the heel itself is standard Nike waffle sole material. I got them mostly because they're waaaaaaaay cool, and available in eleven and a half, and partly because the Wifey and I will soo be taking up indoor climbing as a sport, or at least giving it a shot or two. The reasons for this are twofold: the Wifey recently decided to take a break from roller derby and try reffing for awhile, and so needs to find an activity to fill in for all the skating, and our pal Paige, who, along with her husband, owns the indoor climbing joint, recently quit derby because she simply didn't have the time to invest in it. So we are climbing both for excercise and for the chance to hang out with our former derby pal.

Speaking of heavy lifting, this is not the seque of the day, but it'll do until one comes along. We got this thing in the Netflix envelope last week, preferring to watch Star Trek IV: The Quest For Late 80's Sterotypes first, but finally succumbed and watched it over Chinese take out Sunday evening.

They tried, folks. They really did.

But in the final analysis, this was just an intensely interesting but fundamentally unsalvageable story. In the end-- SPOILER ALERT-- Mark Witacre was just a kind of a bland weirdo who stole a bunch of money and then tried to white-wash it by pointing out that ADM and the rest of the know agribusiness world were fixing prices on obscure compounds which would appear to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Finely acted, beautifully filmed, and annoying as hell. I sat through it without too much wear and tear, but I thought the Wifey was going to take her fork out of her pork fried rice and stab herself in the eye with it. Instead, she grabbed her handy-dandy laptop computer and let her indulgence in the series of tubes keep her blissfully distracted. This, I submit, is what the internet is really for.

That, and buy really cool shoes. How 'bout we take another look at those funky, funky shoes?

I feel better already.

SO while I heartily recommend making your own cheeseburger, as well as having one out, not to say having one on, I can't either recommend or condemn the Sweetwater Breweries products. I didn't like like three out of the four I tried, but that doesn't mean anything. Except that, aside from the IPA, they didn't quite suit my tastes. Oh, and the Sam Adams Noble Pils I heartily recommend, very nice, light bodied but intensely hopped. And the Olde Mecklenburg Brewery Copper Altbier, too. Very nice. The Informant!? The Informant?!? I felt like I had to, but there's no reason you have to. Then again, you might quite like it. Don't take my word on anything but the shoes. The shoes you should most definitely not try.

Because they're mine.