Mindtrick

The A-list badge with 503 links on my 131st day of official blogging.

This calls for a beer session!

Happy birthday Julie C.!

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Magpabeer ka naman! : )

Like a beer or two - intoxicating, without the hangover, as this image says.

Found thru the Adventures in Ethics and Science.

So maybe you know that sparkling wine
can only be called Champagne

if it is from the Champagne region in France
and if it undergoes a secondary fermentation in the bottle.
- The Green Grape

Even a graduating Filipino
Harvard Law student believes that beers and alcohol have something
good to offer - keeping people together and winning victories.

And so it happens.

That point in time when some things simply have unhappy endings. Tragedy, they call it.

We take for instance the kismet of some guy found by doctors to have developed a fatty liver. It must be a little hard for him to take that his beer-drinking days are conclusively over.

But as the Witch of Portobello points out, if there is any possible consolation in the tragedy of losing [something valuable], it’s the necessary hope that perhaps it was for the best.

Besides, when a door closes, a window opens. The beer-drinking days may finally be gone, but the beer-blogging days are just off to a flying start.

The more sober side of things can be found here, just in case I give you the impression that I am an alcoholic for writing posts on beers. The entries in this blog will not entirely delve into beer topics. Frankly, I’m not much of a drinker. Though I have a certain fascination of blogging about beers. And who knows where this fascination would lead me to. Call me an ambitious halfwit but I’m thinking of either venturing into the business of beer brewing or getting a job on beer tasting. I just hope that the fascination would never turn me into a habitual drunkard.

Who could have thought that there is a formula for beer goggles?

A research says that beer or the amount of alcohol consumed is not the only factor for transforming people into beauties. Other factors include the level of light in a bar, the drinker’s own eyesight, the room’s smokiness, and the distance between the two people.

At almost midnight now, my officemates just texted me to go to our Friday night-out. But I think I just have to save my energy for tomorrow. So I won’t be replying then, to make them think that I’m already sleeping.

But I wish I have a stong ice or super dry right now while I’m blogging. It frustrates me that this post editor doesn’t have a "justify" button. I can’t even switch to the HTML editor. And I keep on clicking the save button, hoping that the buttons I need may finally appear. A lot of you may already be receiving multiple emails saying that Dundee updated his friendster blog. Pardon me for that. I’ll try to configure the settings next time.

Anyway, I’m still thinking of having a cold beer. Call it consuelo de bobo, since I will really be missing a lot this night.

[Update: I used Word and edited the paragraphs and font. I did copy-and-paste, published the post and it was fixed somehow.]

My friend Sam suggested a brilliant idea of getting himself a beer dispenser. The logic behind this sudden eureka wasn’t initially clear to me. I was thinking then of the dispenser having an "H"  or red tap. Because definitely my friend would not really want a hot beer. I understand though his craving for an instant cold beer especially during the heat like this moment.

Meanwhile, I read a post about allowing grocery and liquor stores to hand out beer samples up to 6 ounces to a person of legal drinking age for the purpose of helping brewers market a wider variety of specialty brands and compete with wine makers. The catch is, it’s certainly not here in the Philippines. Though I’m inclined to presume that there isn’t any possibility of allowing that here since for one, we really do not have a lot of beer choices to choose from. San Miguel is apparently the prevailing choice of most people. And if  there are other choices such as Heineken or Carlsberg, I don’t think people would really want something expensive.

Nonetheless, the idea of giving out free beers to beer lovers such as myself is definitely more brilliant than having a beer dispenser.

A
few days ago, my mercurial boss and I were having lunch at a seafood resto. At
a table beside us, there were people who seemed so carefree drinking beer. I
mean, who would not get untroubled when people drink beer at the middle of the
day?

Somehow we
were amused at the sight. Until my boss told me of how he knew someone with a
job of tasting beers. (I was sure they were not the people beside us.) He said
that there were actually three of them and their job consisted of just tasting
beers. Exciting huh?

Aside
from the job being so easy (though I’m not sure about this, I wonder whether
those particular people have a beer belly or not) and exciting, it fascinates
me to know how one tongue represents the taste of a million. Three tongues
actually. Who would ever know if the taste of the beer they approve to be so is
also the taste that the majority of people would like? For it to work magic,
the bulk of the task must be left for the marketing people.

But it
interests me more how these three beer taste testers were chosen for the job.
There must be some chemists who presented them with three glasses of beers (maybe
five even or ten) and then they were asked to identify the beer in each glass
and the percent of alcohol that each contains. Pretty much like identifying the
Do note or Sol note on the piano keys. And then identifying the sharps and
flats. Hhmm….

It makes me
think and it leads me to one conclusion. Drink beers and memorize the taste of
each one! Who knows? I might get the job of tasting beers in a couple of years!
I already can differentiate the taste of a super dry from a strong ice. Cerveza
negra from a red horse. Carlsberg from a pale. My only problem would be to
identify the alcohol percent in each beer. Or is it even possible to do this
just by tasting? Can alcohol percent be measured just by tasting? Questions to
keep me busy with.

And I remember
that I have more preference to smoking as a vice rather than drinking beer.
Aahh, I must leave this thought for another day of pondering. And frankly
speaking, I hate to see the face of my boss everyday but at least he gives me
an idea of a possible alternative career!