Finally got a chance to try out BJ’s. We got their appetizer sampler platter and a beer sampler. The appetizers were pretty good overall. The beer on the other hand, wasn’t impressive.

We sampled 6 beers - the blonde, the heff, the red, the brown, the porter, and the stout. The blonde was good. It was sweet and malty tasting. It didn’t skunk as it warmed up, but did flaten out. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t necessarily better than any other blonde I’ve had other places, it just wasn’t any worse. The Heff was very clovy and spicy tasting. It also fell very flat as it warmed up. Again, not any better than any other heff, but not any worse. I think I enjoyed the Nut Brown the most. It was more nutty than sweet, which I like since most browns are overwhelmingly sweet. It has a slight hop flavor to it. Once it warmed up, it did become sweeter and start to fall flat.

Their red smelled distinctly of cinnamon, but the taste mostly coppery. When it was cold, there was a distinct hop flavor for the first part of the profile, but the copper flavor came on strongly shortly after that. After it warmed up, the copper flavor completely took over, which was a slight put-off for me. The porter tasted like a glass of water with 5 drops of chocolate, 2 drops of milk, and a drop of coffee. The stout was also very weak and flat but featured a distinct imperial flavor. I’m not always a fan of the whiskey taste in imperial beers, but in this case it was the only thing providing memorable flavor or body.

I would have liked to have tried the Pale Ale, but the other beers I did try didn’t give me much hope it would be anything more than a mild disappointment. For a well-known chain of breweries, I expected a lot more out of BJ’s. Their food was decent, but you can get decent food lots of places. You visit breweries for their beers, and this beer isn’t worth any special trips.

I had a great vacation in Sedona this weekend. Close to one of the best vacations I’ve ever had. In fact, it’s helped me realize that one of my areas of expertise that I’ve never shared on my blog is all the great local places to visit that people might not know about. That girl and I hit some of the oldie but goodie spots up there, found a few new ones, and have a few things you might want to avoid. So, here we go with what I hope will be the first of several posts over the next year about all the best places to visit throughout AZ.

Sedona is know for its spectacular views, outdoor activities such as hiking and mountain biking, local art, and New Age research.

We’ve stayed at several of the hotels in Sedona and enjoyed most of them. We stayed at the Adobe Grand Villas for one night, and found them to be well worth their higher price. They have spectacular rooms, comfortable beds, jetted tubs, a kitchenette (which includes a sink, microwave, break-maker, and mini-fridge but no stove) and an amazing location. The Radisson Poco Diablo Resort is a more moderately priced resort. The rooms are nice and there is golf, tennis, a pool and hot tube, and other activities right at the resort. This weekend was our best find yet - staying at the King’s Ransom hotel. They were very reasonably priced (almost as cheap as you can find a decent room in Sedona) and had all the amenities (including pool, hot tub, jetted tub in the room, free breakfast.) Their room was very comfortable, with a private balcony and soft pillows. Their restaurant is rated as one of the best local Mexican restaurnts, although we weren’t able to sample it because it is only open for dinner, which didn’t fit our schedule. They only thing we really would have liked was a mini-fridge, but we survived without.

The only place to stay I don’t recommend is the Day’s Inn. They are just about the cheapest place in town, and you still don’t get what you pay for. Hard beds, small rooms, and less than stellar service add up to an experience that just isn’t worth the few bucks you save. Pay an extra 10% to stay at King’s Ransom.

Fine dining in Sedona takes some planning ahead. Red Planet is a great burger grill/diner on the main drag just south of town with good food and a unique atmosphere. Olde Sedona is a restaurant/bar. They serve good beer from the local brewery and have the best sweet potato frys in the state. Most of Sedona closes their doors early in the evening, so if you’re looking for food between 8PM and 10PM, Olde Sedona is your best bet. After 10PM, you pretty much have to head to Denny’s in Cottonwood (a 30 minute drive) to fill your tummy. The restaurant at the airport has ok food and spectacular views, but you will pay a slight premium on food that is forgettable.

The Oak Creek Brewery has good pizza and great beer. Just make sure you arrive before 8PM. They close promptly at 8:30, which seems disappointingly early for a brewery. Desert is at the Black Cow ice creme shop downtown. There is usually a line out the door, but it moves quick and the ice creme is a treat worth waiting for. Its not quite as fancy as Cold Stone, but it holds its own in flavor.

Most of the tourists shop downtown, and there’s plenty of shops there. I find the small New Age shops scattered around town much more interesting. The Twice As Nice thrift store is our favorite spot to shop. They always have an interesting assortment of clothes, art, and even furniture.

I won’t try to list the outdoor activities available in Sedona - there are many other sources far better than me already out there on that topic. The one piece of advice I will give you is that you should avoid Slide Rock. The rocks are dangerous, especially in the summer when the park gets crowded, and the water gets very slimy and nasty from hundreds of people wallowing around in it every day. Find your own spot near the camp grounds up-river. You’ll have cleaner water, less crowds, and its free in most spots.

I read a really interesting article on Rolling Stone’s web site. The article describes a negotiation going on between Wal-Mart and the music industry. It turns out the Wal-Mart sells 1 of every 5 CD in the US, so they have a lot of pull. The thing is, Wal-Mart sells their CD’s at an average of $10 while it actually costs them $15. Wal-Mart has taken a loss on CD’s for a long time to get customers into the store, but they would like to start making money on them. Instead of raising their prices, they are putting pressure on the labels to lower theirs. What I found most interesting from the article was a comment from a Best Buy executive that the music industry needs to look at changing their business model, since consumers aren’t willing to pay $15 for CD’s anymore, and consumers make the final decision in a capitalist market.

Now, we’ve discussed the fact that the music industry should change their business model for a long time in geek circles. Rather than fight digital distribution of their music tooth and nail, maybe they should look at adopting it. Is it really such a tall order to ask the industry to update their business models, which doesn’t seem to have been updated since the invention of the phonograph? I’ve talked before about how I think ubiquitous wireless internet will completely change our lives, with music distribution being one of the things that will radically change. The article even provides a usefully breakdown of the cost of a CD that illustrates my point:

$0.17 Musicians’ unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists’ royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead

$15.99 total

It seems to me that if musicians distributed their music directly through online channels such as the Rhapsody music service, The cost of a CD would be about $2. That includes the $1.60 for musician royalties (since very few people argue that they deserve to be paid for their creativity and work) and about $.40 for distribution (assuming online distribution is significantly cheaper than brick-and-mortar operations, which is probably a valid assumption.) Some marketing efforts and financing of the recordings might push the cost of an album up to $3.

For the sake of argument, lets just say the final cost of an album was $5. The numbers above seem to indicate that would give everyone involved in digital distribution a generous share. It would also cut the cost of an album to less than 1/3 what people pay now. I know that I wouldn’t hesitate to buy an album for $5. Its not even worth trying to download it on the peer to peer networks when you can get it easily and legally for $5. Heck, even semi-legal ways of getting it like the Russian web sites would have trouble getting business if you could download and listen to an entire album with little hassle for less than the cost of dinner at McDonald’s.

In this scenario, consumers are happy. Certainly, musicians are happy since they make the same as they always have on an album, and may even pick up a few sales from people who would normally get their music through P2P. I would imagine there would also be some additional sales from people who wouldn’t listen to their music at all at higher prices. Music that I only kinda like isn’t worth $15, but I might consider it if it was only $5.

So who isn’t happy in this scenario? Label executives who currently own the rights to the music aren’t. When a musician can record their album in their basement, edit it on their Mac computer, upload it to e-music for free, and sell it to consumers directly, there is no need for music labels, except maybe for advertising. People who have been getting ridiculously rich for years off the hard work and creativity of musicians would have to find some real work to do to earn their money. That really, really sucks for them, but I really have a hard time feeling sorry for them. With retail executives joining the ranks of common consumers, artists, and lawyers (such as the EFF) calling for the music industry to change its business model, it seems like their time is running out.

Saw the movie Vantage Point with my sister and That Girl last weekend. Not really worth seeing in the theater. Just Neflix it or something. I have to admit that the plot was slightly more interesting than I expected it to be. Unfortunatly, it was also significantly MORE annoying than I expected. They replayed the same 15 minutes of the movie about 6 times, all from different people’s point of view. While it was kind of interesting, it was also incredibly annoying that every time it got really interesting, it would start over back at the beginning. Combine that with a 15 minute car chase that had no basis in reality what so ever, and you end up with a movie that is only mildly entertaining.