Snakes In A Stadium

The Canadians have created a new tradition for fans bored during the commercial timeouts of CFL games.  We're assuming CFL games are televised, at the very least in Canada, because of their funky content laws.  Let's be honest, the wave is more outdated than the desktop pc.  The vuvuzela is a fad for the other kind of football and hopefully it doesn't find its way into other sports.

Last week during a surely riveting gridiron battle between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Toronto Argonauts fans got a little unruly and created the world's longest beer snake (apologies to Guinness World Records).  The snake, seen in the video below, clearly covers more than one section of the stadium.  Fans from within throwing distance were so anxious to participate they willing threw their glasses filled with the finest Canadian lager towards the snake.  What a thing of beauty.

You will hardly be surprised to find that the Blue Bombers did not take kindly to the behavior of the unruly fans and they issued this statement on their "zero tolerance" code of conduct.  We can't help but think that somewhere, former Argonauts owner (and funny Canadian) John Candy is smiling.

HG-DBB

In early February we decided that our newest venture would be farming. Mostly because the local home brew shop, Maryland Homebrew, was offering it's annual opportunity to purchase hops rhizomes (or is hops singular here?). There are several reasons to grow your own hops:

• Go back to the roots of Americana - back to the farm, as it were.
• Go green - pluck them from your backyard garden rather than buying hops shipped in from Oregon.
• Failure is an option - apparently you can expect your first season of growing to be a big failure and that aligns nicely with the DBB mantra "Expect nothing and you won't be disappointed."

We planted on Sunday, April 5, 2009, when it was 65 degrees and nothing but sun (hops really like sun). Regular updates will be provided along with any available photographic evidence.

Tonight the weather "predicters" are calling for a hard freeze. At the risk of being repetitive: Expect nothing and you won't be disappointed.

It's Freakin' Freezing In Here

According to our friends at The Weather Channel it's currently 12 degrees (Farenheight) in our nation's capital. Why does that matter? Because that's where we are writing from in a wonderful 98 year old rowhouse where the relatively new heating system completely crapped out. The same system that had a complete system tune up is officially tuned off. The coldest day of the 2008-2009 winter and I'm writing in my winter cap and long johns.

Just sitting here - waiting for the repair man to come and fix her up. With any luck they will come before the witching hour. What's keeping our sanity? Beer. Raison D'Etre and it's 8 percent alcohol by volume. Normally we opine on the more important aspects of beer. It's flavors, colors, aromas. Every now and again you need the alcohol portion of the brew to keep your sanity - and to keep yourself from lighting this place ablaze and creating a neighborhood campfire to keep all the neighbors warm. Thanks Dogfish Head.