Wired Cola

So by rights this should be a beer-blogging post, and it is of sorts:

Thank you Ewoud (a good citizen of a low country and a fan of the Duvel), for the excellent present of a wool Duvel cap, which is now my new favorite hat. Appropriately, it arrived on a day when it is raining cats and dogs, and when I'm a gin and a trombone away from thinking it was cyclocross season.

It was a double of Belgians tonight. Well, really, one last night and one tonight, but we're blogging 'em as a doubleheader. Last night's was the Petrus, third from the right, and tonight's was the Duvel, second from left:

Update: Red, darnit. This review previously said I was drinking Chimay Blue, but in fact I was drinking and reviewing Chimay Red. I am such a doofus.

Today's beer is La Binchoise Blonde, a blonde ale, but "only" 6.2% ABV. Far left in the reference photo:

Some weeks back, Matchstick was kind enough to send me an 8 GB Zune (think iPod Nano and you've got it), which has some mildly clever features and is very pretty. It looks exactly like a very tasteful clone of the iPod Nano as designed by Microsoft, and I mean that as a compliment.
It is also a very competent media player (mostly music, really) released at the very moment in time when standalone portable media players have ceased to be interesting.

Day 2, and our selection is the one with nuns on the label, Tripel Karmeliet (danger: Flash, noise, no direct link to the beer itself, a veritable panoply of flashcrap), the one on the right in the photo:

As a very special anniversary present, TLO bought me a monkey-puzzle tree.

She also bought me a bunch of fancy Belgian beers, and I thought it might be fun to blog them. Fun for me, that is: I get to drink 'em. You just get to be jealous.

"We propose a fundamental principle to be observed at the outset of this debate: Let's not try to protect ourselves from crazy people by trying to out-crazy them."

From "The Post editorial board on the Greyhound murder: The government's best policy response is to ... do nothing"

Last summer I extolled the perverse joys of the musician interviews in Pelagos magazine, the house publication of Hellenic Seaways.

I'm late on editing footage for the Gastown Grand Prix. Argh.

How do I compensate? Well, a bike project whose existence I have mooted for months just got a lot more concrete. Unusually for a project that has not even reached the "complete build kit acquired" point, the bicycle already has a name: The Cheat.