What's next? I'll tell you what's next, St.Paddy's day and Spring. That's what's next.
This past Saturday, oh and what a treat it was to have the holiest day in the Drinkers Calendar fall on a Saturday, we did what we usually do on the 17th of March. We got fall down drunk and loved every minute of it.
Starting at 1030 in the am, one of my regular Paddy's Day cohorts, Adam or as he's more commonly know, Girlpants...or Girlhair....or Girlballs....or...well you get the picture, came over and we started the day off with some Irish Pub songs which were washed down with some wonderfully hoppy County Durham Signature Ales. At about 11a we grabbed a few walking beers and then headed out around the corner to the Old Yorke Tavern for a light brunch and some pre-bar beers. Being masters of the Drunken Arts, we figured that if we were going to start this early in the morning we best lay down a good pre-coat of food lest we get too drunk and miss the later part of the day. For it's not called Paddy's Night, it's called Paddy's Day, so you best be ready to drink all day.
So after some most delicious Eggs Benny washed down with an even more delicious Wellington County Ale, we headed off to the Wheat Sheaf for some pre-bar bar drinks. You see the Wheat Sheaf wasn't the final destination so we can't really call them bar drinks yet can we.
So it was off the mighty Sheaf where we met Leor and Mike So for a few early bevies. I think we had a pitcher of Moosehead but really I can't remember.
After the pre-bar bar drinks we headed to what was supposed to be our final destination, The Foggy Dew. By this time it was almost 1pm and the line up had just started to form after we arrived. That usually happens. Russ showed up just in time to join us for some pints of Mill Street Tankhouse Ale but a few others weren't as lucky and got stuck in line up purgatory.
After some frantic text messaging we figured it was best to blow off the Foggy Dew and head back to the Wheat Sheaf were we would be able to get a seat and enjoy the festivities of the day together with our friends.
Basically we stayed at the Sheaf the rest of the day, but we did manage to sneak over to the Bank Note for some Leffe and some more Wellingtons.
This is where things start to get a little blurry. I apparently spilled some beer onto Adam, er Girlpants' pants and he left. Then the Leafs lost. Then I got cut off. Then we left but were told to come back in cause we stiffed them on a $175 bill. Then we went for Mexican food and finished off Paddy's day with some Sangriha.
All and all it was another successful Paddy's day with more memories forgotten than remembered.
Oh and just so we are all aware, this Wednesday is the first day of Spring and we can all give the collective finger to Old Man Winter for another year.
And none too soon either. After four months of driving up and down that wretched stretch of asphalt known as the 400, I've developed an entirely new disdain for that crotchety ol' bastard. If it snows one more time this year it'll be too soon. Cram it with walnuts ol'man and bring on the sun and the warm I say! Melt away, melt away, melt away!
One more thing. Go to www.united-nations-of-beer.com and check out the massive Guinness review. Yours truly has posted his first review on this site there. Enjoy. As the newest of the Ontario Beer Delegates, I'll be contributing more often, so check out the Ontario link, read the bio and come back often for more drunken hi jinks.
So what's next?
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Sometimes the Truth isn't as Great as a Huge Grapefruit
What's next? I'll tell you what's next, false expectations. That's what's next.
Last week while I was out doing my weekly grocery shopping at the Big Carrot (yes, we're so "new age" that we only shop organic now) I was rummaging through the grapefruit bin hunting for five luscious grapefruits that would soon become my most delicious breakfasts (seriously are grapefruits not the best breakfast food ever. Wholly self contained, delicious, juicy and perfect for that pre-work gorge....anyhoo) when I came across another grapefruit bin off to the side. Now I had pulled out five ordinary grapefruits from the first bin and had them all bagged and ready to go. They were good grapefruits too, which is not always the case when you're shopping organic. They all had nice shapes, good colour and were reasonably firm. But when I saw this other bin, my bagged grapefruits started to pale in comparison. For the grapefruits in this other bin were absolutely enormous. They were gigantic. They were mutant huge. They were friggin' Chernobyl grapefruits. Not only that, they were a perfect, bright glowing yellow and on a per kilo basis, they were the same price as my "ordinary" grapefruits. I picked up one and I swear it was as big as my head. I had to have it. There was no doubt about it, this monstrosity was coming home with me. I raced over to Liz to show her the treasure I had found, like an excited dog rushing back to his owner to show off the dirty dead bird he had brought back from the forest. She was impressed and patted my head like that same dog owner faining appreciation for his dogs dirty dead bird. I don't think she totally understood the awesomeness of this grapefruit.
The fruit itself ended up costing almost five dollars, which was pretty much the cost of the entire bag of my other regular grapefruits. I didn't care though, this bad boy was going to feed me like three maybe four times. Seriously, I was quite excited about this grapefruit.
I got home and through it in the fridge, getting it ready for my breakfast the next day. I went to sleep that night with visions of cutting into that beautiful fruit. The juices exploding and spraying out and into my eye as I broke it's rough, yellow shell. The acid from the juice burning my eye, but in a good way. And then finally biting into it's soft, pink flesh and all that sweet, bitter grapefruit goodness washing across my taste buds. The was truly going to be a glorious grapefruit eating experience.
Well when I got up the next morning and raced down to the fridge to get my prized fruit. I put it in a bowl and started to cut. And as I broke through it's skin and started to separated it into two equal pieces all my dreams and visions of this awesome fruit were quickly dashed. For as the two halves slowly fell apart I could clearly see that about 95% of this fruit was rind. All white stuff no pink stuff. There as hardly any fruit inside it at all. No exploding juiciness here folks. I was heart broken. I didn't know what to do. I stood there staring at the split fruit in my bowl for a good five minutes trying to convince my self that the world was still a good place and not everything was a lie. But that didn't help. It was like putting a bandaid over a gaping axe wound. My innocence was taken from me that morning. That grapefruit stole my innocence.
But isn't that pretty much the way it goes? So many things in life look so good on the outside, so tempting that you convince your self that nothing could be better. You sell your self on the idea that this is definitely what you need. Just look at it, what could possibly go wrong with this brilliant new idea/product/persons/life choice you've made. It looks so beautiful that it has to be the thing for you. But then when you finally get down to it and cut into the flesh you find that it was all empty lies and promises.
Very few things in this world ever live up to the promise of it's outer shell.
So when you do find something that is as beautiful on the outside as it is on the inside you should probably count your self pretty lucky and do everything in your power to hold on to it.
Also if you're buying organinc fruit, chances are it's not going to be as big and juicy as the genetically modified super fruit you get at Dominion. It's just a fact.
So what's next?
Last week while I was out doing my weekly grocery shopping at the Big Carrot (yes, we're so "new age" that we only shop organic now) I was rummaging through the grapefruit bin hunting for five luscious grapefruits that would soon become my most delicious breakfasts (seriously are grapefruits not the best breakfast food ever. Wholly self contained, delicious, juicy and perfect for that pre-work gorge....anyhoo) when I came across another grapefruit bin off to the side. Now I had pulled out five ordinary grapefruits from the first bin and had them all bagged and ready to go. They were good grapefruits too, which is not always the case when you're shopping organic. They all had nice shapes, good colour and were reasonably firm. But when I saw this other bin, my bagged grapefruits started to pale in comparison. For the grapefruits in this other bin were absolutely enormous. They were gigantic. They were mutant huge. They were friggin' Chernobyl grapefruits. Not only that, they were a perfect, bright glowing yellow and on a per kilo basis, they were the same price as my "ordinary" grapefruits. I picked up one and I swear it was as big as my head. I had to have it. There was no doubt about it, this monstrosity was coming home with me. I raced over to Liz to show her the treasure I had found, like an excited dog rushing back to his owner to show off the dirty dead bird he had brought back from the forest. She was impressed and patted my head like that same dog owner faining appreciation for his dogs dirty dead bird. I don't think she totally understood the awesomeness of this grapefruit.
The fruit itself ended up costing almost five dollars, which was pretty much the cost of the entire bag of my other regular grapefruits. I didn't care though, this bad boy was going to feed me like three maybe four times. Seriously, I was quite excited about this grapefruit.
I got home and through it in the fridge, getting it ready for my breakfast the next day. I went to sleep that night with visions of cutting into that beautiful fruit. The juices exploding and spraying out and into my eye as I broke it's rough, yellow shell. The acid from the juice burning my eye, but in a good way. And then finally biting into it's soft, pink flesh and all that sweet, bitter grapefruit goodness washing across my taste buds. The was truly going to be a glorious grapefruit eating experience.
Well when I got up the next morning and raced down to the fridge to get my prized fruit. I put it in a bowl and started to cut. And as I broke through it's skin and started to separated it into two equal pieces all my dreams and visions of this awesome fruit were quickly dashed. For as the two halves slowly fell apart I could clearly see that about 95% of this fruit was rind. All white stuff no pink stuff. There as hardly any fruit inside it at all. No exploding juiciness here folks. I was heart broken. I didn't know what to do. I stood there staring at the split fruit in my bowl for a good five minutes trying to convince my self that the world was still a good place and not everything was a lie. But that didn't help. It was like putting a bandaid over a gaping axe wound. My innocence was taken from me that morning. That grapefruit stole my innocence.
But isn't that pretty much the way it goes? So many things in life look so good on the outside, so tempting that you convince your self that nothing could be better. You sell your self on the idea that this is definitely what you need. Just look at it, what could possibly go wrong with this brilliant new idea/product/persons/life choice you've made. It looks so beautiful that it has to be the thing for you. But then when you finally get down to it and cut into the flesh you find that it was all empty lies and promises.
Very few things in this world ever live up to the promise of it's outer shell.
So when you do find something that is as beautiful on the outside as it is on the inside you should probably count your self pretty lucky and do everything in your power to hold on to it.
Also if you're buying organinc fruit, chances are it's not going to be as big and juicy as the genetically modified super fruit you get at Dominion. It's just a fact.
So what's next?
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