The happiest place on earth

If there was ever any doubt, the happiest place on earth is indeed the Capital Brewery in Middleton, WI. For a mere $2.75, I got a short tour of the brewery, a pint glass, and 8 beers in said pint glass. Now, I'm not one for drunkeness, but my wife did certainly drive home and I'm still feeling my 5 o'clock boozing. Anyone in the Madison area should certainly spend a Friday or Saturday afternoon, as my tour guide put it, getting unfit to drive.

Has Joe Trippi ever won a presidential election?

You'd think he has the way Daily Kos and Atrios talk about him.

Garden State

I saw Garden State last night. I loved it before it even started as there were previews for I heart Huckabees and the new Wes Anderson movie. Both of which I'm very excited about. Garder State was very good. There were moments when it would lose its flow and be slightly preachy, but on the whole it was a very good, very entertaining movie. I would recommend it to all.

Movies

That's all I do in Wisconsin. It seems that every other day I go to see a movie. I guess things could be worse.
For those who need to know, the movies are Napoleon Dynamite, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, Collateral, and the Bourne Supremacy. I guess I should add Control Room to that list. All were worthwhile movie watching experiences, but I'd say Control Room and the Bourne Supremacy were the best of the bunch.

Control Room

On the subject of movies, tonight I went downtown to go see I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Apparently, there had been a jazz performance in the theater and they left their piano in front of the screen. The fine people at the Orpheum Theater gave us free tickets to Control Room and a free bucket of popcorn. The theater is amazing. It's sprawling and beautiful. Something like the Paramount, except that they've converted the sidestage area into a smaller theater. Very nice. The movie was great. It's a documentary about the behind the scenes of Al Jazeera's coverage of the Iraq war. The film does an exceptional job of forcing the audience to take into account the perspective of the Middle East. For the most part, the war is portrayed as negatively, while the American soldiers are treated as unlucky people following orders. It's an impressive movie. It leaves you feeling a bit more sympathetic towards Al Jazeera than you would think. A great moment comes when the US Central Command Press Officer discusses Al Jazeera as one end of the ideological spectrum and Fox News is the other extreme. He clearly wants the message to be somewhere in between. The American press gets treated fairly for the most part, which is to say negatively. Rumsfeld comes off looking like a jackass, but that's more than fair.

the American Prospect

The American Prospect is consistently the best of the Progressive news/political periodicals out there. In the August 2004 print edition, yeah the one with Kerry's smiling face on the cover, there is a great article about modern progressives ignoring the amazing domestic policy accomplishments of LBJ. Richard Byrne does a great job of pointing out the obvious that LBJ had the most successful domestic policy of any Democratic President in the past 50 years. Why we can't say that yes, he fucked up royally in Vietnam, but he was great at home. It's not so hard. As an added bonus to this article, my uncle Forrest McDonald is cited as the example of American Conservatism. He's generally considered one of, if not the top conservative historians in this country. He's also somethat I look up to for his reputation that he has earned in his field. He's like an Indie Rock Superstar of American History.

The smells, they drive me crazy

So, I've just moved and regained access to the oh so precious internet. This is what I have to say about moving across country. Madison is nice. One problem, I live down the street from a barbecue place. Strangely enough, they have a picture of Ruby's in the men's room. Anyway, every night, close to dinner time, the aroma of smoked meats and barbecue sauce enters my home. I've wanted barbecue chicken every night that we've been here. It's too much. Beyond the smells, it's nice. I seem to have settled on the fringe of the hispanic part of town, which is nice. I've already found good mexican food and palettas. It's nice.

Beer then

PBR is a serviceable alternative to Lone Star. That is my conclusion. It's not as good, but it'll do. The Capital Amber and Capital Brown are both better than Shiner. I will miss Zeigenbock. There is a store here called Woodman's. It houses more beer than I have ever seen in one place in my life. It's kind of like a little slice of heaven. I'm going to struggle to get used to the liquor in the grocery store thing. That's different than both Fayetteville and Austin. Be strong.