AntSaint

PDQ Bach at Eugene's Hult Center tonight

PDQ Bach is both the fictional "wayward musical progeny" of J.S. Bach's own trebleclef blood, and the creation of Peter Schickele. Tonight, at 7:30p.m. at the Hult Center, they face off in a Jekyll-and-Hyde evening of musical hilarity.

Link: PDQ Bach and Peter Schickele -- "The Jekyll and Hyde Tour" - Hult Center for the Performing Arts.

New Oak Street Speakeasy bar/eatery "mixes old era with dinner and jazz"

Bars in downtown Eugene are a tough one for me and Jodie, but there may be hope.

• John Henry's? Sorry, not in college, and if I want a meat market I'll go to Long's and buy steak. (though when I was in my early 20s here, I loved going to John Henry's. Especially 80s night. Of course.)
• Horsehead? It was great a few years ago, but it's not a scene I fit with anymore.
• Jameson's? It started out promising, but last time we were there it was too loud to talk (though to be fair, we haven't been back in a while, and they recently renovated).

Now, Jackalope, up near the Amtrak station at 4th & Willamette, is good, but if you want to keep right in that downtown/Broadway core, it's looking like there are two main options.

One is the new Davis, on Broadway and Olive, which we need to go to. And the other, the new Oak Street Speakeasy, has me most interested: New eatery mixes old era with dinner and jazz - The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA.

"The Oak Street Speakeasy opened last week in a basement storefront on the southeast corner of Broadway and Oak Street. Several restaurants and nightclubs have come and gone from the downstairs spot at 100 E. Broadway, but Naria thinks his combination of a unique theme, Italian cuisine and nightly live jazz will set the Speakeasy apart."

It may take a second to picture the location, but if you know Broadway between Oak and Pearl streets, you know exactly where this is. At the corner, across from a bank, near a big row of periodical boxes. There's a railing, and a staircase down to a door that, well, would be perfectly suited for a speakeasy. If you do know the place, maybe in some of its previous lives as night clubs, then from the sound of the RG article you're in for a pleasant surprise.

I can't wait to check this place out. Maybe a post-PDQ Bach Saturday drink is in order - nothing like chasing Oregon Bach Festival, well, Bach, with a cocktail and some jazz.

Hell, I'm just stoked that someone in downtown Eugene is trying to run a place that isn't for the meat-market-cheap-PBR-and-revolution crowd. There's a huge appeal to me, when the bar's owner says, "It's a grown-up crowd. "We're not doing power drinkers, or anything like that."

If we're really lucky, we'll even be able to hear each other talk.

Splitting wood? Get a wood grenade

There is no better way to describe the joy of splitting wood by hand, with the 4-sided wedge called the Wood Grenade, than this great quote from Wilder By Far's Wood Grenade post:

"There’s something wonderful to be said about taking a sledge hammer, slinging it above your head and down in a forceful, Thor-like arc and striking a piece of metal embedded in a 20” (that’s six meters for you soccer-watchers) diameter log and watching it split apart into two pieces like Tom Cruise’s personality."

Best online source for Wood Grenades is Lehman's - Products for Simple, Self-sufficient Living. I just ordered 2.

A friend of ours loaned me his, after we had to have two birch trees on our property cut down. Even for this first-time woodsplitter, the grenade made short work of every round. I'm hooked, and look forward to many seasons of wood-splitting with the Wood Grenade.

More about the Wood Grenade:

• The Farmette Report: My favorite wood splitting tool
• "wood grenade" lehman's - Google Search
• "wood grenade" - Google Search

Irish- and American-style Red Ales

This afternoon I hit up the Home Fermenter Center for some ingredients for a tasty Red Ale. In preparation, I've been going over my homebrewing book, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition (Harperresource Book) and hitting up the web for some info on this style of ale. Hmm, though perhaps Jodie and I should also prep a shopping list for the Bier Stein, for, ahem, more, um, field research...

BYO - Are my taste buds wrong or are Irish Red Ales similar to Oktoberfest beers?

"According to Michael Jackson, most Irish Ales, including Kilkenny, use a portion of caramel malt and roasted barley to provide a toffee-like malt backbone with roasted overtones."

Red Beer. Sections of note:

• Grolsch Amber Ale is the newest U.S. offering from Grolsch Breweries of The Netherlands. Described by the brewery as an altbier (a German style ale), this amber ale features a lightly malty flavor with a hop finish derived from American and German hops. It serves as a good training wheels beer for those trying to crossover from light lagers to fuller flavored beers. It is brewed with amber and roasted malt as well as wheat. All Grolsch ales are cold conditioned like lagers with krauesen added for a smoother, less estery and yeasty character.
• McTarnahan's Amber Ale from Portland (Oregon) Brewing Co. is a full-bodied rich amber beer that gets its character from roasted caramel malt, which is balanced by a double addition of Cascade hops for robust bitterness and a floral, sprucy aroma. It walked away with the Bronze medal in the American amber ale category at the 1996 World Beer Cup.
• Boont is a traditional dialect in Boonville, California, and it seemed like the perfect moniker for Anderson Valley Brewing Company's quirky Boont Amber Ale. The sweetness of crystal malt and the sourness from a 16-hour mash (usually the mash takes around two hours) combine to give it an unusual, yet refreshing and tangy flavor. The caramel malt gives it a hazy pale amber color with citrusy aromas and a lingering hop finish. It earned the bronze medal in the American amber ale category at the 1995 Great American Beer Festival.
• Opening its doors in 1993, New Glarus Brewing Co., New Glarus, Wisconsin, is a relative newcomer to the U.S. craft brew industry. Its Belgian Red Wisconsin Cherry ale is brewed with Wisconsin cherries and aged in oak for that marriage of wine and beer. It is refreshing and complex with subtle sourness and cherries in the flavor. It garnered two recent awards -- a gold medal in the fruit beer category at the 1996 Great American Beer Festival and a silver in the same category at the 1996 World Beer Cup.

Dry Hopped St. Rogue Red - Rogue Ales Brewery / Brewer's on the Bay - Beer Advocate. Good Reviews and tasting notes, including some characteristics of these red beers that I'm interested in putting in mine.

the beer hall - donavan's literate beer guide

"Irish Reds are less hoppy than their American cousins. They look essentially the same in the glass, but the flavor profile is quite different---beginning sweet and ending roasty and dry."

Why get rich when you can just get poor - in 3 quick, easy steps?

Forget get-rich-quick. Hell, forget get-rich-at-all. Poverty, after all, is just a 3-step program away. Thanks Cap at StopBuying Crap!

Link: PowerWealth.com: A Simple, 3-Step Program.

"How would you like to live in crushing, abject poverty? Does the idea of living and sleeping on the streets of a major American city sound appealing to you? Would you like to grow old and penniless, spending your final days on this Earth barely getting by on the meager checks sent to you by some large government bureaucracy? Well, my friend, do I have the program for you. I call my program “Live to Fail Always”. It is a simple, three-step program even you can follow. It is fast and effective. Plus, it is easy to learn. Best of all, you can start applying the program in your own life today!"

Champagne Moments and a kick in the nuts

Think making it big is just one big step? It's not. Scott Adams' Dilbert has become a huge success, but it took a hell of a long time. Or, as he succintly puts it:

so it went, in ant-sized steps forward. Every pat on the back came with a kick in the nuts

That sums things up pretty well, for Adams and for anyone building on a dream: The Dilbert Blog: Champagne Moments.

How to pick up a fallen motorcycle

Your motorcycle, your pride and joy, is currently lying on the ground. We'll skip the reasons, since none help the shame and guilt and pain at seeing your baby on its side like that. So let's get down to the brass tacks, including a helpful video, of how to pick up a fallen motorcycle: Link: Mailbag: Picking up a big motorcycle | WhyBike? Motorcycle Blog.

Having picked up my bike by myself and having done it with help I will tell you which I would choose. Help is always preferable but you should always be ready and capable of picking up your motorcycle by yourself. There are a few tutorials on the web that tell you how to pick up a bike but here are the basics

For coffee, Eugene going Dutch

Dutch Brothers is one of the best coffee chains around, and I'm stoked to hear that in addition to the 11th & Chambers location, there's now one a bit north of us, up River Road (near Grocery Outlet). If you aren't familiar with Dutch Brothers, just find one, and get whatever the featured coffee is. Trust me.

Link: For coffee, Eugene going Dutch - The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA.

Dutch Bros., the Grants Pass-based chain of to-go coffee kiosks, has added two new locations in Eugene and is planning a third. That will bring the company's local total to seven kiosks in Eugene and another four in Springfield.

Spruced-up pic

Thanks Glenn Watson, in ol' Sydney, "Ozstraya" for spiffing up my bio pic and sending the new version, live at the right. The colors look way better.

Glenn's one of the brains behind Cyberdog Design – "complete, affordable graphics for your business". Check 'em out — especially if you're like me and have zero graphical ability — for web and print graphics, stationery and more.

Hunting for socks at Eugene's Black Sheep Gathering

Bah. Baaaaah. While personally I'm not a knitter, my hand-made-sock-shorn feet and I have nothing but praise for this noble and ancient craft.

And, when your girlfriend is a knitter, and you live in a town that has one of the country's major gatherings of all things fiber and fiber arts, the Black Sheep Gathering, you know you'll be going with her.

Jodie has already made a good raid on the fiber stocks at Black Sheep, and today I'm going down with her too. Sock yarn, sweater yarn, yarn for anything — there is nothing like dating a knitter to wind up with amazing unique comfy things to wear.

Let's fiber hunt, sweetie.