It just occured to me today (moments ago, actually) That I should be keeping our KindaIntense readers in the loop during this prestigious competition! So here's the basic rundown:

128 IPAs (India Pale Ales) were submitted, by breweries around the country, into a single-elimation tournament. The beers are paired up, samples are tasted  (labeled "Alpha" and "Beta") by brewmaster judges, a ruling is made, and that IPA moves on to the next round. Each round of the competition takes place on a Sunday, from Feb 14th - Mar 15th (five weeks, six rounds), at a beer festival on the East Coast. To make it a more engaging activity, brackets were filled out by beer enthusiasts, submitted to the competition's website, points are awarded for correct predictions and the winner receives a case of the champion IPA. Myself and five friends have entered this competition. There are 509 competitors overall.

Today completed Round 3 of the championship and this is how the series has been going for us:

ROUND 1 - FEBRUARY 14th, 2010

NAME                         POINTS                               OVERALL RANKING                        PREDICTED CHAMPION

Jonathan Jacoby            41                                          33rd                                         West Coast IPA (Green Flash Brewing Co.)

Heather Smith                 38                                          116th                                       Stone IPA (Stone Brewing Co.)

Jennifer Chase               36                                          190th                                        Inversion IPA (Deschutes Brewing Co.)

Dane Grebisz                  36                                          191st                                        Hopworks Organic IPA (Hopworks Urban Brewery)

Jon Hallquist                   35                                          236th                                       Stone IPA (Stone Brewing Co.)

Luke Hooten                   31                                          348th                                       Stone IPA (Stone Brewing Co.)

ROUND 2 - FEBRUARY 21st, 2010

NAME                         POINTS                               OVERALL RANKING                         PREDICTED CHAMPION

Jonathan Jacoby            79                                          10th                                         West Coast IPA (Green Flash Brewing Co.)

Heather Smith                 58                                          125th                                       Stone IPA (Stone Brewing Co.)

Dane Grebisz                  56                                          163rd                                        Hopworks Organic IPA (Hopworks Urban Brewery)

Jon Hallquist                   55                                          185th                                       Stone IPA (Stone Brewing Co.)

Jennifer Chase               50                                          287th                                       Inversion IPA (Deschutes Brewing Co.)

Luke Hooten                   47                                          328th                                       Stone IPA (Stone Brewing Co.)

ROUND 3 - FEBRUARY 28th, 2010

NAME                        POINTS                             OVERALL RANKING                           PREDICTED CHAMPION

Jonathan Jacoby            85                                          15th                                         West Coast IPA (Green Flash Brewing Co.)

Dane Grebisz                  72                                          101st                                       Hopworks Organic IPA (Hopworks Urban Brewery)

Heather Smith                70                                          134th                                       Stone IPA (Stone Brewing Co.)

Luke Hooten                   63                                          230th                                       Stone IPA (Stone Brewing Co.)

Jon Hallquist                   59                                          279th                                       Stone IPA (Stone Brewing Co.)

Jennifer Chase               58                                          296th                                       Inversion IPA (Deschutes Brewing Co.)

As you can see, this competition is heating up!! The top 15 are all very close together, with different champions predicted, so prepare to see some major shifting of the top rankings. Mad props to Luke Hooten for coming out of his shell and really upping his rank. Also, Dane appears to be out for BLOOD and is climbing the latter with serious intention! Jon Hallquist and Jennifer Chase, though, seem to have hit some hurdles in their championship run and experienced a severe drop - can they overcome?? Heather has put in a strong performance so far, especially for only having selected her choices based on name alone.

Stay tuned for more detailed analysis and updates in this amazing competition!

1) New Facebook fans! Wow, we've gained 30 fans or so in the past month, readily beating our goal of 100 by the end of the Olympics. Welcome, and hopefully you aren't being bombarded by stupidity on behalf of us. Keep up the good work, people who are telling other people to be fans. (Jonathan).

2) Email Threads! We have some super exclusive email threads going around all the time, if you aren't currently a part of them (and you want to be) and you want roughly 100 emails a week from us, let us know and we'll start "replying all" to you too!

3) New Site! New site is coming. I'm working my ass off and some other people are too. Still on pace to release post-olympics.

4) Twitter! In case you didn't know, we're on Twitter (@kindaintense). If you are up in that business, lets do it.

5) Thanks! Working on this site is the only thing keeping my mind together as I spread my free and not-free time thinner and thinner. You guys rule.

6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkC7dcxZ5_Q&feature=player_embedded Watch this and keep watching tomorrow for my post on why I am fascinated by Juggalo culture!

Tonight I'm going to post about whatever Jonathan suggests to me. He's thinking right now, and I'm going to go with whatever the first thing he comes up with. I asked him casually, so he doesn't try and trick me and make me do something stupid on purpose.

That subject is......

Jonathan is failing hard. He couldn't come up with ANYTHING.

I'm too busy looking up other stuff right now anyway, so this is becoming a public service announcement.

I often find myself listening to comedy podcasts, and for all of the comedy podcast listeners, you know that Jimmy Pardo is the best in the biz. And that is because his weekly 1.5 hour show Never Not Funny is based around a solid core of folk who work well together.

Well, today I found out that the cameraman/video editor of said show has gone missing in Vancouver BC and people are starting to get pretty concerned. His name is Andrew Koenig, and you may know him (but probably don't) for a lot of reasons. First of all, he played Boner on Growing Pains. Second of all, his dad (Walter Koenig) played Chekov in the original Star Trek. Thirdly, he is on that podcast I mentioned.

A lot of people are publishing things saying that if you're in Vancouver keep your eyes open and call some detective if you know anything, but I'm not going to pretend we have any readers in Vancouver.

Either way-

Come home safe Andrew, Never Not Funny depends on you and a lot of people are worried.

Wikipedia tells me the 40 days of Lent "represent the time that, according to the Bible, Jesus spent in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry, where he endured temptation by Satan". Now I don't believe in Jesus. And I'm starting to think there's no Satan. But I've seen a bible. And I think its one of the most famous works ever written. And like some of the characters in the bible, I am finding myself in a desert of strife. Let my people go! I say. Free me from this personal obligation that I have created by promising to post for every day in February. Today is February 18th, Ash Thursday. Counting this one, I am two posts behind, at 16. That means that to achieve my goal, I need to post 10 more times this month.

And here I am complaining, while starving kids in Africa can't even eat the food to get strong enough to walk to the school where they can learn the English they need to READ my posts. I say, I can afford a little more struggle.

Thats right, I, Matt Hensley, am giving up NOT POSTING for Lent. What does this mean? It means I now have 45 more posts to do before April 1. Or Satan wins, and I starve to death in the desert and am thusly unable to complete my "public ministry". Which will it be? Stay tuned.....

I want to take a moment out of my posting to acknowledge a man. A mere man, but not a mer-man. A hu-man. His name is (Name Deleted). At first I had qualms about releasing his name on this site, but then I realized that (my qualms were legitimate). I first met (Person) (some) years ago, through mutual friend (Other Person). He is actually one of the few people who met my (Relationship Signifier) and I separately, and became a surprise mutual friend.

From his humble upbringing in (Hometown), he quickly rose through the ranks of people to become the (Number) best person in the state. Wow!

Now he has a high pressure job working as an (Occupation) and spends all of his free time playing (activity). What a guy!

So here's to you (Marcus Poppen). I hope you are having a nice (25th birthday).