Thoughts on Madison Metro Transit

(Photo by J. Mc.)

No one wants to hear that Madison Metro is looking to increase fares again. But times are hard for public transit and a slight increase in fares for better service seems a reasonable trade-off. Even better is that the fare increase is only $0.05 and only for unlimited passes which affects UW employees, students, city employees, etc. This doesn't seem like a big deal except the fare increase is to pay for making wi-fi service available on buses.

Madison Metro Transit riders using unlimited passes could see an increase in rates next year in exchange for the addition of wireless internet access.

The city’s operating budget for next year includes $96,300 for implementing Wi-Fi on Metro buses, contingent on an increase of $0.05 per ride for unlimited pass holders. The capital budget also includes $150,000 for wireless network upgrades.

Metro Transit will hold a public hearing on the rate increase on Wednesday, Dec. 10, at the Madison Municipal Building to discuss the possible changes.

Five or six years ago adding wi-fi to buses would have been a very nice amenity. Today, however, everyone's smartphone has a data plan as do many tablets. Who comprises the ridership that this wi-fi is targeting? This just seems like a fairly useless lagniappe.

Madison Metro does some things very well. For example, if you work downtown or on campus on weekdays from, say 6:00-18:00, Metro can probably get you to and from work rather well. Work second or third shift? Work on weekends? Metro will likely be less successful.



When I first read the article about the fare increase, I immediately thought of route 6. Route 6 goes from the west transfer point out to East Towne Mall via the Square and East Washington. East Washington is home to the new 14-story Constellation whose 200 or so residential units were all rented out/sold by the time the building opened. This past September the Constellation's sister building next door, the 15-story Galaxie broke ground. It will have 205 residential units plus office space and a grocery store. The Creamery, a mixed use development on the 1000 block of East Washington may go ahead without the planned concert venue. Across the street on the same block there's a proposal for a 10-12 story tower featuring a music venue. Breese Stevens Field was recently renovated and you can bet the city didn't do it for fun. It is looking at bringing back the state high school soccer championships to Madison as well as having the stadium host concerts and other entertainment events.

We also have the latest iteration of Archipelago Village which would consume most of the south side of the 900 block of East Washington. Further east there's a proposal for a 70-80 unit apartment building with a brewpub on the ground floor. Union Corners is finally coming to fruition at East Wash and Milwaukee. East Wash and First Street is the preferred location for our public market.

Whew! That's a lot of development.

Yet outside of morning and afternoon rush hours, route 6 provides service only about every half an hour. On weekends route 6 runs once an hour which borders on the useless. (Ditto for another major route, route 4 on weekends and others.)

A similar situation also exists on Cottage Grove Road. A lot of housing and commercial space is about to go up there in the form of Royster Corners yet bus service on Cottage Grove Road is minimal during the week and barely there on weekends. Buses travel on Cottage Grove Road very far so riders are basically limited to buses that traverse Atwood Avenue and Acewood Boulevard.

I can't help but think of the motto of public transit consultant Jarrett Walker: "Frequency is freedom." Walker was here in Madison back in 2011.) Is a bus running once an hour very useful or appealing to people who can drive? Frequency is freedom. I highly recommend listening to an interview with Walker up at the Community Transit podcast. In it he says:

If you really want ridership, the best indicator we have found for what drives high ridership is just a high quantity of service.

He goes on to note the experiment happening with our neighbors to the north. Canadian cities generally offer more service than their American counterparts and have ridership that is about double that here in the States.



It's frustrating to read that Metro wants to raise fares to install wi-fi when much bus service is almost useless and very unattractive to new and choice riders. It's frustrating to read about the city pouring money into a public market when Metro's maintenance facility is at capacity with no plans for expansion. It's frustrating to read that Madison is moving forward with Bus Rapid Transit while the normal bus service is sub-par. How about whipping the current system into shape before adding bling and BRT?

Madison Metro needs more buses that run more frequently. I think this is the #1 outstanding issue with Metro service. Frequency is freedom.

The Kimmie, The Yink, and the Holy Gose: Anderson Valley's Take on the Gose

Now is the time for all good Wisconsin beer drinkers to consume brews leftover from the warmer months in preparation for what the Farmer's Almanac is predicting to be a really goddamn cold winter. And so to make room for stouter fair in my refrigerator, I have begun to drink the lighter fare therein.

First up is Anderson Valley's The Kimmie, The Yink, and the Holy Gose Ale. I have no idea what the name is supposed to mean. I suppose that it's an in-joke for the brewmaster or some goofy northern California punage. Regardless of the name, I was keen on trying a domestic take on the German brew.

The gose (go-suh) dates back to the 16th century and gets its name from its hometown – Goslar. The brew spread and folks in Leipzig really took a shine to it and breweries there began to brew it. Eventually the beer became associated with Leipzig. Gose went on the decline around World War I presumably because, well, there was a war on plus the Reinheitsgebot had escaped Bavaria only to spread northward and lagers were the hip and cool (pun intended) beer trend. World War II seems to have killed it but the style was resurrected every now and again during the bad old days of the Cold War. Today I believe there are two or three breweries in Germany that brew Gose with the most common one to my eyes on this side of the Atlantic being Leipziger Gose.

Provenance aside, the style is that of a sour wheat beer. 50%+ of the grain bill is wheat with the rest being barley. It is spiced with coriander, salt, and hops while lactic bacteria provide the sourness. Until this brew, I had never had a brew by Anderson Valley and was really looking forward to it.

The Kimmie, The Yink, and the Holy Gose Ale pours a nice foamy head despite what my photograph shows. By the time I took a picture that was lit well enough and in focus, the head had dissipated. The bier itself is clear and of a very light straw color. There were a few stray bubbles making their way up. A lemony tartness dominated the aroma.

On the tongue The Kimmie... has a light body and you get the effervescence. You may not see the bubbles in your glass but you can taste them. As with the aroma, the lactic tartness stands out along with its attendant lemony/citrus flavor. Further along the tongue you catch a bit of grain along with a stone fruit flavor. There was just the barest hint of salinity. The hops only seem discernible in the finish which is tart, slightly bitter, and dry. It was disappointing to me that the salt was barely noticeable but even worse was that I could not taste any coriander. None. Zip. Keiner. Anderson Valley's webpage says it's in there but you could have fooled me. Perhaps their brewmaster is into homeopathy and really diluted it while counting on the wort to have a memory of the coriander.

As I drank I found that the bier yielded no Schaumhaftvermoegen. The sides of my glass were clean. But I did feel refreshed. Despite the near absence of hops, salt, and coriander, this beer goes down easily with its rather light body, lemony flavor, and dry finish. Anderson Valley reports that it is 4.2% A.B.V. which is sessionable and quite appropriate for hotter weather.

Junk Food Pairing: I would definitely pair this beer with Chinese shrimp chips – the ones that look like Shrinky Dinks before you fry them up.

Folks here in Madison should try Egon's Revenge from Next Door Brewing, although you'll probably have to wait until next summer to do so. It is a wonderful beer and probably more in line with the gose style as it has traditionally been made with a fuller body than The Kimmie... Best of all, the salt and coriander are not hidden, though not overwhelming either. It's a bit stronger at 4.6% but within the range for the style. Personally, I think it's one of the best beers you can find in Madison.

Passenger Rail Returns to Madison (Temporarily)

Prior to a few days ago, the last time Madison had passenger rail service was back in 1976 when trains ran between Madison and Milwaukee for Badger football games. The last time Madison enjoyed regular passenger rail service was on 30 April 1971 when the Sioux and Varsity lines ran their last trips before Amtrak took over and abandoned Madison completely.

Last month Pullman Rail Journeys announced passenger rail service between Madison and Chicago on a couple weekends in October that would coincide with Badger football games against Northwestern and Illinois. The trips would be in old cars that had been refurbished with $99 buying you a Standard Class seat and for $100 more you could go Diamond Class which got you a seat in a domed car and a meal. The newly revitalized Varsity made its first trip last Saturday bringing people to Madison from Chicago and the Wisconsin State Journal was aboard.


(Photo by Brian Allen.)

The article interviews various passengers. An 82-year old gentleman seems to have taken advantage of the opportunity to revel in nostalgia while younger people enjoyed not being behind the wheel and the space and comfort that trains provide. Ed Ellis, president of Iowa Pacific, Pullman's parent company, is quoted as saying, "Being able to get on the train in Madison and just not worry about (traffic) and have something to eat and drink and look out the window is a pretty pleasant alternative. People obviously picked up on that because we sold more tickets than we thought we were going to."

I have to wonder if these weekend rail excursions came about because of talks at the meeting which may not have been a meeting back on 21 June. Recall that All Aboard Wisconsin, a rail advocacy group, was trying to get stakeholders aboard a Pullman train headed from Chicago to Prairie du Chien to discuss rail service between Madison and Chicago. When word of this meeting got out, it turned out that this was apparently more of an attempt at a very informal get-together. Wisconsin & Southern Railroad, which owns track between Madison and Chicago, had "no immediate interest" in letting anyone use its track for passenger service. Indeed, they were unaware of any such meeting. Similarly, Ed Ellis of Iowa Pacific was surprised to hear of anything akin to a formal meeting.

The message suggested representatives from a number of rail companies, including Metra, Iowa Pacific and Wisconsin & Southern would be participating, but the president of Iowa Pacific, Ed Ellis, claimed that wasn't true.

Iowa Pacific, he said, is doing little more than providing the passenger cars that High Iron Travel will be using to transport passengers on a $2800-per-person weekend trip from Chicago to Prairie du Chien.

"My understanding is that they wanted to put some people on in Madison who are interested in passenger train," he said.

The companies, however, are not participating in any type of talks about future rail service, he insisted.

Perhaps Pullman had been planning these Madison trips for months prior to the June soiree but nothing seems to have been mentioned about them until last month. And so it seems a bit more than coincidental that three months after an effort to get stakeholders together to talk about Madison-Chicago rail service, we get a couple weekends of passenger trains running between the two cities. I don't mean to imply that these are test runs and that any formal plans emerged from the June "meeting" - heck, Ellis may just be following through on promises he made after a few cocktails. But that the runs did better business than expected can only help those looking to establish passenger rail service here in Madison.

For a bit on the history of passenger rail in Madison, see my Madrail posts.



Tangentially, 10 miles of disused track between Fitchburg and Oregon recently returned to service. Trains will be hauling what I presume is rock from McCoy Road to the Lycon concrete factory in Oregon.

Judy Is Positive About This

I have to admit to being quite surprised to hear a few days ago that David Lynch and Mark Frost were posting mysterious tweets with references to Twin Peaks.



And so I wasn't quite as surprised when I found out that Twin Peaks is being resurrected as a nine episode mini-series for Showtime with shooting to begin next year.

The new Twin Peaks will be set in the present day, more than two decades after the events in the first two seasons. It will continue the lore and story of the original series, with Lynch and Frost committed to providing long-awaited answers and, hopefully, a satisfying conclusion to the series. It is unclear which actors from the original series will be featured in the followup. I hear that star Kyle MacLachlan will be back, reprising his role as FBI Agent Dale Cooper who was at the center of the show.

While this is indeed exciting news, I remain ambivalent. It should be a fun watch but Lynch and Frost had better not go all George Lucas and do something like explain the Lodges right down to the midi-chlorian level. Just be sure to get me some info on Judy and that monkey that said her name and I'll be happy.

The Terror To Be Adapted for Television

Dan Simmons fictional account of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, The Terror, is being adapted for television as a series by AMC. I don't know how I missed the news for the past year and a half. I absolutely love the book - my review is here - and am looking forward to seeing how it makes the leap to the small screen.

I am hoping that the TV adaptation retains the pacing of the book which is a slow burn. My paperback copy is 760+ pages with Simmons in no hurry at all. Instead he is happy to let the reader wallow as the crew's slow, gruesome fate unfolds one death at a time. There's the thing out on the ice that is picking off crewmembers one by one which provides a terror that is constantly lurking in the background. But the real terror is the struggle of crew to simply survive. In addition to the something out there in the dark, they have to contend with extreme cold, food stocks that are running out, and scurvy taking hold. Expedition members were out on the Arctic ice for two years or so and Simmons documents their struggles in excruciating detail.

Simmons' book is one of the best and most rewarding literary slogs there is so hopefully the TV adaptation won't push the story along too quickly. I can imagine the TV version throwing in more attempts to capture the thing to make the story more action-oriented. Plus Crozier's clairvoyance and Lady Silence can be used less sparingly to add variety for viewers. Should be interesting.

Those Poor Navarrese

Bill Maher recently stirred up a shitstorm by suggesting there was something wrong with the Muslim world when books, movies, and cartoons incite riots and provoke Muslims to threaten the authors' lives (and in the case of Theo van Gogh, threats became murder.) and that Muslim countries generally treat women poorly. Maher was called all manner of things including Islamophobic, racist, and a bigot.

Well, Maher's got nothing on the medieval author of The Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Compostela. I've been reading about medieval Iberia and the book includes some excerpts from this work which was written around 1140. As the title indicates, it's a guide for people making a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. According to the text, it was nearly as popular a destination for pilgrims as Rome or The Holy Land which makes one wonder why there's this myth that medieval folks didn't travel far from their homes.

The author is an anonymous Frenchman who informs travelers of which rivers are safe to drink, what towns are to be found on the route, and about the natives as well. Whoever the author is, he really didn't like the Navarrese. (Navarre is or was a region in north-central Spain.) I mean he really, really didn't like the Navarrese. He begins by noting that "These people, in truth, are repulsively dressed and they eat and drink repulsively." It gets worse.

...when the Navarrese are warming themselves, a man will show a woman and woman a man their private parts. The Navarrese even practice unchaste fornication with animals...He even offers libidinous kisses to the vulva of woman and mule.

A Frenchman decrying oral sex?! Forsooth! Up to this point in the book, at least, not even the Jews are described so harshly. Sure, they are said to be greedy and untrustworthy but at least they didn't practice cunnilingus.

Oh, but here's the best bit:

This is a barbarous race unlike all other races in customs and in character, full of malice, swarthy in color, evil of face, depraved, perverse, perfidious, empty of faith and corrupt, libidinous, drunken, experienced in all violence, ferocious and wild, dishonest and reprobate, impious and harsh, cruel and contentious, unversed in anything good, well-trained in all vices and iniquities, like the Geats and Saracens in malice, in everything inimical to our French people.

The author does concede that the Navarrese are good warriors on the battlefield so they're not all bad.

On Cooking Mutton

I recently listened to an episode of the BBC's fine radio show Food Programme concerning mutton. At one point an Indian gentleman is heard explaining that the neck is best for stewing and braising. He goes on:

"As an Indian, naturally your tendency is to cook it in a, sort of a nice sauce. And even for us, the easiest thing I always tell people is do not mar it. Whole spices - cinammon, cardamom, clove, peppercorn. Onion, garlic, ginger, and some red chili. That's it! Do not overkill it because spices can easily destroy it."

Presumably the addition of an eighth of a teaspoon of fennel would destroy a fine piece of mutton.

Lagers in the Craft Beer Ghetto and Other Brew News

Madison Craft Beer Week begins in nine days but The Dulcinea and I began celebrating the annual event last month with a trip to the Wisconsin Brewing Company to watch the state's brewing intelligentsia watch as Kirby Nelson's fancy new brewhouse did all the work in whipping up this year's Common Thread. For 2014 we're getting a Bohemian Pilsner made with Sterling hops instead of the traditional Saaz. It was my first visit to the new brewery and it was mighty impressive.



We arrived around 10:30 that morning only to find that the work was done. The brewers gathered from around the state were instead milling about and taking turns peering into the mash tun like expectant fathers while tour groups wandered amongst the stainless steel forest. We settled into our seats and had some beer. After an Amber, I tried the Porter Joe, their porter infused with coffee, and it was fantastic. I believe it was originally brewed as a one-off for some event but it went over well enough for another go round. It has a very nice balance between the roasted malt and coffee flavors. It's balanced and drinkable.

Here's Scott Manning from Vintage being chatted up:



And here's the brewers all lined up for their photo op:



This is Kirby test brew setup.



For a fee, you can brew a beer with Kirby on it and then invite all your friends to the tap room and enjoy it. It sounds like fun but I'd probably brew something with rye, end up with a congealed mess, and have Kirby yelling at me for hours as I cleaned it.

The tap room was expansive.



With its vaulted ceiling and all of the windows looking into the large brewhouse, it had a very industrial feel as opposed to the nice, comfy atmosphere you find at your local tavern. But it's a tasting room and not a contender for third place for locals, I suppose.

We got back into Madison a little after noon so it was off to Next Door Brewing for a nooncap.



I cannot recall what The D ordered but I went with the gose and it was delicious. A bit heavier on the salt than the previous takes on the style I've had but it was still quite enjoyable and very refreshing. I intended to return a few days later to get a growler of it but the brewpub's website didn't list it. Hopefully it'll return in the summer.

Getting back to Craft Beer Week, I feel rather underwhelmed looking at the schedule. I also feel saddened that lagers are apparently the Craft Beer Week orphans . Witness the "Lagers: An Overview" event.

It's easy to think of lagers as the bland and flavorless over-produced light beer domestically produced, but they can range anywhere from new and exciting styles like the hoppy India Pale Lager to the traditional deep, rich maltiness of a doppelbock. We'll have some of our favorite examples on hand for you to try.

It seems that every other event that week will be about barrel-aged imperial stouts, IPAs, and sours brewed with bacteria recently extracted from the deepest, darkest depths of the Congo and so lagers are thrown into the ghetto and get a token event. I am reminded of a recent blog post by Lew Bryson (a man on a crusade to promote session beers) in which he was critical of craft brewing groupthink:

I'm actually getting more concerned about the lame groupthink and sheep mentality represented by "session IPA," especially since it's Sierra Nevada. I really expected something better from a brewer that has produced an iconic, leading Pale Ale, Barleywine, American Stout. I expected a brilliant Bitter, a fearless Mild. But we got a following beer from a brewer that's a leader. I expect better.

I expect better from the whole industry. I should be happy on Session Beer Day, and to some extent, I am! It's great, we're seeing a LOT more session strength beers from notable brewers, and more and more of them at brewpubs. But...an unending parade of "session IPA"?

GOD DAMN IT, AMERICAN BREWERS! You're BETTER than this! And I'm not just talking about session. American craft brewing has become a pathetic nation of followers. Look, a sour sold, let's make one! Look, session IPA sold, let's make one! Look, limited edition beers sold, let's make one! I weep for you. Truly. Show some balls, at least come up with your own name, like "fractional IPA."

Moving back to Kirby and Wisconsin Brewing, they now have a Maibock out called Big Sweet Life.



I've not had it yet but have been told it's a bit hoppier than the version Kirby brewed at Capital and perhaps slightly less sweet as well. Rumor has it that Porter Joe will be draught-only for a bit before being bottled later this year. Kirby apparently has a helles ready for release and is planning an Oktoberfest "with a twist". Lastly I'll note that Wisconsin Brewing Company has inked a distribution deal for the Chicago market. The distributor, Chicago Cluster, "blankets" the northern half of Illinois which means the brewery has a new market that is roughly double the size of its Wisconsin market. They seem to be on track of meeting their 250,000 barrel goal. Add in the Twin Cities and Wisconsin Brewing can become quite a regional brewer.

Tickets for the Great Taste of the Midwest go on sale 4 May at noon. There are some changes this year as detailed in this blog post. Ticket prices are up to $60, for starters. The Malt House and west side Vintage are new ticket outlets while the Tyranena tasting room is out.

I heard a few months ago that River City Distributing over in Watertown had bought the rights to various Polish beers and liquors from a Milwaukee area distributor and that the Madison area would see new brands on shelves. Neither store shelves nor the company's website reflect this. Has anyone else heard about deal? Hell, maybe there's an Okacim IPA to be had.

The winners of this year's World Beer Cup were announced earlier this month. Talk about groupthink – check out the categories with the most entries:

3rd) Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer
2nd) American-Style Pale Ale
And 1st place goes to...American Style India Pale Ale!

I am shocked. Shocked!

Wisconsin breweries brought home some medals:

Sprecher Shakparo – Bronze in Gluten-Free Beer
Sprecher Black Bavarian – Gold in German-Style Schwarzbier
Central Waters' Sixteen – Gold in Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Stout
Vintage McLovin – Silver in Irish-Style Red Ale

Oh, and Miller won a couple of awards too.

Some new and newish brews:



While it appears to be a flavored-enhanced beer instead of a true radler, it does come in at a sessionable 4.1% ABV, quite a bit lower than most American drinks labeled "radler" and "shandy".





Don't tell Lew Bryson but Lakefront is coming out with a session IPA called Extended Play. And the latest entry in their My Turn series is Johnson, a DIPA.



Milwaukee Brewing Company has introduced Litta Bitta, a so-called white IPA, brewed with lemongrass. White IPAs, as far as I can tell, are very hoppy Belgian wit beers but the monikers "IPA" and "India" sell so everything has to be an IPA variation these days. Presumably we can look forward to an IPK – India Pale Kölsch – because, well, it has more hops and will sell like gangbusters.



I mean, just ask Capital. Their fourth IPA is Ghost Ship, a white IPA. It has coriander, orange peel, and lots of hops. I tried one of these last weekend. It tasted like an imperial witbier at first with prominent coriander and orange bitterness and then the hops kicked in and ruined it. Craft brewers should stop adding more hops to everything and then calling it an India Pale XXXXX.

Also in Capital news, a Twitter tweet shows brewer Ashley Kinart whipping up a test batch of her new beer. ETA is June. Anyone know what kind of beer she has in mind?



The Hop Garden is a hop farm just south of Madison that has also gotten into the brewing game and this is the result. It's brewed by Page out at House of Brews and is available in stores now. Robin Shepard of Isthmus profiled The Hop Garden and its owner Rich Joseph a couple months ago. This pale ale is his first brew and next comes an imperial IPA. Quelle surprise!



The latest from Schell's Noble Star line is North Country Brünette which the brewery describes as a "Märzen style Berliner Weisse". I've never heard of such a thing although the brewery claims it's a defunct style. (Where's Ron Pattinson when you need him?) My understanding is that it's a Berliner Weisse in style but with more of a Märzen grain bill. Sehr interessant!



This beer is out and may very well be gone already. I had it on tap somewhere and it was excellent. Unchained is Summit's limited edition brew series and this was, sadly enough, the first lager in the series. The brewer describes it as being "modeled after a cross between an Oktoberfest bier and a Wiesn bier". Wiesn is, from what I can tell, a lighter take on the Oktoberfest. If you see this in stores, get it. Or just let me know about it and I'll buy it.



The latest hoppy brew from Schell. I believe this will be released next month. It's described as "Combining the hop profile of west-coast American IPA’s with traditional German brewing techniques..." German, American, and French hops used in a double dry hopping. Sounds like a very hoppy pilsner. Schell gets credit from me for not calling it an India Pale Lager.



This is an entry in Stone's Spotlight Series which features brews resulting from a brewing competition held within the company. It's a rye Kölsch with black malt and extra hops. Intriguing. But was it lagered? Probably not. Too bad it's not being distributed in Wisconsin. However, there will be some in Illinois.



Speaking of Illinois, Chicago's Baderbräu has a new brew called Lawnmower Lager which is an IPL (quelle surprise!)



New Belgium's Lips of Faith series now has a gruit. I am looking forward to trying this stuff but haven't seen it around Madison.

On the New Glarus front, Yokel and Hometown Blonde are returning. Berliner Weisse is the next Thumbprint brew and we can look forward to bourbon barrel kriek, the IIPA, and Cranbic later in the year.

Homebrewer Jim Goronson is looking to open The Parched Eagle Brewpub in Middleton. I talked to Goronson about a month ago and he said he's looking at opening in November. I believe Goronson is looking at the Clownin' Around party supply store at 6301 University Avenue for his location.

Get ready for the Sunny Rest Beer Festival!



"Nudity required at the beer festival area". I love how they Photoshopped those beer glasses into the hands of those women. No doubt there will be dozens of young gals at the festival just like those on the poster.

Deus in Machina: Transcendence

Like many people, I spent Sunday reflecting on a man who dies and then is resurrected. Unlike Christians who celebrated the death and rebirth of one incarnation of their tripartite deity, I was at my local IMAX cinema watching Johnny Depp's death and resurrection in Transcendence.

Transcendence is the directorial debut of Wally Pfister, a cinematographer best known for his work with Christopher Nolan. Pfister surely knows how to lens a movie but I recalled the last time a DP whose work I respected tried his hand at directing - Lost Souls. Janusz Kaminski took a break from shooting Steven Spielberg's film to make this mediocre horror flick. Would Pfister fare any better?

The movie begins with a brief prelude featuring a man who we will come to know as Max wandering the streets of a city that has no electricity. Streetlights are dark, broken cell phones litter the ground, and a laptop is used to prop open a door. He makes his way into a backyard where he kneels before two sunflowers and begins to eulogize two of his friends.

Flashing back a couple years, we are introduced to Will (Johnny Depp) and Evelyn Caster (Rebecca Hall). Will is an artificial intelligence researcher and his wife is trying to get him motivated to get to a conference where potential funders for his project can be found. Will is the dreamer type while Evelyn is more pragmatic. He focuses on getting a computer to be self-aware, much to the detriment of bathing and sartorial choices, while she plays the mom and gets him to change into something presentable.

After his speech, in which he admits to essentially "playing God", Will is shot by a member of a group called RIFT (Revolutionary Independence From Technology) which launches attacks other AI research labs at the same time. Will survives only to discover that the bullet that he was shot with was laced with polonium and he is fated to die a slow, painful death from radiation poisoning. Evelyn recalls that Will had uploaded the "consciousness" of a monkey into his super-mega quantum computer and decides to upload Will's into it so that he may live on. Max questions this decision and whether the transferring the electrical activity of Will's brain into a computer will create something that can fairly be called Will.

At this point the movie has introduced a fair amount of interesting thematic ideas. What is consciousness? Is our humanity merely an admittedly highly complex series of electrical impulses? Unfortunately, we get a rather generic action/thriller. After Will asks to be connected to the Internet, Evelyn and Max have a falling out which leaves Evelyn to care for the electronic simulacrum of her husband alone. RIFT kidnap Max and learn of Will's transubstantiation. Meanwhile Will asks that he be connected to the Internet so that he can expand his capabilities.

With RIFT closing in, Evelyn moves to upload Will to the cloud via a satellite connection. Luckily there were no birds looking for a spot to perch and the consciousness of a human being is only a megabyte or so in size because she only had a couple of minutes to complete the upload. I wonder what file type the human consciousness comes in - .will?

With Will living on somehow on the Internet, he plays the stock market and makes tens of millions, if not more, for a company owned by Evelyn and then directs her to a small desert town called Brightwood where she is to build an underground data center where Will can live on and carry out his nebulous plan. The place ends up being massive with an even more enormous farm of solar panels powering the whole thing. Of course no one in the federal government at-large seems to notice that a very large computer laboratory is being built in the desert nor a vast amount of data traffic to and from some podunk town in the southwest. Maybe Will used IP6 and IANA never noticed.

Once fully armed and operational, Will miraculously becomes an expert in nanotechnology and begins experimenting on some of the local contractors making them into superheroes with incredible strength the and power to regenerate. In fact, Will is so goddamn good, he can grow a copy of his old body in the lab. Will has become a god and his ability to monitor Evelyn's limbic system in real time so perturbs that she loses trust in him and escapes his clutches. She is captured by the FBI who joins forces with RIFT and Will's buddy Joseph, who also ran an AI lab, to make their last stand for humanity. They get themselves some machine guns, a mortar, and a couple howitzers. Oh, and a computer virus which take out Will's systems as well as every other computer system on the planet. The plan calls for Evelyn to be infected with the virus so that, when Will uploads her consciousness into his system, it becomes infected. Bullets and explosives don't cut it against nanobots and the augmented contractors. It all comes to the bad ass RIFT lady threatening Max's life to get Will to upload the virus himself and end it all.

Perhaps it's because I work in IT but I just can't look beyond the techno-asshattery in this movie. Here the Internet is essentially magic instead of being a bunch of computers connected together. You just take a technology, add the Internet and – voila! – you have a god-like power. During the sequence when Will is being uploaded to his quantum computer, we see that it is a process that takes weeks. His face is scanned and Will is recorded reading the OED so that his likeness and voice can later be used in the interface. This takes weeks yet, after this, everything is done is done lickety split. Where did Evelyn upload Will's consciousness to? You don't upload something to the Internet, you upload it to a computer on the Internet. The electronic Will can advance nanotechnology beyond our wildest dreams, can build his old wetware body from scratch but he can't advance solar panel technology beyond the point of needing a few square miles of panels?

Beyond the IT realm, Transcendence disappoints in other ways. For instance, the world is faced with the gravest threat it's ever known short of nuclear war and all that humanity can muster in its defense is a handful of anti-technology radicals, a few G-men, a mortar, and a couple howitzers?

Moving onto the acting, I have to say that this move was a colossal waste. Johnny Depp spends a short while at the beginning playing a bland genius before spending the rest of his time doing a mediocre HAL 9000 imitation. Morgan Freeman as Joseph just called in his umpteenth performance as the wizened mentor. There was nothing unique or animated about anyone's performance here. For the most part, people stood around watching Will's next move in a mixture of awe and fear. The story didn't help much. The scene where the simulacrum of Will comes alive in the computer was positively anti-climactic. There was no time to dwell on such a momentous occasion because we had to race to Will's apotheosis. Indeed, there was no time to dwell on much at all. Why bother to consider questions about the nature of consciousness or our relationship with technology when Max has to be kidnapped and solar panels have to be erected? I think more time was devoted to showing nanobots rebulding those solar panels destroyed by mortar fire than to considering the "big questions" posed in the opening minutes of the film.

Another example of this comes at the end of the movie. The fully-resurrected Will and Evelyn are lying on a bed dying. Will reveals that the electronic simulacrum was really the old Will and that he did everything in order to bring her dream of a better world to fruition. Awwww. While a nice, tidy way to end a love story, the whole revelation was a dud because A) the movie avoided discussing whether or not the thing that the characters considered to be Will could really be loaded onto a computer and B) Will and Evelyn's relationship wasn't developed enough. The script sets Will up as an Apollonian figure – and individual who uses the human capacity of reason to its full extent while Evelyn is the Dionysian figure – she's all about advancing or healing the whole of humanity and is emotional. Will's cold expressions and voice dominate his UI while Evelyn cries and gets angry. But these antipodean dispositions don't conflict or intermingle very much and so, when Will gives his confession, it didn't feel like it resolved much. Rather than a relationship tempered by opposing outlooks ending with a bang, it limped to a conclusion with a whimper.

Transcendence reminded me of many cinematic adaptions of Philip K. Dick novels. Take the interesting concepts and then ignore them as ideas and instead use them as springboards for excitement, action, violence, and fresh fruit!

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Piper!

Our Kätzchen is now a Katze. Here she is a day or two old.



And here she is today on her first birthday.



Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a decent snap this morning. It'll just have to do. I suspect she'll be spending her birthday sleeping, fighting with Marilyn (our other Katze), and causing general mayhem with toilet paper, facial tissue, and the like.

The Search for General Tso

This looks amusing. Have the filmmakers solved the mystery of General Tso's Chicken?

The Search for General Tso - Trailer from Wicked Delicate Films on Vimeo.

Remembering Stanley Kubrick

It's been fifteen years since Stanley Kubrick died. (Where does the time go?) Here's a tribute by one Alexandre Gasulla.

Rocket cat, burning out its fuse up there alone

Leave it to the Germans to turn Katzen into medieval siege weapons.



You're a 16th century German prince plotting to crush a peasant rebellion, or perhaps you're leading an army against the Ottoman Empire or looking to settle the score with a rival nobleman. What's a guy looking for a tactical edge to do?

Bring on the rocket cats!

Fanciful illustrations from a circa-1530 manual on artillery and siege warfare seem to show jet packs strapped to the backs of cats and doves, with the German-language text helpfully advising military commanders to use them to "set fire to a castle or city which you can't get at otherwise."

"Create a small sack like a fire-arrow .Iif you would like to get at a town or castle, seek to obtain a cat from that place. And bind the sack to the back of the cat, ignite it, let it glow well and thereafter let the cat go, so it runs to the nearest castle or town, and out of fear it thinks to hide itself where it ends up in barn hay or straw it will be ignited."



Sounds pretty ridiculous but according to Wikipedia, the Russians used anti-tank dogs in World War II and the U.S. military even trained some of their own.

Mmmm...Kasza Jęczmienna po Staropolsku

With the weather getting warmer, albeit slowly, I'll be transitioning to lighter fare from dishes like this.



This is a Polish casserole called kasza jęczmienna po staropolsku which is apparently translates, more or less, as Old Polish Barley, Bean, and Sausage Casserole. It's a tiered affair where layers of barley alternate with those of a mix of navy beans, kielbasa, onion, a bit of tomato sauce, and plum jam. Well, it should have been plum jam, anyway. Plum is apparently not very popular and I couldn't find it at Woodman's when I was shopping for this recipe. (I found Smucker's plum jelly a week or two later.)

Underneath that sour cream baked-on goodness, you get this:



Although tasty, I screwed up and made too little of the bean-kielbasa mixture. There's only so much hot sauce can do against an onslaught of barley. Next time it'll be double the mix.

Happy Pączki Day 2014

It being Fat Tuesday, Poles and those of Polish ancestry are celebrating by eating pączki, Polish filled doughnuts without holes. Lane's Bakery here in Madison has them today.

A few days I ago I listened to podcast from Polskie Radio about Pączki Day which was interesting. They have a show on this every year, in fact. Last year the hostesses decried the trend of baked pączki. This year they noted that rose hip marmalade is the traditional filling ("it has to be rose hip marmalade") and one of the women remarked that a paczek with custard filling is "truly not a paczek."

I also learned that pączki are nicknamed "angels' wings" and that folklore has it that, if you don't eat a paczek, you'll have bad luck the rest of the year. Oh, and Fat Thursday seems to be the big day for Poles to eat pączki instead of Fat Tuesday.

Fanning the Spark Kindled by the Whispering Embers: A Rauch Oktoberfest by Valkyrie Brewing

Back in January I first noticed that Valkyrie Brewing (formerly Viking) was distributing down here in Madison again when I saw a lone bottle of their Rubee red lager in the singles section at Woodman's East. The following week I saw four-packs there of two or three flavors. Then I discovered that Riley's carried a beer that Woodman's didn't - Whispering Embers. A quick trip to Riley's and I was hope with a four-pack.

Whispering Embers is a smoked Oktoberfest and, if the brewery's webpage is to be believed, it is released in September when it should be instead of in July when most other breweries are switching from their fall to winter seasonals. A rauch Märzen seems like a splendid idea to my mind. Märzen is the German word for March which was when many beers were brewed there back in the dim and distant past before modern refrigeration. After March it became too cold to brew so these beers were held in cold storage over the warmer months and thusly had a bit more alcohol in them than other brews. The emphasis is on the malt here.

When I poured this beer, I was rather surprised at the color. Don't get me wrong, it's a gorgeous gold but Märzens are usually darker and more copper in color. It was clear as glass with a smattering of large bubbles making their way up to the rather small head which lingered for a while. (I poured fairly aggressively to get a bigger head but failed.) Ooh, the aroma. That ham-like smoky goodness was most prominent and came first. It was joined by a bit of sweetness which reminded me of apricot.

That smokiness in the nose was also on full display in the taste. Despite the color I found that the beer had bready sweetness and stone fruit flavors which were in harmonious balance with the smoke. Valkyrie says they get the smoked malt in Whispering Embers from Bamberg, Germany, home of the rauchbier. The only German rauchbiers I've had come from Schlenkerla who also have a rauch märzen. Valkyrie's take on the style isn't as smoky as Schlenkerla's but the flavor is still much more prominent than you find in – using a local example – Karben4's smoked porter, NightCall.

The light color of the beer did translate into a lighter mouthfeel than your normal Oktoberfest and slightly less alcohol as well – only 5% A.B.V. It still had plenty of malt flavor but it lacks the toffee flavors of many Märzens and so went down more easily. You get a bit of herbal hop flavor as the beer reaches the back of your tongue which becomes more grassy and more prominent in the dry finish. These hop flavors at the end make a nice contrast to all the smoke and sweetness.

Whispering Embers is a fantastic brew. A tasty twist on the conventional Oktoberfest and even more positive alliterations. Wonderful on a chilly winter night, the beer's relatively light body would no doubt go well during the other seasons as well.It's malt forward and has plenty of smoky goodness. Plus there's a bit of hops for contrast and dryness in the finish. The only thing that could make it better would be some rye in the grain bill.

Junk food pairing: Whispering Embers pairs well with processed cheese food products with either salami or bacon.

As I mentioned above, Valkyrie used to be Viking Brewing. I toured the brewery a few years ago and you can read about that adventure here.

A couple weeks ago Robin Shepard of Isthmus wrote about the return of Valkyrie to Madison's shelves. (Riley's has a wonderful selection, including bombers.) Reading this:

Lee still makes beer on nearly the same system that he self-fabricated from used dairy equipment in 1994... Valkyrie Brewing is located in a century-old building that's almost entirely concrete and brick, so all seasons present heating or cooling challenges, and that dictates Lee's brewing schedule. "Summers are hard because you have to fight the building; in the winter it's too cold to make ales," says Lee. Therefore, Lee focuses on lagers in the winter and ales in the summer.

...made me think that it's time to bring back the terms "microbrew" and "microbrewer". Why use the presence of adjuncts in your flagship beer to determine whether you're craft or not? If you built your own brewing equipment and brew lagers in the winter and ales in the summer because your building doesn't have modern HVAC to compensate, I think you are a "craft" brewer in a way that, say, Kirby Nelson at Wisconsin Brewing Company isn't.

Here's Valkyrie's brewmaster Randy Lee standing by one of his brewing vessels.



And here's Kirby doing the same.



This isn't to disparage Kirby. I have been drinking and enjoying his beers for well over 20 years now.

However, there are connotations associated with the word "craft" that I think most people would agree don't apply to a table made of particle board and glue in a mega-factory in China. But what is more "craft-like": A) a table made out of solid wood in a small factory with robotic arms that move and cut all the wood with precision or B) an Amish carpenter with a workshop full of handsaws and a foot-operated table router where no two biscuit joints are exactly alike?

Randy Lee may be a craft brewer in my eyes while Kirby Nelson is a microbrewer, but they both make some great beer.

Riots in Stoughton, Minnesota Over Obama's Nominee for Ambassadorship to Norway

Norwegian-Americans in Stoughton and all over Minnesota are marching down the streets accompanied by Grieg on the hardanger fiddle, burning and pillaging as they go.

OK, not quite. Those Norwegians are a bit too mild-mannered to riot. But they are highly unamused by Obama's choice of George Tsunis for ambassador to Norway.

In Minnesota, home to the largest Norwegian population in the U.S., Norwegian organizations and public officials reacted with alarm to a series of bumbling answers and non-answers that George Tsunis, a Long Island businessman who raised $850,000 for the president’s reelection campaign, gave to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in response to basic questions about the Nordic nation’s economy, culture and political system.

Tsunis, who has never been to Norway, blanked in response to a question from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, about how to increase trade with the oil-rich Nordic nation. And when Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, asked him what he thought about the anti-immigration Progress Party that is now a member of the governing coalition in parliament, Tsunis claimed that the party was a fringe element that the government had been “quick to denounce.”

Representatives of the Norwegian-American Chamber of Commerce and the Sons of Norway, both of which are based in Minneapolis, as well as Minnesota’s two U.S. Senators, Al Franken and Amy Klobucher, have voiced dismay at Tsunis’ apparent unfamiliarity with the nation in which he hopes to represent American interests.

And a stop by the Norwegian-American Genealogical Center on W. Main St. in Madison revealed no shortage of disappointment from the local Norwegian community to the perceived slight.

“It doesn’t sound like he knows anything about the culture,” said Solveig Quinney, the head librarian at the center, which keeps records on Norwegian immigration to the U.S. and holds classes on Norwegian culture. “He kept referring to the prime minister as ‘president.’”

Speaking of Norway, when is Pioneer going to open here in the States? And two co-workers of mine are considering starting a lefse wrap food cart. One mentioned meatballs so I asked what the difference between Norwegian and Swedish meatballs were thinking that perhaps one had more nutmeg or some juniper but instead he replied, "Norwegian ones are better." I have helpfully suggested that reindeer and lingonberry be added to the menu.

Capital to Fire Up the Pork Rocket Tonight

From Capital Brewery's Twitter feed:

Tonight @The_Side_Door try some bacon infused Maibock and mint infused Dark Voyage. Also you can enter to win Bockfest tickets for this Sat

Hopefully putting bacon in a hop rocket for bacon-infused beer will not become a trend. Why ruin a perfectly good maibock?

German Culture Making a Comeback in Milwaukee

The food and drink part, anyway.

Above is the shiny, new dining room at Cafe Bavaria which opened in Wauwatosa earlier this week. It is the latest German food establishment to open its doors in the greater Milwaukee area recently and join fixtures like Mader's, Karl Ratzsch's, and Kegel's Inn. Cafe Bavaria is a more contemporary and upscale place than the mainstays. You can get schnitzel but also Bavarian pho. (?!)

The beer menu looks good. You've got your typical helleses and weissbiers but also two Kölsches (one on tap that you can get in the proper - .2L – sized glass), an altbier, a radler, three rauchbiers, and even a German pale ale. To their credit, there is also a selection of Sprecher and Lakefront brews as well.



The north side's Estabrook Beer Garden, a public bier garten like those in Munich, turns three this year. Estabrook is a sister establishment to the Old German Beer Hall in Milwaukee which opened back in 2005.



And that's not the end of it. Also planned is another bier garten in Bay View's Humboldt Park which is, interestingly enough, just a block from a friend's house. And in suburban Glendale the former Bavarian Inn will be turned into an official U.S. Hofbräuhaus outpost. The Hofbräuhaus will brew on premises so patrons will have fresh bier.



In addition to restaurants and bier gartens, we have the Milwaukee Pretzel Company which opened last year and makes Bavarian-style pretzels.

I wonder why there is this resurgence in German food and drink. Perhaps it's simply a case of what's old is new again. I found this article about Milwaukee rediscovering its German heritage but it really doesn't have an answer beyond the possibility of people just looking back at their and Milwaukee's past. I guess it's a task for an aspiring sociologist.

Concomitant to this, I noticed last month that an upscale contemporary German restaurant has opened in Chicago - The Radler. They even have a couple haus biers including a radler.

Public Subsides for a Public Market in Madison Is an Idea Whose Time Has Come...To Die

I discovered this morning that Mayor Soglin is directing Madisonians to a survey in order to find out what we want in a public market. I began the survey but didn't find a space for indicating that the city shouldn't be spending any money on the project and quit.

Remember when former mayor Dave Cieslewicz lamented that Madison was behind "in the race for coolness" because we lacked a public market? If not, here he is at schilling for Richard Florida:

Many major cities and most of our competitors in the race for coolness have built or are planning to build a public market. Toronto, Minneapolis, Seattle, Milwaukee, Vancouver and a host of other smaller cities have markets.

I thought about this when I read this article about the Governor's Conference on Economic Development which was held last week. One of the speakers was Morris Davis, an associate professor at the UW and its James Graaskamp Center for Real Estate and this bit stood out:

Speculating on what makes Minnesota more attractive than Wisconsin, Davis said it could be that Minneapolis is a bigger draw than Milwaukee. Investing in Milwaukee might help, he said. “We need a place where they’re going to want to live. I think Madison is that place; I don’t think Milwaukee is,” Davis said.

Milwaukee, as our former mayor noted, has this place:



Despite the presence of (a rather nice) public market, it seems that the young and the cool are choosing poor old Madison, sans public market, over Milwaukee. Will someone please tell this to Messrs. Soglin and Cieslewicz? Somehow despite not having a public market, Madison continues to thrive and be the choice of many young, cool folk. Somehow despite not having a public market, Madison continues to, in Cieslewicz's words, conduct community.

Going back to Mr. Davis:

He said Wisconsin should aim toward getting young people in Illinois and Minnesota to relocate here. Michigan’s college grads are also a good target, he said. Every year, 90,000 people leave Michigan, Davis said.

That's a lot of people leaving Michigan and many of them go to Chicago/Cook County. In fact, 56% of new Cook County residents come from Michigan. Does Chicago have a public market which makes it so "cool" to attract that many people? A recent look at census data shows that Milwaukee County is the top supplier of in-migration to Dane County. People are leaving a city with a public market?! Number two on that list is Asia. Presumably neither the Chinese government nor the U.S. government officials that approve H-1Bs are warning immigrants that Madison doesn't have a public market.

Cieslewicz asks, "So, why should millions of your tax dollars go for a market?" and the answer is they shouldn't. If it is true, as two recent studies indicate, that young people are driving less, then perhaps those millions of dollars could be sent over to Madison Metro. As the article linked to above says, "They consider public transportation the best option for digital socializing and one of the most likely ways to connect with the communities they live in." (See, Mr. Cieslewicz, public transportation is also about community building.) Madison Metro is looking at BRT and needs a new maintenance facility. And however nice apps are for tracking your bus, they don't change headway times or add routes to underserved areas. (Plus I'd love to see better signs at bus stops.)

A public market would be a nice piece of middle class bling and if someone like Curt Brink can find millions of dollars from private investors to build one, then I say more power to him. City officials should be helpful and accommodating. But if it's public money that's needed, put it to better use, a use that can benefit all Madisonians.

How Can Madison Attract More Entrepreneurs?

Over at the Atlantic Cities blog Richard Florida writes about a report on what entrepreneurs seek out in cities where they would locate their companies. The report was done by a group called Endeavors Insight did surveys and interviews with the founders of fast-growing companies. The results were interesting.

For one, size matters. These top business-creators gravitated towards cities with at least a million residents in the metro area. This offered the scale and diverse array of offerings needed to attract talent.

A city also needs to be able to appeal to the young and the restless. The entrepreneurs surveyed were a highly mobile bunch when they first started out...But eighty percent of respondents had lived in their current city for at least two years before launching their companies, meaning that cities had to catch them early. And once they started their first company, these business leaders rarely moved. So attracting this mobile group at an early age is key.

The top rated factor by far was access to talent. Nearly a third of those surveyed mentioned it as a key factor in their decisions for where to live and work (many specifically prized access to technically trained workers). Entrepreneurs explained that they proactively sought out the places that educated and ambitious workers want to be.

The study found that two other key factors in the location choices of entrepreneurs are major transportation networks (like airports and highways that can connect them to other cities) and proximity to customers and suppliers.

Can Madison learn anything from this?

We are not a metro area with 1+ million people. A strike against us. But Madison surely does have some appeal to the young and the restless. We have bike lanes, farmers markets, and a good cultural scene for a city our size, though it cannot compete with that of larger metros. (On a side note, I will say that I met a gentleman at last year's Gamehole Con from out of state who said that Madison has the best cultural scene in the Midwest outside of Chicago.) I would think that the UW provides a good pool of technically trained workers but perhaps they all leave after graduation because Madison is not large enough.

The whole customers and suppliers part isn't really something I can comment on since I don't know enough about those factors. But the transportation bit made me think. We've got the highways that lead to Chicago, Milwaukee, and the Twin Cities in addition to much smaller cities. While we do have an airport that offers some direct flights, it shuffles many people off to larger cities where airlines have hubs that can take them onto their destination. While there is just no way for Madison (nor any city in the entire Midwest) to compete with Chicago here, might it still be possible to leverage the Dane County Regional Airport to our advantage?

Recall the report by the Progressive Policy Institute which was released last autumn. It ranked Dane County 9th in growth of tech/IT jobs from 2007-2012. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article on the report quoted a Madison computer science professor and entrepreneur named Paul Barford who said, "There's no direct flight between Madison and San Francisco. If we could get that, it would unlock amazing opportunities in the state."

When I first read that I thought, "Well, Mitchell Field in Milwaukee has direct flights to and from San Francisco." Then I heard that the state of Indiana was subsidizing direct flights between San Francisco and Indianapolis in order to bolster the latter city's tech sector. Even the state's Republican governor was in favor of the subsidy. Given the Endeavor survey results, the testimony of one entrepreneur here in Madison, and the desire for such flights from Indianapolis' tech community, it is certainly something for us to look into. Has the Madison tech community approached the governor and/or the WEDC about a similar setup here? In another article, which I cannot locate the moment, someone from Indy was criticizing the the times of the service offered there. He maintained that they need an earlier flight to Indy as apparently venture capital likes to get in, get down to brass tacks, and then head home that same day. So it's worthwhile to keep an eye on how things go down in Indianapolis.

The Endeavor report also noted, in Florida's words:

At the very bottom of the list were taxes and business-friendly policies, which are, unfortunately, exactly the sorts of things so many states and cities continue to promote as silver bullets. Just 5 percent of the respondents mentioned low taxes as being important, and a measly 2 percent named other business-friendly policies as a factor in their location decisions.

I have to wonder just how much common ground tech entrepreneurs in Wisconsin have with the "old guard" WMC members. The former group is asking for an educated workforce, infrastructure, and quality of life while the latter is seeking tax cuts and supporting politicos who cut education, seem to ignore infrastructure if it's not a road, and don't seem to care much about quality of life issues because taxes must lowered at all costs.

And I can't help but tie this into Madison's preternatural preoccupation with having a public market. The article at hand doesn't mention it but it can surely be argued that it falls under quality of life for attracting a talent pool. But does it really help all that much? The last time I wrote about this subject, local tech entrepreneur Phillip Crawford left a comment saying, "We don't need a public market. That's a boondoggle. High speed internet _everywhere_ which would have been just as amazing 10 years ago as it would be today, would be great." I don't mean to imply that Mr. Crawford's opinion prevails amongst his peers but I do think that pitching a public market by saying that it is a big quality of life factor to attract young tech people is a claim to be skeptical about. In light of the Endeavor report, perhaps investing in high-speed internet access would be a better use of public money.

Thank you, Doug Hurst, for our daily liquid bread: Generator Doppelbock by Metropolitan Brewing

Here in the depths of winter it's always nice to have a stronger beer to help get you through the chilly nights. Doppelbocks are a good choice for me. These beers date back to the 17th century when the Paulaner monks in Munich brewed a "double bock" to sustain them through Lent. Mind you, in these days of double/trippel/quad/imperial madness, one might think that doppelbocks traditionally were gigantic beers but they were only slightly higher in alcohol than normal bocks, landing the realm of 7% A.B.V. The monks had their monastic duties to attend to, after all, and the abbot wouldn't take too kindly to his sheep showing up at vespers all shitfaced. Still, it's not unheard of for some varieties to hit double digit A.B.V. The Paulaner monks eventually named their liquid bread "Salvator" and the practice of adding –ator to the names of doppelbocks caught on.

The folks at Metropolitan Brewing in Chicago released their take on the style, Generator, back in December, if memory serves. I am unsure if this marks the brewery's first doppelbock but I do believe that it is the first time they've bottled one. I am also fairly certain that Generator is their first winter seasonal to be bottled. At 8.2%, it's perhaps a bit more boozy than tradition dictates but it will certainly keep you warm and provide enough sustenance until Metro's spring seasonal, Iron Works Alt, is released.

Considering the vast quantities of malt that go into this style, it should be no surprise that Generator pours a deep, dark sepia. And even my lousy photo reveals that it's clear. I got a nice tan, pillowy head which lasted a goodly while which I found surprising since I thought that alcohol tended to 86 foam. My glass was left with a modicum of Schaumhaftvermoegen. Doppelbocks are about the malt and Generator smells nice'n'sweet. I detected honey and stonefruit along with some black licorice and even a hint of grassiness from the hops.

Generator is sweet on the tongue as well - I caught toffee flavor as well as bread – but it's also clean. All of those fruity flavors were lagered away. It is a smooth beer and, considering all of the malt that went into it, it had a much lighter body than I thought it would have. Indeed, this stuff goes down easily – perhaps a bit too easily. Also surprising was the hop presence which is stronger than in most doppelbocks I've had. Here the spicy hop flavor is fairly intense veering near to black pepper and while it doesn't outdo the malt it does a yeoman's job in trying.

This is a very fine doppelbock. It tweaks the liquid bread formula a little bit with some extra hops but doesn't stray too far from the tried and true doppelbock legacy. It is also deceptively drinkable with a lighter body that means it'll go down easily for a while before the alcohol catches up with you.

Junk food pairing: A big beer like Generator demands spicy pork rinds.

The Last Express Now Available for iOS and Android

One of my favorite video games of all-time, 1997's The Last Express, is now available for iOS and Android devices. In the game, you take on the role of Robert Cath, an American riding the last run of the Orient Express before World War I breaks out. Your friend Tyler Whitney, whom you were to meet aboard the train, is dead in his compartment and it's up to you to figure out what happened.

As Cath, you've got to work around the conductor to sneak into other compartments and search for clues. Your fellow passengers all have their own secrets and part of the game is to listen to their conversations, at least the ones in languages you can understand. You do all of this in the game's wonderful art nouveau look which was achieved by rotoscoping live-action sequences. The creators even hunted down a car from the original Orient Express itself for added verisimilitude.

There is some action/fighting to be done but mostly you need to poke around the train for clues and piece together what happened to Whitney and the other stratagems unfolding aboard the train.

The Revenant Brew: Baderbräu Chicago Pilsener

Baderbräu bills itself as "Chicago's Original Craft Beer" and, while it may not be wholly accurate, its trademark Czech pilsner was first brewed in 1988. Michael Jackson famously called it "the best pilsner I`ve ever tasted in America". Unfortunately, the company ran into financial problems and went bankrupt in 1997 whereupon the name was bought and then resold to Goose Island. GI brewed the beer until 2002. Fast forward to 2010 when the Baderbräu trademark was bought by a couple of investors who brought the brand back from the dead. They contracted with Argus Brewery on Chicago's south side and the resurrected beer finally returned to taps in 2012 and bottles shortly thereafter.

The beer pours a light golden color and is clear. There were lots of bubbles streaming upwards towards the generous, pillowy head from the bottom of the glass. And the foam stuck around for a while too leaving some nice Schaumhaftvermoegen. Certainly a pretty beer but I thought it was a bit darker in color than most pilsners I've seen. It smelled really nice. It had a biscuity aroma along with a mild grassy hop scent. Curiously, there was some slight sweetness to it as well – reminded me of raisins.

The flavor was a bit more like bread than, say, crackers and there was a definite stonefruit sweetness. Not particularly strong but definitely noticeable. This gave the beer a slightly heavier body and wasn't quite as crisp as I was expecting but it remained medium-light. Mouthfeel was similar yet still on the light side and smooth. It was also nice and effervescent so you had that tongue tingling sensation and I think this helped give the beer a lighter feel. Oddly, it didn't taste as hoppy as I had expected either. To me, Czech pilsners are well-hopped with that Saaz goodness up front but here the spicy hoppiness was a bit further in the background than I was accustomed to. Still, it managed to balance the maltiness very well.

It finished dry with some nice bitterness and a lingering grassy-herbal hop flavor.

Despite being a smidgen heavier and sweeter than I was expecting, Baderbräu is some very tasty stuff. The malt and hops were balanced nicely and, at 4.8% A.B.V., it is fairly sessionable. Not being as sharp and light as some of its peers, I probably wouldn't make Baderbräu my go-to beer for the bowels of summer when it's 90 degrees out but it sure did the trick after work one day when it was below zero outside.

Junk food pairing: Pair Baderbräu with Buffalo Wing Goldfish Puffs. They're light enough not to enhance the beer's malt profile too much and have some zing to them to provide contrast on the tongue.

More Than Meets the Eye: Magnetron from Metropolitan Brewing

Chicago's Metropolitan Brewing is one of my favorite breweries. They brew tasty beers and refuse to populate their line-up with IPAs like a bunch of lemmings. Instead Metro offers fine beer of a more Teutonic nature. Last year they tweaked their line-up and started bottling seasonals with Magnetron, a schwarzbier, being the late autumn/early winter entry.

As far as I can tell, the difference between a schwarzbier and a Munich dunkles is that a schwarzbier goes easier on the malt and isn't as sweet as a dunkles – a milder dunkles, if you will. The thing is, I've had beers that are considered to be schwarzbiers that had had more malt flavor than some dunkles. The line between the two styles is a bit blurry for me. For instance, Sprecher's Black Bavarian is categorized as a schwarzbier yet it emphasizes the malt more than Capital's Munich Dark which is, taxonomically speaking, is a dunkles. Methinks only a trip to Germany can solve this conundrum. Since that's not going to happen in the near future, I will have to content myself with domestic brews like Magnetron.

Magnetron looks black from afar but closer inspection of the narrow part of the glass reveals it to be clear and a very deep reddish brown. I didn't get much of a head on my pour which may very well have been my fault. What foam I did get went away fairly quickly. The nose was fairly sweet – like apricots or plums – along with a bit of coffee from the roasted grains.

The beer tasted much like it smelled with some stonefruit-like sweetness sitting alongside the roasty chocolate and coffee flavors. Don't get me wrong here. These flavors are present but not strong. What we have here is very much like a pilsner – clean and restrained – but with some bonus features. The body is medium-light – a bit heavier than a pilsner yet lighter than something like an amber lager. You can taste the bubbles here so the mouthfeel is smooth and sprightly. There isn't much hoppiness to be had until the finish which was dry and featured a little bit of spicy noble bitterness.

While the Magnetron's dark color mirrors the short winter days, it's nothing like a stout or porter. It is not heavy, there is no burnt grain taste, and no single flavor towers over the others. This beer balances malt sweetness and roastiness in a smooth elixir with a bit of noble hops thrown in for good measure and a classic lager finish.

Junk food pairing: Drink Magnetron with Snyder's Bacon Cheddar pretzel pieces. This is a German style of beer so you are basically obligated to eat pretzels with it. But here you have bacon flavoring to complement the roasty grains and cheddar because, well, you pair beer with cheese, right?

The Zero Theorem Trailer

Terry Gilliam's latest movie looks to be a hoot. I love the use of short lenses here. Appears to have been shot in a style akin to that of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Unfortunately I've read that no U.S. distribution has been obtained yet.

Trailer for Under the Skin

An alien is sent to Earth to pick up hitchhikers to have them sent back to her planet to be a delicacy. Sounds wonderfully odd. The trailer surely is.

A Fine Example of Teutonic Food Preparation

If You Listen to Fools: Blood Orange Tea Weizen from Mobcraft

Madison's Mobcraft bills itself as the world's first crowdsourced beer company. Giotto Troia, Henry Schwartz, and Andrew Gierczak started Mobcraft with the Internet-age idea of having customer submit recipes or ideas for beers. After the wheat is separated from the chaff, those that remain are put up for a vote via social media sites and the winner is brewed. These crowdsourced beers are released once per month and brewed over at House of Brews by brewmaster Page Buchanan.

I recently found a bottle of crowdsourced batch #2, Blood Orange Tea Weizen, over at Trixie's Liquor and figured I'd give it a go. I like weizens and blood orange and tea sounded like interesting additions.

My beer photos are usually pretty crappy and this review will be no exception. The usual spot for my photographic disgraces, the dining room table, was occupied by two cats so it was off to the kitchen where harsh white was the order of the day making it look like I took the snap at a hospital. The beer looked really nice – take my word on this. It was clear a deep amber, perhaps more of a golden brown. My pour didn't produce much of a crown and the beer didn't have much in the way of bubbles either.

A caveat here: my nose was fairly stuffy when I drank this beer. That aside, I mainly smelled grass and citrus when I took a whiff. There was just a bit of sweetness in there as well which was bready to my stuffy proboscis.

I found the taste to be very similar to the nose. On the tongue, this beer is very smooth – almost velvety – with a medium body. The blood orange comes first followed by a bit of the grassy tea flavor. I didn't taste much carbonation but did catch a faint hint of what I thought was bubblegum. The beer got a bit sweeter as it warmed up, mainly citrus-tinged sweetness. The finish was grassy and bitter. I believe that the tea became a bit more discernible and that there was a bit of hops in there as well.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the lack of a nice, pillowy head, a trademark of hefeweizens, was due to something brought in by the tea or fruit. Not really a big deal. The beer wasn't cloudy like a traditional hefeweizen nor was it as light on the tongue. Again, not a big deal. What is a big deal, however, is that I couldn't taste much of a hefeweizen here. It really tasted like blood orange iced tea but with more body than tea delivers. Aside from a fleeting hint of what I think was bubblegum, there's none of the phenols or esters giving the typical banana and cloves flavors. Hefeweizens generally have a lemon-like flavor to them and I thought the blood orange would complement that. Similarly, the style is not usually very bitter but green tea can add a little grassy bitterness to the proceedings. It's not that this is a bad beer but I was expecting/hoping for the citrus and tea to complement the flavors I enjoy in a hefeweizen instead of beating them into submission.

Junk food pairing: Munch on some lime chili tortilla chips with this stuff.