Taco – Page 34

The Brief is Done! (Let Us Drink and Eat Noms!)

April 7, 2015 by Taco

The LRW Brief from Hell is submitted. Actually it was submitted almost a week ago, but it still feels good. Of course LRW itself is far from over. I have a practice oral argument tomorrow, and then the real oral argument next Monday, and then the final LRW class the Monday after that. So, while I regrettably cannot celebrate the end of the Hell that is LRW just yet, I can celebrate the end of the Sub-Hell that was the LRW Brief.

But, it was a long and hard-fought battle. If you read this blog, well, really at all, then you’ll have been blessed by one (or more) of my LRW bitchfests. Rather than recount the entire process that began in late January (which is documented through a string of posts) I’ll focus on the final hours of the Brief. The story begins last weekend. As usual with law school, one big project being due also means that a lot of other things are due. So I didn’t really have a weekend so to speak. The first part of the weekend was devoted to trying to make up for the fact that Sunday wouldn’t exist for me. But not everything was bad! Starbucks had a limited time “Birthday Cake Frappuccino” to celebrate the Frappuccino’s 20th anniversary. It was as good as it sounds.

Valentino was a fan, obviously.

After the amazing day of Birthday Cake Frappuccino, it was time for Sunday to roll around. Sunday, for all intents and purposes, sucked. It started off decently enough, other than the fact that I stayed up too late on Saturday talking to a friend. But by the time noon rolled around, it was time to pack up and head to the law school. You see some genius had decided to make the Brief due at 9am on a Monday morning (3-30-15). Yes, 9, freaking, am. It might not seem too bad at first, but think about it. You take an assignment worth a MASSIVE amount of your grade, you force people into pairs, and then you make it due IN THE MORNING. Then you have the audacity to be like “We want you to be healthy!” bullshit. By making the Brief due at 9am you are essentially guaranteeing that people WILL stay up all night long working on it. To argue otherwise would be asinine. But that is just part of the bull-crap that is law school and mental health. They constantly claim that they want us to take care of ourselves, but then they structure EVERYTHING to be entirely conducive to NOT being healthy.

Which is precisely why generally speaking in law school Taco gives no shits and gets average grades. I decided early on that being a mental train-wreck for 3 straight years was not going to happen. Of course that creates an issue when you are forcibly paired with a person who just has to be a Supreme Court Clerk someday.

All this is to say, that the final hours of the Brief were horrible. From trying to figure out the table of authorities, to correcting which reporter we were citing to, to rewriting an ENTIRE SECTION of the brief, to cutting out FIVE PAGES worth of content to meet the page limit. It was crazy, crazy, crazy. In fact it didn’t end until about 1:40am. If my memory serves me, this was the most time I I had ever spent in a single sitting on a school project. Nearly 14 hours. I was never one to do all-nighters in school, ever. I just don’t care enough. I value sleep more than anything except exercise. So, generally, when shit needs to get done for school, I either do it early, or I stop and go to bed. Sleep > School. However, I guess its fair that I didn’t get to complete my entire post-secondary education without at least one really late night at the library.

But, by about 2:00am it was nearly complete and it was off to bed. Which sounded good in theory. In reality my brain just wouldn’t shut off and so by the time my alarm went off at 6:15am, I had amassed about 43 minutes of sleep. Bringing me to about 5 hours and 43 minutes of sleep in a 48 hour period. However, Baby Jesus was kind enough to give me a really pretty sunrise to “wake up” to.

It was only 6:15am and I was already running on fumes, good start. My exercise helped a bit, though I was basically a zombie while doing it. Around 7:00am my partner and I got back to working on the Brief, this time remotely. By about 8:30 I was done with my final edits, and he submitted it around 8:53am, seven minutes before the deadline. But that wasn’t the end of the submission process.

There are three things you have to do to submit your brief: 1 – Turn in an electronic copy by 9am. 2 – Turn in FIVE physical copies with a red cover (or blue, if you are appellants – we were appellees) page by 10am. 3 – Turn in an electronic copy to the opposing counsel by Noon. Because my partner was in class, and you can ONLY turn in the hard copies from 9 to 10 (yes, no earlier, no later) it fell to me to get to campus and print 125 pages of material (correctly) and submit it. Of course, the 9 – 10am is universal for appellees (appellant’s briefs were due a week ago). Which means that around 255 people are also trying to print 125 pages and turn them in. Which, in turn, means there is a RUSH on the printers. Luckily I’m slightly less of a drone than my classmates (which likely stems from how much less I care) and I went to an area where I figured none of them would be, and I was correct. The printer even cooperated and didn’t mess up or run out of ink. So, I checked all the formatting, stapled everything together (including the red cover sheets I had printed the night before) and then was on my way.

I had to track down my partner (who was still in class) to get him to sign each copy (we both had to), since I figured forgery probably wasn’t a great way to start my career as a lawyer. But after that I got all 125 pages turned in and then proceeded to mail the opposing counsel a copy, and, with that, was done with the Brief.

Its red because IT COMES FROM HELL

Of course there was still about 30 minutes before my first class even started, and so with nothing to do I started to lose energy fast. I decided to treat myself to the cafeteria, which actually has a really good selection but costs money, something I don’t have much of. I ended up cheaping out (as I always do) and just got cereal in a plastic tube.

But at least it was sugary cereal in a plastic tube! Which was a nice (little) burst of energy, since despite my brief being done, I had class until 7:00pm. Yes, by the time I turned in my Brief, I still had 9 more hours of being on campus in front of me, including a lovely LRW class. Yes, LRW on the day the Brief is due, salt in the wound.

The good news is that the law school fed me well for lunch. I don’t even remember what the lunch talk was, and honestly I don’t care.

Judging by the vegetarian look of the meal (which was good, I remember that much!) it was probably something about saving animals from us being assholes.

I honestly don’t remember much of that day. I just remember that when I finally made it home, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep before SB did, which happens like once every 3000 years or so. The next day I was still fairly tired, and I honestly think it took until about Wednesday before I was back to normal.

The rest of the week was pretty nifty, albeit more busy than I had hoped it would be. On Monday I met Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, he was talking about renewable energy. On Tuesday I met Chris K.elly, the “Privacy Officer” of Facebook during its rise to power. Yeah, I put scare quotes around privacy officer because Facebook caring about your privacy is an oxymoron.

His talk was actually pretty interesting, but damn the dude was shady. He was extremely good at answering questions without answering them. Maybe that is why he ultimately left Facebook for politics.

On Thursday my current favorite professor, Jonathan Zittrain gave a talk upon his acceptance of the “George Bemis Professor of International Law” chair. The talk was entitled Love the Processor, Hate the Process: The Temptations of Clever Algorithms and When to Resist Them, and I highly recommend you watch it online if you get a chance. SB can attest that “Zittrain is a pretty cool guy. Eh teaches the memes and doesnt afraid of anything.” Yes, SB attended, partially because I asked her too (and because she was on Easter Break – BC is Jesuit – she had time), and partially because there was alcohol and some noms afterwards. I really like Zittrain, he is probably one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, he is also a massive nerd, and most importantly he is funny and relevant. Sadly I’m really just not interested in pursuing Cyberlaw, so I don’t know how much more of him I’ll be seeing after this semester (I’m taking an elective of his, and was in his reading group last semester).

The candid shot above is kind of telling. As Dean Minnow said, “Professor Zittrain is the only faculty here at the law school who would do their own AV.” And he did. While she introduced him he sat over at the side and made sure the technical bits were all in place, it was kind of funny considering he was the one being honored with the chair. And in case you were wondering, the chair is not only a professorial position, he literally got a fancy new Harvard chair to go with his new title. In attendance during the talk was Tim Berners-Lee, the dude who freaking invented the World Wide Web, no seriously.

Afterwards SB and I enjoyed some alcohol and noms (including some very tasty mushrooms that tasted just as good as fresh from the wild) and then headed home. Since SB had came to campus earlier in the day and we had lunch at at Cambridge Common, it was nice to get to spend most of a day together, something that doesn’t happen often on weekdays!

On Friday I met Michael N. Schmitt, one of the Navy’s lawyers who helps figure out how to combat cyber-terrorism. I don’t really know much about him, but his talk was interesting. I got pretty much screwed over when it was time to ask questions, because I got skipped FIVE TIMES, I just have bad luck when it comes to questions I guess. But more important was the lunch, it was quite tasty!

After lunch I was supposed to have had physical therapy. But my Doctor, who was the head of the department, just didn’t show up on her last day (yeah she is quitting too). So 4 hours before my appointment, which I really needed as I was having a bad day with my numb spot on my upper back, they called and cancelled. They are supposed to call next week to figure out who is going to take me in, but either way I am not thrilled, because it means explaining my history to someone all over again, and starting the process all over again, yadda yadda. For all the bad luck I have with asking questions, my luck with doctors is several hundred times worse.

The good news was that since it was Friday it meant more SB time! She came to campus and we tried out a little cafe that is literally inside Harvard Yard, called the Cafe Gato Rojo. We’d been meaning to try it for awhile, and this seemed like a good opportunity. The hours are weird, and they only take cash, but the prices are very good!

We didn’t actually eat there, since it was still early. We just wanted to get some drinks and sit and chill. We ended up getting some iced tea, SB went with a Black tea with Raspberry syrup (which wasn’t very strong) and I went with an Iced Green Tea which was really good and had spices in it.

Since it was so nice outside (high 50s! woo!) I suggested we go sit someplace in the Yard (Yahd) and people watch. Of course (literally) right as we went outside it started to rain, so it was right back into Gato Rojo. Once we were sitting down SB pointed out a funny banner hanging above the cafe that I had missed.

Yes, that does indeed say “I (Heart) the Shit Outta You.” And who said Harvard was all class?

My upper back and neck were really hurting, so I didn’t enjoy our little tea date as much as I might have otherwise, but it was still nice to just sit and chill after a long week. We had an event we were going to at 5:30, so before too long we decided to go get an early dinner. We stayed on campus and ate at a place called the Greenhouse Café inside of the Science Center. Neither one of us had any idea why it was called the Greenhouse, until we got back into the seating area!

It was a grey and rainy(ish) day, but the views and (limited) sunlight were still nice!

Greenhouse is actually more akin to a little food court than it is a traditional cafe. Once you get back in there you have a variety of food options. We ended up honing in on the Indian section, and we both pretty much got the same thing (great minds think alike).

It was good, and relatively inexpensive, which was nice since we had had lunch the day before at Cambridge Commons. We though it was open until 7:30pm (according to the website) but in actuality it was only open until 5pm (gotta love Friday hours). So we stayed until about five, then we were on our way to big event of the night, a beer and cider tasting!

First, a little background.

SB and I live in housing that is owned by Harvard University (not the law school). This housing, referred to as HUH (Harvard University Housing, go figure right?), is divided into “groups,” each of which are managed by different offices. For instance, our group, the Botanic Group is centered around the Botanic Gardens housing area (though we are the bastard forgotten children far, far away). In order to foster community and growth and all that good stuff, Harvard created something called the “Graduate Commons Program,” which basically gives any graduate students (and their families) living in a “group” of residences to come together and meet each other during social events. Somethings groups cross over into other groups, but largely events are held on a intra-group basis. These events range in subject matter from orientation sessions (such as Cambridge 101 – the very first event we attended!), to ice cream socials, to watching sports, to outdoor games, to happy hours! Almost all of them are free, and those that do cost money normally have a steep discount. They also give out prizes sometimes, in fact back at the beginning of the semester I won 2 movie tickets and a Harvard mug. We still haven’t used the movie tickets as SB and I are waiting on Avengers: Age of Ultron to come out. [I actually have three movie tickets, I won the third one in a library raffle at the law school.]

Me being the anti-social person that I am, we don’t go to many of the events. Though to be fair, its often because they are far away. The primary spot for the Botanic Group’s events is about a 20-25 minute walk from where we live. Its actually the building we almost got an apartment in, which would have been 700$ more a month – in retrospect we are both glad we missed the lease window, despite the building being newer and nicer and closer to the law school, its not so much better as to justify the extra 700$ a month we would have spent. So, basically, because I’m anti-social, its far away, and we’ve had a historic winter, we haven’t been to many events. However, we stayed on the mailing list and keep an eye on the events as they are announced (at least SB does). So, when a “Meet the Brewers!” event popped up, it was all hands on deck.

Despite the beginning being a little rocky, I’m really glad we ended up going because it was a lot of fun! It was held in the building mentioned above, which was part of the reason why SB and were just bopping around campus on a Friday afternoon instead of getting the heck out of there. Part of the problem was that the event had originally been scheduled from 6:00pm to 8:00pm, but they ended up changing it to 5:30pm to 7:30pm relatively close to the day-of. This meant that a lot of people were late and the event really didn’t get started until almost 6:00pm anyways. This in turn meant that SB and I were some of the first people there, if not the first, and we were locked out. See, this is a secured building, which is nice and all, except for the fact that you know, you can’t get in if you don’t live there. In fact, way back at our first event, the Cambridge 101 session, we were locked out. You’d think after nine months they would have figured out that they need to unlock the doors to the common room, but nope. However, SB got their attention and we got signed in. Being early meant that we got first dibs on the snacks (which we ate some of, despite having just ate dinner) and we also got a table to ourselves. Before too long the rest of the guests and well as the breweries themselves showed up and we were ready to roll.

There were two breweries represented, one was a beer brewery, the other was a cider brewery (cidery?):

Bantam Cider

Aeronaut Brewery

Bantam was represented by one of the two women who founded it, which Aeronaut was represented by one of the founders as well as someone who joined the crew shortly after it started. It was a fairly typical Q&A setup, with most of the questions asked being prepared beforehand and gathered from the RSVP forms, which gave the guests a chance to ask two questions. I’m happy to report that the two most substantive questions came from yours truly. I actually had a third question I was going to ask, but it was stolen from me right before I could ask it (see my luck with questions above). I think the most interesting part of the talk was hearing them explain the origin of their business names (my stolen question), especially Aeronaut. The “O” in Aeronaut isn’t actually a can-tab, its a hot air balloon on an adventure! No seriously, go look closely at it above! Pretty cool.

Of course no one comes to these things for talking, at least no one I know. They come for the drinking, and boy was there plenty to drink. Each brewery brought three of their offerings.

Bantam’s Table: (There were more bottles in a cooler behind the table)

Aeronaut’s Table:

Each person was initially allowed one sample of each variety, so three ciders and three beers for six samples in total (as the night wore on and everyone had had at chance to sample each thing they just opened it up to anyone, but SB and I had had plenty to drink by that point, especially SB).

The way you ensured that you got to try one of each was via this handy-dandy ~~notebook~~ drink ticket.

For each of the three varieties offered by Aeronaut or Bantham they’d circle or mark of one of the three numbers of that side of the card. Pretty simple! Well, it should have been. But the guy doing the marking (some Graduate Common Program slave) on Bantam’s side marked a ton of cards incorrectly until I pointed out that he was doing it wrong. The way he was doing it you were getting screwed out of a beer over at the Aeronaut table. YOU HAD ONE JOB, ONE JOB. Anyways, we ended up getting it fixed over at the Aeronaut table because beer > all.

So what was the juicy lineup of alcoholic drinks?

Aeronaut Brewing Company

1 – Imperial Stout (Self titled, its an imperial stout named imperial stout)

2 – Red Galaxy IPA

3 – El Dorado IPA (Doesn’t have a BA profile yet, must be relatively new!)

Bantham Cider Company

1 – Wunderkind

2 – Rojo

3 – Americain (Doesn’t have a Ratebeer page, I think I remember her saying this was a newer one, Ratebeer sucks anyways)

SB and I decided to start with Aeronaut, then flip flop back and forth between beer and cider (with water breaks and food in-between) to keep our palates from getting exhausted on a particular flavor.

Taco and SB’s Six-Drink Power Tour:

First up, Aeronaut Imperial Stout!

A dark beer with roasted aromas and a rich malty character, this was a solid stout and a good start to our tour due the complex flavors.

Second, Bantam Rojo!

An unfiltered, semi-dry crider. Rojo starts with a spicy fruity aroma and a first taste that becomes slightly sour on mid-palate and finished with a subtle cherry note, probably because it has cherries and peppercorn! This would make a great fall cider.

Third, Aeronaut El Dorado!

This IPA is a showcase of candied fruity hops with a subtle malt character. It was a fairly sweet IPA, which flowed nicely on the heels of the Rojo!

Fourth, Bantam Americain!

This is a warm spicy cider, with cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. This would make a great winter cider (especially with a nice fireplace to drink it by!).

Fifth, Aeronaut Red Galaxy!

This is a dark, hoppy, and fuity red rye IPA. This IPA opened my eyes to the world of “colored” (e.g. Red, White, etc.) IPAs which I didn’t even know existed!

Sixth, Bantam Wunderkind!

This cider is made with a blend of local apples (New England has tons of them) and is slowly fermented then balanced with a hint of flower-blossom honey. This was a “traditional” hard cider and was Bantam’s first recipe. It reminded me of the macro ciders, such as Angry Orchard (owned by Boston Brewing Company).

All in all, it was a lot of fun and we enjoyed each drink! They raffled off the Aeronaut growlers, but we didn’t win one (though SB’s number was 55 and one number called was 54, so close!). We were actually feeling pretty good when we were done, likely because of the speed at which we drank all six classes (we didn’t want them to run out before we tried them all, and Bantam actually did, but not before we got all three). SB was especially happy, and our walk home may or may not have involved her walking nearly drunk through the hallowed halls of Harvard Law. (Ah memories!).

We actually made it home just in time to see Final Jeopardy! (Much to Tristen’s enjoyment). After chilling for a bit and getting some much needed water, we opened up our package of Red Velvet Oreos! Yes, Red Velvet Oreos. If you follow the blog you probably are wondering if I eat Oreos all the time. No, I promise I don’t. I’ve actually eaten more Oreos in the past two weeks than I have in the past two years. However, MIL and FIL sent us these Red Velvet Oreos as part of our Easter care package!

Depending on your flavor preferences, these might sound better or worse than the cookie dough Oreos I had last weekend. Its actually pretty interesting, SB and I were planning on trying these Oreos now that we have had the Cookie Dough Oreos, but MIL and FIL must have read our minds because soon after they sent us some! While there was no cool epic hunt for these as there was for the cookie dough variety (we didn’t even realize these existed until we were trying to find the cookie dough ones), we were excited to try them. Namely because Meem makes the best Red Velvet cake in history and therefore SB and I tend to like Red Velvet flavored things (even though they are never as good as Meem Red Velvet cake, so long as you don’t add too much food coloring).

So how were they? Well, I have to report that the Cookie Dough Oreos are still the champions of the “flavored” Oreos in the Taco household. While expectations were on the whole lower for the Red Velvet Oreos (its hard to compare to 1.5 years of searching to build up the anticipation), the baseline (against Meem’s Red Velvet Cake) was probably way higher. They pretty much nailed the cream cheese icing flavor. The center of the Oreo tasted perfectly like the cream cheese icing does on a on red velvet cake. The problem was with the cookie itself, the red velvet flavor was just far too weak and largely inaccurate. So basically these were more “Cream Cheese Icing Oreos With Hints of Something That Tastes Like Red Velvet Cake from a Box” than they were “Red Velvet Oreos.” Still, they definitely weren’t bad, and like the cookie dough variety, we ate the package within two days! Of course the red velvet package was even smaller than the normal package, whereas the cookie dough package was full size, which I thought was odd. Either way, its not like I really needed anymore Oreos.

After Oreos we pretty much just chilled for the rest of the evening then went to bed decently early for a Friday (all that food + alcohol + long week = sleep). I didn’t even have any more beer! We were planning picking me some up after the brewer event, but I decided to pass because six glasses (even small ones) seemed like enough for one evening. I actually did end up getting some beer on Saturday, but I’ll talk about that in my Easter post!

The rest of the weekend has been pretty chill (wooo UK lost in the NCAA tournament!), lots of reading and procrastinating for my practice oral argument tomorrow, but since the practice argument isn’t graded I’m having a really hard time motivating myself to work on it, especially after 150 pages of criminal law reading.

But, I should probably end this post. Earlier my blog crashed and I lost a massive amount of what I had written and I wanted to smash my desk into pieces, so rather than risk that again I’ll wrap things up (I’ve since been pasting the post into Word as it grows, but still, why take chances! – plus I really should do some work for LRW).

So, that is the end of the Brief for LRW, the next time you hear about LRW I’ll either be complaining about my upcoming oral argument, or I’ll be complaining about my oral argument after its over. Either way I can promise you that there will be at least one more bit of LRW complaining before I can compile my glorious “LRW IS DONE!” post.

Until next time,
-Taco

A Tale of Two Guinness

April 5, 2015 by Taco

Hello all,

This post is all about beer. Rather than hide this within a larger post about “Stuff and Things” I decided that it was worthy of its own post. I alluded to it previously, and so here it is.

This past week I did a blind taste test of Guinness Draught and Guinness Extra Stout.

Photo courtesy of of SB, who is sensitive to not being credited, even when she doesn’t take the photo right [The “Samuel Adams” words were not supposed to obscure the beer, but SB did it because it was “funny.” 😛 ]

Now, I’m not a huge Guinness drinker. I have a friend who (literally) chugs the stuff, but I think he half does it in an attempt to bolster his supposedly Irish image. That said, I don’t dislike Guinness. The most common critique is that it tastes like coffee and has a weird texture. I’d say both are true(ish), but since neither bothers me, I have little reason to dislike Guinness. Of course, because I don’t drink it often, its not a beer I’m overly familiar with, so I normally can’t comment too deeply on it. I realized how much I didn’t know about Guinness a good while ago when FIL asked me about the differences between Guinness Draught and the Extra Stout. Not only could I not tell him, I wasn’t even sure which one it was I had had. Yes, it was dark times for Taco as a beer-person.

So, in this post I’ll share a little bit about Guinness, explain the difference between the two varieties, and then say which of the two I preferred.

Before we get started, here are the two basic kinds of Guinness.

1. Guinness Draught – Guinness Ltd.

2. Guinness Extra Stout – Guinness Ltd.

There are a few other varieties of Guinness, but these two make up the core offering and are the ones I tried out (refer to image above if you forget what they look like).

Guinness is an oldish beer, not not super old (at least compared to some of the German beers, such as Weihenstephan – started in 725). It was created by Arthur Guinness in Dublin sometime around 1759. Guinness is made from water, barley, roast malt extract, hops, and brewer’s yeast. A portion of the barley is roasted to give Guinness its dark color and characteristic taste. It is pasteurised and filtered. Despite its reputation as a “meal in a glass”, Guinness only contains 198 calories per pint which is fewer than skimmed milk, orange juice, and most other non-light beers.

So what is the difference between the Draught and the Extra Stout? Well, the biggest difference is of course the taste, but the ABV is also quite different. Draught is 4.2% ABV, while the Extra Stout is 6% ABV. Further, the Draught is the smooth, creamy, coffee-like Guinness you are probably imagining, while the Extra Stout has more bite, is thinner, and has less of that distinctive Guinness flavor. Simply put, Draught is “Guinness”, Extra Stout is “thinner Guinness with more alcohol.” People tend to be heatedly divided over which they prefer, though most everyone can agree that either is better than Coors Light.

I think it ultimately comes down to what you are in the mood for. If you want a Guinness then you should drink a Draught, if you are looking for something Guinnessy, but with a bit more kick, you drink the Extra Stout. Flavor for flavor, I think the Draught is more of a distinctive offering.

So does that mean I picked the Draught in the blind test taste?

Actually no, I picked the Extra Stout.

For starters, they are distinct enough in both appearance and taste that I was able to guess which was which. In retrospect I probably should have closed my eyes when SB brought them out to me. However, its not like I was overly trying to be scientific. So, why did I pick the Extra Stout? Well, I think because its more akin to the type of beers that I usually drink. Its like a “light” stout, with a splash of Guinness. I also prefer the “bite” over the Draught’s silky-smooth texture.

So while I like them both, in a battle of fisticuffs I’d pick the Extra Stout simply because its more in line with what I prefer. That said, if I were to ever to think to myself, “Dang, I want a Guinness,” then I would go with the Draught, hands down. So, ironically, because the Extra Stout isn’t in my regular lineup, and because the Draught is more distinct, I probably end up drinking more of the Draught than the Extra Stout, despite preferring the Extra Stout in a taste-test.

Its also worth pointing out that this taste-test was done in bottles, poured into a glass. NOT on draft, and NOT in cans. Those parameters might have changed the outcome.

THE WINNER (BY A NOT-SO-CLEAR-MARGIN):

Guinness Extra Stout

(Post) 1L Spring Break

March 28, 2015 by Taco

So, over a week ago I said that I wanted to do a Spring Break “wrap up” post, well, here it is, a week after Spring Break is over. Its been a very busy week, and its going to be a very busy weekend, so I’m lucky just to have a chance to try to catch up.

So, how did Spring Break end up turning out? Well, overall, not too bad. As I predicted, it was plagued by LRW and other various law school things. I also failed to achieve some of my goals, but on the whole, for a “stay-in” Spring Break things went ok. Sure, returning to school and learning about the adventures of my absurdly rich classmates was a bit humbling, but c’est la vie!

SB and I’s Thursday lunch turned out nicely. After a bit of deliberation we ended up going to someplace on our “Places we want to eat” list, Tory Row. Which is unsurprisingly named after the real Tory Row, which I discussed here. It (the restaurant) has been someplace we’ve wanted to try for awhile. But, surprise, surprise, its too expensive. In fact we almost passed it up again, but since this lunch outing was part of my not-break, Spring Break, we went for it.

It ended up being really good! Sadly they don’t have lunch specials (wtf?) so there were no discounted options. However, we chose items towards the low end of the price scale. I went with a serrano ham, fig jam, cambozola blue, and arugula flatbread (amazing!) while SB went with a grilled marinated chicken breast, spicy aioli, and potato sandwich (also amazing!). We both really liked our lunch, both for the food and for the rare chance to actually have lunch together. Afterwards we headed over to Peet’s Coffee for, well, coffee, and then SB had to head out. I studied for a bit and then was off to physical therapy.

The very next day was our Friday date night, and it was my turn to pick. I decided to go with our old favorite Grendel’s Den. Its really hard to beat that (nearly constant) half-price food menu, its one of the few places where we can get food and drinks and not spend more than we should. Well, at least that is the way it works out normally. This time we splurged a little bit. There is a “Cheese Fondue for Two” on the menu for the regular price of 25$ (so 12.50$ during half-price) that we had joked about getting for some time. I suggested we get it, SB thought I was joking, but then she realized I was serious and we decided to go for it! Spring Break was drawing to a close, so why not! The fondue included: Swiss, Gruyere & Raclette cheeses melted with white wine & kirsch. Served with French bread for dipping and choice of two side salads (Caesar, Greek or Mediterranean). SB went with the Ceaser salad, and I went with the Mediterranean, which had a really odd Tahini dressing that I wasn’t too sure about.

The best part about fondue is of course getting your own little campfire. It reminded me of a time we went to Hu Hot and were able to roast s’mores at our table (more on s’mores in a bit!). Shortly after we finished our salads the huge bowl of cheese came.

SB followed sage advice when she began to dig into the bread and cheese! It was really good. I’m not a huge cheese person, at least not to the point of “Hey lets eat a bowl of molten cheese,” but this was admittedly pretty tasty (especially the semi-burnt cheese on the bottom). There was no way we could have managed to finish it all though. I really think you could split this between four people as an appetizer quite effectively, but for two people its definitely an entree.

I liked the little forks we were provided with to poke and dip things. Between the salads, bread, cheese, and beer, we left feeling quite pompous indeed. We still managed to fit treats in our bellies later that night though, have no fear.

In fact the food splurge spilled over into the next day, when we stopped through The Biscuit on our way to Whole Foods. We had some coffee, and shared a salmon sandwich (yum!), as well as chatted for a good bit, in fact we closed the coffee shop down! Such rebels we are (they close at 5pm).

Later on, we continued our parade of noms in a tribute to America.

Looking back, that is a lot of food. But hey, my Spring Break was basically work, beer, work, food, work, beer. And speaking of beer, lets discuss two new ones I’ve had. While I’ve been a bit obsessed with Dogfish Head lately, there are many more fish in the sea (har-har). I decided to try a couple new kinds of beer, but keep within the IPA theme.

1. Spring Hornin’ Spring India Pale Ale – Anderson Valley Brewing Company

2. Samuel Adams Rebel IPA – Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams)

Starting with the comically named, Spring Hornin’

This was an interesting IPA. In fact, I think it was more akin to a dry-hop Pale Ale than to a traditional IPA, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It was kind of a citrusy-herbal hybrid beer, labeled as an IPA. It was also the first beer I’ve ever had from this brewery. Overall I was definitely impressed. Especially since it boasts a 6.8% ABV, but does not taste like it has that much alcohol at all. I honestly think I’d rank it a little bit higher than Beer Advocate did, but they tend to be more purist than I am, which might explain why they didn’t go for the “offbeat” IPA vibe.

Next up was Samuel Adam’s Rebel IPA

Yes, yes, I know, its just an empty bottle, no beer. I forgot to take a picture with a poured glass (hey it was the end of my Spring Break, give me a.. ehm.. break). I guess that is an excuse to get it again. Since I’m now BFFs with Jim Koch maybe I can get him to send me some for free. Speaking of which, here is a write-up about his visit. If you read my previous post about Koch, you’ll remember me mentioning that a very good picture of he and I exists somewhere. Well, they didn’t use it for the article I linked, so yeah, its probably gone forever. I’m sure those photos are entirely Harvard’s property. However, you can actually see me in this photo.

Aww yiss, famous now. And no, that is not the photo I was saying was good, the photo I’m referring is actually Koch and I in the law school’s pub (just the two of us!). I really want it. Anyways, back to the Rebel IPA. It was good, but I think I preferred Spring Hornin’ overall simply because the Rebel IPA was just a straightforward IPA, no gimmicks or strings attached. There is no problem with that of course, but I think I should have drank the beers in reverse order to be entirely honest. I think the Rebel IPA’s “straight-laced” approach is probably what garnered it a higher score on Beer Advocate.

Of course, the later portion of my break wasn’t entirely food and beer. We also went to see the Boston Celtic’s play! Spoiler: They lost, but we still had a lot of fun. SB and I normally can’t afford any professional (or often even collegiate) sporting eventing unless there is some sort of special deal going on. Case in point, we really want to go to a Bruins game, but NHL tickets are just so pricey! However, this time around the Harvard Law School Couples Association nabbed a group of 20 tickets for 10$ a piece. Sure these weren’t court-side tickets, but we did get the 30-35$ tickets for 10$ instead, and in my book only paying 1/3 of a price is pretty good. We decided 20$ was well worth it to go to an NBA game. The opposing team was the Detroit Pistons.
[Edit: A couple of weeks later the HLSCA ended up giving us our 20$ back because they had excess funds – so the tickets were totally free!]

We got there a little early, just to find our seats, get oriented, scope out the food situation, etc. While SB had been to NBA (Pacer) games in the past, I don’t think I’ve ever been to an NBA game. In fact I think this might have been my first professional league anything. So I was pretty excited, even though basketball is far from my go-to sport (not that I have a go-to sport). It was a lot of fun, and even though we were up in the Himalayas surrounded by the other poor folk, I really enjoyed myself. At one point they tossed t-shirts in the audience (no cannons, sadly). However, they later made up for the lack of t-shirt cannons by dropping t-shirt parachutes from the heavens, it was awesome.

Here is a (blurry) shot that shows one a bit more up-close.

If you regularly watch games this is probably totally a non-thing for you, but I don’t, so it is. And, have you ever parachuted? Didn’t think so. Those t-shirts have.

The game itself kind of flip flopped, there for a bit the Celtics seemed like they had it, but then the Pistons surged back at the end and then just dominated overtime for the win. But as a I mentioned before, it was more about the experience. I enjoyed just watching the game, as well as the tricycle-race they had some kids do at half time, and the parachutes and green light shows of course. Oh, I also liked pestering Daryl 2, who is a Celtics fan. But he was in Florida, so he deserved it.

By the time we got home it was decently late, so the Celtics game (which was on Sunday night) was pretty much the last event for my Spring Break, as it was back to school the next morning. And boy, back to school sure came on with a vengeance. I promised myself I wouldn’t turn this post into an LRW-bitchfest, but I’ll just say that my week involved a lot of reading (a lot), journal sub citing, journal editing, LRW anguish, and LRW partner hostilities.

On top of it all, class registration is almost upon me and I’ve had no time to research classes, I still don’t have an apartment for Denver, AND, and this one is great; my laptop seems to be in the process of breaking. Yes, yes, its wonderful. In fact I tried to fix it and that just ended up with the laptop permanently bent in one spot and my fingers hurt (all thanks to one stupid stuck screw the size of a flea).

But not everything was bad this week. Harvard gave me s’mores.

I bet you thought I was being metaphorical or something, nope, Harvard literally gave me s’mores! Not only that, they gave me hot chocolate too! Heck, these s’mores even came with a variety of chocolates, I choose to make mine (yes we got to make them, over a real fire – insurance be damned!) with a Mr. Goodbar, because I friggin’ loved those when I was younger and fatter. They also had a potted flower (not sure which kind, some sort of early Spring variety would be my guess) but I didn’t get one since I wasn’t sure how care intensive it would be. Anyways, so why the treats? Well, I’ll just share the message from Harvard’s President.

“Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

It’s official. We have endured the snowiest winter on record, shoveling and trudging our way into history. This has been a season of extraordinary effort across the University, and I want to thank everyone who kept Harvard running smoothly through more than 110 inches of snow.

I write now to invite you to join friends and colleagues on the Science Center Plaza on Thursday, March 26, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., for a celebration of this historic moment. Please stop by to enjoy some well-deserved hot chocolate and s’mores as we look forward to what I hope will be an especially beautiful spring.

With best wishes,
Drew Faust”

So yep, it was because of the snow! Speaking of which, ~~believe it or not~~ unsurprisingly we have more snow in the forecast! They are calling for as much as between 1 and 3 inches tomorrow. [EDIT: It didn’t end up accumulating as much as they predicted, but it still brought us up to 110.6″] This after it actually hit 50 degrees early this week for the briefest of times. We’ll see how it turns out, once we are (finally) done I’ll be sure to share what the final snow total was. At this point we are just increasing that record more and more, but April is just around the corner, so lets hope we are almost done!

After s’mores and hot chocolate it was on to physical therapy and then back to the law school. As part of LRW I had to go observe the Ames Moot Court Semi-Final round. This is one of those rare moments where I am not complaining about LRW, so bear with me. While its true that they basically force the 1Ls to go watch one of the arguments in order to fill the room with bodies, it was actually a pretty cool experience.

But first, a little bit about the Ames Moot Court itself. If it wasn’t obvious, Ames is a Moot Court. Its named after its founder, HLS Dean James Barr Ames. Its been around sine 1911 and is the most prestigious moot court competition in existence. In other words, its a big freaking deal. There are three parts, the Qualifying Round (Fall 2L), Semi-Final Round (Spring 2L), and the Final Round (Fall 3L). Each is set up elimination style, you have to win your case to proceed. So a large pool of teams (5 members each, with 2 people on each team being the actual oralists) are whittled down to two teams in the Final Round. The Final Round is often televised on C-SPAN (Yeah I know, who cares) and usually brings in three very high profile judges (normally including 1 Supreme Court judge – this past year was Scalia). Anyways, this was the Semi-Final round, where there are four teams in total, which argue on two different nights. As part of LRW we have to attend one of the arguments, then write what is basically a reflection on it, easy stuff.

The argument itself was pretty interesting to watch, and the judges were ehm.. aggressive. Of course I guess that is pretty much the way it goes. Keep in mind, these are all real judges. The argument I attended had a judge from the California Supreme Court (Goodwin Liu), a judge from the US Court of Appeals 9th Circuit (Carlos Bea) and a judge from the DC Court of Appeals (Catherine Easterly). In my mind the appellant did much better than the appellee, which is a shame because I was more much ideologically in support of the appellee (The case was about a RFRA law – no relation to Indiana). Of course I don’t do the grading, and I’m just a dumb 1L, so I might have totally read the flow of the argument wrong.

The reason we have to go watch, is primarily to fill the room (people care way more about the final round), but also to see the process action because as 1Ls we also have our own Ames (the reflection is just to prove we went, and didn’t lie and say we did). Our Ames, which isn’t part of the three round competition, is the culmination of the Hell-on-Earth that is LRW, and yes, we have to argue against opposing counsel before a court, and yes, you can lose, and yes it affects your grade if you lose. Plus, since there are only 2 people in a team (as opposed to 5 on the “real” Ames) both people have to be oralists. Anyways, I have that coming up in a couple of weeks, but first I have to get the brief itself done, which is due Monday. In fact, I will probably spend my entire damn Sunday working on that stupid brief. But I’ll talk about how that ends up in another post.

All that catches us up to tonight (Friday)

SB and I went out to Darwin’s for dinner since its getting colder (in advance of the coming snow). Then we went over to Broadway to pick up some beer for me, but no treat. What!? Yes, we didn’t get treats at Broadway, our treat had came via the mail.

Now, depending on your personality, you probably either just 1) Puked in your mouth, or 2) Began salivating. You can mark SB and I down as being firmly in category 2. And I have to say, these Oreos were FREAKING AMAZING. They are hands down, the best “flavored” Oreo I have ever had, in all the flavors Oreo has tried out, this is the best in both SB and I’s book. The thing is, these things were a bitch to find.

The story begins over a year ago (seriously), when I learned about them in an online forum. We began searching for them, but could never find them anywhere. The search eventually petered out and we even began to question their existence. From time to time I would fruitlessly check store aisles, but we never saw them. Well, eventually we moved to Boston and the Cookie Dough Oreos slowly faded from memory until one day when I was getting an MRI one of the techs was eating them. Suddenly the search was on again! (I didn’t get a chance to ask them where he got them). Well, we still couldn’t find them, not even in a big East Coast city (the coastal cities traditionally have stuff like this sooner than the Midwest). The sorrow returned and it seemed like we would never have God’s Gift to Oreos. Until one day I stopped being stupid and looked for them online. Now here is the kicker, not even Amazon has them anymore. So I went to Ebay. Yes, freaking Ebay, for food. Sure enough, there they were. Some industrious person in Pennsylvania had cleared out the supply from his Sam’s Club or something back when they were still in stores. And now these cookies are no longer produced, so he sells them marked up about 4-5x on Ebay, because he (rightfully) knows that people like me will buy the damn things. And I did. Now, I generally don’t take buying food on Ebay lightly. But this seller had over 3000 feedback and it was 100% positive, so I figured it he was mass poisoning people, he was doing it very intelligently.

Long story made short, we ordered them on Ebay, paying more for Oreos than I could ever imagine, they arrived a couple days later, perfectly packaged (and sans poison) and they were SO DANG GOOD. The entire process was worth it. I cry a little bit as I take each bite, knowing that I may never have these delicious Oreos again. Not that I need them, its like 5lbs of calories in each 1oz cookie. But still, look at how noms these look, complete with chocolate chunks, it really is a cookie inside a cookie.

Oh yeah, and the beer! Whereas I had been on an IPA kick before, this time around I decided to head to the British Isles!

Yep! Every beer pictured comes from either the UK or Ireland. Its a nice change of pace from the American-made IPA kick I’ve been on lately (not that I didn’t like those IPAs!). I actually bought the two kinds of Guinness for a specific reason, I’ll have a post about that later. For now I’ll just talk about the Bass.

3. Bass Pale Ale – Bass Brewers Limited

I’ve had Bass before, more than once. In fact one of the first times I had it was at Epcot! However, I’ve never highlighted it here on Dinosaurbear before. According to the brewers, Bass is “The World’s First Pale Ale,” dating back to 1777. I have no idea if that is true, in fact I’d probably say its not, but its one of those things that is very difficult to prove, so I guess we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. However, they also claim that Bass’ red triangle was the UK’s first registered trademark, which is true! (UK00000000001) Apparently so many people were ripping off Bass by 1876 (or 1875 according to the brewers) that they had to do something, and thus the UK’s first trademark was born. By comparison, the first US trademark was an an eagle and a ribbon for the Averill Chemical Paint Company (1884), which is way less cool than a beer triangle.

Unfortunately Bass is a beer that just isn’t as exceptional or unique as its history. Its actually the lowest ranked beer of the three in this post (on Beer Advocate). Its not a bad beer, it just doesn’t have anything that really goes “BAM!” about it. Its kind of like the Rebel IPA in that regard, its good for what it is, but isn’t too memorable, even as the “first” pale ale. I do like the head, its sort of a creamy foam, which isn’t standard for pale ale. Its also fairly crisp for a pale ale, and is definitely drinkable. The 5.1% ABV also means that you could have a few without getting plastered. There is also just a hint of sweetness that blends with the overall flavor. So yeah, not a bad a beer, but nothing legendary (as its history might imply) either.

For the rest of the night I’m just going to chill. Tomorrow (today) I have to go grocery shopping with SB, do all my Criminal Law reading for next week, research classes, and do some more apartment hunting (e.g. a bunch of stuff some of which I will definitely not get done). Then Sunday.. well Sunday is going to be all LRW, that’s all I have to say about that (for now).

Until next time,
-Taco

[P.S. – Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about my owed Dogfish Head review, good things come in time. Also keep your eye out for my Guinness post (coming sometime between now and infinity) if you are hankering for some Taco beer posting, which you aren’t.]

(Halfway) 1L Spring Break

March 19, 2015 by Taco

Well, my “Spring Break” is now more than half way over, boy the time sure does fly.

I’ve had a decently productive Spring Break thus far, I put in one entire day on my brief at the law school, wrote an essay, worked on my brief some more, and am about 80% done with the reading I need to have completed by Monday. I still have a big SPO project that hasn’t even been touched yet, and my brief partner is remaining just enough of a thorn in my side to remind me that the brief still needs a lot of work. So, I’m sort of coming to that point where I realize that I likely won’t get everything I wanted to get done on Spring Break accomplished. But that’s ok, my defense is that it is technically a “break,” even in in reality it isn’t. The main issue has been finding enough time to research summer housing, that is uh.. kind of important, and I’m not making much headway with it.

Outside of school stuff, the break goes well. I’ve been getting more sleep, which oddly isn’t making me feel much better, I think its partially because I haven’t been sleeping super well. My leg pain has been elevated lately, not entirely sure why. SB and I have also had more time to spend together, which is always nice. I haven’t got as much video game time in as I would likely, namely because my friends’ Spring Breaks didn’t line up with mine, for figure. But, some video game time is definitely better than no video game time.

This past Friday SB and I went out to b.Good again, which was just as tasty this time around.

SB went with the West-Side (avocado, cilantro, fresh salsa, chipotle puree, lime) with chicken this time, and I tried out El Guapo (Bacon, homemade jalapeno ranch, lettuce, tomato, onion) and we shared some sweet potato fries again. Since I highlighted how all the food is local last time, this time I wanted to focus on their sauces a bit more.

In addition to all the yummy, locally-sourced sauce that they actually put on the sandwiches, they also offer mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise. However, if you are looking for Heinz, you’re out of luck. These are all location-made condiments, and they are really good! I’m probably most fond of the mustard overall, but I’d take any of them over their mass-market counterparts any day. My guess is that there are no preservatives in them, so they wouldn’t sell well as a b.Good line outside the store.

After b.Good it was off for treats and beer. I got another Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA as well as some Bud Light Platinum. I loved the 90, so I figured why not get another bottle. The Platinum I got since it was cheap and helped me justify playing 3.50$ for a 90, but also because I tried it when it first came out and thought it was horrible. Well, I haven’t drank the 90 yet (but we know it will be good anyways) but the Platinum was nothing special. It wasn’t as bad as I remember it being, but its not really “unique” enough compared to regular Bud Light to justify its own special little beer blurb style format. If you were curious what Beer Advocate has to say though, click here (Spoiler: They don’t like it). However, not all was repetition in the beer world. During part of my then-failed hunt for the other Dogfish Head IPAs (more on that below) I decided to try a sour ale from the Wine and Cheese Cask. I have never had a sour ale before, and I saw this bottle (right on the heels of failing to find the 120) and was like “I must have this.” so I bought just that one bottle, which didn’t seem to please the cashier, or maybe he was just an asshat, probably a bit of both.

1. Monk’s Cafe Flemish Sour Ale – Brouwerij Van Steenberge N.V.

First up, this stuff packs a punch. No, its not that strong as far as ABV goes, only 5.5%. What I mean is that it packs a sour punch, with a refreshing fruity after-taste. I was very impressed by this beer (even SB liked it, after some initial “I-don’t-know-what-to-think” reservations). If you are curious “Flemish” is the Dutch language spoken in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium. So this is a Belgium ale, just from a specific region. The sour element though, is quite unlike anything I’ve had before. This isn’t just a fruity sour, this is also soured-type of taste. Which might make you think it sounds bad, but it really wasn’t (use SB as a baseline, since she is less eccentric than I when it comes to beers, by a long-shot). This beer is a Oud Bruin (a brown beer from Flanders) which has been through a souring process, which results from the kind of cultured yeast used. There is nothing dangerous about this beer, which might make you nervous since its technically “soured” (e.g. soured-milk) but in fact it opens up an entirely new element to the beer’s taste, smell, and mouth-feel. While not quite on the level of the Dogfish 90 I recently had, this is still one of the better beers I’ve had in awhile and I would definitely recommend it, don’t let the “sour” aspect scare you, its probably more sanitary than your chemical-laden drinking water. 😉

Moving on!

Oh, and yeah, we got more snow. Remember how I was just talking about snow? Well, we ended up breaking the record after all. On Sunday we had a short-lived, but quite intense, snow storm that sent us to infamy.

Now that its happened, I’m ok with it. But boy, talk about timing. They’ve been reliably recording snowfall in Boston since 1872. Which means this is the most it has snowed in at least 143 years. So put it another way, when SB and I moved out there, there was a .007% chance (or less) that this would be the record breaking year. Talk about (un)luck. Of course Spring is almost here, at least the date Spring begins on, we’ve been having some very un-Spring like temperatures (and snow) thus far though. Hopefully that turns around soon. This is the most snow I have ever seen in my life and I’m ready for a change. For my Indiana people, the most snow ever recorded anywhere in Indiana was 58.2″. So yeah.

[Post-Winter Update: Here is an update – Boston’s final snow total was 110.6″ for the year, which included a myriad of other record breaking stats, such as the fastest accumulation of 72″ of snow – 18 days.]

My Spring Break also encompassed St. Patrick’s day! While I am generally not into the Irish-mania we have here in the U.S. of A, where everyone and their mother claims to be 110% Irish, I do like excuses to drink good beer. Which brings us to the next stage of this blog post:

Taco’s Beer Adventure

Do not build this up in your head, it is not anything amazing. But it was an adventure in my book. And yes, we are back to talking about beer for the second time in the same post, I say again, deal with it. 😛

So remember how I’ve basically been raving about Dogfish Head throughout a myriad of blog posts lately? And how I started my quest to drink all four members of their legendary IPA quartet? Well, I’ve made progress AND I’ve learned something kind of big.

There are not four Dogfish Head IPAs, there are five.

If you remember correctly, here is the legendary Dogfish Head line-up as I believed it to be:

60 Minute IPA – 6% ABV
75 Minute IPA – 7.5% ABV
90 Minute IPA – 9% ABV
120 Minute IPA – 15-20% ABV

Well, it turns out that there is a “weird half-brother” to the quartet above, Dogfish Head Sixty-One. Yes, Sixty-One, not 61, but Sixty-One spelled out. I’ll explain why its spelled out later.

In addition to learning that the quadruplets were in fact quintuplets, I learned about more about the mythical “God Among Beers” the 120 Minute IPA. Turns out, that shit is as much as 13$ for ONE TWELVE OUNCE BOTTLE. Yes, 1300 PENNIES FOR 12OZ OF BEER. Now, this doesn’t mean I won’t have it, oh I shall. Beer is literally the only thing I treat myself to anymore besides a date night with SB. So its really the only “me me me” thing I have. [For disclosure, I haven’t paid money for a video game in years, I ask for gift cards at Christmas and buy so few video games that I don’t even use up all the card before the next Christmas, its a good system because it allows me to buy games I never would otherwise because of the money, same goes for comics, there is no way I can afford them right now, so I ask for them at Christmas!] So I will have the 120 minute IPA. But I’m going to wait until LRW is over. I’m not sure if I’ll have it that same night, or wait until that Friday (because I have another presentation worth 20% of my grade in another class due the day right after my final LRW project), but that is when I will have it. Until then I will “settle” for the other Dogfish Head IPAs. That said, if you’d like to donate to the Taco 120 Minute IPA Fund, please feel free, since its the most expensive beer I will have ever tried in my life. 🙂

Of course, here is the thing, micro-brews are not always easy to find. This is especially true when you are looking for a lesser-known variety of a line that is already not super common (Dogfish Head’s IPA series). Most people, or rather most people who drink more than Coors Lite, know about Dogfish Head’s 60 Minute IPA, and they’ve also seen the 90, even if they haven’t footed the bill for the pricey four pack. Once you get into Sixty-One, 75, and 120 territory, then things get a bit tricky. Case-in-point, I didn’t even know about Sixty-One until St. Patrick’s day. So when you set out to find these brews, its not as simple as going down to the corner store and picking up a six pack (of which only the 60 Minute exists in). In fact, many specialty stores won’t even carry anything outside of the 60 or the 90. So my initial search had failed.

Enter SB, who actually found that Dogfish Head has their own “Fish Finder.” To help you out, since, by their own admission, it can be hard to find a fair bit of their stuff outside of Delaware. Armed with my new tool I quickly realized that Sixty-One, 75, and 120 weren’t anywhere near where I regularly shop. Fun. The 120 Minute is nestled in a liquor store right in the middle of a HUMONGOUS homeless person civilization (Central Square in Cambridge – its really not that bad, but its a prime spot to get badgered by homeless people, ESPECIALLY if you have booze). Sixty-One was a bit further away still. And the 75? Only two places in the ENTIRE CITY had received a delivery in the past 60 days. Having decided that I wanted to save the 120 for after LRW, and since it was St. Patrick’s day, I wanted to give the 90 I had in the refrigerator some company, and thus my quest to get both Sixty-One and 75 was born.

The destination? A Shaw’s Star Market in the Back Bay of Boston. 3.8 miles of busy afternoon public transportation away. For Great Justice, For Great Beer.

I swung through the Harvard Square Starbucks where SB was working on a paper, took some drinks of her coffee and borrowed her transit pass and then I was on my way to the Red Line. From there it was on to the Green Line.

Luckily I was only go as far as Copley Square, so I didn’t have to take the Green Line to the point where it drives on the street with the cars, which is annoying since you have to obey the traffic lights. While you don’t ever have to look to hard to see Boston’s rich Irish heritage, it was especially easy on St. Patrick’s day. Pretty much my entire trip via the subway was accompanied by various musicians performing Irish music, most of them quite good. I obviously wasn’t there to see it, but the Dropkick Murphys even performed a free, extemporaneous concert out at Logan Airport on St. Patrick’s day prior to boarding their flight.

I had never been to Copley Square before, it is a nice contrast of old and new, like most of Boston actually.

That’s the Trinity Church and the John Hancock Tower, I’ll leave it up to you to guess which is which (the Boston Public library is right across the street, and when I went by there was a CRAZY GOOD beat-boxer performer out in front of it). From here on out it was just my feet and the streets. I impressed myself by not needing my phone, my brain must have absorbed the Google maps fairly decently.

Fortunately it was a gorgeous day, at one point it even hit 50 degrees. So not having to have my toboggan on was nice, heck on the way back I didn’t even need my gloves!

Eventually I made it to the store (seen on the left above), found my way to the alcohol section (tucked in the back and up a flight of stairs, which I thought to be quite dumb) and panicked as I tried to find Sixty-One and 75. I kept looking and looking, but couldn’t find them. I knew the Sixty-One would be a four pack (as the 90 is) and that the 75 was a big ole’ bottle. But I couldn’t find them. Just as I was about to curse the fish finder, there at the back of the (quite large) beer section was an end-cap devoted entirely to Dogfish Head, and sure enough, there were Sixty-One and 75. They didn’t have 120, but the fish finder didn’t say they would anyways (and I am ok with that, as I am not sure I could resist drinking it for so long). Before leaving I picked up some unsweetened Cashew Milk which SB and I had been wanting to try but hadn’t found up until that point, and looked for some green food coloring, but that was obviously entirely sold out.

Afterwards, it was back the way I came, just this time with beer and milk, which got heavy nice and quick. The return was fairly smooth, it took me a minute or two to find the Green Line station going inbound instead of outbound, since they were further apart than the station entrances normally are. But after that it was primarily just dealing with the afternoon crowds of people ready to go home and drink for St. Patrick’s day. When I came up out of the Red Line it was POURING RAIN and super windy. The weather forecast did not call for that, at all. So I sprinted into Starbucks to see SB and return her transit card and also to give myself time to get my umbrella out without getting drenched. She decided to just go ahead and come home with me since quite a bit of time had passed. Once we got back outside the rain had mostly turned into a drizzle, but the wind was still howling. I think our umbrellas inverted 4-5 times on the way home. But the beer survived, and thus all was well in the world.

I’ll be sure to take a full family quintet photo once I have a bottle of the 120 as well.

If you were anticipating me describing the beer (I doubt you were, but pretend) then you’ll need to wait for my next post. So far I’ve only had the Sixty-One, and I’d like to cover both the 75 and Sixty-One in the same post. I will go ahead and post my St. Patrick’s Day green Sixty-One, for the spirit of the season.

It was a productive St. Patrick’s day evening. SB was still working on her paper and I spent a fair bit of the night fixing our coffee maker. When we moved something happened to it and.. like.. crystals formed inside of it. No not meth, or if It was meth I want a refund because I didn’t lose any weight or feel magical. Vinegar wouldn’t fix it, and I couldn’t figure out how to get inside since its one of those single-cup varieties. Eventually we just gave up since the filters were catching (most) of the crystals and we weren’t dying. Well, the other day the crystals hit another high point and so I raged and launched a conquest against the coffee maker which resulted in it being in pieces and a disturbingly large amount of crystal-dirt-muck being removed from the coffee maker. It was really almost gag inducing. But its now clean as a whistle and the coffee tastes much less bitter, it also works without as much steam. The only downside is that the top part doesn’t hold itself open so you have to hold it up while you put the filter in. Those tiny little springs were not designed to ever be removed by a human.

It also got much, much colder. I’m talking a drop of about 30 degrees in one night. The wind was also crazy, throughout the night the 60mph gusts just keep coming and coming. Of course we still weren’t as bad as nearby Mt. Washington, where the temperature on the peek felt like -58 degrees and the wind was constantly around 98mph with gusts of up to 102mph. Yeah, that made our apartment sound much nicer.

But that is enough for now, I’ll keep you updated on the Dogfish Head situation, have no fear. My next check-in will probably be once my “Spring Break” is either over, or almost over, which sadly will come much sooner than I would like. Tomorrow I’m going to have lunch with SB, then go to a cafe to get a bit of reading done before my weekly physical therapy appointment. But for what remains of this evening, its aimlessly browsing the internet and beer, I was productive this afternoon and this blog post took away, so I’m done for today.

Until next time,
-Taco

P.S. – In the belated spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, I present the following note from my beer calendar:

(Preemptive) 1L Spring Break

March 14, 2015 by Taco

Fact of the Day: There are no breaks for 1L.

If you are thinking that seems like an odd statement when the title of this post contains the words “Spring Break,” then I wouldn’t blame you. The truth is, we do technically have breaks as 1Ls. The reality is that the law school goes out of its way to ensure that you can’t you know, actually take a break, during your break. Case in point.. you guessed it, LRW. So by now I hope you realize how much I f*cking hate that class. In fact, it probably holds the title of my most hated class of all time. As I’ve mentioned before, this semester (because everyone loves a year long class) your entire grade is a brief, with a partner. I ended up with someone who cares, a lot, lot, lot more than me. Like, if my cares equate to the size of a pea, my partner’s cares are about the size of the Pacific Ocean. No really, there is that much of a difference between us. Their minimum grade, is a grade that is so far up there that it doesn’t really exist to me. This makes for a bit of a clash of personalities. Namely, they’ve become the “Authoritarian” with lots of passive-aggressive demands, while I’ve become the person who has nothing to lose because I simple “Pass” is all I care about. It makes for some really interesting situations, wherein my Partner wants to run the show with an iron fist, but they ultimately realize at the end of the day that if I don’t care, there really isn’t much that can be done.

But the truth is, I do care enough to get the “Pass,” which might not sound like a challenge. But, let me assure you. A “Pass” here is like a 4.0 anywhere else I’ve been. No, I am not exaggerating. So to “settle” for a “Pass” still involves an insane amount of work for an LRW brief. Then, to top it off there is an oral argument after the writing portion is done (which I ironically just got my schedule for as I type this post). My point being, even just a “Pass” takes a lot. Next week is Spring Break, then my brief is due the week after that. See how that works? Its just like Fall semester, where they made an LRW memo due right after Fall Break. LRW exists to destroy breaks. And remember, LRW is just one out of five classes and I have a big project for my SPO coming up that will eat into Spring Break as well.

I also need to follow up with a few people (or rather, continue following up with) I met at networking receptions these past two weeks. I had one reception for Public Interest and one for Big Law. Both went well, the Big Law had much, much better food and they even put your beer into a fancy class instead of leaving it in the bottle. But there is no surprise there, Public Interest people have no money to buy sushi and fancy glasses. I don’t think I made any super amazing connections, but the networking practice is good. That crap is draining, especially when speaking to hyper assertive Big Law Partners, and when I had 3 hours of client interviews for my SPO right beforehand.

So Spring Break is kind of a joke, I’m going to have to lose at least one day to LRW (which requires actually going to campus – since my partner is working on classes all through Spring Break – yes they are one of those people), one day to my SPO, one day to writing an essay, and one day to catch up reading (because Professors are kind enough to TRIPLE your reading load over a “break”). Oh, and I also need to try to figure out a place to live this summer and if I am going to run for a club’s board (which I have been asked to do).

However, busy as it is, I still don’t have to go to class, so that is a plus. As far as doing fun stuff, SB and I’s breaks did not line up, and the one day she thought she had off, she didn’t. So that means we won’t really get to do anything. We are going to try to have lunch one day, but that is about it. All in all, not the most exciting Spring Break plans I’ve ever had, to be sure. And that is about all I can say for Spring Break at the moment, while my rich classmates are gallivanting around the world (literally) I will be in my apartment working or playing video games. Though I am more ok with that than it might seem. I entitled this post as my “Preemptive” Spring Break because its technically next week, I might try to write up an after Spring Break post, we’ll see. I still don’t think my sleep as fully recovered from our lovely “Spring Forward” last weekend, I always really struggle with that.

But that isn’t all for this post. I have some catching up to do since I haven’t been on my blog much lately.

Let’s start with some BEER! Its always beer with me, deal with it.

So if you recall, I LOVED the Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA and swore I would get my hands on the 120 Minute IPA. Well, I tried, and failed. The place I normally go to didn’t have the 120 Minute IPA. However, they did have the 60 Minute IPA. I figured I might as well try the entire quartet so I went with that. As mentioned before the 60 Minute is 6% ABV, the 75 Minute is 7.5%, the 90 Minute is 9%, and the 120 Minute is 15-20%.

1. 60 Minute IPA – Dogfish Head Brewery

This is the “Little Brother” of the almighty Dogfish Head Quartet. That said, don’t underestimate this beer. You’ll notice on Beer Advocate that its only marginally less lauded than its 90 and 120 Minute counterparts (and actually slightly outranks its 75 Minute brother). While I have to say, I liked the 90 Minute better, this is a far more drinkable beer if you are looking for more than 1-2 beers. I would be horrified to drink more than 2 90 Minute IPAs lest I become full-bore drunk. The 60 Minute is more of a 3-4 kind of beer. You’d still be quite happy, but not puking drunk. The flavors were largely similar to the 90 Minute, just a bit more mild and tangy. I standby my earlier statement, these are the best IPAs I’ve ever had. Having had 1 bottle of the 90 and 1 bottle of the 60, I very much look forward to trying out the 75 and 120 minute versions. I just need to 1 – Find them, and 2 – Be able to afford them. So far I’ve been limited to a single bottle of each, and I’d really like to sit down with 2 bottles, since I find that it generally takes be 2 beers to fully appreciate all the flavors.

Speaking of beer I also met Jim Koch.

That might not mean much to you, but to a beer person, Jim Koch is famous (or infamous, depending on who you speak to). He is the founder of the Boston Beer Company, or, as people more commonly know it, Samuel Adams Brewery. Sorry to say, the modern Samuel Adams Brewery is not the long-descendant of Samuel Adams himself, though he did have a brewery and this modern version is named in his honor (You now know something a lot of people don’t!). I’ve been to the original Samuel Adams brewery in Boston and drank more Samuel Adams beer than I care to link to (just search the blog – which is really only a fraction of what I’ve had).

Anyways, Koch is credited with spurring the American craft brew industry into action, in a way that it had not been since before the prohibition. In fact, since Samuel Adams started, the market control of major brewers (Miller-Coors, Anheuser-Busch, etc.) has shrank from nearly 98% to about 88%. Sure, the big corporations still control the vast majority of the market and most likely always will, but its allowed for a growth of micro and home brewing that wouldn’t have otherwise have been possible since such activities got set back a LONG time by our lovely prohibition. Now, how much Koch (A 5th generation brewer from Ohio) actually contributed to this resurgence is hotly contested by beer people, but I tend to think he didn’t hurt the process, at the very least. Regardless of all that, I jumped at the chance to meet him when I found out he was going to be coming to the law school to speak (Fun Fact: He is also an HLS grad, as are all cool people). In fact I skipped about 20 minutes of class to get to the talk in time. It was definitely worth it, the whole time he and the Dean were talking he was drinking a beer (Sam Adams, of course). Afterwards he took questions and this one guy who I already dislike essentially stole the microphone from me, thus putting him in the category of people who “Taco would not save from falling over the edge of a cliff even if he could” (Yes I have such a list). But good things come to those who wait and afterwards I got some 1 one 1 time with Koch while he and the Dean walked down to the law school pub (If you have forgotten, HLS has a bar inside the school, no seriously). There is a good picture of us out there somewhere, but Harvard owns it, and I’ll probably never see it. While there were many funny and good things to take from his talk, I liked how he pointed out that the first brewery in American opened in 1635, followed by the first university in 1636 (Harvard) – proof that beer is required to learn anything. (Also worth noting, Koch is good friends with the founder of Dogfish Head!)

Another nice thing about going to those kinds of talks is that they normally feed us. At the Koch talk for instance we had a nice boxed lunch.

I ended up taking two more boxes home for SB and I, in addition to 11 cans of Diet Coke. Don’t ask how I do such things, just be amazed. A lot of the lunches bring in all sorts of food, such as Indian.

That was actually SB’s lunch when she was on campus for a mental health symposium, but I’ve had the same thing. Of course, there are also plenty of times that they serve some good ole’ American viddles.

Honestly, I don’t care what it is its all free, and when you tend to be on campus for up to 10 hours (or more) the less food I have to try to mash into a lunch box, the better. Koch wasn’t the only one I met since my last post, I met Ingrid Newkirk (Founder of PETA) but she no longer likes me because I am not a PETA fan and I exposed a logical fallacy she used in her presentation (and am now probably on someone’s death list). I also met Frances Beinecke, former president of the NRDC, who I do like. And speaking of Presidents, the Vice-President (as in the Vice-President, Joe Biden) was on campus earlier this week. I didn’t meet him though. In fact I didn’t even know he was here until I happened to look out the window and see a bunch of cops.

I still didn’t know what was going on until I asked someone. I’m glad I asked, after class I saw a bomb squad in the fireside lounge, which might have been a bit more concerning if I didn’t know the VP was in the building. Of course I shouldn’t be too concerned, I’m in the middle of my big DoJ background check, so I’m sure they know everything there is to know about me. This week I went and got my fingerprints taken at the Harvard Police Department, which cost me 20$. The HUPD headquarters is actually pretty nice, with good views of Cambridge. Then they take you down into the booking dungeon (literally) to take your fingerprints. It was kind of creepy.

As you can see from photo above, our snow has greatly receded. A few unseasonably warm days really did some damage to the snowbanks. I’m not complaining, I’ve walked through plenty of snow for one year. We’ve had 105.7″ of snow for the season, just 1.9″ away from the all time record. The weather people seem to think we won’t make it, but the locals seem fairly confident that a few small March snows (and possibly April ones too) will make up that last 1.9″ of difference. I’ll be sure to update if we do actually break the record. I would find that so terribly ironic.

But not all the snow is gone, in fact just this week I found a giant snow squirrel!

I really wish I had found him before the temperature went up, but at this stage you can still easily tell its a squirrel. This isn’t related, but its a pretty picture SB took a bit ago.

I can’t remember how long ago, but its been since the Charles River unfroze, if nothing else. For a good while the entire river was one big sheet of ice, and many of the side channels still are.

I can’t say I miss the ice, I am very glad my sidewalks are slowly transforming back into sidewalks. Since the Harvard Shuttles and Buses don’t have convenient routes for me based on where I live, I walk pretty much everywhere (the non-Harvard [MBTA] public transit doesn’t do me much good getting to school either). Of course I can’t hold anything against the shuttles, the other day I saw a happy one, which made me happy too.

Speaking off happy things, conducted 3 client interviews this week for my SPO and all of them went really well! Made me feel like I have big britches to run the interviews myself for the first time.

Another happy thing is that when we were at Whole Foods last time they had free samples of Parmesan-Crusted Scallops. Yes, FREE SAMPLES of the ENTIRE SCALLOP. It was awesome, I ate 2. Valentino ate at least 20.

A even more happy thing was that my Aunt came to visit again! This time it was less about seeing us and more about find a place to live. She is moving up to this area for work. So we got spoiled again! She took us out for a nice dinner at place called Benevento’s, which was right in Little Italy and therefore had awesome Italian food (kudos to SB’s boss for recommending it). Afterwards we walked over to the original Mike’s Pastry for some cannolis!

It was crazily packed, considering that it was like 9:30pm on a Sunday. But I guess when you have good noms, the people will come. I liked my Limoncello cannoli a lot, probably more so than the Peanut Butter one I had last time at the Harvard Square location, namely since this one was more manageable and less rich. SB and my Aunt enjoyed theirs as a well, and the coffee was (as always) a nice pairing. All in all a good night. The only downside is that once we got back to the train station and my Aunt sent on her way, it was decently late by the time we got home. But it was all well worth it! The quickest way to get SB and I to spend time with you is to take us out to dinner we normally can’t afford. 😛

I’m kidding (sort of). 🙂

So that pretty much catches up the blog. My plans for tonight (Friday) are to go out with SB for our weekly date, get some noms, some sweet noms, and (obviously) some beer! As I complained about above, I am going to have a busy Spring Break and not in the fun way, but overall I will take having to go to campus 1ish time(s), as opposed to 5-6 times, any day of the week.

Until next time,
-Taco

The Brief is Done! (Let Us Drink and Eat Noms!)

A Tale of Two Guinness

(Post) 1L Spring Break

(Halfway) 1L Spring Break

(Preemptive) 1L Spring Break

Search all of Dinosaur Bear

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