A Year in Books/Day 213: Drinking with George

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  • Title: Drinking with George A Barstool Professional’s Guide to Beer
  • Author: George Wendt with Jonathan Grotenstein
  • Year Published: 2009 (Simon Spotlight Entertainment)
  • Year Purchased: September, 2011 (at Oktoberfest Zinzinnati)
  • Source: George Wendt
  • About: George Wendt’s love affair with beer is a thing of epic beauty. Drinking with George is part personal biography and part encyclopedia of beer. It’s a strange combination that pairs as wonderfully as barley and hops. You could really say that he poured his heart and soul into this project. Tee-hee. It’s incredibly funny, informative, and can be read in the time it takes the average person to drink a couple pints of Guinness. It even comes with a bit of real, human romance: his love for his wife Bernadette Birkett (who voiced Vera Peterson on Cheers) is sweet and moving, if nearly as hilarious as his beer-induced exploits.
  • Motivation: The author hawked his book at last year’s Oktoberfest Zinzinnati. Only a humourless, beer-hating twit could resist buying a copy from the man himself.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 35: “Looking to lighten my load, I packed a leather travel bag I’d overpaid for in Marrakesh with my untouched and completely unnecessary suit and dress shoes. I sent them back to the States via tramp steamer, addressing the bag to my friend Joe Farmar so as not to offend my dad. A few months later, I would try to recover the clothes, only to discover that Joe had torn the suit, the shoes, and even the bag itself to shreds. This was entirely my fault: I hadn’t bothered to include a note, which confused Joe until he put “bag” together with “Marrakesh” and decided that I’d hidden hashish somewhere inside.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

    George Wendt , with yours truly cropped out.

    George Wendt , with yours truly cropped out.

Daily Diversion #50: A Writer’s Best Friend…

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is not a pen, paper, book, idea, plot, character or thought. Those things, when joined, are blood, meat, mead. They warm the soul, but not cold toes on a crisp autumn morning. Creativity fills holes and unmasks wounds. It starts an emotional and intellectual chain-reaction that flies around the world, unbound. Limitless. Yet, feeling a wet nose at the back of the knee is a thousand and fifteen times better than reading about a wet nose at the back of the knee. This is a fact.

Duncan playing dead.

Duncan playing dead.

Daily Diversion #49: One Sleeping Dog, Two Ways

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With our cable and internet connection mysteriously down until just a few hours ago, my weekend consisted of the following: writing (not blogging), cleaning, watching movies on my laptop, blasting punk rock through open windows, listening to sirens scream through the neighbourhood, daydreaming, thinking about doing laundry and then deciding against it, reading, swaying in the breeze clad in my underwear and a hoodie (I get cold), and photographing my dogs while they murmured in their sleep.

 
PS-I will be playing catch-up for the next few days. Thank you for your patience.

Crosley 1

Six days worth of entertainment in one 90-pound package of fur.

Crosley 2

Napping is what he does best. That, and looking cute.