Instant Beer Review: San Miguel Blue Ice

One more choice for beer drinkers in Thailand with the recent addition of San Miguel to the corner store coolers. Branded as Blue Ice, the single serving bottles are clear with striking royal blue labels and foil neck and top coverings of the same colour.

Supermarkets, a few specialty shops and pubs that cater to foreigners have a fairly decent selection of beer including numerous more pricey imports but for the local corner stores in Bangkok the pickings are fairly lean. It is nice to see another selection.

I'm just about to lay into my first San Miguel as swilled in Thailand, so give me a few moments as I retrieve one of the bottles that are chilling in the fridge.

**ahhh** Distinctive, crisp, goes down well. The taste is remarkably smooth and light for the relatively hefty alcohol content—6.4%.

I can't definitely say if the total sensory experience is influencing my opinion at the moment, including the excitement of trying a new product, the impressive packaging and the good memories I associate with drinking San Miguel, but I am definitely impressed.

A fleeting yet not unwelcome aftertaste.

I believe this will be my beer of choice for the next while. I'm a brand shifter when it comes to beer--Heineken and Leo are my usual choices with the occasional Chang so this will be one more product I can rotate in and out of the lineup.

I don't usually put much stock in beer blurbs touting the very product on which they are printed but:

"BLUE ICE BEER redefines refreshment. Experience that distinctive full-flavored taste balanced with a special cooling effect resulting in a refreshing beer that is exceptionally smooth and easy to drink."

does do it justice...though 1 minus in that the cunts chose the yank spelling of "flavor"...ahh, I guess Flips were colonized by the yanks so I'll let it pass.

Though my first impression is good there is a strange coated feeling inside my mouth after the first bottle. I will now swill my second bottle accompanied by a packet of crisps.

Yes...the flavour is solid and carries through the second bottle. Goes well with a salty snack. This bodes well for drinking this beer while eating a meal.

San Miguel originates from the Philippines though my own experience is from drinking it in Spain many years ago. Impossible to conjure up the taste as experienced then though I definitely remember enjoying it at the time. There is often conjecture as to varying tastes of a single beer brand as brewed in different countries but because of the intervening years I can't definitively comment on this.

I should also mention that after a quick perusal of San Miguel products on a few websites, this Ice brand is but one of numerous products the brewery produces and I am not sure if there are other lines currently available in Thailand. Also, I have only seen the 330 cc bottles or cans though it is quite likely the larger 640 cc job is or will become available.

Getting into categorizing the buzz is a mug's game, on par with those heads and their nuanced discussion of various strains of ganja, but still, I'll classify this one as cerebral.

With the quality and the moderate price of this new product, hopefully it will spark a slew of promotions and a potential price war amongst competitors. Overall a strong first impression and recommendation.

San Miguel Blue Ice beer brewed and sold in Thailand, single serving bottle 29 baht, or can 25 baht.

Keepin' It Tight

The first proper 1.0 release (Gamma version) of Mozilla's Firefox is upon us, so download it if you haven't already. The Beta* versions were already superior in many ways to Microsoft's IE, which is already in its 6th release version. A number of features make Firefox a superior product in my opinion, mainly the built-in pop-up ad blocker as well as tabs, which on first glance don't seem like such an innovation but you will come to like using them in short order.

Also, as myself and countless others have mentioned, Firefox keeps out much of the spyware and adware crap that latch themselves onto IE with such ease and regularity.

However, it is still important to keep a number of adware blockers and exterminators operational on your system while using Firefox. If you want a useful list, here is a post I made some time ago with what I consider the best ones. Always remember to frequently search the databases of programs such as Ad-aware for updates.

The most recent version of Ad-aware that I have just installed caught more than a dozen spyware parasites. This is something relatively new as previously Firefox had kept all such problems away and almost rendered those free anti-parasite programs irrelevant.

Recently I read an eminently logical comment on the IE/Firefox debate, the gist of it being that fairly knowledgeable users, who nonetheless have a relatively superficial if nonexistent understanding of things beyond the ease of maneuvering around their own system and the net, assume that Firefox is fundamentally sounder because of its seemingly superior security. However, with at least 90% of the world's users still hooked up to IE, is it that those who create these malicious parasites and go after security holes see IE as being the only system worthwhile targeting for purposes such as mining info and simply highlighting its weaknesses?

Though I still believe Firefox to be better in many ways, at least for the next while it's back to daily system checks with Ad-aware and Spybot, though hopefully this is not a trend.

Speaking of downloads, for those dinosaurs out there whose gaming experience runs to solitaire and who get weepy-eyed at the thought of Pong, or if you just want to waste some time at work and don't want anything too involved, you may want to try Snood. An ostensibly simplistic game with annoying cartoonish graphics, it does do the trick if you want a few minutes to kill with your morning coffee. A free download with a 30-day free trial, I am still looking for the crack for the most recent version so as to override eventual paid registration. If anyone has it, please e-mail me...

* What's all this "Alpha" "Beta" and "Gamma" jargon you keep hearing in reference to computer software? Quite simply, Alpha (the first letter in the Greek alphabet) are the first and in-house versions that are only offered to outside users on a very limited basis. Beta (second letter in the Greek alphabet) is offered to selected users to be tested on a wider basis with some bugs still left to iron out. There are usually a number of Beta versions with the last few being release candidates with only a few final bugs left to be fixed. Gamma (third letter in the Greek alphabet) or "release" version is the one which is supposedly free from bugs; finished and documented, with all code and features completed.

Book Review: Don't Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk

This is a book written by Herman Wouk, who is probably best known for his epic historical novels detailing WWII (Winds of War and War and Remembrance.) Relatively short compared to those doorstoppers, this novel predates them by a number of years, having been published in 1965. A stark demonstration of how writers develop over time, Don't Stop the Carnival is nowhere near the quality of work that Wouk began to churn out later in his career.

It is the tale of disillusioned fool who decides to cash in his chips and head to a small island in the West Indies with his wife. Determined to embrace the simple idyllic life he buys a small resort and embarks on a series of ham-fisted adventures in his attempts to make the hotel operate efficiently with all manner of practical obstacles thrown in his way.

This is an all round lousy book. A maundering plot with undeveloped characters, the underlying theme is that by tossing it all and heading to some native paradise you are bound to encounter a new set of problems. Fraught with cliches and mildly amusing escapades, not a fuck of a lot happens throughout the entire story.

There are a few amusing exchanges such as when grizzled expat veterans of the island essentially mock the main character Paperman, enjoying a laugh at his boundless naivete and propensity to be swindled. There are a couple of good one-liners throughout, one that I have shamelessly cribbed on a few occasions, that being when some longtime sage sums up the human detritus that washes up on the shores of the island as the "freaks, frauds, fools and failures" who couldn't hack it in their home countries.

Besides that, what is the point of reviewing a book that was so uninspiring?

It is a single, eerily prescient short passage that appears early in the book, spoken by a bleeding heart , hippy type who is also the bane of the lead character for the simple fact that he, Klug, is fucking Paperman's daughter. In the passage in which they clash regarding fundamental values and worldviews shortly before Paperman makes the final break for the island, Klug raps out one of his anti-establishment set-pieces:

"Klug arched a surprised eyebrow at Norman. 'Exactly, late Freud. And sheer prophecy. Look at us. We build giant highways and murderously fast cars for killing each other and committing suicide. Instead of bomb shelters we construct gigantic frail glass buildings all over Manhattan at Ground Zero, a thousand feet high, open to the sky, like a woman undressing before an intruder and provoking him to rape her. We ring Russia's borders with missile-launching pads and then scream that she's threatening us. In all history there's never been a more lurid mass example of the sadist-masochist expression of the thanatos instinct than the present conduct of the United States. The Nazis by comparison were Eagle Scouts.' The Sending arched an eyebrow again at Norman. 'If I were you I'd buy that hotel in the West Indies tomorrow.'"

Book Review: Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

I've always disliked the divisive saw that starts out "there are two types of people in the world, those who X and those who Y," with as many possibilities as there are endeavors or lifestyles. Usually it's just another harmless way to pronounce membership of some group, as always who you're not as much an identifying factor as who you supposedly are.

One experience that regularly seems to elicit this type of response is an LSD trip. It is so unlike anything the person is likely to have ever done before that it seems natural to distinguish themselves as being qualitatively different than how they were before and from others who haven't done it. Though it does possess that annoying exclusionary insinuation and an assumption of having some special insight into life's mysteries.

It has some merit though, as you do feel as though you have glimpsed something you never thought possible, both in terms of sensory perceptions and imagination regarding philosophical considerations. While isolated in your own mind, the power of feeling these thoughts is real though undoubtedly any attempt to record them in that state would result in gibberish when viewed or listened to later. This fundamental rearranging of the apparent consistency of the world around us, even only for those 12-24 hours, and the realization that it is possible does result in this regular description being offered up by those who have tried the drug.

It has now receded so far into the past that it would be impossible to ever sit in a reverie and recapture the actual state that I experienced at that time, as it is sometimes possible with other emotions. It is that remembrance of thinking at the time that I would never be the same that has remained.

There have been a number of popular books written on the subject of LSD, both historical renditions examining the early development and usage of the drug as well as descriptive accounts recounting the details of various individual experiences. Probably the best known of the lot is The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. Wolfe trailed along after one-hit wonder author Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and his troupe of flunkies as they traveled around the US in a souped up psychedelically painted van, dropping copious amounts of LSD and evading authorities as new laws were enacted to deal with the arrival of the drug. Wolfe did a stunning job of capturing an entertaining feel for the time period (early 1960's) as well as the thoughts and feelings that can accompany the experience of trying the drug. Far from only romanticizing the characters and lifestyles described, he applied his usual razor sharp caustic wit in showing many of the inherent absurdities of the antics described.

Together with Kesey, Timothy Leary was another 60’s LSD celebrity who was noted for his public endorsement of the drug and also penned at least a few books on the subject. While the Wolfe classic tended more towards the social aspects that grew out of the popularization of the drug at that time, Leary concentrated on more dreary and deeper "spiritual" issues. At one point in Kool-Aid, Wolfe hilariously mocked the different types that were attracted to each following and detailed one encounter between the Kesey and Leary camps that took place at the mansion of some well-bequeathed societal dropout. The attempts to out-cool each other offered a perfect demonstration of how self-proclaimed satori cannot eliminate those annoying traits that afflict us all nor does it induce some universal brotherhood among the clods who habitually take the drug.

True to the 60's drug culture icon status they helped create for themselves, both fools fell into the trap than many people do and kept on plowing back fistfuls of LSD like candy, desperately trying to recapture the wonder of those first few experiences. Kesey especially rode out his counterculture icon schtick to the very end, endorsed a handful of embarrassing tributes to his acid tripping days while never producing any written work that ever approached One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in terms of acclaim. Leary too lived as a caricature until he passed away, latching onto any well-to-do hipster clique that would finance whatever half-baked project he was pursuing in exchange for the cachet he brought them. Any truthful account of the last years of both highlights their uninspired thoughts (though Leary is always mentioned as having waxed presciently on the advent of the internet...I think this is overstated somewhat) and general listlessness as compared to their earlier work and relative mental sharpness.

Aldous Huxley was another author and experimenter of LSD. Probably best known for his dystopian, tale Brave New World, Huxley penned a number of other lesser known books as well, including Doors of Perception, a slim volume that details one of his mescaline (a naturally occurring psychotropic drug, also known as peyote, obtained from small cactus plants whose effects are similar though not as powerful as LSD) trips. Doors of Perception is actually little more than an extended essay, though it often appears together with a longer more detailed discussion entitled Heaven and Hell. (An accompanying trivia note that always seems to go along with any mention of Doors of Perception is that apparently the American rock band from the 1960’s, the Doors, named themselves after the book.)

Huxley describes the sensory perceptions he experiences after having consumed the mescaline, drawing comparisons to the pureness of observations that he feels the greatest artists of history must be imbued with. This relates to the title of the book, the "doors" he refers to being the various artistic and spritual endeavors that humans have always had as part of their life as a way to alleviate the monotony and seek out a mental landscape where the potential wonder of existence can manifest itself in a tangible and productive way. The mental rut that most people end up in is only a defense mechanism though, the laziness and inability to harness potential largesse resulting in a safe and narrow construct that keeps us from losing it completely. As Huxley states regarding what happens when things ricochet in the other direction:

The schizophrenic is a soul not merely unregenerate, but desperately sick into the bargain. His sickness consists in the inability to take refuge from inner and outer reality (as the sane person habitually does) in the homemade universe of common sense - the strictly human world of useful notions, shared symbols and socially acceptable conventions. The schizophrenic is like a man permanently under the influence of mescalin, and therefore unable to shut off the experience of a reality which he is not holy enough to live with, which he cannot explain away because it is the most stubborn of primary facts, and which, because it never permits him to look at the world with merely human eyes, scares him into interpreting its unremitting strangeness, its burning intensity of significance, as the manifestations of human or even cosmic malevolence, calling for the most desperate countermeasures, from murderous violence at one end of the scale to catatonia, or psychological suicide, at the other. And once embarked upon the downward, the infernal road, one would never be able to stop. That, now, was only too obvious.

A strange resemblance to the way heads characterize those individuals who weren't able to handle an acid trip and "never returned," the danger that exists adding to the experience and the cachet of the surrounding subculture and necessarily implying that their minds are strong enough to withstand such an onslaught. I've yet to meet one of these individuals trapped in the perpetual madness brought on by a bad LSD trip or an unprepared mind, though I don't suppose they would be out and about too often, assuming they're not an urban myth.

Huxley also discusses the use of peyote by Indians of North and South America, praising them for recognizing the importance of seeking out mescaline-induced beatific visions to aid in their spiritual and religious ceremonies. He also laments the fact that western religions can't see the benefit in taking mind-altering substances as a means to increase spiritual awareness. The obvious universal and historical need for humans to literally get out of their minds a perfect match for the escape that many are likely seeking but often never receive from Christianity for example, taking the insanity instead as at least it takes place in a kind of social club and provides a sense of belonging. Huxley's discourse becomes rather dry at this point, and his default position seems to be a romanticized view of the Indians as compared to westerners especially when discussing the corresponding religions of both groups. After a lifetime's exposure to self-righteous and judgmental bible-beaters I don't blame him.

The earlier part of the essay in which Huxley tries to capture the experience of tripping into words is the most concise and engaging. Though he does a good job of capturing some of the sensations that a person experiences...to reiterate that cliché...it really is impossible to do it complete justice. The theme that runs throughout the essay is the belief that all humans have incredible mental potential for both thought and accomplishments that can be aided by drugs such as mescaline. Unlike Wolfe's classic, this is a relatively serious discussion of responsible drug experimentation as a means to literally open a door that can then be expanded on with other means. Free from any of the social hysteria or subculture that was detailed by Wolfe (released at least 10 years before the other books, there probably was no subculture to speak of at the time) it is a logical and relatively entertaining discourse on a subject that rarely is covered in any way except for propaganda or hype.