Spectre’s Sayings

The Discovery Channel discusses it.

US Navy carriers go electric for launches.

A while back, co-workers and neighbors started saying to me,

So, I ordered a couple of boxes.

Today, there was a large commotion at work. It was delivery day. Until she deliverd all the cookies, my co-worker’s cubicle was filled with these:

Which kind is my favorite? Well, my favorite is

Anderson Valley Brewing Company’s Boont Extra Special Beer, an American take on the classic English style of ESB’s is a distinctive beer. Because it uses the hops favored in the Pacific Northwest with their stronger oils, rather than English varieties of hops, the beer is more bitter than English varieties. Despite this, it actually is a well-balanced beer. Nice head, nice amber color, nice aroma.

The flavors are a bit strong for me to drink this beer all by itself. However, I noticed that it did make a very nice complement to food. I had a little snack of some extra-sharp white cheddar cheese and some crackers, and this beer complemented that snack very nicely.

Happy Leap Day!

Leap Day: Making Up For Lost Time
Need an extra day? You got it!

Friday, February 29 is Leap Day, that extra day that’s tacked on to the end of the month every four years.

Why the extra day? Earth’s trip around the sun is nearly six hours longer than the 365 days on our calendar. So the extra day is added every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the earth’s rotation of the sun.

If you want to get technical, the Earth actually takes 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds to rotate around the sun. Since that’s not exactly six hours, leap years at the start of centuries are omitted unless they’re divisible by 400. As a result, 1900 was not a leap year, 2000 was, but 2100 won’t be.

Julius Caesar created the first Leap Year in 46 B.C., acting on advice by astronomer Sosigenes. And we’ve had an extra day every four years ever since. But what do people do with the extra day?

Here’s a great idea. Many centuries ago (when courtship rules were stricter), the leap year tradition of allowing women ask men to marry them was introduced. Later, men who refused those proposals had to pay a penalty such as a kiss, gown or money. In the United States, the tradition evolved into Sadie Hawkins Day (celebrated in November).

On the negative side, there is a Greek superstition that claims couples have bad luck if they marry during a leap year. In fact, one in five Greek couples avoids planning their wedding during a leap year.

What about people who are born on February 29? There are about four million of them around the world, including 200,000 in the United States.

Their birthdays only happen every four years. Otherwise they have to decide whether to celebrate Feb. 28 or March 1. Either way, that just isn’t the same as celebrating on your actual birthday.

But people born Feb. 29 do have a few perks. Known as “leaplings,” the Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies was established in the 1970s and now has a web site dedicated to promoting awareness of leap year baby issues.

Leaplings are also honored with a celebration in the town of Anthony, New Mexico/Texas. The town of 4,000 holds a Leap Year Festival every four years, complete with registration of Leap Day’ babies, hot-air balloon lifts, a parade, birthday dinners and other attractions.

Also many leaplings get special product deals on Leap Day, like free food. Be on the lookout for that!

And leaplings also have fun with math. Well into their retirement years, they can claim to have celebrated only a teenager’s worth of actual birthdays.

Some of the famous leaplings celebrating their birthdays this year include actor Dennis Farina (1944), self-help guru Tony Robbins (1960) and rapper Ja Rule (1976). Famous leaplings throughout history include Pope Paul III (born in 1468), band leader Jimmy Dorsey (1904) and songstress Dinah Shore (1916).

Which reminds us, let’s not forget some of the historical events that happened on Feb. 29.

One of the biggest was in 1940 when Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American actress or actor to be honored with an Academy Award. She won for Best Supporting Actress in Gone With The Wind in the role of Mammy, a housemaid and former slave.

In all, Gone With the Wind won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. And it was the first time comedian Bob Hope hosted the Oscars.

In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission, warned that racism was causing America to move “toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.”

In 1972, Hank Aaron signed a three-year deal with the Atlanta Braves that paid him $200,000 per year, making him the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball at the time. Two years later, he became baseball’s home run king when he broke Babe Ruth’s long-standing record.

So celebrate the extra day that comes to us only once every four years.

Happy Leap Day!

One of Arcadia Ales’ “Big Beer Series,” the Imperial Stout pours a black, thick liquid with very little head or lacing. In fact, the beer seemed…flat to me, as if the cap had been taken off, and the beer left in the bottle in the fridge for several hours. But since I uncapped the bottle myself, I know that isn’t the case. Some more carbonation would have improved this beer.

I’ve read reviews of this beer that talk about the complexity of its taste, but I couldn’t detect it. Unlike Arcadia’s London Porter Ale, which truly has a complex taste, the tastes here simply blended together into an undifferentiated mess. It tasted like someone had taken a substandard version of this style, and poured vodka into it to increase the alcohol level. The alcohol, you could taste. It was high enough, and raw enough, that I thought this beer could do with some aging.

It was vintage 2007. Did the brewer think the customer should have aged it? Would there have been additional bottle conditioning if I had? If the brewer had thought aging would have improved the beverage, the labelling should have indicated that.

Update: The bottle-carrier (built for four bottles, not six) actually did make the claim that the beer would improve with age.

Go read Guns Save Lives by John Stossel.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Goose Island’s Nut Brown Ale has a sweet-smelling aroma - not floral or fruity, but something in between. It has a very nice taste that’s advertised as having hints of caramel and chocolate, but my palate couldn’t detect those flavors. I did note the roasted malts, and the maltiness in general. Although I could detect the hops, they didn’t overwhelm the flavor.

To sum up, a nice beer.

NASA plans to crash two spacecraft into the moon - on purpose.

DailyTech - Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling.

A Washington Times article, “Montanans insist on gun rights” points out that the U.S. government has already said that the right to bear arms is an individual right. The Supreme Court is to take up that question in the Heller case. Go read the article.