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Since it is coming up Midd13m4n’s favorite time of the year (beginning of the baseball season and hockey play-offs), it is prime time to open the floodgates on a rant about baseball (and other oddities of life). I belong to two fantasy baseball leagues, and have been busily building my fantasy baseball rosters, along with watching my fantasy hockey team fold in the play-offs (another rant for another time). For those of you who don’t follow sports or fantasy leagues, a fantasy league is made up of different people (the more, the merrier) who choose up different players from around the professional league, and build a team with those players. The team must maintain the usual position players, as well as a bench of extras. As the season draws on, the teams compile all the stats for the different players, and the team with the best stats (most hits, runs, shut-outs, wins, etc.) at the end of the season wins. This wonderful age of computers in which we live in has made fantasy sports so much easier because, typically, website compile the stats for you, and calculates who is winning and losing. So, right now, I am running two essentially imaginary baseball teams in two different imaginary leagues in the effort to win two different imaginary championships. Ok, there are some bragging rights, but those are forgotten very, very quickly.

Most engineers and mathematicians must deal with imaginary numbers from time to time. Once again, for the uninitiated, an imaginary number is a number that is multiplied by the square root of negative one (-1). In the rational world, the square root of negative one does not exist. However, in electronics and complex math, the square root of negative one, usually referred to as “j” or “i” depending on the discipline (“i” is used in mathematics, but in electronics “i” stands for current, thus engineers usually use “j” instead). Thus, the number plane has four quadrants: positive real, negative real, positive imaginary, and negative imaginary.

When I was a little kid, I had several imaginary friends. I do not remember them, but I do recall my parents and siblings giving me a very hard time about. They still give me a hard time about it. Jan had her imaginary boyfriend, George Glass, and we all know how mentally stable Jan was, despite this being a humorous episode of the Brady life. Suffice to say, parents regularly discourage imaginary friends invented by little children.

Why is it okay to have imaginary numbers and imaginary sports leagues populated with imaginary athletes, while it is not okay to have imaginary friends? Isn’t reality hard enough to deal with without introducing another realm – the imaginary realm – that needs to be understood? Perhaps I need to invent some ADULT imaginary friends, and ask them their opinion… Nah, they wouldn’t answer my questions; they wouldn’t like me, either. Anyone???

Imagine drinking more.

Tags: Rant by Midd13m4n
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Steinhaus Brewing Company, New Ulm, MN for Trader Joe’s
Frugal Joe’s Ordinary Beer

There are undoubtedly some people in the FUP audience who remember the days of generic grocery products. These were the same as what is now known as the store brands, but these were packaged in simple white with basic black lettering. The names on the containers were direct and to the point: toilet paper, facial tissue, creamed corn, and the best of all, beer. I do not recall ever drinking generic beer; in those days my father drank either Genesee Cream Ale or PBR, so of course, that’s all I ever drank. This is generic beer at its most insipid. Strangely enough, it is sold exclusively at the Mecca of the non-generic, uber-organic shopper: Trader Joe’s. I don’t know if they should be commended or vilified for selling this stuff, but if they were trying to capture the spirit of generic beer, they succeeded. Hell, the label is simply beige with dark red lettering. Typical of ordinary beers, this too is cat-piss yellow in color and sports an average, slightly creamy head. Balanced, yet understated in flavor, the taste can be regarded as simple but certainly grainy. There’s a light roastiness with mild bitterness on the aftertaste, and absolutely no hop bite. It sports a slightly creamy, mostly crisp body that would be pleasant on a hot summer day. I guess for $4, what should I expect?

M!dd13m4n’s rating – 2 Pints

Tags: Beer Review by Midd13m4n
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Midd13m4n is working on a master’s degree, in a desperate attempt to extricate himself from this urine-soaked hell-hole. On Thursday, the instructor of this semester’s class gave us an assignment. I’m not going to go into the details, but it involves writing some code to perform some simulations. I recall doing the exact same thing in a class in my undergrad years, and I was always VERY particular about saving all of those files. I was certain that I had the files on a 3 ¼” floppy disk somewhere. I luckily found the floppy disk in question, along with several others that include related subjects.

Intellectual aside: when was the last time anyone has thought about, let alone used a floppy drive? In this day and age with 8gig memory sticks and USB hard drives, the floppy drive (and it’s red-headed step-siblings zip drives, Bernoulli drives, and floptical drives) is technology that has come and gone. About two years ago, I purchased a new desktop computer, and I made sure to have a floppy drive installed on that machine because I knew I have archives from days gone by still stored on floppy disks. Was this a necessary expenditure? Uh………

On Friday, I popped in the disk to retrieve the files, and an error message comes up: floppy controller failure. Long story made considerably shorter, the drive or motherboard controller is dead (yeah, that accounts for most of Saturday and Sunday attempting to troubleshoot and/or repair it). AW, CRAP! So I brought the disks to work today (Monday). The current place I work is a Fortune 500 company and there must be close to 150 on just one floor of the multi-story building in which I work. Would you believe that not one of those computers still has a floppy drive? Only one person has a personal USB floppy drive, and that is his personal device. My only stroke of luck so far is that he actually brought the drive with him today. And, of course, with all that, the important disk in question is blank. My files are gone, all gone. I guess I’m going to have to do the work (again) instead of copying off of myself. Yeah, that ruined my day.

Drink more.

Tags: Rant by Midd13m4n
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Well, as luck would have it. I have to travel this week to a far away land known as New Jersey. My 9-to-5 has felt the need to send me the the “Garden State” for business. So, while on the road, I figured I would give everyone my blow-by-blow experiences.

It has been a while since I had the pleasure of visiting an airport and flying. I used to do it regularly for business, but my current 9-to-5 keeps me in one place (typically). I absolutely love airports and flying (with a few conditions). Many people hate them, but I could stay there all day (and have). As long as you have sufficient time to get where you are going, the terminal is just fine (any more than 4 hours in one spot though gets to be boring).

People watching in an airport terminal is absolutely amazing. There might be no better place to partake in this pastime. Tonight, while waiting at the local “airport bar”, I observed a cougar in transit. This woman was looking for fun at 30 thousand feet. I watched her do 3 double martini’s in about 35 minutes. She was total people watching gold. She even shot me a glance or two and a smile while I was observing her (it must have been the cool Mustache I was rocking). Yeah, I still got it. Fortunately (or unfortunately) she was not on my flight. Maybe there will be some more people-watching gold on my airplane.

After almost a two hour delay, we finally made it in the air. We are flying in an , which I absolutely love. There is plenty of space to sit and you don’t have to worry about sharing your personal space if you get in the side that only has one seat. I was seating in the isle seat of the double isle, but I ended up asking our flight attendant Jill if I could move to the front of the plane. Jill is nice, polite and from Cleveland, but she doesn’t look the part of “stewardess”. I guess that is why they use “flight attendant” now.

I had amazing luck with last minute seat shift. I’m in the second row. I love being this close to the plane. Besides the “survivability” of that seat, I will be the second person off the aircraft. Another amazing string of luck, I am surrounded by attractive women. I met a lovely mother (and her 6 month old) sitting next to me. Her son was an angel the entire flight. It didn’t hurt that she was talkative and cute (in a hot mom sort of way). The woman in front of me is cute too. College student… you know the type. Behind me is a woman that looks like she could be a model. But she was headed to Quebec and didn’t speak English (at least not to me; damn french Canadians. So damn pretentious).

Speaking of pretentious, the flight also had the NYU Mock Trial club aboard. They apparently have won some sort of competition (they had some trophy). OH MY GOD…. They were so annoying! You can hear it in their voice. I’m guessing too much debate practice. The one guy was singling show-tunes as loud as he could. He had a good voice, but I didn’t want to hear it. Other passengers were complaining.

Well, I’m finally here to Newark NJ. It has been a while since I had the pleasure of visit the Garden State. What quickly came back to me upon my arrival… THE SMELL. The entire state has a smell to it. Many places have a distinct smell, but few as pungent as New Jersey. If any of our readers have a suggestion on how to deal with the smell, please let us know.

Well, it is getting late and I have to be up for work early. If any of our readers live in New Jersey, drop a line or leave a comment. I’ve love to hear from you.

Tags: Rant by DaVe
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Otter Creek Brewing, Middlebury, VT
Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout

Political viewpoints aside, if a farmer or brewer cares about his product enough to put in the additional effort to go throught the certification process to label their products as organic, then that is an indication that they either care very deeply about their products or ingredients or they’re going for a gimmick. Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout is certified organic, which would have to include the barley malt, oats, and hops. I will venture the guess that this particular brewer is not out for the gimmick (no, this beer isn’t spiked with clamato). Does it make for a better beer? That is for the drinker to decide. For this drinker, it does make for a pretty good beer. The head is a brownish-ivory color, but it appears to be quite weak and not very creamy which is very different from most other oatmeal stouts that I have had. Most other oatmeal stouts I have consumed have very thick, creamy heads – the head is thick enough to spackle walls, and it is like a chocolate milk in consistency. But not in this case. The aroma is similar to that of freshly roasted coffee, intoxicatingly deep and heady. Unfortunately, there is a slight metallic bitterness that greets you on the lips and on the tip of the tongue. That bitterness thankfully doesn’t infect the rest of the overall flavor. The overall flavor is good, but just a bit flat; it doesn’t really sing or jump out at you. It has a solid roasted flavor, like strong black coffee, and features a very nice after-taste of vanilla and bittersweet chocolate, but that’s about it. There isn’t as much body as I would expect from an oatmeal stout, either. This beer is almost too crisp, too dry to have the mouth-feel of typical oatmeal stouts which usually are very smoothe, velvety, creamy, and soft in texture. Generally, this is a good beer, but it certainly misses some of the things I look for. On the label is stamped the phrase “Since 1997”; in the beer world, or at least in my opinionated corner of the beer world, longevity means nothing and product is everything. This product certainly has a place at the table because of their quality, and as long as they continue to be certified organic, they can work that angle, too. Even if it isn’t a gimmick.

M!dd13m4n’s rating – 3.5 Pints

Tags: Beer Review by Midd13m4n
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“Ask DaVe” is an advice and Q&A column for all of our readers. I do my best to answer all of your questions. If you don’t know what to do, if you want my opinion on something, if you want to know something about me, or if you just want to know… please write to me at FupDuckTV[at]gmail[dot]com or leave a comment.

Bob from San Diego, CA asks, “Who do you think is going to win the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament?”

To be honest, many years in the past I have cared a great deal about who was in what region, who had what seating, who played who and who would win the whole thing. I would take off work to go sit at the local sports bar and watch five or more televisions at once so that I wouldn’t miss a single minute of the action. I even join in office pools to see who could accurately select the winners. March Madness had taken over.

This year, I have not been following basketball that closely. NCAA Men’s Basketball: I’m just not that into you. UNC is from Mars and Duke is from Venus. The Devil wears Reebok. The Basketball bug has not bit me this year (I must be too engrossed in Mustache March). I just don’t think that I’m going to even bother printing a bracket and picking a winner.

In researching this article, I discovered some of my favorite teams have made it into the tournament this year. Congrats everyone that made it. For many of them, this event will be the highlight of their basketball career. For others, this is just a stepping stone to the NBA.

One thing I have noticed, this year there are a TON of female sideline reporters, quite possibly the most famous of all of them is Erin Andrews. I guess networks realize men like to watch women report on sporting events. It combines two of our favorite things: Astroturf and Microphones (well, that and Sports and Hotness).

Regardless of who you pick, this years tournament should be interesting to keep tabs on. Oh yeah, Pittsburgh is totally going to destroy UConn in the finals.

Alright it is your turn. Who do you think is going to go all the way? Who is your favorite sideline reporter? Is NCAA College Basketball better than NBA Pro Basketball? Is Women’s Basketball more PURE than Men’s? Let us know what you think….

Tags: Ask DaVe by DaVe
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