Brews You Can Use
What's wet, wet, and has nearly 10,000 friends? The Beer in the Shower Facebook page. Don't worry. I scanned its photo collection. I found nothing objectionable, except one slightly-racy shot. For the most part, the site is "clean." * * * * * * * But to be honest, I don't have much of a history of drinking in the shower. When I shower, I'm all business. I used to drink a beer in the shower during college, but usually when I was in a hurry and needed to multi-task in order to get a buzz on before a party, a date, or an exam. * * * * * * * Well, I applaud the inventiveness, but all three sound pretty nasty: Rogue has announced he release of three 'double beers' in 2011. The first will be the Double Mocha Porter. The others will be the Double Dead Guy and the Double Chocolate Stout. Yikes. Mocha and Chocolate? If those are my choices, I'm drinking the dead guys. * * * * * * * But none of them sound as bad as this new brew: British cheese-makers have announced they are to release a beer made from Stilton cheese. Yuck. * * * * * * * I see a new trend emerging: a reversal of the bowling-alone culture. Starting in the 1960s, people started staying home more often. There were many reasons, but a big one: fantastic technology made home a lot more fun. But now it seems that bars (the number one social hangout in history) are getting better technology to pull people back into their orbit. The latest: electronic beer mats. Excerpt:
Beer mats have always provided endless entertainment in the bar and now a group of computer scientists from Newcastle University have developed a novel way of sparking up conversation with a new generation of beer mat.
Using an interactive bar surface, camera-based technology tracks the specially-designed mats as they are moved around the bar.
When the mats are placed on the bar they 'chat' to each other in the form of visual text messages - the words scrolling across the surface like television news bulletins and triggering a response.
'Talking' amongst themselves, the mats send out a random selection of pre-programmed messages, the aim being they act as an ice-breaker and prompt conversation between the owners of the drinks.
It sounds like they could be annoying, but I think it's a good sign and welcome the egg-heads' efforts.
