I’ve written about the roller derby before. And here it is again.  Last time was an exhibition. This weekend, these ladies were for real. The league has begun, and they kicked ass. The Rose City Rollers is Portland’s roller derby league, and it is currently comprised of 4 teams: sweet Breakneck Betties, ritzy High Rollers, compassionless Heartless Heathers, and the evil Guns ‘n Rollers. Sometime since the exhibition match these ladies became athletes.

Alright, enough about Windows. But not enough about beer. But that’s another tale for another time. Recently I received a copy of the latest edition of Running Linux (number 5 is alive). The author credits go to Matt Welsh, the author of the original, and Matthias Kalle Dalheimer, and it is published super-recent. Before I get started, full disclosure is that I do some work occasionally for O’reilly and they sent me this copy to check out (but not do any work on).

yep. I did it. WordPress had a new major upgrade, and I did it. It was easy. Amazingly smooth. In particular I’d setup the database in an old b2 installation manner that I concocted to have multiple blogs on the same domain, and that has been a pain in the instalASStion process for a long time…I modified my table names (after backups) and all came out alright. I also spent eight minutes and threw together the banner and the mod of a much nicer www.

Skagit River Brewery is a new one to me. I was looking for something fun the other evening at New Seasons and I happened upon this one from our northern neighbors. Pouring it, my thoughts were: looks like a brown, smells like a brown. Tasting it, it certainly tastes like a brown as well. Good, now that that’s established, let’s rock. By brown, I’m talking about the somewhat fuller hoppier version popular out west here in the states (say Moose Drool or Downtown Brown).

I really like this beer. Anchor’s small beer is crisp, light, and refreshing, but also a bit bold in its bitterness. Brewed by remashing their barleywine mash, this ale presents a surprising amount of bitterness and a very pleasant, well-integrated aroma. It is a light gold in color, with a hint of amber, and carries a good amount of body for a ‘second pressing.’ Honestly, in taste, I feel that this ale stands awfully near the fence between ale and lager (especially czeck pilsners).

This is pretty sweet. thx to broomball player for this one.

Tons of people haven’t been asking me what software I run on my Windows boxen. This little ditty isn’t for them. Before jumping into recommendations, I should give you an idea of what I’m about when it comes to the software I run on my computer. As a Unix guy I have a strong appreciation for simple tools to solve simple problems, and are able to work alone or with other tools to solve (or create) complex problems.

Still dragging my feet on the fall ales, I pulled this one out of the ‘beer cellar’ this evening. Elysian has a knack for introducing interesting flavors into their ales without making them overbearing. This one tastes like a good pale ale with hints of pumpkin and pumpking spices rounding it out. Because of this, Elysian’s infusions work more to broaden beer horizons than to supply fraternities with pints with which to ply their ‘sisters’.

and happy stinkin new year! Now go replace one bad habit with another.