Dark Lord Day Tickets and Cash Back Yelp!?!

Faithful Readers, this will be a relatively short post, as I barely have an excuse to start writing, much less any actual information to convey. As has so often proven to be the case, I am tremendously excited about every bit of nothing I'm about to let all ya'll in on!

To start this little shafizzle® off (Shafizzle®: polar opposite of a shabang!) I gotta start with a little victory squiggle: I managed to get Dark Lord Day tickets this year! Woot! There's rumours floating about that tickets were popping for hours after they went on sale due to some technical difficulties at eTix.com, but I'm going to put it all on my technical prowess and my multiple device strategy: Ten minutes prior to 12 PM CST, I had my computer, my N7 tablet and my Pixel all loaded up on the sale page and spread out on my desk.

I'd decided before the tix went on sale to shoot for Group D (3pm to 5pm.) From what I've heard, this may limit my chances of getting a BA variant. However, having worked the overnight shift at AMZN for years, this dramatically improves my chances of actually showing up on time and not losing my entire allotment. Scheduling my arrival for a civilized time of day also dramatically improves the odds that I'll enjoy the venture, as well as act as mostly functional human being.

Having snagged a pair of tickets, I immediately went to Hotels.com to try booking a room. If you've attended this event, you likely think that's ridiculous, but since 3Floyds moved the event back a couple weeks this year, there were rooms available. Mebbe not very good rooms, but I was able to get a two queen bed double occupancy room at Best Western in Hammond for $95. Sketchy neighborhood but not as skeezy as the Motel 6 next door. And due to a slight misunderstanding, my buddy who is taking the second ticket got a room at the Motel 6 AFTER I emailed to let him know I had tix. LOL And OK, the two motels have nearly identical 3.2 Google ratings. but I've stayed at the Motel 6 and was less than impressed. The Best Western couldn't be worse unless the water heater explodes.The better hotels in Hammond were more than twice the price and none of them had rooms with two beds available. I do love my buddy Stevie, but he likes to cuddle when he's been drinking, so we definitely need a room with two beds!

So tickets nailed, room booked. Plenty of research to be done, though all of it trivial: drive to event, so the car is available to stow bottles, then uber back next day? uber to event, then back to hotel to drop bottles, then uber back to finish the night??? And then you hit the bottle-share aspect of the event: how many can I carry, and how many do I need for the line before I get my wrist-band and bottles? Entirely first ticket worries...a little research and common sense will prevail. (Or I'll just muck it up entirely...gonna be fun regardless!)

And on to a completely different topic: Yelp has added a "rewards card" type program that doesn't require you to carry around a rewards card...you just pay your check with the credit card you would normally use for dining out. Poof! you've got cash back!

You don't carry a rewards card, you link your credit card to the app. So yeah, you are giving Yelp access to ALL your spendung, For 10% cash back on your purchases with that card? no scanning, no "i have a coupon" Just you out having a bite, and using your favorite card to pay.


Thank you, faithful readers we'll meet again soon!

Why I'm Going to Continue Obsessively Rating Beers on Untappd, and Hope All my Untappd Friends Do Too!

I recently read an interesting article on PorchDrinking.com  titled Why I Stopped Rating Beers on Untappd, wherein Dan Bortz explained why he had chosen NOT to rank beers on Untappd, though he did plan to continue checking beers in with the app. My initial reaction to the title of the article was "Please lord, don't let this OR soured IPAs become the next trendy thing!" Upon further reflection, I do feel Dan has some valid points, but I sincerely hope his feelings regarding this matter don't become the norm, and I'd hope both my faithful readers share my reasons why with all the Untappd users they know!

Before I knuckle down and assault you with my compelling arguments, let me first apologize to Dan Bortz for completely hi-jacking his article. He and I seem to use Untappd in very different ways, so find what works for you. We don't all like the same beer, so why should we like the same things about Untappd?

Anywhos, Dan mentioned that he uses Untappd to help remember which beers he's tried, and I totally agree with that! That's one of the main reasons I started using apps for keeping track of beers I'd tried. And when you start getting into variations of brews, such as Evil Twin's lovely "Even More Jesus" series and New Holland's Dragon's Milk Reserve, whether or not you've tried a particular beer can become very confusing, very quickly.

My memory is probably a little shakier than Dan's though--I don't just have trouble remembering if I've tried a beer, but I often have trouble remembering if I liked the damn thing! Adding a rating and glancing at it later is much easier than deciphering whatever tasting notes I might have added at the time. (And I have to admit, my tasting notes can often be confusing:  "Dusty" "Rounder than I expected" "Cribbed wood" Like anyone I haven't been married to would assume that ?Cribbed wood" was a way of expressing a beer evoked pleasant memories? Or for that matter, that I'd even remember I considered that a pleasant taste and not just a horrid memory of horse spit and sharply fresh pine. Put a number next to those notes, though, and I can likely recall both the taste and the story behind the memories that taste evoked. Just seeing the "your rating" on Untappd is often all I need, especially if someone is asking my opinion while building a six-pk at a bottle shop.

Dan went on at length about subjectivity as it applied to his ratings and how it likely applied to others ratings. And all of his points are valid. My own ratings tend towards the high side if I'm having a good time, and I'm sure most people's ratings tend to do the same...so who cares? It happens, we know it will, and sometimes we'll get a bogus "wow this was the best" when it was just so-so. Or someone pans a beer that was actually ok. But it's usually not a huge difference...we don't pan 5s or give horrid beers a solid 5. Even the least objective among us still stay within certain boundaries, or their friends learn not to pay attention to their ratings or let them influence their decisions. Unlike many rating systems, on Untappd you can see your friends' individual ratings, and make reasonable decisions based on how those friends' rating correlate to your own.

In a similar vein, Dan noted the potential for bias based on others ratings. Personally, I am terribly subject to influence, taste-wise: if your notes mention cinnamon, i may very well taste cinnamon where it doesn't exist! OTH, I'm a disagreeable asshat, and faced with my favorite beertenders loudly exclaiming "ooooh, this tastes like the cheap kerosense" I will still insist "it kinda grows on ya." Personally, if I think a beer deserves a really poor rating, but general opinions differ, that is when I'll leave no rating at all. I will assume the fault is mine and not the beers. If I'm in danger of ranking a beer higher than it objectively deserves, who cares? Nobody on earth will decide a crappy beer tastes good because I said so.

If I want an objective, considered and educated opinion regarding any particular beer, I'll look to an expert like Kevin Patterson, GM at the World's Best Bottle Shop, His reviews on BeerAdvocate are excruciatingly detailed, informed and accurate. To achieve this, they are also fairly lengthy...Exactly what you want when you're researching your purchases at home BEFORE you hit the bottle shop, or deciding on a flight before you get to the tap room, but prolly not what you need while standing in front of the shelves,

I have a pretty good idea of what beers are gonna work for me and why. I don't ever use my friends' ratings to help me decide if I want a beer or not (ftm, I'll drink some pretty crappy beers just to snag a badge on Untappd!) I do use my friends' ratings to decide between beers: for example, if I'm browsing Beer Trappe's Cellar Reserve and have narrowed my choice to two or three different beers, I'll often take my friends' aggregate rating and go with the higher of the two. Same thing if none of the friends' whose palates I know and trust have checked in a particular beer.

When I started using Untappd, I actively selected "friends" whose palates matched mine: when I found a beer I thought deserved a 5, I looked for others who agreed and sent friend requests. Many of these friends, I'll likely never meet in person, but I am very familiar with their palates, and how well those palates correspond or disagree with mine. I trust them implicitly, and know how their tastes agree/disagree with my own. They have led me to some absolutely delightful beers, and steered me away from some ot their own regretted tastes. I can't begin to thank them, and I hope they never stop!

I don't think we need to fix anything about the rating system in Untappd (unlike many of the ux issues added by the last updates...but that's another post entirely!) Just remember, everyone's rating is inherently subjective....if you can find a way to use Untappd to help you enjoy those tasty beverages more, go for it, If it seems an unhelpful chore, drop it in the Uninstall box soonest!