Taco – Page 22

April Fools & Pig’s First Birthday

April 7, 2016 by Taco

It’s officially April – time for some of that Spring weather!

If that photo doesn’t look much like Spring to you, then we are both in agreement.

Unfortunately the weather has decided to pull ye olde’ April fools joke on us and instead of Spring, April has so far felt like a rapid-fire transition from October to December, including everything from high winds, cold rainstorms, and yep, a bunch of snow. What has made this even worse is that not only has the weather been oh-so-not-Spring, the temperature is following in kind, with temperatures in the teens overnight and wind chills down in the single digits – in April.

Making all of this worse is the fact that just last week we had temperatures in the high 60s with glorious sunshine.

But come the beginning of April things went downhill fast. For starters, on Saturday it pretty much rained all day and was cold and windy – it felt so much like October that during my run my brain struggled to conceptualize the fact that it wasn’t October. That said, maybe running in the rain was a bit of motivator, because I did break my speed record in spite of it.

And yeah, just in case you were wondering, that is a “burst” speed, there is no way in hell I could maintain 15.2mph – even if my legs weren’t messed up.

After a long rainy day on Saturday, we woke up to snow on Sunday!

It wasn’t too heavy, and while it was still coming down it wasn’t anything crazy.

That said, I wasn’t thrilled about any snow, so this was enough. I can’t complain too much though, last I saw we had only received less than one third the amount of snow this year as we did last year. And it’s also not as bad for April as it could be, such as in 1997 when Boston received it’s “April Fools Day Blizzard” which dumped 24.5″ of snow on the city.

Plus, at least one person in our household was happy about the state of affairs.

The good news is that by Sunday afternoon things had calmed down. The bad news is that they got even worse come Monday morning.

I wasn’t as pleased as Valentino, especially since I had to go out in it. Snow is much more pleasant from inside a warm building – except for Valentino, who wants to be outside in it. But alas, duty calls. So I was off into the urban wilderness and quickly realized that it was very cold, in addition to snowing.

At this point the wind wasn’t too bad and the roads were still pretty clear, it was mainly just the pedestrian commute that was impacted.

But like most snow-storms it got worse before it got better.

Before too long even the roads were starting to see some snow creeping inwards.

Y April, y u do dis.

Fortunately, almost as if recognizing the dumb weather outside, the law school gave me a free lunch.

And then I even got some free coffee during my first class.

Outside things started to look a little better.

Only to get worse again.

And then the wind picked up (why do SB and I keep living in windy places?).

Which made the walk home lots of “fun,” but at least it wasn’t dark at 5pm anymore. Plus this wasn’t one of my late nights, which was also nice.

From what I’m reading we got about 4.7″ of snow, so it was definitely accumulating.

Ah yes, another gorgeous winter day.

Except it’s April. This is most decidedly not how I envisioned my commutes home in April.

But again, not everyone was perturbed, some of us were quite happy.

Quite happy indeed.

The next day saw the grey skies vacate the premises, but don’t be too deceived, it got bitterly cold.

Yes, that crisp air brought with it temperatures in the single digits when you factored in the wind chill, and since this is Boston you always factor in the wind chill.

However, despite Tuesday being a very cold and busy day which included everything from a doctor appointment to a presentation to on call hours, it was still a very exciting day.

Why?

It was Pig’s first birthday!

Pig in the cowboy hat he decided would also serve as his birthday hat, likely starting a tradition.

Yes, April 5th marked the one year anniversary of Pig coming to live with us. He arrived on Easter 2015, and since Easter is funky and moves around each year, we couldn’t just keep his birthday as Easter, so we locked it in as April 5th.

A photo of Pig’s “arrival” from Easter 2015.

[In case you were wondering, Tristen’s birthday is 12/23, Valentino’s is 2/14, and Pig’s is 4/5]

Pig is a yogi, like a major yogi – and aside from keeping his best buddy Pigsten in line, he is very chill. As such he didn’t ask for much on his birthday, and he actually tried to give SB a present on his birthday because he didn’t fully understand what a birthday was (he is only 1 after all). So, like all our children (even Tristen) Pig is low-maintenance when it comes to special days. All he asked for was dirt pudding, which everyone kind of agreed was an awesome idea.

We also decided to get some Subway for dinner, since we had gift cards AND a coupon.

We even saved some more money because I’d gotten chips from the law school – if it wasn’t obvious there is a fairly large stream of free noms flowing forth from HLS.

After dinner we got started on the dirt pudding.

It had been years since I’d had dirt pudding and I’m honestly not sure if I’d ever made it, so it was a fun adventure with Pig assisting. I sort of just cabbaged together the parts of some recipes I found online that I thought sounded the best and went with it, it’s kind of hard to “mess up” dirt pudding after all.

The end result was a hit with everyone, especially Pig – he was a huge fan of the gummy ~~worms~~ grubs.

And the good news is that since dirt is cheap (actually dirt pudding is not so cheap) we had plenty of left overs!

Pig moments before plunging into the dirt pudding in search of more gummy grubs – and also wrecking half the kitchen.

After our dinner, Jeopardy, and dirt pudding, we all settled in for a few episodes of Adventure Time, pretty much the favorite show in this household.

So, while I don’t think Pig would have been disappointed in any scenario involving dirt pudding, I believe everyone enjoyed the day, even if it was way too cold outside for April. All in all, a good first birthday for Pig!

Then the next day we went to this year’s Public Interest Auction, which, while both SB and I agreed wasn’t quite as good as last year’s (which was put on by my class – so obviously no bias there) it was still a lot of fun and provided us with free food and drinks (the beer selection was crap this year [only Bud Light], but the wine was apparently better – not that I care too much, free is free).

And you can never go wrong with Professor Zittrain as an auctioneer.

Now, let’s just hope that Spring actually decides to show up! Today it’s a bit less cold and is raining again, so I guess that’s “improvement.”

Until next time,
-Taco

Beer Blurb [New York Comic Con]

March 30, 2016 by Taco

Did you know that New York’s Comic Con has an official beer? Me either. Turns out that it does and it’s fittingly made by Brooklyn Brewery.

Comic books are awesome. Beer is awesome. So comic book beer is doubly awesome, though I’m sure someone out there will flip shit over marketing beer in association with comic books because it might make little Billy an alcoholic. For what it’s worth I’ve been drinking beer since I was 2 and I’m doing fairly well (which can probably be read in two different ways).

1. Defender IPA – Brooklyn Brewery

So what is this beer? Well, it’s an IPA made with pilsner malts – resulting in a crisp, carared, crystal-like body. The hops are of the Pilgrim, Willamette, Cascade, Mosaic, and Amarillo strains. In other words, this is very much a hybrid IPA.

It’s good, really good. It’s also kind of hard to describe, but SB agreed with my initial impression that it seems like an IPA mixed with a Red Ale. So if you like IPAs and Red Ales, you’ll probably like this beer. At 6.7% ABV it’s got a bit of a bite, but nothing you taste over all the flavors, it’s just a beer you probably wouldn’t want to sit down and drink six of at once, lest you believe that you are indeed a super hero and try to jump off a building or stop a train.

Speaking of heroes, who is the “Defender?” Well, our caped Brooklynite is, according to the brewery:

“The Defender is constantly vigilant. Wherever an artist sketches, or a brewer stirs, or a musical voice rises above the clamor, he is there to guide and to guard against the creeping blandness. He is armed only with daring red malts and explosively juicy West Coast hops, yet emerges victorious. Ours is a world of light and fury and song. This is its Defender.

The Defender was forged with our sidekicks at New York Comic Con as the official beer of the convention. Defender IPA is now present all year long, wherever duty calls.”

So there you go, this beer is the rival of blandness and it’s now available year round. Pretty awesome, and definitely recommended – plus the label is really cool.

2. Tröegs Hopback Amber Ale – Tröegs Brewing Company

While this Tröegs offering might not be comic book themed, it’s still a good beer, which isn’t entirely surprising since I’ve liked pretty much everything I’ve had from Tröegs. Initially I didn’t think that I’d had this beer before, but it turns out that Tröegs had just hugely changed the label since the last time I’d had it, so I didn’t recognize it on the shelf. That is one of the benefits of this blog, it can serve to remind me of when I’ve had something before, especially The Beer List (and now Untappd on the side).

True to it’s name, Hopback is an amber ale, and it’s definitely not pulling any punches in the hop category (which isn’t surprising given its name). Although very hoppy for an amber ale, it’s not a bad amber ale by any stretch, it just might not be the best first amber ale for a person to try as it operates a bit on the “fringe” of amber territory. That said, it’s full-flavored and has a bold, lingering taste that makes it hard to pass up. Aside from that, I largely maintain the same opinion of the beer as before (mostly good) as while the label has changed, the recipe has not.

And that wraps up this beer blurb!

Until next time,
-Taco

P.S. – This is Dinosaur Bear’s 150th post! Woo!

Easter 2016

March 27, 2016 by Taco

HAPPY EASTER!

Happy Easter 2016!

Easters marks the nearly one year anniversary since Pig came to live with us, but since Easter changes each year Pig’s birthday is still about 1.5 weeks away. We love our Pig – though we don’t need anymore children – three is plenty – in case anyone reading this gets any ideas 😛

Not too much to share for this post, I’m intentionally going to try to keep it brief, I was mainly wanting to just bop in and wish everyone a happy Easter.

The boys had plenty to celebrate this morning, as we played a game of “hunt the Easter basket” – which with some help from Pigsten they found (hidden in the entryway).

Grandma Meem had even sent a package along with the Easter Bunny, the first season of Better Call Saul! Yay! We all loved Breaking Bad, so we are excited to get started on the “prequel” to it.

Pigsten had fun surfing on one of the trucks from the basket (these are technically re-gifts, but shh, they don’t need any more toys).

All in all, it was quite a haul! Look at all that yummy coffee 🙂

Elsewhere in the world Snowbros continue their valiant fight against Spring, which isn’t going so well for them these days.

That said, they’ve put up one hell of a fight considering that this year we only had around 30″ of snow compared to like 115″ last year.

I’ve also learned how to make a Poor-Man’s mocha using some of the stuff the clinic has around the espresso machine, score for Taco!

I’d say it’s saving me money, but I rarely buy myself things, so it’s just increasing my quality of life (and sugar intake) – since I wouldn’t have a mocha otherwise (with the exception of SB and I’s Saturday coffee dates).

Speaking of SB dates, this past Friday we headed to Boloco, which is kind of like Chipotle except without the herpes.

One thing I like about Boloco is that they have a lot of different options for how you can receive your noms, I like their “Mini Combo” with lets you get two miniature burritos, this lets me get two different kinds! We don’t go often because Boloco is a very common free-food at the law school, but it’s been a Boloco dry-spell at school, so it sounded good and it was my pick.

On the way back from Boloco we spotted a Turkey friend in Harvard Yard!

I ended up getting a lot closer to her than that, and she sang me some songs of her people. Turkeys actually aren’t that uncommon in the Harvard Square area, though I’m not entirely sure where they are coming from. Maybe they are Grey Poupon turkeys.

Afterwards we went to Mike’s Pastry (the Cambridge location) and instead of getting cannolis decided to try some of their other delicacies.

I tried their tiramisu, it was really good, but at $4.50 was one of their more expensive items. I love me some tiramisu though. SB got what we thought was a mocha cake – since, you know, it was labeled as such. Turns out it was incorrectly labeled, and instead was some fudge, cream, Oreo cake, e.g. extremely rich. In the end I think we were much bigger fans of the tiramisu as the Oreo cake was just a bit much, but have no fear, we finished it the next day. 😛

And that’s all for now. Hope everyone has a good holiday! Remember, today Jesus was resurrected, which is a pretty powerful way of saying that you too can overcome.

Until next time,
-Taco

Beer Blurb [St. Patrick’s Day 2016]

March 24, 2016 by Taco

It’s time for a (belated) St. Patrick’s Day Beer Blurb!

SB and I generally don’t go too crazy for St. Patrick’s Day. Over the years we’ve mostly just made some green beer (and sometimes green food, such as green oatmeal) and stayed in. That actually doesn’t bother me too much as I’ve never been much a of party person anyways.

This year we technically only bought a single can for St. Patrick’s Day, but that was because we still had several beers from the prior weekend because I hadn’t been feeling well and (*gasp*) wasn’t drinking any beer. So, while this beer blurb is a St. Patrick’s Day Edition, it actually covers beer that I got before, on, and after St. Patrick’s Day.

For starters, let’s visit a 12 pack I bought back at the start of Spring Break.

The Brooklyn Lineup 2.0

I’ve had pretty much this exact same sampler before (see link above), but this time there are only 4 beers rather than 5, which is kind of a bummer since I prefer sampler packs with more variety. The missing beer is Brooklyn’s Pennant Ale ’55, which was amazing, so I’m sad to see it excluded. Outside of that, the other 4 beers are the same, though I think the recipes might have been tweaked in the past 1.5 years.

1. Brooklyn Brown Ale – Brooklyn Brewery

This is a classic English style brown ale with American accents and a firm hop character with a roasty palate. Of all the beers, this is the one where I feel like they changed the recipe the most, it now feels much stronger than it used to be, in fact I feel like this is more of a stout than a brown anymore, it’s still a good “one and done” kind of beer though.

2. East India Pale Ale – Brooklyn Brewery

Brooklyn claims that this is the “world’s most balanced IPA,” and while I do love Brooklyn Brewery, that is a genuinely “puff” statement. It’s still a good beer though, and since it uses barley and hops only sourced from Britain, it is a genuine IPA, or at least a genuinely historically-accurate IPA. Definitely a good one.

3. Brooklyn Pilsner – Brooklyn Brewery

This a refreshing full-malt pilsner which is brewed with German 2-row barley malt and it has a crisp hop finish. I was really impressed by this pilsner, it has a lot of flavor and a surprisingly complex profile. This one seems to have changed a bit as well (though not as much as the brown ale), and even if the recipe didn’t change, the colors have changed some as it used to have some blue in the label.

4. Brooklyn Lager – Brooklyn Brewery

This was Brooklyn Brewery’s first ever beer, and while it is sort of “run of the mill,” this dry-hopped amber lager does everything you’d want a lager to do. While it’s not quite as memorable as their pilsner, the lager may well be the most sessionable beer of the box.

5. Green East India Pale Ale!

This was one of our two beers we had on St. Patrick’s Day itself. SB mainly worked on this one while we were playing Little Big Planet. Other than being green, there wasn’t much difference, though the green food coloring did ever so slightly change the flavor for the worse, but not enough to ruin the beer by any means.

6. Guinness Drought – Guinness Ltd.

What would St. Patrick’s Day be without a Guinness? Probably one of the world’s more famous beers, if you really want a beer with varied opinions, then you should try a Guinness. Some people live and breathe this beer, while others wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. Some think it tastes like bad coffee, others think it tastes like nectar from the Gods. Regardless of your position, you can’t be a “beer drinker” without at least trying Guinness. I for one like Guinness, especially their Draught, but it’s not a beer I’d drink constantly. I prefer to have it while out (sometimes mixed with orange juice – yes seriously) and at home in single bottles or cans. Such was the case this St. Patrick’s Day, where I enjoyed it’s creamy smoothness and also unlocked like 4 badges on Untappd for checking into a Guinness on Saint Patty’s Day. Sadly you can’t easily dye it green, at least not without using like a gallon of food dye, thus ruining the beer.

7. Cranberry Ginger Shandy – Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company

SB and I picked this up last weekend. This beer is kind of interesting because we first had it on a plane, for free. Since that flight we’d been meaning to try it again, preferably in a bottle, so when I saw it for 10.49$ for a six pack (which sadly is actually a really good price out here) I had to give it a try.

This was probably my worst pour in recent memory, which is weird because I didn’t change anything, maybe the glass was too cold.

I still agree with my prior review, it’s a good beer and it’s definitely a winter shandy. Which ironically means that you could probably enjoy it in the summer as well, since it is a shandy after all. There are a lot of flavors in this brew, and if I had any critique it would probably be that the ginger tends to be a bit strong, and the cranberry is a bit weak. That said, cranberry and ginger are a great combo rarely seen in (widely available) beers, so it’s hard to knock a big brewery for trying something cool. I imagine this recipe will improve over time and even as a it currently exists, I’d solidly recommend it.

And as a final note, I now have 21 badges on Untappd! Woo gamification of alcoholism! 😀

Until next time,
-Taco

Spring Break 2016

March 21, 2016 by Taco

My Spring Break has come to pass.

I think lackluster Spring Breaks are kind of a law school thing. Last year I was busy briefing, and this year I wasn’t feeling well and as a result didn’t get as much relaxing time as I would have liked (though to be fair most of my classmates were in far-off corners of the world, so maybe it’s not a law school thing but rather a poor law student thing).

Anyways, I still think it’s worth a post. However, in the spirit of my last post about changing things up on the blog, I’m not going to write a huge diary about the past week. Instead I’m going to mix things up and write a series of haiku about various things that happened at the end of the week before Spring Break, as well as Spring Break itself. Should be fun, if not challenging. It won’t tell as clear of a story as a traditional entry, but it does tell a story, you just have to read it in haiku form. 🙂

As an FYI, the respective haiku is located below the image above it.

~~~~ Spring Break 2016: The Haiku Series ~~~~

Sophisticated.
T-Rex reads documentation,
school quite tedious.