So is Hoppy Beer Driving Away Craft Beer Drinkers?

Maybe.

I'm a Vienna Lager style drinker by preference -- give me a Negra Modelo, or even better, the perfection of an Augustiner Brau Dunkel (dark) beer. I like smooth, odd beers like Old Peculiar or Young's Winter Warmer. But I had an Englishman turn up his nose at my 500+ year old German beer style, uninterested in it. He was seriously a hops man.

When I would look at menus, except for Negra Modelo, there would be no Vienna Lagers. You couldn't even buy my favorite beer in Texas, the last time I looked. I was going to be forced to give up gluten, and I wanted one last beer. Couldn't find one. I almost had a Newcastle Brown or a Voodoo, but I really wanted that German beer.

Or fresh Shiner Bock. None of that available, either.

Alfreda's mother brews beer. The heroine of a mystery I did is a bootlegger's great-granddaughter, finding the family hop in the back forty! I will slip the drink of the gods in whenever possible.

Because -- Beer!

And the week just keeps getting better...well no, not really

Turns out that Microsoft don' know nuthin about being able to downgrade your operating system.

Toshiba does -- but if you machine turns out to have Windows 8 standard on it, and not Windows 8 Pro, you're not allowed to downgrade your machine. You must pay for the upgrade first, or you must pay for Windows 7. Why was this "guarantee" part of the software agreement I had to click through to originally boot the machine? Why do I not have the WIN 8 Pro I thought I bought?

Mysteries of the universe.

There are 45 drivers listed for the S955 laptop. Nowhere do I see that they will work with WIN 7 on this machine.

I'm guessing that I continue to be #$%^#@ over on this purchase.

Oh -- the nice young woman at Costco Concierge says that the keys wearing off is a manufacturer's defect, and I can send my machine back into have the keyboard replaced.

Yeah -- like I'm going to risk having a computer that works, however poorly, re-enter the factory and have the keys pried off because of the key alphanumerics wearing off in four months? And will we do this again in another four months?

I got news for them -- I'm getting glow in the dark keyboard stickers. WIN!