Author: jason

Music, Music, Music!

In the next few months I’ll have the opportunity to see:
The Pixies
The Faint
Ministry
Cannibal Corpse
Fear Factory
Lamb of God
Children of Bodom
Napalm Death
Snow Patrol
Deathcab for Cutie
Coheed and Cambria (!!)

Woot for live music!
Woot!

You’ll note a large number of black/death metal bands up there. You (and I) have XM Radio channel 42 to thank for that. It’s no secret that I love me some metal, but there’s been such a dearth of it in my life for so long. Now I’ve got a constant flow of new metal (and I don’t mean nue metal) and it’s awesome. My current favorite band that I’ve picked up is Amon Amarth. Satan from #fazed on irc.fazed.org describes them as “Viking metal at it’s finest” and I have to agree!

Memo

Dear Adam,

I’m not really a big fan of Sam Adams, but that shitty liquor store by your house has such a terrible selection that it was either that or Boulevard Wheat, and I was tired of that. While I agree that Sam Adams is no Frambozen I have to point out that you normally drink Michelob Ultra and seem to enjoy it. This invalidates any opinion on beer you might have.

Weekend Update

If you liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, go see Hero.
If you like music, and neat things get XM Radio. I recommend the Roady 2.
If you like beer, I made some two weeks ago and it’s coming along nicely. Smells great, tastes a little yeasty still. Feel free to stop by in another two weeks and try it.
If you like Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment is in paperback now and Going Postal is soon to be released in hard back.
If you like burning things, Burning Man aparently had 35,000 people this year, which is impressive as hell. I didn’t get to go, but some folks I know did.
If you like Groove Salad, I salute you.

Beer Taps

I don’t know how many of you out there are beer guys like myself, and futhermore how many of you have some kind of keg/tap system but let me highly recommend the Perlick Faucets that Northern Brewer is selling. I picked a few of these up a couple of months ago and now I can happily report that they are totally awesome. I used to have problems with my taps sticking because beer would remain in there, I would not use them for a few days and they would get all sticky and seize up. The Perlick faucets never do this. Ever. I haven’t had the slightest bit of stick since I got them, and that’s worth the price right there. Additionally they are more sanitary as less beer gets left to sit in the tap while not in use. Anyway, just a quick note for you who that applies to. Get some, you won’t regret it.
Vent-Matic is supposed to be as good (or better) as well. They were out of stock when I bought mine and the Perlicks were recommended. I’m sure either one would be great.

Just The Facts

Today I finally got back to brewing after a several month hiatus. I took a little break during the winter, and spring… and I guess most of the summer after the miserable failure of the Fat Tire a while back. That was very sad. The wort was perfect and I think I poured an infected yeast starter in it. Very bad.

Today I brewed up a basic pale ale. “Frog n’ Hound Pale Ale” which is just a basic british pale. A “bitter”. This is my… fourth? Fifth? Something all grain batch and it’s definitly getting easier. I got this one done in about 6 hours total including clean up. I also burned the hell out of my arms, my face, my stomach and some other parts when I dumped about a half gallon of 170 degree water all over myself. Note to the listening audience. “Don’t do that.”

Every time I do this I want a more permanent setup more and more. I spend a huge amount of time moving buckets of nearly boiling liquid back and forth from outside to the dining room. I bet I could a few hours off of the process if I had a place to put everything, a steady gas source, a water source and a pump. If I ever get around to buying a house, or even renting a different house with a basement I am not afraid to go into I am definitly going to have to build a 1 or 2 bbl semi-permanent system. With my geekery and love of gadgets I know I can almost completely automate the process and definitly remove the heavy lifting, which would make the process so much better. Ah well, maybe I’ll get around to that if I don’t do this other thing I’ve been thinking about doing.

In other news, I finally broke down and bought a new monitor. I decided to match Adam’s loot level and buy an HP 2335L 23″ LCD monitor. It’s the most expensive thing in the universe, but it was worth every penny. 1920×1200 native resolution, 16ms response rate. I’ve played some FPSes on it and they look great and of course normal desktop use is incredible. I love it. Almost more than anything I love all the extra desk space I have now after getting rid of my monster 19″ CRT.

I finally launched the project I’ve been working on at work since February, and that was awesome. The first week was a little bumpy but things are moving right along now. It’s a good feeling to see your software used by a bunch of people doing things that are neccesary to keeping the company running. Most of my work till now has been on public websites where it didn’t matter too much if something went wrong. Not that that made me slack, that was just how it was. Now, if my software breaks a whole bunch of people start yelling really fast, and I like that. Mmm… responsibility. Accountability. Fun!