Charlie's Weblog

New lineup this week at Sweetwater Tavern - Centreville. Here is what's on tap:

Only finished one growler last week and went home with a Pale Ale growler.

I added some video links on the right sidebar of the [Home] page and the [Beer] page to assorted videos / movies that I find particularly entertaining. Enjoy.

Got this TidBit from a friend of mine.

Here is the Table of Contents from a new book I bought, "Winning Golf Strategies", which I believe gives the reader valuable playing tips and insider information. I have seen a lot of different instruction books, but this seemed to have the greatest value.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 - How to Properly Line Up Your Fourth Putt
Chapter 2 - How to Hit a Nike from the Rough When You Hit a Titleist from the Tee
Chapter 3 - How to Avoid the Water When You Lie 8 in a Bunker
Chapter 4 - How to Get More Distance Off the Shank
Chapter 5 - When to Give the Marshall the Finger
Chapter 6 - Using Your Shadow on the Greens to Maximize Earnings
Chapter 7 - When to Implement Handicap Management
Chapter 8 - Proper Excuses for Drinking Beer Before 9:00 a.m.
Chapter 9 - How to Urinate Behind a 4" x 4" Post Undetected.
Chapter 10 - How to Rationalize a 6 Hour Round
Chapter 11 - How to Find That Ball That Everyone Else Saw Go in the Water
Chapter 12 - Why Your Spouse Doesn't Care That You Birdied the 5th.
Chapter 13 - How to Let a Foursome Play Through Your Twosome
Chapter 14 - How to Relax When You Are Hitting Five Off the Tee
Chapter 15 - When to Suggest Major Swing Corrections to Your Opponent
Chapter 16 - God and the Meaning of the Birdie-to-Bogey Three Putt
Chapter 17 - When to Regrip Your Ball Retriever
Chapter 18 - Use a Strong Grip on the Hand Wedge and a Weak Slip on the Foot Wedge.
Chapter 19 - Why Male Golfers Will Pay $5. 00 a Beer From The Cart Girl and give Her a $3 Tip but Will Balk at $3.50 at the 19th Hole and Stiff the Bartender.......

I think I got Chapters 2, 8 and 16 covered. Just gotta work on the rest of my game.

"He who drinks ale sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven. Amen."

New lineup this week at Sweetwater Tavern - Centreville. The GiddyUp Coffee Stout replaced the High Desert Imperial Stout. Here is what's on tap:

Went home with a growler of GiddyUp and Rusty Roadrunner.

"Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer."

- Henry Lawson

It was 80 degrees here yesterday. Bill and I went out and played a round at Reston National. I shot a 100, Bill a 97. His excuse was that he was using brand new clubs and hadn't figured his distances out. I got a chance to use my new Taylor Made R580 driver that I got for my birthday last year. Had two drives that I just NAILED! We played with Lloyd and Gail (whom we had never met before) from the Black tees.

Afterwards went to Sweetwater Tavern, Centreville for a couple pints of Rusty Roadrunner Ale. Bill and Edna were there. First time we had seen them this year. Guess the warm weather had brought them out of hibernation.

Emily sang a solo in the 2007 FCS Spring Concert. Follow this link to theMeiburg's blog to see the video.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

Albert Einstein

No change to the lineup this week at Sweetwater Tavern - Centreville. Here is what's on tap:

Went home with a growler of Great American Pale Ale.

According to Men's Journal that is. This is actually a very good list. How many have you had on this list? As for me, I have tasted the following:

2 - Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
6 - Anderson Valley Boont Amber Ale
10 - Bell's Expedition Stout
15 - Ommegang Hennepin

I'll try these from the list next:

3 - Stoudt's Pils
9 - Rogue Brutal Bitter
12 - Smuttynose Big A IPA
16 - Samuel Adams Black Lager

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to prosper."

I came across this article in PC magazine and now I don't feel so bad about the disaster area known as my office and more specifically "my desk"...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Karen Jackson would be the first to admit her desk looks like a disaster area.

Her stacks of papers and photographs are so sloppy that the Texas schoolteacher won first place in a contest to find America's messiest desk.

Sponsored by publisher Little, Brown and Co., the competition promoted "A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder," by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, a new book that argues neatness is overrated, costs money, wastes time and quashes creativity.

"We think that being more organized and ordered and neat is a good thing and it turns out, that's not always the case," said Freedman.

"Most of us are messy, and most of us are messy at a level that works very, very well for us," he said in an interview. "In most cases, if we got a lot neater and more organized, we would be less effective."

That's true, said Rochelle Wilson, 57, of Moville, Iowa, whose messy desk earned her a runner-up spot in the contest, in which 50 entries were judged by the book's authors.

She says she hasn't recovered since an incident when members of her family tried to clean up her mess.

"I still haven't really found where the stuff really is," she said. "There were some Girl Scout cookies from last year in that room. Now it's time for some new cookies, and I don't even know where my old ones are."

Barry Izsak, head of the National Association of Professional Organizers, disputes the authors' claims, saying they oversimplify and confuse mess with disorganization.

"The bottom line is, the average person feels negatively affected by disorganization in many ways: increased stress, missed deadlines, lost opportunities, that sinking, drowning feeling," Izsak said. "For the average person, disorganization and chaos simply doesn't feel good."

The group also argues that messes are costly, citing research showing that a company employing 1,000 knowledge workers, who primarily handle information, wastes $48,000 per week, or nearly $2.5 million per year, due to an inability to locate and retrieve information.

"When you're disorganized, it's an expense you have no control over, the cost in lost productivity," Izsak said. "You're losing money if you're not organized."

MODERN MESS

Freedman argues that it is neatness that is expensive.

"People who are really, really neat, between what it takes to be really neat at the office and at home, typically will spend anywhere from an hour to four hours a day just organizing and neatening," he said.

Yet messy people are often cast in a negative light. In one study cited by NAPO, two-thirds of respondents believed workers with messy desks were seen as less career-driven than their neater colleagues.

"If you walk into my office at home, you would think, 'Oh my God, something just exploded in that room,'" said Jackson, the contest winner. "But it's an organized mess. It's a mess I made, and I know where everything is."

Messiness has overtaken neatness as modern lives have changed, the book argues. Many women used to be at home, cleaning up, rather than working outside the house, while jobs used to be simpler and more linear with less multi-tasking.

Hunting through messy piles has its value, Freedman says.

"You discover things that, if you had filed things or containerized them or purged them, you never would have seen them again. It becomes a natural reminder system," he said.

Copyright Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

From Tuesday's Washington Post, Tom Boswell had a great column bashing the Orioles' Peter Angelos. Here's a link to the column. A copy of the text is provided below. My favorite part is where he actually says Brian Roberts (.286/10/55) "is just like Cal Ripkin". He's beginning to remind me of George Steinbrenner back in the 70's - 80's.

By Thomas Boswell
Tuesday, March 20, 2007; E01

It's better to remain silent and be thought a meddlesome nightmare owner than to speak and remove all doubt. Now the Orioles and their fans know the truth. Peter Angelos hasn't changed. His silence in recent years, the claims of his organization that he no longer holds every major decision hostage to his whims, means nothing. He's just gone underground.

The Baltimore owner still vetoes major trades to keep his favorite players in town regardless of the preferences of the men he has running his team. He'll still blow up any deal, free agent signing or draft pick if he feels like it. And he'll do it for any reason that pleases him. For an owner who inherited a great franchise and turned it into a disaster with nine straight losing seasons, no confession is more damaging. All of baseball will read Angelos's latest words and shake its head in pity for the O's.

"I just thought that Brian [Roberts] should stay an Oriole, not that the front office didn't think so. They were looking at it from a standpoint of improving the ballclub," Angelos said Sunday, confirming that he nixed an offseason deal for slugging first baseman Adam LaRoche. "And they may have been totally right. I looked on it as the retention of a player that came through our system and who is of such great value to the club for all the things that he does out there with the public and in the hospitals and so on.

"This is a special kind of player, just like Cal Ripken was for the Orioles. And the kind of player you want to keep as part of the organization. And so there's an area where one might say that I have interfered, but I felt impelled to do that from the standpoint of keeping a player that I thought was critical."

It's almost hard to imagine where to start. Did Angelos think he'd be hailed a hero because he saved a popular second baseman from being traded?

For a trial lawyer who is accustomed to speaking extemporaneously and being accountable for every word, this must be a career-worst summation to the jury. In the offseason, team executives Mike Flanagan and Jim Duquette were considering a deal to "improve the ballclub." But Angelos squelched it because Roberts is a fan favorite who's great for the Orioles' image?

Roberts has great value to the club "in the hospitals and so on"?

LaRoche hit 32 homers in 492 at-bats last year and, at 27, is just entering his prime. The Orioles have no first baseman. Okay, they have people who own large gloves and can stand near first base. But they don't have a smooth-fielding, left-handed hitting first baseman who, if he got 600 at-bats a year, might be the 40-homer anchor that the Orioles need in the middle of their lineup behind Miguel Tejada.

Roberts is a special player but he's not "just like Cal Ripken." However, that's the sort of bizarre comment you'd expect Angelos to make. He's precise and analytical in business and law, yet he never seems to get anything exactly right in baseball. His view of the game is tilted, warped, just not quite right.

In other words, as brilliant as he is in other fields, his gifts don't translate to baseball. The verdict came in long ago: He doesn't have it. Just because Angelos made a billion dollars and bought a team, that doesn't mean he understands the sport it plays. He's still a baseball dope. That's okay. It's no sin - if he'd stay out of the kitchen. But he won't. He has to give orders to his chefs.

So when an owner says that blowing up a trade for a possible cleanup hitter is "an area where one might say that I have interfered," you just want to slap your forehead until it's black and blue.

What Angelos refuses to grasp, no matter how many times he is told, is that the issue is not the merit of any particular trade, free agent signing or draft pick. The problem, and it is absolutely central to the Orioles' organizational disaster, is that Baltimore is cursed with a billionaire who is constantly injecting himself at the last minute to reverse decisions that have been made after long labor and best judgments by his baseball people.

This is a perfect recipe for dysfunction and the Orioles repeat it year after year. Why do you think so few superior free agents want to sign with Baltimore? Why do others in baseball say that the Orioles try to compete using "Confederate money"? It's because precious few stars are going to pick a town where a 77-year-old plays favorites among his athletes and ultimately makes any goofy decision he wants. No matter how capricious, even if he's comparing home runs to hospital visits.

"It's just another Angelos story to add to the list," one baseball executive said. "He affects everything they do. They may never overcome him. Why would they want a first baseman when they can overpay for middle relievers and have four DHs?"

What elite high school draft pick, choosing between the Orioles and a career in college, wouldn't be swayed to stay in school by the universal mocking of Angelos's reputation for meddling? The grapevine buzz was dwindling about the draft day when Angelos reversed his scouting director and changed the team's top picks at the last minute. Now it'll get new legs.

What rival GM wants to spend his time, especially in trading-deadline situations, working on a complex deal with the Orioles when it's known how often Angelos has erased all the work at the last minute? How will Roberts now feel about Flanagan and Duquette? And how enthusiastic will the Atlanta Braves feel about working up another big deal with Baltimore?

What Orioles star, in his walk year, wants to put his faith in Baltimore's ability to negotiate a new contract during the season? After all, from Rafael Palmeiro to Mike Mussina, the Orioles' owner has dawdled for months on big contracts - paralyzing all parties - as his asbestos-wrangling background misinforms him that more time off the clock equals more negotiating leverage.

"I would like to give our fans a winner. That doesn't mean upon that happening that I would then sell the team. I have no real interest in selling the team," Angelos said. Of course, he doesn't. He wants to be vindicated - on his terms.

"I really want to take away all that criticism you guys are able to lob," Angelos said amiably to reporters Sunday. "It's my way of getting even. Of course, it bothers you. No one likes to be criticized, but you have to deal with it. I am the managing partner, so I have to take the heat. And I make the decisions, so I should take the heat."

Sigh. How sad can it get? For the Orioles, their fans and Angelos, too. He's finally got it half right. He is the person to blame. But he doesn't understand why. His curse is that he wants to win so much, be loved and cheered so much, that he simply can't loosen control. He's the boss, so he thinks he has to rule his own fate, "make the decisions."

But he doesn't have to. And he shouldn't. He's no good at it. That's been proved. It's never going to change. Angelos doesn't have to sell his club. But he has to take his hands off its throat because, as we see again, he's still strangling to death the team he loves.

I simplified access to my baseball resources. Click on the Baseball link in the header. In the process, I discovered that they held the draft in my brother's private league without sending an email out to all the managers. So, my draft was less than I had hoped. Not enough pitching (weak starters and relief). So, now on to the waiver wire!!

Read this article this morning about Blu-Ray v HD DVD format war. I included a copy of it below. Which will you get?

By Mark Hachman, ExtremeTech "Within three years it will just be Blu-ray." – Frank Simonis, the Blu-ray Disc Association's European chairman, at the CeBIT trade show.

According to the latest sales numbers from Nielsen VideoScan, the Blu-ray format appears to be gaining momentum.

The format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD has been relatively short, ugly, and brutal. And, given all of the interest in which format will control the multi-billion dollar market for next-generation DVD sales, each format's supporters are doing all they can to ensure their camp is the chosen one.

For many, a key move in the struggle was the inclusion of a gift certificate inside boxes of Sony PlayStation3 consoles, which began selling late last year. In an early assessment of the Blu-ray/HD-DVD race I wrote in early February, I noted that the certificate could have had an unbalancing effect on the sales of Blu-ray media. According to experts cited by USA Today, gift certificates sold during the holiday season should have been cashed in in January or early February.

It's now March, and Blu-ray appears to be holding its edge -- proving either that the assumption was incorrect, or that Blu-ray's apparent momentum didn't need the crutch. Moreover, the total of Blu-ray discs sold now outweighs the number of HD DVD discs sold, giving both the short-term and long-term edge to Sony's format.

Since inception, Blu-ray movie sales represent 52.2 percent of the total sold, versus 48.8 percent for HD DVD. This is a reversal from February, when HD DVD held the advantage.

As I've said before, Nielsen's analysis does have some holes. It excludes Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, and Sam's Club. However, the firm's findings represent the most comprehensive survey that I'm aware of, or at least that has been publicly released. (Note: Nielsen doesn't provide analysis, forcing me to try and do my own.)

I'm not sure that recent developments will have a great effect. The HD DVD association formed a European working group this week to promote the standard, and executives reportedly claimed that the technology holds a roughly 2:1 lead in sales of PC hardware, however slight that may be. Alpine reportedly is interested in manufacturing an HD DVD player for the car, to use the disc as a digital audio repository.

The Nielsen numbers also reflect the sales of movies, not hardware. I haven't been able to find publicly available data on next-gen DVD hardware sales, at least broken out by format.

I've asked NPD and IDC for data before; this time, I added the Consumer Electronics Association, the industry group responsible for the CES show, and which represents the entire consumer electronics industry. According to the CEA, just 250,000 next-gen DVD players were sold in 2006, with 1 million players forecast to be sold this year, and 4 million players in 2008.

Unfortunately, the CEA didn't break this down by format. But what we know, for now, is that it's a very small number of users who are serving as the foot soldiers in this format war. Continued...

Title fight

Meanwhile, the numbers seem to grow more convincing. Sure, there might be a slight softening in Blu-ray sales at the end of February, but that doesn't seem statistically significant. I'm banking quite a bit on the assertion that gift certificates handed out during the holiday season would be consumed by the end of February. But the numbers don't reflect any sort of decline; they're flat, constant, and steady. Reports that a Blu-ray version of Casino Royale cracked the top ten sales rankings at Amazon.com seem to support the claim.

Interestingly, in terms of titles, the disparity is closer than the sales figures would indicate. According to Nielsen, which tracked sales through March 4 (before Casino Royale was released) the top-selling title was an HD DVD title, Warner's Batman Begins. Close behind it, however, was Warner's The Departed, in the Blu-ray format. (The Departed, in HD DVD format, ranks sixth; a Blu-ray version of Batman Begins has not been released.)

Of the top twenty titles, nine support the HD DVD format, while eleven are in the Blu-ray format. However, two of the HD DVD discs (the fourth-ranked Superman Returns and the seventh-ranked The Departed are both in the hybrid DVD/HD DVD format, which allows either the standard-definition and high-definition formats to be played back, which allows for a transition between both formats.

Nielsen doesn't release sales figures, for movies, instead assigning them to an "index." Ranked at 100 and 99, respectively, are the HD DVD Batman Begins, followed by the Blu-ray-encoded The Departed. Superman Returns (Blu-ray), Superman Returns (HD DVD/DVD) and Underworld: Evolution (Blu-ray) rounded out the top five, with index scores of 89, 85, and 64, respectively.

I'm not sure how much more you can say about the titles' popularity as an indicator of the success of both formats, however. The Blu-ray format of The Departed holds a clear edge over the HD DVD version of the same movie (99 to 61, in the index). The Blu-ray version of Superman Returns slightly outsold (index: 89 to 85) the HD DVD version. But the HD DVD version of Mission: Impossible 3 outsold the Blu-ray version, 52 to 50. This is the stuff which fans of the formats can argue about, although the overall unit sales seem more compelling.

I think it's also time for some analyst firm, somewhere, to bite the bullet and start releasing hardware numbers. It's fairly obvious what's going on here: analysts firms like NPD and IDC count the major electronics companies as they're clients, and the losing camp doesn't want these numbers released.

In my previous column I argued that the format war would be won when either one of two conditions was fulfilled, creating a critical mass: either one format holds an 80 percent market share for three months; or, one format holds a two-thirds market share for six months. Well, Blu-ray's won the head-to-head battle for two months, and it clearly has the advantage.

Copyright (c) 2007 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I read this review about Apple TV today. A copy is provided below. It's an iPod for your widescreen TV. With this, you can watch your iTunes video library on your widescreen TV. I've been waiting for this!

By Tim Gideon and Joel Santo Domingo Since the late 90s, Apple has attempted to make the technically complex simple. The iMac did it for personal computing and the iPod is a paragon of portable consumer electronics. Now with the $299 Apple TV, Steve Jobs and company want to simplify your home entertainment experience. But what, exactly, is it? The basic concept of this product is straightforward: wirelessly stream content from the iTunes libraries of up to five computers as well as play content directly from the box's 40 GB hard drive. This means you can enjoy almost anything on your PC, be it movies, photos, podcasts, or music, on your enhanced definition and high-definition widescreen televisions. Apple's slogan says, "if it's on iTunes, it's on Apple TV" - and this is mostly true. Those who don't mind hooking up a few cables and thinking a little about the set-up will enjoy this wireless extension to iTunes. Overall, it does a pretty damn good job, despite some limitations.

First, we'll quickly describe how the device works, then we'll get detailed about what you need to set it up. Connect the Apple TV box to your television (using either the HDMI 1.2 connection or component video) and make sure the computer you have your iTunes library on is connected to a wireless router. Once everything is powered up, Apple TV's menu will ask you to choose a language and then walk you through the incredibly simple - and, frankly, gratifying - process of pairing your computer with Apple TV. Apple TV appears as a device on the left hand menu in iTunes (just like an iPod) when you choose to add a library on Apple TV's menu. To set it up, you enter a 5-digit code, which should already be displaying on your television. Type it in and that's it: you can now stream iTunes content from your computer to your television.

If you wish to make this computer your "host", you can easily sync the computer to Apple TV and all the material on your iTunes (well, almost all - read on to find out about certain video roadblocks) will be transferred to the box's 40GB hard drive. Just as iTunes syncs with your iPod, iTunes will constantly update your Apple TV with new material you've downloaded. You can also stream content - either stuff that is in your iTunes library or content from other iTunes libraries connected to your wireless router.

Apple TV lets you stream from up to five different computers aside from your main host computer. Songs and videos are not put into one master library, but switching between the libraries on the Apple TV menu is a relatively short and painless process. When you stream content, Apple will stop synching and pick up where it left off when you finish. If you start watching a video on your iPod, then stop, attach your iPod to your Apple TV-connected iTunes library, it will keep the bookmark and play on your TV from where you left off.

You can view photos on Apple TV, but it uses iPhoto on Macs and Photoshop Elements on PCs and cannot stream files, so you'll have to sync photos or slideshows you've created in order to watch them on your television. That's basically it.

No change to the lineup this week at Sweetwater Tavern - Centreville. Here is what's on tap:

Went home with two growler of Great American Pale Ale and a new growler coosie. It's a coosie that fits around the whole growler to help keep it cool during the summer. It was my idea but somebody stole it.

Added a link to Beer*Leaguer, a Philadelphia Phillies blog for all you philthy Philly phans. Say that three times phast.

On the advice of a co-worker, I tried a bottle of Expedition Stout from Bell's Brewery. The Beer Adovcate says this is a Imperial Stout. These beers were not brewed in Russia but were brewed to be exported to Russia. These beers were brewed with higher hop and alcohol content in order to survive the arduous shipment to Russia.

Stats:
ABV: 10.5% (Wow!)
Beer Advocate Score: 92 (Outstanding)
Style: Russian Imperial Stout
Born on: Unknown

WOW! What a beer! It pours noticeable thicker than any of the other beers I have tried. It started with a pretty quarter inch head with tiny bubbles. It has a very black color. it is a bit sweet (10.5% ABV according to the bottle - beeradvocate has it at 11.5% ABV), but has incredible mouth feel. It's like drinking a whole meal with one glass. One could probably survive just off a couple of these each day. These will be hard to buy during the Spring and Summer. I'll try another one come Thanksgiving.