Phriendly Phil’s Velociraptor Pharm n’ Pettin’ Zoo

I’m trying Google Chrome out now.  So far, not bad.  I’ve had a little odd behavior in text areas, and when I loaded bigscary to write this post, all of my tabs and windows froze until the site loaded.  If I understand the “every tab a process” model, this shouldn’t be happening, but it happens with some frequency.

Other than that, I’m just having the usual “where the hell is the button that does this” issues that always occur when moving from one application to a competing one.  So far, I am not noticing any stark differences in performance between Chrome and Firefox 3.  I’ve used it with GMail and Maps.  I’ll take a gander at Google Docs later on.

Just leave Bristol Palin the hell alone.

Yeah, schadenfreude is fun, and heaven knows right-wingers seem to have lots of trouble living up to the standards they so want to impose upon us all, but this is a seventeen-year-old we’re talking about here.

Hammer Sarah Palin for her right-wing social views all you want. Hell, I’ll help.

Just let the girl go.

Commie zombies!

GORBACHOV: THE MUSIC VIDEO - BIGGER AND RUSSIANER from Tom Stern on Vimeo.

Without further comment:

Thanks to Thoreau at Unqualified Offerings.

They’re chugging along.  Three bines (Cascade, Sterling, and Willamette) appear to be flowering.  If the Japanese beetles don’t do too much damage, the others should be well-established next year.

Note that the poles in these photos are about 6 1/2 feet high.

Puterbaugh Farms has recently started a blog about the hop-growing business. It’s very interesting if you grow hops, with photos of the bines, what powdery mildew looks like, and how to tell that your burrs are turning into cones.

I bought from Hops Direct last year, and was mostly pleased. The experience was a bit rocky due to the shortage-induced chaos, but they made things right rather quickly once the problem was noticed.

Mr. Man:

Can we watch Dave and Becky now?

Daddy:

I don’t care what we watch as long as Daddy doesn’t have to struggle not to bawl.

The fermentation chiller project is on hiatus until I know whether getting a chest freezer makes sense.  Now hop off those tenterhooks.

The Michelle Obama “Whitey” video:

The Great Hop Shortage of 2008 convinced me to take up hop gardening this year. It’s something I’d always wanted to do when I had space, but it took five-dollar-an-ounce hops to give me the real kick in the pants I needed.

I ordered a half-dozen hop rhizomes from The Thyme Garden but, due to the strange weather this Spring, waited until April 19 to put them in the ground.

Some of them took longer than others, but they’re all up and doing pretty well. The varieties I planted, and photos, below the break:

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