TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

1) Me.

2) Anyone that looks like me.

3) Accidentally shooting oneself in the leg in da cluuub.

Joking aside: not good for the Giants’ post-season hopes.

Joking not aside… I can’t be angry. Usually when I find out I have a day off, I can’t get to the clubs quick enough.

Last night, I had the opportunity (and by opportunity I mean “no other choice in the matter”) to use NFL.com’s feed of the Cardinals/Eagles game. I was glad the NFL had finally embraced this other distribution medium so I, the consumer, can actually watch their game and let them try to sell me things. Granted, watching the game on 17-inch monitor was annoying, but at least I had an option this year to watch the third game.

Everything began normally at 8:15 for the kickoff. I was somewhat surprised after the first drive that they cut back to the studio instead of going to commercial. This was the first surprising things. The NFL didn’t sell a second set of commercials for the online stream? The NFL? Who would call it the Scripps NFL Network if they thought it would be OK?

Imagine my surprise when the studio not only didn’t go back to the game when the commercial break ended, but instead talked incessantly about the drive we just saw and then started talking about the drive going on at that particular moment. Really? The NFL was advertising a live stream of the game on NFL.com and were streaming specific drives? And, on top of that, NFL.com was cutting your stream after like 20 minutes of inactivity. So, if you decided to actually hook up to the stream of the game, left it on like a TV, and backed away, the NFL would boot you off and ask you to reload.

So, not only could you not just watch the game on NFL.com, but you had to reload the page every few minutes AND you were stuck watching 3 studio guys talking about the game instead of actually watching the game. The NFL is seriously the most annoying, pigheaded, stupid company in the world. No one else goes out of their way to make their product so excessively hard to watch as the NFL.

Good job on your stupid network, idiots.

* - by “Well Done”, I mean “Die In A Fire”.

I mentioned at the beginning of the Entourage season that I was a little disappointed in the premiere and was hoping the rest of the season would get better. The entire Medellin arc of Season Four did a stunningly good job of killing off my interest in the series. The point at which Vince is dressed in a fat-suit with a fake moustache that wasn’t even on correctly is the amongst silliest thing I’ve ever seen — especially with the established idea that Billy Walsh is an insanely obsessive director. I understand the point was that too much had been going right for Vince and something had to knock him off the rails, but there was nothing about the Medillin arc that made it seem like a good idea. Eric was along with the rest of the audience saying “hey, you know, this seems bad.”

Unfortunately, the new season didn’t help. While I give them full credit for suddenly deciding to explore the idea that Vince is more a movie star than an actor (which was good), Entourage has an annoying habit of wrapping everything up far too quickly. The season finale was riiiiight on the border of being good. Adrian Grenier showed some emotion other than his standard “everything’s going to be cool, man.” He got frustrated, threw the phone, fired Eric for mis-managing his career (an excellent story point considering that Eric has generally made mostly the right calls managing Vince’s career and now self-important Vince was blaming Eric for his current mess), and seemed to have run out of options. It was a great way to end a season. A perfect last scene would have been Eric ignoring a phone call on his broken Blackberry from Vince, throwing it away, and getting in the car with his new client… symbolically leaving Vince behind. It would have been a great set-up for next season.

Instead, within the next ten minutes, all of that was resolved. All of the “Vince isn’t a good actor” stuff was thrown away by him getting the lead in a Martin Scorcese movie. He flew back to LA to re-hire Eric and we end the season with everything fine and everything still going magically right for Vince and company. Turtle is somehow banging Meadow Soprano, Eric’s management company is heading in the right direction, Vince is getting the lead in Scorcese movie, and Drama is still just being annoying. And, really, a Scorcese movie? Because of Scorcese’s history in hiring mediocre actors to be the leads in his movies? You spend the entire season basically telling us that Vince is a pretty-boy and not much of an actor. You have the director of Smoke Jumpers tell us he’s not a very good actor. Then you send a few dailies to Martin Scorcese and he likes what he sees? It all felt really contrived and that they just wanted to get back to high-living and boobs next season.

So, unfortunately, I think the Entourage thing has run its course. It fell off the rails in Season Four because of a bad wheel. Then they tried to put it up on the track, almost had it, but then forgot to fix the same wheel.

Thursday
Tennessee Titans -11 at Detroit Lions: It remains to be seen whether or not the loss to the Jets will start a division losing free-fall or if the Titans bounce right back. If you had to bounce right back, this is the right team to come out and abuse Titans cover.

Seattle Seahawks +13 at Dallas Cowboys: Imagine that… Dallas crushes a bad team and their spreads go off the deep end. Never saw that coming. Seahawks +13.

Arizona Cardinals +3 at Philadelphia Eagles: So, let’s get this straight. The two “traditional” Thanksgiving games both have double-digit spreads. The one good game for the entire day is exiled to the NFL Network so no one is going to see it. Excellent job. I wonder how many homes nationwide will be staring at 15-inch laptop sitting on top of a 50-inch television on Thursday night. All that said, EVERYTHING except the short-week jet lag combined with, you know, ACTUAL jet lag says to pick the Cardinals here. But, the Cards haven’t won a game east of the Mississippi all year. Eagles cover.

Sunday

Denver Broncos +8.5 at New York Jets: After knocking off the league’s last undefeated team on the road, they come home to face a bad team in a rowdy Meadowlands? Anything less than 14 is a must take in this game. Jets cover.

San Francisco 49ers +7 at Buffalo Bills: I’m pretty sure the Bills are good enough to crush another bad team at home… especially considering the trend of west coast teams traveling east getting crushed. And rumors persist that West Coasters are 3% more manly. Pshaw. Bills cover.

New Orleans Saints +4.5 at Tampa Bay Bucs: Eesh. Well. The Saints need to win this game to have any chance at all at making the playoffs. A loss pretty much ends their season. A win takes them to half a game back because they’d be 2-0 against the Bucs. I think a full-strength Saints team is going to surprise a slightly over-rated Bucs team. Saints outright.

Carolina Panthers +3 at Green Bay Packers: The Packers have a decent defense that embarrassed themselves on national television this past Monday. The Panthers gave up almost 50 against an semi-good Falcons team. The tiebreak — the Panthers are a mediocre team that doesn’t beat other mediocre teams. Nice cold Sunday in Lambeau. The Packers open up the door for the Saints. Packers cover.

New York Giants -3 at Washington Redskins: I was hoping this would be one of those cases where they dropped an absurd spread on this game so I could still pick the Redskins and make up a game. The Giants can knock the Redskins out of the divisional race this week and, if the game against the Steelers was any indication, do it in front of a home crowd. Giants cover.

Miami Dolphis -7.5 at St. Louis Rams: I’m not taking the Rams with any less than 14 points the rest of the season. Dolphins cover.

Baltimore Ravens -6.5 at Cincinnati Bengals: I think this spread is based too much off their Week 1 match up. The Ravens have shown no indication that they’re going to do anything other then crush bad teams for the rest of the season. Really, the Ravens are playing in nothing but must-win games for the rest of the season and, fortunately for them, they SHOULD have a cream-puff here. Ravens cover.

Indianapolis Colts -3.5 at Cleveland Browns: The spread on this game is indicative of the Colts’ season. The Colts just knocked off the Chargers (again) and the Browns, at home, got knocked off by the lowly Texans by 10. One week later and we’re expecting the Browns to keep it close against a Colts team that’s got a wildcard in sight? Doubtful… especially since the Colts have a semi-decent runningback who will become a superstar against this Browns’ run defense. Colts cover.

Atlanta Falcons +4.5 at San Diego Chargers: Yoof. This is an absolute, without a doubt, MUST win game for the Chargers. At 4-7, their only path to the playoffs is the division. The Broncos are playing a game in the Meadowlands that they will almost certainly lose. If the Chargers don’t pick up a game this week, their season is pretty much over. The problem with this: with the Bucs playing a tough game against the Saints and the Panthers playing a tough game against the Packers — A win here could move them in to a tie for the division. I think the Falcons go in to this stadium and make a statement. I think Michael Turner has a “how do you like me now” game. Falcons outright.

Pittsburgh Steelers +1 at New England Patriots: So, the Patriots play the Jets to a draw and crush Miami and suddenly they’re a favorite with arguably the best team in the conference? Steelers outright.

Kansas City Chiefs +3 at Oakland Raiders: 8-8. Playoffs. Book it. Done. Raiders (gasp) cover.

Chicago Bears +3.5 at Minnesota Vikings: Both teams are coming off big wins against bad teams. Both teams are in must-win situations to stay in the playoff hunt. Last time they played, neither team showed any indication that they could stop the other. So, really, we’re just deciding who wins the coin toss here. I’ll give the Vikings the home nod. Vikings cover.

Monday
Jacksonville Jaguars +3.5 at Houston Texans: Jeez guys. Seriously? At best, this would have been a late-season division squash. At worst, it’s this. One of the rare Monday night games that I probably won’t even turn on. We’ll give the nod to the Texans simply because they’re home and the Jaguars seem to be content to mail the rest of this season in. Texans cover.

Five Good Spreads

5 points - Saints +4.5 over Bucs
4 points - Eagles -3 over Cardinals
3 points - Falcons +4.5 over Chargers
2 points - Seahawks +13 over Cowboys
1 point - Giants -3 over Redskins

W/W - Steelers -10.5 over Bengals, 27-10, Steelers cover: This game was so bad I actually tapped out in the 2nd quarter and caught up with Grey’s Anatomy. Folks, that’s a bad game.

L/L - Texans +3 over Browns, 16-6, Browns cover: Kind of surprised by this. Not so much because I thought the Browns were much better than the Texans but because I thought Brady Quinn’s deliciousness would affect the Texan’s offense.

W/W - Bills -4 over Chiefs, 54-31, Bills cover: Good - you score 54 against a bad team. Bad - the bad team scores 31 against you. The sad part of this season is that all these epically bad teams will be covered if the Lions end up……… what’s the version of “running the table” for losing? Flipping the table? Breaking the table?

L/W - Jets +5.5 over Titans, 34-13, Jets +5.5: New York can’t suffer an undefeated team. The Jets looked really good this game and about 10 weeks of karma caught up with the Titans over 60 minutes. Expect them to drop to 4th place on all power polls in the next two weeks.

W/L - Cowboys -10 over Niners, 35-22, Niners +10: About what I figured, I just figured it with one more field goal for the Niners.

L/L - Patriots +2.5 over Dolphins, 48-28, Miami Covers: In case anyone was wondering, Chad Pennington did, in fact, finally show up for a big game against a division rival. By “show up” I mean throwing a back-breaking interception late in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach. I’d also like to apologize to Dolphins’ fans as my fantasy team claimed it’s fifth ACL of the season. Camarillo can join the bench with Tom Brady and Ryan Torain.

W/L - Bucs -9 over Lions, 38-20, Lions +9: The Lions are officially so bad they can’t even compete in a trap game. Unreal.

W/W - Ravens -1 over Eagles, 36-7, Ravens cover: After watching the Ravens dismantle the team that is ostensibly the fourth best in the NFC and comparing it to what the Giants did to them last week, I’m getting a tingle in my delicates that just won’t go away.

W/W - Bears -7.5 over Rams, 27-3, Bears cover: The Bears defense is my fantasy co-MVP with Eli Manning this week. The Bears D managed to counter the two touchdown day by the Bucs D bringing the Ms. L Superstars back in to a tie for first. The entire team last week combined for a total of 35 points, dropping a game to the lowly Team Saturday but took their relinquishing of first place seriously and bounced back this week. I’m proud of my boys.

W/W - Vikings +1.5 over Jaguars, 30-12, Vikings outright: Is it just me or does there seem to be a crazy amount of safeties in the league this year? Whatever it is, this has just got to be a terrible season for Jacksonville fans to deal with.

W/W - Falcons -1 over Panthers, 45-28, Falcons cover: The Panthers just can’t get out of their own way in any big game. Anyone have the Falcons in the “surprising team that comes out of nowhere” pool?

L/W - Raiders +9.5 over Broncos, 31-10, Raiders +9.5: Raiders win out and go to the playoffs. Book it. Done.

W/T - Redskins -3 over Seahawks, 20-17, Redskins cover: OK, so it wasn’t a lot. I’ll still take it.

W/W - Giants -3.5 over Cardinals, 37-29, Giants cover: The thing that makes this Giant team absurdly awesome to be following right now is the fact that they can lose pretty much any of their top guys and still be pretty good. Plaxico Burress was suspended earlier in the year and Domenik Hixon stepped up and had an awesome day. This week, Brandom Jacobs sits and Derreck Ward steps up and has an awesome week. The most disappointing thing about the end of this season is that the Giants will probably have to choose which of Ward or Jacobs to keep to stay under the cap and they’ll almost certainly let Ward walk considering how well Ahmad Bradshaw filled in for him last year. And, I say again, I can’t imagine this defense if Osi Umenyora didn’t get hurt in preseason.

W/W - Colts +3 over Chargers, 23-20, Colts outright: Two years later and I’m still trying to imagine how this conversation went.

“Yeah, we know Marty went 14-2 but we’re going to go in another direction.”
“OK, I don’t know if I agree with that but who do you have?”
“Norv Turner.”
“….. No, seriously?”
“Norv, I think he’ll be good.”
“But…. the dig on Marty is that he’s too conservative in the playoffs and he kind of fixed that this year and I think he’ll be fine with this team last year. He won 14 games. Norv is… well… Norv.”
“Nah, I have confidence he can manage the game better than Marty.”
“…….”

And, in classic Norv fashion, he kindly calls a time-out to stop the clock for Peyton Manning to march down the field and beat the Chargers.

W/W - Saints -2.5 over Packers, 51-29, Saints cover: I only caught parts of this game but enough to see the Saints deliver the type of win that’s going to have their fans absurdly happy. Also, fist bumps to Pierre Thomas for being on the wire so I could swap him and Reggie Bush at 7:55 on Monday night.

Five Good Spreads

5 points - Washington -3 over Seattle - T (counts as a W in this league)
4 points - Giants -3.5 over Cards - W
3 points - Falcons -1 over Panthers - W
2 points - Vikings +1.5 over Jags - W
1 point - Niners +10 over Dallas - L

Standings

Straight Up: 12-4 (99-76-1)
Spread: 11-4-1 (89-83-4)
Point Pool: 14/15 (95/180 - .528)

Red & White
Brewed By: Dogfish Head
Brewed In: Milton, DE
Type: Belgian Wit-style
ABV: 10.0%

What They Say: A big, belgian-style Wit brewed with coriander and orange peel and fermented with Pinot Noir juice. After fermentation a fraction of the batch is aged in Oregon Pinot Noir barrels, and another fraction is aged on oak staves. The beer is blended together before packaging.

This has been one of our most popular Limited Edition beers at both our Rehoboth Beach, DE brewpub and at festivals. It successfully marries the refreshing citrusy qualities of a Belgian-style white beer with the robust complexity of a bold red wine.

Website: Professionally designed site. Pretty standard layout. Pretty similar to the Pulse layout, really.

Why I Picked It: I generally love everything Dogfish Head does and have never had one of their 750 ml offerings. Tossed a coin between the Red & White and Black & Blue. Red & White won.

—

Presentation (5): Standard, run of the mill 750 ml bottle with a sticker. Perfectly acceptable but nothing drawing extra points. 2

Originality (5): Dogfish Head is one of the breweries that tries to stay on the cutting edge. Their limited release, big-bottled series sticks with this. This beer is fermented with pinot noir and then aged in wine barrels. As far as I know, no one’s doing this yet and, if others are, they’re few and far between. 5

Body (10): Perfect thickness to coat your tongue but not too much that it sits in your mouth forever. Once you get past the general confusion of the flavor of wine floating around in something that feels like a beer, it’s good. 8

Taste (10): I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with wine + lemony wheat beer but, surprisingly, it worked pretty well together. The sweet notes of the wine barrel hits you right at the beginning and it fades just in time for you to catch the aftertaste of the wheat beer. It’s very difficult to explain the flavor, but it does work. 8

Efficiency (10): They heavy flavor makes it not particularly good for drinking quickly, but the 10% ABV packs a punch. The nice thing about 10% ABVs is that you can occasionally feel them doing their work. Cost is a factor here, though — the 750 ml translates to about two beers at 10% ABV for $12. The ABV tries to make up for the cost but falls a wee bit short. 7

Versatility (10): The flavor and ABV makes this a beer that one would pair with a meal or have some night when the wife decides she wants to be a little nutty and drink TWO glasses of wine. It’s definitely not something for sitting around with friends or drinking anywhere but in your house. Way too strong to take with you to do anything. 2

Final Grade: 32 (of 50) - Good beer.

Thursday

Cincinnati Bengals +10.5 at Pittsburgh Steelers: Pittsburgh’s home, Chad Ochocinco is suspended, and Carson Palmer’s getting baseball pitcher surgery. On top of that, the Steelers crushed them in Cincy by 28 and the Bengals have gotten significantly worse since then. Last week in the snow is no indication of what’s going to happen this week… which I think is going to be a divisional massacre. Steelers cover.

Sunday
Houston Texans +3 at Cleveland Browns: Texans on the road? Texans on the road. Browns cover.

Buffalo Bills -4 at Kansas City Chiefs: Nothing screams “bounceback week” like Herm Edwards. Bills cover.

New York Jets +5.5 at Tennessee Titans: I said last week that I’m done picking against the Titans unless they give me reason to. I didn’t say I would always take them to cover though. Jets +5.5.

San Francisco 49ers +10 at Dallas Cowboys: Serious back-to-earth week for the Niners. But… double digit spread, mediocre team. Niners +10.

New England Patriots +2.5 at Miami Dolphins: When last we left these two teams, the Miami offense was running circles around the New England defense. The Pats’ defense is going to be looking for a little revenge here. The problem — I don’t think they can keep up. Miami covers.

Detroit Lions +9 at Tampa Bay Bucs: Big divisional game next week for the Bucs. Terrible team this week. Recipe for a trap. Lions +9.

Philadelphia Eagles +1 at Baltimore Ravens: The Ravens are finally playing a home game for the first time in 3 weeks. Not only that, but they took a whuppin last week and are probably primed for a little bit of vengeance. Ravens cover.

Chicago Bears -7.5 at St. Louis Rams: There’s nothing much left to say about the Rams. Bears cover.

Minnesota Vikings +1.5 at Jacksonville Jaguars: If I had to pick a week for AP to have one of THOSE weeks… it’s this week. Road game, lots of running, and a relatively terrible defense. Vikings outright.

Carolina Panthers +1 at Atlanta Falcons: Can’t take the Panthers until they prove they can win a game against a team that doesn’t suck. Falcons cover.

Oakland Raiders +9.5 at Denver Broncos: Mediocre team… almost double digit spread. Raiders +9.5.

Washington Redskins -3 at Seattle Seahawks: Buh? Redskins cover… by a lot.

New York Giants -3.5 at Arizona Cardinals: The Cards can win their division before Thanksgiving with a win here. They have a pretty good run defense and Brandon Jacobs will likely see some limited duty. Not enough. Giants cover.

Indianapolis Colts +3 at San Diego Chargers: Chargers beating a good team? Nope. Colts outright.

Monday

Green Bay Packers +2.5 at New Orleans Saints: The Packers are probably the best in the North. I don’t think that will help them in the south. Saints cover.

Five Good Spreads
5 points - Washington -3 over Seattle
4 points - Giants -3.5 over Cards
3 points - Falcons -1 over Panthers
2 points - Vikings +1.5 over Jags
1 point - Niners +10 over Dallas

W/W - Jets +3.5 over Patriots, 34-31, Jets outright: This game lived up to the hype in a way that the previous week’s Thursday night game just didn’t. Last week’s game was just a comedy of injuries and bad defensive play. This week was an awesome exchange of offense and a down to the wire game that has whiny Pats’ fans (incorrectly) complaining about the NFL overtime’s rules. To note: you can’t complain that overtime isn’t fair when allowing the offense to convert a 3rd and 15. You just can’t. Great, great game that has the Jets’ fans pondering what happens if both the Giants and the Jets have to host a conference championship game.

Quick aside: another excellent job the NFL in having two of their most exciting games of the season exiled to a network that me and like 10 other people get to watch. Great job, guys — really. And, honestly, Steelers/Bengals looks to be a third straight good match-up good one. Of course, I won’t get to watch Eagles/Cards (but will get to watch Lions/Titans…. woo) because I’ll be at my parents’ house. I look forward to setting my laptop on top of their TV and watching the game in stellar 17 inch standard definition via nfl.com. Really, excellent job, NFL Network guys. Look in to hi-def streaming, dummies.

L/L - Broncos +5.5 over Falcons, 24-20, Falcons cover: I hate the Broncos. Loathe them might be more correct.

W/W - Giants -5 over Ravens, 30-10, Giants cover: The lesson here, guys, is don’t tick off Brandon Jacobs. He’s bigger than you and he gets a running start. You know, if this team hadn’t lost a dozen NFL championship games of various sorts throughout the last century, I might be more than cautiously optimistic.

W/W - Colts -9.5 over Texans, 33-27, Texans +9.5: Hat tip to Jerome Addai for pretending to be hurt right up until kickoff so I’d start his back-up. I hate you, Reggie Bush.

W/L - Dolphins -11.5 over Raiders, 17-15, Dolphins cover: When one has a rule, one should follow one’s rule without stupid caveats that one makes up on the fly.

W/W - Titans -3 over Jaguars, 24-14, Titans cover: I’m now rooting for the Titans to go undefeated and meet the Giants in the Super Bowl. Worked last year.

L/L - Packers -5.5 over Bears, 37-3, Bears outright: Horrific game by the Bears. See you guys next year.

T/L - Eagles -9 tie Bengals, 13-13, Eagles cover: I’d hate to see a tie happen in the picks championship this year, but fortunately, I won’t be involved in it. Add this game to the list of “NFC East that the Bengals played surprisingly well making you wonder why they’re as bad as they are.”

W/W - Saints -4.5 over Chiefs, 30-20, Saints cover: OK, so the Saints won a game they had to win without Reggie Bush. Cool, let’s see if they can do something crazy now like “win 2″.

W/W - Panthers -14 over Lions, 31-22, Lions +14: After a one-week, Daunte Culpepper inspired deluction, I’m back to normal with the Lions.

W/W - Bucs -4 over Vikings, 19-13, Bucs cover: Bigger fantasy bust this year — AP or LDT?

W/W - Niners -3.5 over Rams, 35-16, Niners cover: The Rams are just bad. There’s no real joke there. They’re just really, really bad.

W/W - Cardinals -3.5 over Seahawks, 26-20, Cardinals cover: The Cardinals could clinch the division with a win over the Giants next week. Has a team ever shifted in to cruise control before December? I mean, I’ll presume it’s had to have happened before, but I don’t remember it

W/L - Steelers -3.5 at Chargers, 11-10, Steelers cover: Biggest miscarriage of gambling justice since Robin Ventura’s grand slam single.

L/L - Cowboys +2.5 over Redskins, 14-10, Redskins cover: I can properly apply the “must win game” rules to everyone but the Cowboys. Which makes me hate them more. And the circle of life continues.

L/L - Browns +4.5 over Bills, 29-27, Bills cover: Ralph Wilson Stadium will be torn down and rebuilt five feet to the right. Just to cover all their angles in the future.

Five Good Spreads

5 points - Falcons -5.5 over Broncos - L
4 points - Steelers -3.5 over Chargers - L (&!*&$@!*&#)
3 points - Redskins -2.5 over Cowboys - L
2 points - Bucs -4 over Vikings - W
1 point - Saints -4.5 over Chiefs - W

Standings

Straight Up: 11-4-1 (87-72-1)
Spread: 9-7 (78-79-3)
Point Pool: 3/15 (81/165 - .491)

A respectable week. First time all year. Go me.

Sometimes I mean to review something and I stick a note in here reminding me that I have to flesh out notes, but I continually put it off because something else comes up and by the time I get back to writing the review — it’s been months and I’ve already forgotten some important stuff. Such is the unfortunate case with Watchmen.

Like most people who haven’t really been in to the graphic novel, I only really decided to try Watchmen because I saw the trailer attached to The Dark Knight. I had a bit of a wait for it because of the bump from the trailer and the fact the library only had 4 copies of it for all of New York City. Apparently, my tax dollars do not go in to keeping up with increased demand for books about to be made in to a movie. Fools.

Anyway, at this point, I’m not even going to attempt to review it anymore. Instead, I’ll just refer everyone to the awesome Low Resolution Book Club Review which goes chapter by chapter and hits all the major plot points and has better discussions then we could get going here. It is not, by any means, a spoiler-free review, so if you want to be surprised by the movie or have plans to read the book and want to experience it as you go along, then avoid it until after. If you want to get an idea about the movie, check it out.

Two things I will note. I found (and someone on Low Resolution mentioned) reading a graphic novel to be mentally exhausting. When I picked it up, I expected to buzz through it like the occasional X-Men or Buffy comic I read when I wait for Ms. L to find something at Borders. Not so with a well-done graphic novel. A graphic novel, when one is trying to catch extra clues and storyline elements in the images, is working both hemispheres of the brain at the same time. It’s challenging when you’re not used to it. You may roll your eyes at this paragraph, but it’s true.

Second, the ending is supremely depressing and I will be VERY interested to see if the movie people leave it intact. Hollywood has a terrible tendency to go for happy endings. The ending of this — not really happy.

I’m glad I read it. It was a fun read and gave me the idea of the quality stuff out there in graphic novel form.

oat Imperial Oatmeal Stout
Brewed By: Southern Tier
Brewed In: Lakewood, NY
Type: Stout
ABV: 11.0%

What They Say: This beer begins in spring when oat seeds are sown as soon as the soil can be worked. Meanwhile, select types of barley are planted with hopes that Mother Nature will be kind. Our brewers wait patiently until the legumes are mature and ready for the scythe. Upon delivery to the brewery, these ingredients are mixed together in the mash tun where they steep, creating a rich molasses-like liquid. Spicy hops are boiled with the thick brew, giving balance and complexity. Brewers yeast feasts upon the rich sugars, concluding its transformation into oatmeal stout.

Pour Oat into a snifter, allow its thick tan head to slowly rise, releasing unbridled aromas. The color of Oat is as dark as a moonless night. The first sip reveals Oat’s thick and nourishing taste. Like a haversack to a horse, a bottle of this stout is a meal in itself. Enjoy responsibly.

Website: Their splash page is the general “I promise I’m 21″ page which I find very annoying. That splash page links to ANOTHER splash page. I hate worthless splash pages and this site has two. However, the navigation bar is really obvious and everything I could think of was relatively easy to find. So, other then the splash page nitpick, well done site.

Why I Picked It: 11% ABV and a $13.99 growler (most growlers at Whole Foods are $7.99 - $9.99). I wanted to know where they got their balls.

Presentation (5): Both of the complaints I have about Whole Foods’s beer room come in to play here. First, they don’t offer much literature about the beers at their growler station nor do they have appealing taps. Second, they don’t give samples of the beers in the growlers. They generally want you to buy 64 oz. of beer but won’t give you a shot to see if you like it. Regardless, I can’t hold the lack of marketing by the store against the brewer. N/A

Originality (5): Their literature suggests a “complex” oatmeal stout. They’re not kidding. The hops take a back-seat to everything else. It seems like Southern Tier decided to take whatever they had lying around the brewery, chuck it in a stout, and see what came out. It works well and is unlike any other heavy oatmeal stout I’ve ever had. 5.

Body (10): For all the stuff going on in this beer, they manage to keep it well beneath the consistency of a chocolate shake. It is, however, deceptively thin. You know how when you make fudge you compress a pound of chocolate in a 1-inch cube then it re-expands to a full pound in your stomach? That’s kind of what this beer does. It’s thin and delicious before you swallow, then gets to your stomach and fills you up. The salesman at Whole Foods said the beer was heavy and he and his Freddie Mercury moustache were not kidding. If I had any complaint about it, it would be how full it made me, but I have a problem holding that against a beer that suggests you drink it out of a brandy snifter. Great, great stuff. 9

Taste (10): Like I mentioned earlier… there’s a lot going on here. The hops very much take a backseat to the malts. Caramel, chocolate, and black malt blend together to make something that’s surprisingly tasty and dangerously good considering the heavy ABV. I don’t miss the hops when there’s so much going on everywhere else. 8

Efficiency (10): The beer is brutally efficient. If I’m going to spend double the standard price on a beer, I want a high ABV and a flavor that doesn’t make me have to recover in between sips. This beer has that. It has the inherent smoothness of a stout which allows man-sized mouthfuls and an high enough ABV to actually FEEL the alcohol going to your head. I can’t even criticize the cost in growler form because it’s a bit less than double a standard growler for a little better than double ABV. Besides that, an 8 oz. pour is enough to catch a buzz off. To note, in the time it’s taken me to get to this point in the column, I’ve already caught a bit of a buzz and I’m only 10 minutes in to the first quarter of Jets/Pats. 10

Versatility (10): Whenever the brewer suggests a brandy snifter as the proper glassware to enjoy their beverage, one can expect its versatility rating to be relatively low. This is no different. Not much of a difference here. One glass and you feel as though you ate a meal and you’re ready to settle down for a nap. Or, at the very least, switch to something lighter. 3

Final Grade: 35 out of 45 => 38.9 out of 50. We’ll call it 39. Great beer.