I'm not dead yet

To my three or four readers, most of whom are family...sorry I haven't posted lately. The Internet situation at my new apartment is still in flux. Hopefully it will be resolved soon, and I can get back to delighting you with my takes on such topics as baseball, football, life in Minnesota, and the beer industry.

Oh, one last thing....Vikings suck!

No blogging for a few days

But, this time there is a reason. I am moving, and I think it will take a couple of days to get my Internet situation taken care of, so that is what is going on.

Dark Knight

I saw the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Starring Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman and the late Heath Ledger as The Joker, this continues in the vein of Batman Begins. I will not say much about the movie, other than to say I recommend it highly. If you can, see it at an IMAX theater. Oh, I will say that after seeing Heath Ledger as The Joker, I now see why people were saddened by his suicide. He was a pretty good actor anyway, but he really upped the ante as The Joker.

MillerCoors chooses Chicago

After months of speculation, the MillerCoors operations decided to move HQ to Chicago. The decision was made long ago to not have headquarters in either Golden or Milwaukee, so this was not a surprise. But still, it's yet another company moving its headquarters out of Wisconsin. As usual, Wisconsin gets the consolation prize of more worker bee jobs, which seems to be enough for Wisconsin. Every time a company leaves Wisconsin (and it happens way too often), we hear about all the jobs being left, and everyone seems happy about that. But, the fact is, you need headquarters. You need to have decision makers in business in your state. Wisconsin, and really no state, should settle for solely worker bee jobs. Yet, Wisconsin seems to do this. I have never understood this. Blue-collar jobs are not going to get younger, educated people back into Wisconsin. They're good jobs to be sure, but they do nothing to solve brain drain. Minnesota seems to get this.

But, Chicago is an understandable choice. There is a lot of good marketing talent there, while Milwaukee and Denver really don't have strong marketing companies (for example, what used to be Wisconsin's largest ad agency, Cramer-Krasselt, moved to Chicago a few years ago). Marketing is key here, as there is not a lot of difference between major domestic brews.

It's already been an interesting week in the American beer industry.

STELLA!!! STELLA!!! BUDWEISER!!!!!

It looks like none of the Big Three breweries in this country are going to be American companies anymore. Anheuser-Busch apparently has agreed to be purchased by Belgium-based InBev, the makers of such beers as Beck's and Stella Artois. Ultimately, this will help Anheuser-Busch. They are dominant here in the States (48% market share), but don't do well at all internationally. Having InBev at their disposal will help. I imagine Busch Light will do very well amongst Euros, because they already think we all drink piss over here. Busch Light actually is piss, and is enjoyed by many an underage drinker. The other aspect of this deal is that besides Stella Artois becoming more omnipresent here, this also is an interesting countermove to Miller and Coors combining their domestic operations.

Another article in the Post-Dispatch talks about how this could lead to a St. Louis renaissance. The idea is that InBev should move HQ from Belgium to St. Louis. I doubt this will happen. InBev can see that SABMiller is run fairly well from London, and MolsonCoors is run just fine in Montreal. Just speculation, but I would imagine it would be difficult to get Belgium or the EU to go along with losing one of Europe's largest corporations to the United States.

So, Molson owns Coors, SAB owns Miller, and now InBev will own Anheuser-Busch. Looks like if you want to drink a totally American beer, you'll have to go with something like this.

And the hits just keep on comin'

Because the Brett Favre drama apparently isn't enough, now Green Bay Packer defensive lineman Johnny Jolly has been arrested down in Houston for possession of 200+ grams of codeine. This is still pretty new, so a lot remains to be seen. However, this was not a distraction the Packers needed this close to training camp from a guy who was expected to at least compete for a starting position.

Here's the story from the Houston Chronicle.

Rockin' out for the Basilica

I made my maiden voyage to the Basilica Block Party tonight. This is an annual fundraiser for one of the more beautiful churches we have in this area, the Basilica of St. Mary. Incidentally, this is the church I attend when I go to church (which is more often than a lot of people would think). The title sponsor is Cities 97, kind of an AAA station here in town. So, they generally tend to book fairly mainstream acts. I saw some pretty good acts tonight. Had a few beers, saw some nice scenery, had a good time.

I may do a couple of quick reviews of shows I saw, but for now just know that the Block Party is a pretty good time, and my buddies and I may go every year.