Day one of the Oregon Brewers Festival has come and gone.  We didn’t get into Oregon until late on Thursday afternoon so I was unable to attend the Brewers Dinner on Wednesday night or the Widmer Brunch on Thursday morning (that is followed by a ”parade” of beer brewers and lovers that kicks off the festival).  We did make it into the brewfest as the sun was beginning to set and I started in the IPA section.  Ninkasi Brewing Company, Laurelwood Brewing, Terminal Gravity, Amnesia Brewing, and Hazel Dell all had IPAs pouring (listed in the order of my preference from favorite to least favorite).  Surly Brewing Company is presenting Coffee Bender - a coffee flavor American Brown.  It’s very good and appeals to my love of coffee - but it is a very special release and they steep only 20 gallons at a time, so don’t expect to find this on the super market shelves.  

Beerfest: As I’ve mentioned before, Oregon does brewfests right.  There is no cover charge, just purchase a mug and some pogs and you’re good to go.  Mugs are $5 and pogs are $1.  A pog is worth a taste, 4 pogs will fill your mug.  The show special includes 2 mugs, a program, a festival pen (for taking notes) and 37 pogs for $50.  In the early days of the festival, it’s easy to taste and taste again, in the later part of the festival, I anticipate the lines will grow long and brew-festers will choose to fill their mugs to avoid waiting in line more often than necessary.  You might also want to load up on pogs before the festival gets crowded as last year the lines got extremely long for purchasing pogs (in fact, I had a friend who bought $100 worth of pogs and sold them at the back of the line for $150.  

Beer Buzz: Each year at the festival, a “Buzz Beer” is born.  This is the beer that everyone is talking about, and inevitably, runs out before the festival comes to an end.  I wasn’t able to determine just which beer had the buzz this year,  but one prediction pointed to Quilter’s Irish Death by Iron Horse Brewery.

Beer Gear: I wasn’t overly impressed with the brewfest merchandise this year, but you’re bound to find something that fits your style if you look hard enough.  That said, Beer Northwest Magazine has a booth at the festival and is offering a year’s subscription for only $10 (4 issues).  This is a great deal for a good Northwest brew magazine. 

The brewfest runs through the weekend (July 24 through July 27) and the weather is as perfect as Rogue beer is balanced.  If you are in the Portland area or are able to get here; the Oregon Brewfest is the place to be this weekend.  Otherwise, the CrapMonkey video from last year’s festival is located here and I will continue to update my Flickr Brewfest Set through the weekend.

Equipt will include:

• Word 2007
• Excel 2007
• PowerPoint 2007
• OneNote 2007
• Microsoft Office Live Workspace
• Windows Live tools (Mail, Messenger, Photo, etc)
• Windows Live OneCare
• Upgrades and Updates

What do you think?  Good deal or bad deal?  Leave your thoughts in the comments.

The Song of the Day is Rooftop by Sunday Morning Music.  They are not together anymore, but you might want to keep track of former members, Jeff Fielder and Zach Harjo.  The Website of the day is viewzi.com and we close the show with a song called 4th of July by Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers.

• The Gatling Tweet:  This is when Twitter is flaking out and your updates fail to update, so you continue to re-type your check in, only to have it continually fail to update.  Eventually, the site comes back to health and all of your Twitter updates rattle off one after another like a Gatling Gun -spamming Twitter with a comment that was barely worth reading the first time. 
• The Forgotten Follower:  Once you are being followed by a decent number of people, it can be hard to keep track of the folks from your virtual posse that transcend into your real world (at least until you make a Tweet you regret): 
  • CrapMonkey is Twittering: Skipped out of work to have a beer and a shot of Jameson at the Pub.  Expensing as a “business meeting” of course.
  • (Sudden relization that the boss is a Follower)
  • CrapMonkey is Twittering: @BossMan - I was just kidding, (LOL), I’m actually filling out that TPS report I promised you.
• The Roaming Cursor:  Let’s face it, cursors tend to roam around the browser sometimes.  Nothing worse than typing in the address of your next destination only to find that your cursor was in the Twitter Update field.
  •  CrapMonkey is Twittering:  PunkyBrewsterFanClub.com 
• The Drunken Tweet: This one needs little explanation, but after a few too many - one should probably steer clear of Twitter.  Twitter is taking the drunken booty call public in a big way:
  •  CrapMonkey is Twittering: @hotmamma - I’m gonna come over and get my lovin’ on - yeah… I don’t care who knows it!
• The Truncated Tweet:  We’ve all had to train ourselves in the ways of brevity, but let’s face it, sometimes we stumble and Twitter is unforgiving.  When the 140 character limit is exceeded, you can do little more than hope the part that made it conveyed your message appropriately.
  • CrapMonkey is Twittering:  I have got to say, I’ve known jenny for a long time and work out with her at the Gym all the time. I can’t wait to be invited into her Association of Fitness Instructors.

These are my top 5 Twitter faux pas, do you have any others?  Leave them in the comments.

Well, I finally did a refresh of content in the CrapMonkey Store.  Show your CrapMonkey Love with logo merchandise.  Shirts, hats, mugs, mousepads and more (you can even get some thong underware if it suits you).  Just click here or on the cash register in the CrapMonkey.com sidebar.

• Spb Mobile Shell: This UI shell makes everything easily available at your fingertips and gives the look and feel of the phone an overhaul.  A great application with a terrible name. 
• Resco Keyboard Pro: The default GUI keyboard on the PocketPC phone is designed for a sylus.  This keyboard application swaps that out with a nice touch keyboard complete with “gesture” (flick) support. 

Once you’ve installed the above applications, it will be like  having a whole new phone.  Now lets move on to some bells and whistles:

• ShoZu:  This application does a few different things, but I like it for it’s photo-sharing abilities.  Snap a photo and instantly send it to Flickr, Facebook, email or several other destinations of your choosing.
• Spb Insight or NewsGator Go:  No mobile device is complete without an RSS reader.  I prefer the look and feel of Spb Insight, but I like that NewsGator Go stays in sync with my NewsGator / Feeddemon subscriptions. Spb Insight also puts news flashes on your today screen.
• Windows Live Search (the downloadable mobile version):  This is a great application for general search, directions, traffic, movie times, and gas prices.  It even does GPS locating to help you pinpoint places near you.
• Office Mobile, OneNote Mobile, and communicator are obvious helpful tools for the mobile office worker.
• ComVu Pocket Caster: Webcast from your pocket with this PocketPC video/audio encoder.  Turn it on and be instantly webcasting to the web.  Similar to QIK but supports more phones.
• Finally, check out PocketSolutions for screen protectors.  They are pretty good quality and you can get three packs, cut to size, for under $5.  This is a much better deal than what you will find at the cellular store. 

So there you have it.  Hopefully using these applications will renew your love for your PocketPC phone.  Admittedly, the missing piece is still a web browser that lets you comfortably navigate the non-mobile web.  However, that is coming very soon in Windows Mobile 6.1 so relief is just around the corner.  Do you have other favorite mobile applications?  Put them in the comments.