beer

The boyfriend and I wandered into the Bier Stein tonight on a whim, which is usually how we wind up there: "I think I'm hungry." "OK, what do you want to eat?" "Um, I dunno ... Bier Stein?" We have a thing for their sandwiches, though the pizzanini is still missed.

But anyway. I digress. The point is, we heard from Chip Hardy, who owns the beertastic place with his wife, Kristina, that today was the third anniversary of the Stein's existence. And we applaud that heartily. We applaud the variety of ever-changing taps; the ability to buy a bottle of regional microbrew at a price that splits the different between the grocery store and most bars; the beers we might never pick up anywhere else; the beers we might not find anywhere else; the availability of both Fullers ESB (which reminds me of post-collegiate drinking and is delicious) and Toohey's (Australian Budweiser equivalent that I still drink every so often just for the memories, because I'm nostalgic that way); the super-awesome, super-friendly staff; those sandwiches; and did I mention the beer?

(Thinking happy thoughts for the Stein makes up for thinking sad thoughts at Roger Federer earlier. Boo. Also hiss. I would much rather watch Federer remove his curly locks from his forehead before every damn serve than watch the other guy remove his undergarments from the snug parts of his derriere.)

It wasn't reported in the R-G today but a call for President George W. Bush's impeachment is making international headlines.

Following up on his call to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, former Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich called for the impeachment of President Bush yesterday.

Rep. Kucinich of Ohio introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, amid noise and calls to get the House "in order."

Kucinich accused Bush and Cheney of lying to Congress and the American people. The president set out to deceive U.S. citizens and violated his oath of office by beginning the Iraq war, Kucinich said, as he read a list of allegations against Bush.

"Bush misled the American people and members of Congress to believe Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction so as to manufacture a false case for war. President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office," Kucinich said.

According to a press release from Kucinich's office, the representative's re-election website "was shut down this morning by a series of suspicious and fast-moving events" within hours of Kucinich introducing the articles of impeachment.

In other (potential) presidential news, apparently John McCain really needs a beer. Or maybe not, since he says he would veto every single beer that came across his desk if he became the leader of the free world...

Democratic Senate candidate Steve Novick is riding on the coattails of his own successful "a beer with Steve" commercial (the story was picked up by none other than Fox News. Scary.) Now he has teamed up with Eugene's own Ninkasi for his very own beer, "Left Hook Lager."

So not only can you have Ninkasi in a bottle you have have it with a picture of Novick's signature left hook, and the legend, "a battlin' brew."

Novick is having a release party for his political ale on Saturday, March 15th 7:00 to 9:30 Vet's Club, 1626 Willamette $10 cover.

If you want to hear from all the Democratic candidates, even the ones without a beer of their own, go to the Eugene City Club tomorrow at 11:50 at the Downtown Athletic Club and hear all five candidates: Pavel Goberman (Be Healthy! Get Fit! GET ENERGIZED! Vote for Me in 2008!), David Loera ( I actually couldn't find a slogan,I'm sure he has one and I'm going to get an irate email about it. He's seeking to be Oregon's first Hispanic Senator, that much I know), Jeff Merkley (Change. It's coming.), Candy Neville (Keep Oregon Awesome!) and Steve Novick (A fighter needs a strong left hook [and apparently a "clean all malt lager."]).

Oh, lord. I wrote a whole blog. And then I hit preview. And then I forgot to post. I'm too tired. In short:

1. Ninkasi now comes in bottles! And the Mercury blogged it first. Good for them. I thoroughly enjoyed drinking some Believer while watching the Ducks squeak past OSU on Sunday. And I wondered aloud whether they might be among the first breweries to include their MySpace page on their labels...

2. Last week, Suzi sent me a link to a story in The New York Times about a memoir by a writer who lives in Eugene. This was interesting, but annoying, because while I'd gotten the book, neither the book flap nor the press materials had mentioned this fact. Well, as it turns out, it was sort of irrelevant, because "none of it is true":

Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in the North Hollywood neighborhood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed.

All I can do here is sigh.

3. Someone will doubtless think I'm gloating, but I seriously think it's awesome that my counterpart (and friend) over at the R-G wound up in the New Yorker's Correction of the Week. I love it even more because when I read the press release in question, I saw it the same way. As Randy Stapilus notes in his quote from the magazine,

< blockquote >An item about a Thursday event at Diablo’s featuring four women DJs on Page 8 of Friday’s edition incorrectly identified DJ KaatScratch as transgendered. She describes herself musically as ‘transgenred.’”

Three cheers to the most entertaining misreads being noticed by the whole world out there.

Now? Sleep.

According to a recent scientific study the use of a "beer fridge" has a direct link to a lack of energy savings. The study, entitled: "Who Pays for the 'Beer' Fridge?: Evidence from Canada"" explores the energy waste generated by households that when purchasing a new refrigerator, turn their older "vintage" one into a "beer fridge."

"Beer fridge" would be terminology employed by University of Alberta economist Denise Young. I didn't make it up.

"Older vintage ‘beer fridges’ are costly for households to run and impose costs on the environment," writes Young in her study published in the journal Energy Policy.

Also in breaking eco-news is the study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that says divorce is bad for the environment. The increasing numbers of divorces world wide has led to more houses with fewer people in them.

The researchers found that divorce causes an increase in the number of houses constructed, which takes up energy and space. The new homes also use energy in heating and cooling.

The researchers' 2005 data showed that divorced households used an extra 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water when compared to married households.

All of this energy consumption leads, as everyone seems to agree these days, to greenhouse gases and global warming.

Now, if you just add "beer fridges" into the equation -- and I'm assuming here that a certain percentage of newly single divorced guys may want to indulge in the "beer fridge" practice -- then you're talking about a lot of polar bears sliding into the sea off of the melting polar ice.

I'm just not sure what the logical conclusions of these studies are: Save the earth by staying together and drinking warm beer?