With the first beta weekend approaching on the 27th, excitement is mounting! Thanks to my buddy Dragir (obviously a screen name) from FFXI, we were able to start downloading the beta before getting our e-mails. So far I’ve got a good number of people ready to join Catalyst when Guild Wars 2 starts. It’s nice to see the bonds/ties are still strong after so many years and across so many different games. We’ve even picked up some new friends from games such as League of Legends, Rift, and Guild Wars. Virtus, Dragir, Moridin, and Ryoreh just to name a few;  I am excited to play together again! Dragir and I have been talking about builds: http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/. So far all that we know is I’m main Engineer and he’s going Mesmer, of course. We’ll see how things turn out.

On April 4th, 2012 Ashley’s Westland held the finals of their brewery throwdown. The finalists were Short’s Brewing Company and Michigan Brewing Company. Now I wasn’t really aware that Michigan Brewing Company existed, but I was aware of their beers – Badass for example. Most of their beers aren’t clearly labeled as Michigan Brewing Company or I’m just unobservant. Either way they had delicious beers, though I only tasted my friends’ since I had to support Short’s. Short’s has only been around since 2004, and I first discovered it when my parents took me to the brewery in 2006 on one of our excursions to Shanty Creek. The beer was delicious and unique, and I can attribute my liking of beer to Short’s. In short, Short’s was a gateway beer for me.

While I drank only the delicious Short’s varieties that were brought, my fellow beer-goers tried the other fine beers offered by Michigan Beer Company. In particular, Trevor had a delicious Russian Imperial Stout that was 13% ABV. This was served in a pint glass, and might as well have been a delicious cocktail. He had two. Delicious.

The competition was close, but Short’s ended up winning by a margin of 60 beers sold. I like to think I did my part. It was nice that we got our own usual server. That’s right we’re usuals now! When we went to Ashley’s for Dogfish’s 120min IPA, we ended up waiting a long time for a table. Much longer than we should have been. Later we found out that it was because the hostess was waiting for a table in Ashley’s section to open. Yes one of our regular server’s name is also Ashley. Confused yet? Good. We fortunately got one of our other regular servers, Trevor!

Until next time.

-Evilmanta