Daily Archive for September 20th, 2007

More Autumn Beers

Published on September 20, 2007 in Ale, Beer, Lager and Review. Closed

Let’s see… last night at the Geek Dinner, I drank the Redhook ESB, which wasn’t anything special. Not too bitter, lacked any sort of hops flavor to it and wasn’t even the same color as most ESB’s. It wasn’t bad, but not what I had hoped for. Upon my return, I drank one of my Oktoberfests, this time it was Otter Creek’s Oktoberfest. Again, I was a bit disappointed. It wasn’t very flavorful, and it was another (like the Harpoon Oktoberfest) that isn’t actually a Marzen, but an American Amber/Red Ale. I wasn’t a big fan of it. It was kind of thin and watery and just plain not that good. Again, it wasn’t awful, but it just wasn’t what I was hoping for (and I’ve had some good Otter Creek beers). It didn’t taste ale-like like the Harpoon one did, it actually tasted somewhat like a lager, but more like a regular old lager, just not full of flavor (though not like a macro lager).

So tonight’s beer is making up for last night. Victory’s Festbier is a great Oktoberfest/Marzen and is exactly what I was hoping for. It’s a bit lighter, but it has a very clean taste. It’s crystal clear amber in color has good carbonation and a nice amount of flavor. There’s a slight hops bite to it, but it’s almost all malt flavor. There’s a slight nut flavor to it and a slight caramel flavor as well. This is another highly recommended Oktoberfest (along with the Harpoon).

I also decided to have a second beer tonight… Dogfish Head Punkin’ Ale. This is a great beer, though the spices and flavors could be a bit more subtle. Anyways, the beer pours like a regular ale with a dark amber color and moderate carbonation. The smell of it is fantastic with scents of pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The flavor is very up front with the spices, again cinnamon and nutmeg and the pumpkin flavor. In my opinion the flavors could be a bit more subtle as it’s almost too much. However, I still recommend this beer and it makes a great fall brew (and yes, I know this isn’t an Oktoberfest, but the first of the Pumpkin Ales, though the only one left is the Smuttynose).

My Thoughts on Apple Written Much Better than I could Write

Published on September 20, 2007 in Apple, Gadgets, Hardware, Software and Technology. Closed

Sorry for the long title, but I recently came across a post on Boing Boing Gadgets that discussed exactly how I feel about Apple, and why anyone who read my previous posts about Apple shouldn’t consider me an Apple-hater.

iPhone & iPod: contain or disengage?

That’s the direct link to the blog in question. It’s a long read, but well worth it for anyone who cares about Apple, technology, or portable music and movies. It’s exactly how I feel, but put to much better words that I could have ever written myself. The gist of it is that Apple needs to quit the anti-consumer crap or else they’ll lose their consumers. They can only go so far on the people who blindly follow their every move before those people lose the blinders and realize that Apple is screwing them over big time, which is what Apple has started to do, though it first started with the iPod/iTunes thing when they first released the iPod. I won’t call it anti-competitive behavior, though some of it is. I’ll call it anti-consumer behavior.

The long version of this is the following… Things like locking out third party apps from the iPhone and iPod Touch (though you can write them if you’re close to Apple) are what I’m talking about here. Preventing people from playing DRM’d (but something other than FairPlay, such as PlaysForSure) music and movie files on the iPods. Preventing people from playing FairPlay songs on other portable devices. It sounds like I hate Apple whenever I complain about their products and the tight grasp they hold over all of it, but the fact remains that I want to like their products. I think the iPod is a cool looking device and the iPod Touch is a great device (though I will never buy an iPhone because I wouldn’t be able to dial with one hand while not looking at it because I can’t actually feel the “buttons”). I think MacOS X is a kick ass operating system and their computers have a great design. I don’t like that you can’t replace the battery in the iPods or iPhone yourself, that it has to be done by an authorized technician. I don’t like that MacOS X will not run natively on hardware that was not approved by Apple. I don’t like that Apple hardware is so closed. You buy an Apple computer and it’s a very closed proprietary system even though the operating system was based off one of the most open operating systems in existence. While it’s nice that if something goes wrong with the computer, it’s either really easy to fix or you know it has to go back to Apple. But that’s the problem, it has to go back to Apple. There’s no real customization. For all the proprietary crap in Windows, it’s a more open system. It runs on all sorts of different pieces of hardware (so long as it’s all x86 architecture). It allows all sorts of different drivers and software. With Apple computers, it’s Apple’s hardware and software or nothing.

And the biggest thing that I don’t like about Apple is that they’ve seemed to have left their computer division in the dust. They’re ignoring the people who kept them from folding… the people who religiously bought Apple computers regardless of how bad they sucked. They’ve become a gadget company.

So for all you people who have read my blog and though of me as an Apple Hater, that’s just not true. I want to love them, but I can’t because of the company. Steve Jobs is great at marketing, but he’s arrogant and soon enough that arrogance will catch up with him.   Apple has become just like Microsoft, the company everyone loves to hate.  They’re in it for the money and nothing else.  They just don’t care about their consumers, and why should they when their consumers swoon over everything that comes out of Steve Jobs’s mouth?  So again, it’s not Apple that I hate, it’s the uninformed consumer who thinks Apple is and never will be (or never could be) an evil corporation like Microsoft.