davidcopperfields.com

We are in one hell of a recessionary pickle.  First of all, you need to save money on food and drink, and I can tell you tha the Hop Devil Grill has  the best deals going right now. $1 tacos on Tuesdays. $1 tostadas (flat tacos) on Thursdays.  1/2 price craft beers all week from 4 PM till 7 PM. No kidding, there are 30 on tap too! Thursday  nights, if you are a babe or a woman, you get frozen margaritas for just $2! Get stuffed and drunk for under 10 bucks!  Bloody Maries and Mimosas are just $3 all weekend during brunch, which, incidentally, is a mighty tasty brunch and with low, low prices.  That is the first.

Next, I don’t know what everyone else thinks, but I am a real political economic mixture, myself. I believe in temporarily nationalizing the banks. This is taxpayer money being used to fix stuff up, and if there be spoils at the end of the day for taking that risk, it rightly belongs to the taxpayer. On the other hand, if government were ever to get off the back of the little guy, now is the time. Excessive regulation and taxation will tear the heart out of America, and the money right from the soul of this great country.  

We need to get Michael Bloomberg out of here.  The mayor is even trying to destroy our tourism industry. Consider the fact that he wants to put even more burdens on the restaurant industry.  You can’t use these oils, you have to use these.  Now, you have to revamp your menus. You must somehow measure the coloric content on your menu items and make them available to the consumer.  As if you didn’t know those cheese fries can make you fat! If you have a tendency toward obesity, eating those cheesy fries is risky business, if in fact you care about being fat.  Do you need the government regulating your behavior for you?  This rant ain’t over but my time temporatily is! See ya soon.

No, I am not talking about the Beer Bros. We dominate, true, but we are legends in our own mind as well. I am talking about Union Beer Distributors who just wrested the venerable importer Shelton Bros. from Manhattan Beer Distributors, those guys who recently uploaded their Inbev offerings to Aneheuser Busch but still push around with Samuel Adams and Coors.  Its no small thing.  Now Union has control of three or even  four of the major importers.  So much so, that if beer weren’t off the radar, I would be contacting Andy Cuomo with an anti-trust case any time now.  Mark my words: this isn’t good for the beer market. Prices will rise under the control of this behemoth, who incidentally is one of the largest distributors of Anheuser Busch products in the country as well, seeing as they own Brooklyn at least.  

In other beer news today Hop Devil Grill will be debuting the Left Hand brand of beers from Colorado!  Early March is the scheduled releast date so you don’t want to miss it as that is only a few weeks away from today.  Shake me with your left hand and I might just buy you a beer. That is going to be our personal promo!  I first visited the brewery a number of years ago and told the owner that if he got those left handed tap handles into David Copperfield’s every left hander in NYC would be there in a nano-second. We shall see. I gotta go so see ya.

I believe I need a team of technical people. Just for a little example, I want to upgrade this blog to the next version of WordPress, and I think I want to add some “widgets”.  One of the widgets, if I get the moniker correct, and I am not so sure I do, is to add one of the human being identifiers in the comment entry box. You know, one of those things that tell you to interpret what is written and type it in?  Well, I went to the instructions, and I just wind up feeling stupid because I am having trouble with the the very first couple of paragraphs.

AARrrrrggh. Another time.  Too many other pressing items.  I may just change my blogging software if I can figure that out. Nevertheless, last night was Boulder Beer night at David Copperfield’s, featuring 10 different Boulders on tap. Mighty tasty, I have to say.  The first I tried was the Pass Time Pale Ale.  A touch grainy, balanced by just the right amount of hops. A simple brew for a simple time. I could have gone all night drinking these.  

Alas, I need a different keyboard. I am not accustomed to this one, and I am making error upon error. Before I finish with this, I must tell you about a book I am in the middle of. I never before had an opportunity to read it, but its an old classic, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”. It brings to mind how long ago it must have been since I read Tom Sawyer, maybe 30 years ago or more. Samuel Clemens is an absolutely brilliant novelist!  How was it possible to write like this prior to word processing I can’t begin to comprehend, and yet read this book!  The one thing that scares me about life is how miserable I understand Clemens turned out to be in the latter half of his life.  Should we focus on success or just trying to make sure we are happy?   

Sorry for that,  I will get back to the Boulder brews later. Onward to real work!

I really have nothing to say today.  I don’t know why I am even writing.   I think I am being Twittered out.  Twitter is one weird new thing. I mean, blogging is like having your own personal newsletter, and anyone can read it if they care to, or not. Twitter. I have like 50 people following me, and I am following a bunch of people. Fortunately for me, most of them are quiet. Why or how I am following them I don’t know, but that is what the page says. So, thats what I am doing.  One of the trickiest things, and I mean tricky because it takes time, is adding images, video and other media to any of this stuff. You can’t just take a picture with your camera or phone and stick it in anywhere you like;  rather you need to go to photoshop or some other such software and fix it up, at least the size.  That takes time.  Who has time, anyway?

I know who has time. All those laid off Wall Street guys who packed away a few million over the years. In fact, I met one the other day at my gym.  He was working for Bear Stearn, and he told me his wife convinced him a couple of years ago to sell all the company stock he was getting as part of his retirement plan and bonuses, etc. He wasn’t a big time guy;  he ran a back office function so probably made decent  bucks, but not millions. Since he sold high however, and worked there for more than 20 years, he is retired in his early fifties with millions.  I am sure he would have liked to have more money, and that he wouldn’t necessarily have left if JP Morgan didn’t take over, but he is a happy camper by comparison to everyone else.  I can respect that.

I am not too keen from what I have seen of Obama.  I know, I know, its too early to tell, but I am not nearly as inspired as everyone else.  Ah, the guy is only human unfortunately.

Utah in particular. Read this bizarro article.  Did you know that in order to go to a bar in Utah you need to fill out an application? Remember folks, alcoholic beverages are not inherantly a bad thing.  As a matter of fact, in one form or another, imbibing goes back to the beginning of written communication.  I fear for our society at times.

On a totally different note, this morning for breakfast I tasted a beer. I only did that because I wanted my palate clean of other influences and I wanted to see if I liked Brooklyn’s new Blunderbuss Old Ale.  The verdict? Its good.  Strong without being course, and a lot of toasted grain notes ends with a bitterness tempered by a solid malt sweetness. This is a beer I could sit at a table and contemplate a while during a conversation. Hopefully a conversation about the beer.  Get it while you can. Its pretty tasty.

I am. I am getting political again. I can’t help it. I really do not like Michael Bloomberg. For the record, I never voted for him, because he had no record, but now that he does, how can he twist New York politics to stay in power when for eight years, he has not been a good steward of the city’s finances? Taxes are way up, and he was spending the city’s money to create a town in his own, New England image. They even wanted to shut the bars down at 2 AM to make it that much more like Boston, where Bloomberg is from. This guy will do anything to get his way, and that includes spending a lot of money on getting council members to do his bidding. This Quinn woman makes me sick. She has become his stooge.

The newest thing is, right in the recession, lets hire more people to go after the bars and restaurants. Now not only does Citysearch, Yelp, Chowhound and a slew of others rate every place in town, Bloomberg is going to put cleanliness grades on the doors of each establishment. The truth is they want to make money at the expense of small business again. What Bloomberg is doing is hiring more restaurant inspectors and meter maids to make money at your expense. First, think about it: What business is more heavily regulated than the restaurant business? Have you ever gotten sick from restaurant food? I mean, where you can really nail it down? I go out a lot, and I never get sick. I don’t think I know anyone who gets sick at restaurants ever. Which means it isn’t a problem the city should be focusing on in a recession, but they are doing it just to make money.