One of these things is not like the other

What went through my head as I wrote that subject line was that Matt wasn’t asian. Only later did it occur to me that Matt was also the only one in the picture who was, in fact, male. Either way, it’s him that’s not like the rest. We’re getting ready to head over to Bar Louis for a slightly different venue for Beer & Blog. I think we all love the Freakin’ Frog but it isn’t very conducive to easy conversation. It involves lots of yelling, usually. I guess we’ll see what the new location is like. If it doesn’t work, back to Freakin’ Frog we will go.

A very fast cinco de mayo

When I say fast I mean -fast-! We got here after getting off work around 4 and it’s not 6:06 and we’re done and paying the bill. This was the 100 yard dash of Cinco de Mayo parties. Yes that’s a spurious analogy. Yes I’m sticking with it. We’re at Yardhouse for a little beer and some tequila shots because tequila is kind of required on Cinco de Mayo. I draw the line at drinking Dos Equis, Negra Modelo or Corona though. Not when we’re surrounded by good beers as far as the eye can see. Belgian beer and tequila, possibly blasphemous, definitely tastey.

Yummy Indian food at India Palace

It’s time for more pictures of good food taken badly! I’ve been to India Palace before but they have completely renovated since the last time I was here. Where once it was great Indian food in a really divey restaurant, it’s now really great Indian food in a nice restaurant. It’s nice to see the food matching the decor. It’s at least as good if not better than Tamba which is my other favorite Indian place in Vegas though it is incongruously located in the Hawaiian Marketplace on the strip.

Dinner isn’t the event though. I’m having dinner with Chris and Nita in preparation for seeing David Sedaris over at Ham Hall later this evening. I’ve seen him a couple times already but every time is excellent so when Nita said he was back in town I jumped at the chance to see him again. It’s been a really long time since I’ve been to the University so that part’s going to be a little weird. Regardless, the show should be a lot of fun.

Barley’s Brewfest

I’m constantly amazed by the little “fests” around town and how poorly some of them are advertised. I heard of this one purely by word of mouth. Barley’s Casino sets up tents next to their casino and for $25 you get a 3oz beer stein which you can take to any of over a dozen local brewers and distributors and try out their wares one tiny stein at a time. What was most surprising to me was how many local brewers we had. I knew about Sin City Brewing but hadno idea that there was a brewery in Boulder City, for example. The cream of the crop has been the White Pine brewery which isn’t even properly a business yet but their beer was good and their mead was absolutely outstanding. The other standout wasn’t a local beer but was being imported by a local importer. It was this champagne style beer called DeuS (Brut Des Flandres) It’s made using champagne techniques and bottles and it very champagne like but is, in fact, beer. Keep this one in mind for your next champagne event. If you have a bunch of people that prefer beer over wine, DeuS would be the perfect substitute.

Pinball Hall of Fame

Hawkins has been bugging invited me to the Pinball Hall of Fame about a jillion times and about half the time I’m in Boulder City, half the time I’m already occupied (movie, dinner, no shape to drive) and the last half the time I’m sleeping. It’s uncanny. Last weekend I had friends in from out of town and we were looking for something to do and it hit me, we should go to the PHoF! I picked up my phone to call Hawkins and had two simultaneous realizations

1) He was out of town that weekend
and
b) He was going to be -pissed- when he heard I finally went and he wasn’t here

Went we did though and for the last week he has been giving me nearly daily grief over it. So today, I had no plans whatsoever for the weekend. Nothing from now till Sunday evening so I said that if there was an excursion, I’d like to go and so here we are. This place rocks BTW. It has pinball games from the 30′s to today, all functional, so you get to wander the decades of changing pinball technology. What’s stayed pretty much the same and what’s changed drastically. It’s definitely a blast and I’m sorry I waited so long to get down here.