Silflay Hraka

Or at least potential champions. Now if we just knew which one

None of my colleagues in the cycling press thought to ask Floyd Landis the two questions I wanted answered after Stage 17: What kind of beer were you drinking last night, and where can I get some?
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Asked why he kept calling for water, more water, alternately drinking it and pouring it over his head, Landis quipped: “It was very hot. Maybe that was the explanation, or maybe it was the beer I had last night.” No follow-up question. Good Lord, what the hell are they teaching in journalism schools these days? Stenography? Sobriety? The man has discovered the elixir of the gods in some anonymous French taproom and the sporting press just stands there like so many badly dressed mannequins, pondering their next hoary cliche.

The beer holster.

You’ve been there: chicken leg on one hand, beer in the other, and then you want to grab your girlfriend. You’re out of hands. Solve the problem with the beer holster.

A Red Drum Farm… in Mauritius.

Red Drum are now spawning in an ultra model, world class hatchery, then raised at sea in special fishing nets and finally bred to the size required by the market. Most of the technical hitches have been sorted out. The installation respects all the international environment and hygiene safety norms. Exports to various overseas markets have started, and the fish has received a good response on the local market particular in the up market end of the hotels.

I wonder what precautions have been taken against possible escapes by the farmed drum. SInce the Red Drum aren’t native to the waters of the Idian Ocean, if enough fish escape to form a breeding population, there could be any number of environmental consequences, as with the Lionfish here. A lot would depend on the relative fitness of the competing species. I wonder which native species fills the ecological niche there that drum have evolved to fill here.

Update: Still no lists of possible species, but there’s a number of Mauritian fishing photos here.

The overall beer-drinking is enhanced when one chooses the correct glassware.

Those tall, thin cylindrical pint glasses labeled with the words “Trumer Pils” are specifically for, well, Trumer Pils(ner). The glasses stand upside down, towering over those common, regular-sized pint glasses. But according to the Trumer Brauerei (German for “brewery,” right?) and their marketing effort, this gigantic glass is the way to drink the beer. There seems to be some utility to the unusual vessel.
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According to the notes from the PlumpJack Beer of the Month Club selection of Trumer Pilsner in April 2005, “it tastes best when consumed from a tall, thin and well-chilled pilsner glass at the coolest temperature that you can manage.” Most bars probably don’t generally stock this style of tall glass (and Spring Break neon plastic yard glasses won’t cut it), so Trumer delivers its own supply.

Including a comparison of Malcolm Glazer to the Simpson’s Mr. Burns. Excerpts below, but there’s a lot more in the article.

For most of the 20th century, menhaden provided the largest catch of any U.S. fishery, annually exceeding in both numbers and weight all other fish combined. More important still, by providing food for bigger fish and filtering the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, menhaden play an essential dual role in marine ecology on a scale perhaps unmatched anywhere on the planet. And though menhaden have survived centuries of relentless natural and human predation, the current industrial onslaught on them may be unleashing an ecological catastrophe.
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They are filter feeders that live on phytoplankton, which most other aquatic animals are unable to eat. Dense schools of menhaden, sometimes numbering in the hundreds of thousands, pour through these waters, toothless mouths agape, slurping up plankton and detritus like a colossal submarine vacuum cleaner as wide as a city block and as deep as a train tunnel. Each adult fish can filter about four gallons of water a minute. Purging suspended particles that cause turbidity, this filter feeding clarifies the water, allowing sunlight to penetrate and encourage the growth of aquatic plants that release dissolved oxygen and harbor a host of fish and shellfish.
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Omega now owns 61 ships and 32 spotter planes. Only 10 of the ships and seven of the planes—all based at the company’s factory complex in Reedville, Virginia—still operate on the Atlantic coast. And there Omega has big problems.

As Atlantic menhaden have declined, their range has contracted. The biggest, most oil-rich fish used to concentrate off New England in the summer. But from 1993 until 2004, no significant schools of adult menhaden were observed north of Cape Cod. As awareness grew of menhaden’s importance to the dwindling stocks of Atlantic food and game fish, state after state banned the fishery from its waters. Today the only Atlantic states that still allow it are North Carolina and Virginia. Unable to fish in the waters of any other states and no longer able to find large oceanic schools in federal waters, which begin three miles out from the states’ coasts, Omega Protein now gets close to 70 percent of its Atlantic catch from the Virginia waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Magic Bait

With customers flowing into Menemsha’s fish markets in search of the freshest fish and the up-Island charter fleet leaving the harbor to hunt for big striped bass, Mark Younger and his father James set out chairs behind Larsen’s Fish Market and pulled in big fish after big fish at all hours of the day right from the dock. The biggest fish was 55 inches long and weighed a whopping 47 pounds.

“Farm-raised salmon,” he said matter-of-factly.

If it works for striper, it ough to work for Drum. And it comes pre-cleaned.

I keep trying to explain the wonders of camp life to the Sainted Wife, who, never having been through the whole camp experience, just doesn’t get it. Perhaps this will help.

Summer camp isn’t really for the campers. Bless their hearts, they’re mostly just hoping to get back home with no broken bones or major emotional traumas. No, camp is for the counselors, who, after all, are there by choice, get paid, frequently snog the other counselors, and basically ride a serotonin high all summer long.
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That summer, I learned what it is to be a minor god. To rule over my kingdom with casual confidence. To throw off the chains of the workaday world and trade them in for lazy days on a lake. To skinny-dip with a flock of hot, 22-year-old counselor chicks.

And the skinny-dipping wasn’t even the best part of the job. (Though it’s the part people always want to hear about.) No, the best part was the limitless power over the campers. Not so much the power to plunge them into the freezing lake whenever it so pleased me, but rather the power to shape these kids’ entire conceptual framework.

In related news, Ngnat is off to Pony camp in a month or so. Haven’t subjected the Hraka audience to kid pics for a year or more, so here’s an update.

Ngnat and Scotty M pretending to be 16-inch shells on the Battleship North Carolina.

Their childish screams of “This one’s for you, Tojo!” would have warmed the cockles of your heart.

And……sitting on the driveway, I think.

The 48 Hour Film Project

The 48 Hour Film Project comes to Greensboro this weekend and I am co-producing a film with my friend Bee. Actually, she’s done most of the heavy lifting as far as planning is concerned, but I did pay half of the $125 dollar entry fee. Together, Bee and I comprise the entire full-time staff of “Charmed Life Productions”, the team we’re leading in film festival.

The story of Charmed Life Productions is a long one that begins with my encounter with a Chinese fortune-teller at the Chinese cultural festival in Greensboro in 2002. Bee has always been interested in astrology and tarot and divination and whatnot and I admit to some curiosity regarding psychic phenomena so we decided to try our luck with the fortune-teller.

This particular oracle used two methods to tell us about ourselves and to divine the future. The first thing she did was take a lengthy gander at the lines on our palms. I can’t say I recall anything she said about my palm-reading. She might’ve said something about my love line. She did ask me if I had a girlfriend.

At that time, I’d been dating a girl on-and-off (mostly off) for about two years and our relationship could best be described as “combatative”. The divinator determined that I was born in the Year of the Dog and my then-significant other was brought forth on the face of the Earth in the Year of the Tiger. I became convinced of the power of the oracle when she efficiently summed up the state of our relationship in this bit of broken English: “No, no, no, no, no. That no work. Dog gets on Tiger’s nerves.”

Yep. That pretty much summed it up. Must’ve been the whole feline-canine thing. Tiger annoyed Dog pretty regularly too. We split for good soon after this particular episode. But that’s beside the point.

The fortune-teller also used a specialized deck of “health” cards to tell the future. We were asked to shuffle the deck, pick something like twelve cards. Bee went first and got a fairly standard fortune involving tall-dark strangers or some such. I went next, shuffled the deck, drew my cards and turned them over to the oracle. Upon viewing the cards I’d chosen she gasped and exclaimed, “You lead charmed life!” I think the significator was the turtle card.

I just smiled. The fact that I lead a charmed life was and is no news to me. I have led an extraordinarily blessed life, to the point of being damn near bullet-proof. It’s not that bad things don’t happen to me. It’s just that they don’t ever seem to stick. And plenty of good things seem to fall into my lap without the application of too much effort on my part.

Some people would say I’m lucky, but luck isn’t in it. The Lord has blessed me and kept me. He has made His face to shine upon me and been gracious to me. He has lifted up His countenance upon me and occasionally given me something akin to peace. He has definitely set angels to watch over me and I praise Him for it.

The fact that I lead a charmed life was apparently no news to Bee either. I caught her eye and she just smiled and shook her head as if to say “You don’t know the half of it.” I think my charmed life is something of an annoyance to her sometimes.

Anyway, we retell the story of our visit to the Chinese fortune-teller every so often. When we were brainstorming names for our film team, we wanted to choose something personal and appropriate. Nothing seemed more appropriate than my charmed life and thus we became “Charmed Life Productions”.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the 48 Hour Film Project, the concept is to have teams of filmmakers write, shoot and produce a 7-minute film in 48 hours or less. The purpose is to encourage creativity and to provide exposure for the art of amateur filmmakers in cities around the U.S.

No part of the film can be produced before the start of the 48 hour contest period. This means we’ll be working almost non-stop for 48 hours starting at 7:00 p.m. this evening. As soon as we are given our randomly-assigned genre, a character and line of dialogue we must include in the script and a prop we must use, we’ll rush away from the kick-off event to start writing the script. I’ll be sharing script-writing responsibilities with a co-worker that has volunteered to help with the effort.

(This is how I got involved with the project, by the way. Bee was assistant editor for another team last year and I had the privilege of pre-screening their film. My comment: “I could write a better script than that.” Bee didn’t forget my boast and coerced me into putting my money where my mouth is.)

We’ll be working on the script into the wee hours of the morning and filming will begin early Saturday morning. We have no idea where we’ll be shooting, who the characters will be, what costumes we’ll need, what props we’ll have to include or what genre we’ll get. The uncertainty has been the source of some consternation amongst our rapidly cobbled cast and crew. Since we must, we’ll deal with it as best we can.

I must admit to some nervousness. I’m trying to frame this as something fun but, being the perfectionist that I am, I am feeling pressured to churn out an Oscar-worthy script. I’ll try to breathe in some realism between now and the end of the contest at 7:30 on Sunday evening. If we’re lucky, we’ll come up with something as good as Chad Vader.

For those of you in Greensboro that might like to participate, it’s not too late to offer your skills to those teams in need. The 6 p.m. kick-off will be held at the Flying Anvil in downtown Greensboro and I know for certain that certain unaffiliated acting talent will be there in case they are needed. I feel certain that we’ll need more cast members and maybe someone to help with music…and props…and make-up…and shot locations and…you get the picture.

For those of you who are interested but who feel you have nothing to offer the thirty-odd teams that are participating this weekend, all the films will be screened at the Carolina Theatre on July 29th. I’ll also post our video here and probably on YouTube, where you can see 48 Hour Film Project films from other cities.

For everyone else out there in the blogosphere, please wish us luck. I feel certain that we’ll need it. It’s our first film effort and what we lack in experience is compounded by an equivalent paucity of resources. Even given those things, I’m sure everything will be fine. I’m sure God will bless us and our efforts, like my life, will be charmed.

World Record Tequila

An impossibly upmarket brand of tequila — 100 percent blue Agave lovingly aged for six years and sold in a limited edition platinum bottle with fancy artwork on the label — went on sale in Mexico on Thursday night for $225,000
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Tequila Ley .925 has produced 66 bottles of the “Pasion Azteca” tequila, half of them pure platinum bottles and half of them gold and platinum-decorated bottles that sell for the slightly less extravagant price of $150,000.

Couldn’t find a pic of the bottle at the distiller’s website, but I did find the label artwork.

I wonder if the higher price will magnify regular tequila’s peculiar effect.

Update: When in doubt, write the distillery.

Spanish firm claims it can make oil from plankton