Brew For You? No actually it's for me

I'm actually brewing a batch of oatmeal stout as we speak. Of course, we is me and my imaginary friend Jubei since I'm not actually speaking to you. That's the beauty if a wireless network and a notebook computer. In the background, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones pick away at Cheeseballs in Cowtown and Michelle curses at the duraflame as she tries to get a fire started.

It's actually easier than I thought it would be to keep the speciality grains steeping at around 150°.

The other day, Gordon stopped by for the first time. He makes a nice oatmeal stout. Better than any I've tasted so far. He checked out my brewing stuff and was pleased. He doesn't know it yet, but he's in my secret club, The Darth Vader and Batman Brewing Club™. Nate might be invited to join too if he stops being a jerky and not going to the movies with me. Plus, Dan is a member too. I am the leader though, because I am so cool and not nerdy. Coincidently, who would win a fight between Darth Vader and Batman? Chuck Norris would.

My other batch is about 1.5 weeks away from unveiling itself and all it's glory upon the world.

Office Shenanigans II

I've been waiting to use this one for a long time. But I knew I needed to be careful and use it when I felt that my life wouldn't be in danger...

So, today I get into the elevator to ride up to the 57th floor of Megalo*Life, where I work. Just as the door starts to close, a man sticks his arm in doorway and the doors jar open. He gets in and presses the button for the second floor-what a lazy bum. So then he hits the close door button because he is an impatience jerkface money nuts. But...before the door can close, a lady gets in. She notices the elevator is scheduled to stop on my floor and the second floor and she doesn't push any buttons. We ride up to the second floor and Mr. LazyPants gets off. The lady and I remain. We ride up to the top floor in silence.

When we get to our floor, the doors open and she moves forward but hestiates and looks at me. I extend my arm and say, "Oh please, age before beauty." She wasn't really old, but she was clearly older than me. To this she stares at me, eyes wide open. I say, "What? Did you think I was going to say, 'Ladies first'?" Her face turns red in an embarrassed smile and she shakes her head and walks away. A little way down the hall, the hallway parts and she and I head in different directions. I depart, saying to her, "Have nice day, Ma'am."

Here are some other ways I keep myself amused at work:
Click here or here.

This Holiday Life

This Holiday Life is a 4 piece indie label band from Encinitas, California, which is the "Surfer's Paradise on San Diego's North Coast"

I'm not sure what kind of music this. It's sort of alternative, rock, a little janglely and kind of classic, but not quite. I guess I don't really care. I just like to listen to it.

To be honest, I've only listened to the free songs that are available on the internet, but I do have to say, it's pretty good. I personally like the songs Don't Stand Up, Digital, and Firefly the best so far.

Their site is www.thisholidaylife.com.

Give them a listen at purevolume, (www.purevolume.com/thisholidaylife) or at myspace (www.myspace.com/thisholidaylife)

Peace out.

The Best Blonde Joke Ever?

Usually, I prefer to add a flair to jokes when I tell them, making them more of my own, but this is so good I had to leave THE BEST BLONDE JOKE ever as is. Check it out!

Here I Is

I type this post from my notebook. I'm watching Michelle play Muppets right now as I sit on the family room couch sipping a drink. Wait one moment...

Okay, Now I'm sitting on the living room couch. Not sipping a drink because Michelle doesn't allow that sort of thing.

This is so cool!

A quick update

Remember how I used to have a NEWS section in the sidebar?

Me neither.

Anyway, if you click on this sentence, you'll get to read the best news I've heard in a long time.

3 week wait for wool?

So, I bottled up my recent batch of beer. Three weeks from February 15, I'll crack open the first one.

I noticed that I needed more room and time than I had anticipated to bottle up the brew. I started around 8 PM or so, and finished up around 11:30. Next time, I'll plan accordingly. I spent over an hour santiziting things.

I quickly noticed that my beer is darker than any pale ale I'd seen before. It was darker than Bass ale and even New Castle, though not brown in color, more of an amber. The OG was 1.058 and the FG was 1.020. That gravity means the beer will have plenty of body and only about 4.75% alcohol by volume. I added about 1.65 oz. of priming sugar to the ~180 oz. batch, which should result in a little less carbonation than most ales. I was going for something around the carbonation of New Castle, maybe even a little less. Hopefully I didn't miss calculate so that I'll end up with bursting bottles.

This beer is bitter-very hopping, and it's very amber. I've decided to name it BAA! (Bitter Amber Ale) The label with show a drooling farmer chasing after a sheep. I know what you're thinking, you sicko! Stop. The sheep will be clearly holding a bottle of BAA! which is what the farmer is drooling about. The sheep stole it from the farmer when the farmer was porking another sheep.

In other news, I have some small additions planed for this site. I might change my mind before I do anything though. We'll see what happens.

Valentine's Day

First off, happy birthday Damien, you fat pig.


Second off, here's a poem I wrote for my sweetie for Valentine's Day:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Make me some breakfast,
Or I'll kill you.

Hey, I'm just kidding,
I love you too much.
I wouldn't kill you over breakfast,
But I might over lunch.

You caught me again,
I was just making fun.
But if I don't get my dinner,
You damn well better run.

Okay, no more joking,
You I'd never hurt.
At least I don't think so,
Let's see what's for dessert.

The End

For the Nerd in all of us

What would you call someone that was/is all of the following:

Nationally competitive scrabble player,
Professional lego sculptor,
Record store owner,
Computer programmer,
Puzzle designer and puzzle party host,
Word Fanatic.

One word: NERD

Another word might be Eric Harshbarger.

Come on, we all have a little nerd inside of us. (Dave sometimes has a cowboy inside of him too.)
Whether you simply go, "Cool," or actually try to understand what Eric is talking about it's worth checking out.

Some highlights:
Clock
Mona Lisa
San Francisco
Scrabble

All right that's all you get.

Brewing, Boston, Blizzard, (note)Book

I was going for the alliteration thing with the post title.

Anyway, I guess my last post was also Dave-esque in that it stayed the most recent for a longer than usual time. (If you read that again, you'll see that it actually makes no sense.) I checked, and on average, I post a new post every 5 days. The longest duration between posts was 15 days, which occured between my first and second posts. Only 4 other times has the number of days between posts been more than 9. This is one of those times, (one of three occasions when I went 11 days between posts. one time I went 14.) That's just like Dave's infrequent updates. Very Dave-esque.

To get back to Mike-esque, I figured I should post before too much time goes by.

Anyway, I'll start at the beginning.
Brewing.
On Thursday, last week, I got some more brewing supplies. I have a batch of ESB fermenting in the 2 gallon Mr. Beer keg, but I wanted to move up to a 5 gallon batch. Almost every recipe I've come across has been for 5 gallons: the priming sugar is sold in packages for 5 gallon batches; the extracts are sold in cans for 5 gallon batches; and so on. I got a 6 gallon fermenter bucket, a glass carboy (a water cooler jug, but glass, just like in the olden days), some siphoning tube, a racking cane, bottle filler, and airlocks. I already had a dedicated brew spoon and hydrometer.
A side note, I checked the gravity of the most recent fermenting 2 gallon batch and it was just about 1.020. Which means the yeast ate about 65% of the fermentable sugars in the keg, and the alcohol content is about 4.75% by volume. I'll check it again before I bottle it. One thing I noticed with this batch is that it actually tasted good to me. I hope bottling it doesn't spoil it.

Boston.
I spent Thursday evening through Saturday afternoon in Boston. I ate yummy food, had a few drinks, went to the musuem, and shopped a little, but mostly I just relaxed. It was nice, cold, but nice.

Blizzard.
We missed the craziness, which is atypcial of a storm in Connecticut. Usually, the northwest hills get the most snow, and the coast gets less. I work close (not really) to the Connecticut River valley, and people I work with are often surprised by how much more snow I have at my house versus the few inches we usually have at work, which is really only about 10 miles away. This time, there is like 20" at work while I only got around 11" or 12" at home. Only got 11" or 12". Yeah, only...

(note)Book.
I got my Sony Vaio today. Haven't used it too much yet, but hopefully in the near future, a post will be typed on my notebook. Also, I can bring it into the studio (basement) to record drums.

Bye.
Bye.

Weird

I dont know who this (click: here) is, but they are weird. I like weird. I even told them.

They have more here.

His (or her) friend is also funny.

I love this post.

Actually the second person is even funnier than the first. Damn, kids these days.



I have nothing else to say about this...

A Dave-ish post

I'll blame this on my pursuit of an oatmeal stout that tastes as good as Gordon's.

It's odd how senses work. I think I figured out why I write songs/stories/poems/screenplays. The reason is this: to elicit emotion.

I can do these things:
Have you look at something I saw,
have you hear something I heard,
have you touch something I touched,
have you smell something I smelled,
and have you taste something I tasted.

But... I can't let you feel something I felt. I can describe the feeling. I can present you with things that may make you feel the same way, but I can't ever know if you actually feel the same thing I feel.

It's very disheartening.

I feel lots of good things. I want to share them with you. How can I ever be sure I did what I intended to do?

In the preparation of backing up my hard drive because of this Kama Sutra virus (yes, I download all sorts of porn...) I was listening to a song. It's called A Favor House Atlantic.

It made me think of a particular person. It's funny how it made all these memories and feelings come back. I must have replayed the song 7 or 8 times during the night. (I honestly don't even really care for the song.) When I was younger, I had always envisioned what the future would be like, and the role this person would have in it. Now, (I might say), it's the future, and it's not quite what I would have wanted.

Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly happy. I'd bet that I'm happier than almost anyone else who might read this.

But it seems that the more we have, the more we look at the things we don't. Maybe other people feel the same way. When I commented on the lack of people at our annual Christmas dinner, Dan said something like, "Hey man, that's just the reality of being a grown-up, and you are the awesomest dude ever."

That kinda sucks, huh? Not me being awesome (which is sweet, and by sweet I mean a swift kick in my Grandma's mouth), but me being a sucky grown-up.

Don't feel bad though-be good, stay alive. I'll see you again. There's years left, just look at all the old fogies around. Like, Pops Ickle, and Henry Arms. Those were some batting champions.

Stupid beer. Hey, I'm just a man who wants it all.
I'm not going to stop trying to get it.

"♫Bye bye beautiful
Don't bother to write
Distrubed by words and they're calling all cars
Face step, let down
Face step, step down.♫"

The joy of home ownership

You know you're a home owner when you get excited about installing a new thermostat.



Hopefully, in the long run, this will save on the costs of heating the house. We got the thermostats sales tax free since they are a way to cut down on energy costs. Connecticut encourages everyone to do their part. This is a quote from the Connecticut Energy Commission:

"Citizens should make efforts to reduce the cost of and use energy. We suggest humans sit down instead of standing since it requires less energy. "

I don't know about that, but at least I'm doing my part to slow the consumption of fossil fuels.

I got some pre-hopped and unhopped malt exacts in the mail the other day. Once I get down to the beer making supply store to get some primer sugar and yeast, I'll start brewing my next batch of beer, an ESB! Hopefully this beer will have less of the cidery taste my first batch had.
I also bought a book on home brewing. It's exciting stuff. Some day I'll make a light lager beer with just a hint of sweat from my ass crack in it, and I'll name it Buttwiser. It'll be a big hit with the ladies.

Plus, I got a recipe for Brown Ale, but it came with a booster pack, which is just sugar, so I think I'll get some unhopped malt exact for that too, instead of using the booster pack. Then I can make a Nut Brown Ale and an ESB! All I need to do is borrow Paw's fermenter for like 2 weeks.

Also, tonight I think I am going to order a notebook computer. Sony Vaio. Sweet.