Nice little audio blog piece on beer in Portland, OR. Go ahead and take a listen. It covers the whole gamut from enjoying to making in our little beer mecca.

I struggle with portion size. I’ve known for a long time that my “stop eating mechanism” does not work. I love food, I love making food, and I love eating it. That makes for a dangerous combination when you’re trying to lose weight. For one thing, the food that I cook doesn’t break down into easily identified portions. So, I’ve always just eaten too much. The discovery that is helping me is that many premade foods are made in discrete portions, whether large or small.

Poaching an egg is really easy if you just know a few tricks to make it work. Since I’ve been doing WW I’ve been eating a lot more poached eggs since there’s no frying, but you still get a lot of the benefits: filling, low points, healthy, cheap, and goes well with lots of things. Set some water to boil in a medium saucepan. The egg wants a little depth.

Just a reminder that the NAOBFis happening this weekend, starts at noon Fri-Sunday at Overlook Park. This is my favorite brewfest of the year. It doesn’t get crazy crowded, there are tons of fun beers to try, and it’s always an all-around good time. I’m helping Dave Knowswith his story about it this year, so double-stoked. See you there.

My brother and his sweet gf showed up at my place today. Wisely, they came bearing gifts. Wiser, they came in the form of tasty and interesting beer. His lady is from Long Island, NY, home of Blue Point Brewing Company. And a town called Blue Point. Anyways, I’m quite impressed with the first beer I’ve tasted from them. Personally, I prefer calling it Cascadian Dark. But we know what they’re talking about.

Well, today was the due date. I haven’t talked about it much, but N and I are expecting a little girl here anytime. She’s been a trooper, we went out to a Christmas party last night, walked to NePo42for a tasty breakfast. She got gorgeous fluffy pancakes with apple (real apples hunks…bigger than chunks) and I got the biscuits and gravy and a bloody mary. Augie got pet but no food.

I recently received my new Flip camera. I ordered online and got the custom design. Sorta half-assed that, but that’s okay. The first thing I noticed about it after picking it up is that it is lighter than I’d expect. As in it feels somewhat plastic. I immediately plugged it into my computer to charge it and play with it. The charge happened pretty quickly, so the playing did as well.

I’m a book lover. By nature. I find flipping pages, browsing aisles, and even falling asleep on a book, to be comforting. But I’ve been eyeballing the Kindle (and the Nook and the eReader) since it came out. With the price dropping to under $150 (sans 3g), it was suddenly accessible. I started to think about it, but never quite pulled the trigger. Which was fortunate, as the lady got me one for my birthday.

After the US’s disappointing (yet thrilling) tie against Slovenia, you can be sure that there will be a clamor for instant replay in soccer. On the surface, it seems like a great idea. Matches will end with the true winner victorious, honor will be restored to the game. This is a terrible idea. There is a purity about soccer. 23 men on the pitch, and only a few rules on how to play the game.