Nvidia shield

I've been thinking about getting one of the Nvidia shield consoles for a while now.  The little console that could if you will, the home media server version has my eye because I can run plex on it and 500gb of storage gives you room for quite a few movies (assuming you've optimized them a bit), and from what I'm reading the newest version of shield experience lets you add libraries from SMB network shares, usb drives and micro sd cards.  This is great news and I'm saving my bloggy dollars as we speak to get one (half way there!).

That was enough to get my interest for sure, I've been running kodi via the Openelec on an old Acer Aspire revo r1600 (it's a ridiculous product name). It's a crappy nettop atom based pc with the one redeeming quality of having the nvidia ion chipset on it. Nvidia ion was h264 (the standard for .mp4 video) processing.  Meaning the dual core atom processor circa 2009 is able to playback 1080p video without stuttering.  The cpu alone wouldn't be up to the task, and topping out at like 19w it is tiny and only needs an hdmi to be a full featured media center.  Out of the box openelec supported my Media Center usb ir adapter and I can run it with the Logitech Harmony remote and from the xbox 360.  Keeping a keyboard handy is still worth the effort as I've been having some trouble with my usb wifi adapter lately, but otherwise it runs easily.  Kodi doesn't support streaming and transcoding out of the box and doesn't have the fit and polish of Plex, so I've been wanting to jump to that as my full time media player.  Simplifies all kinds of tasks for content on the go and for kids in the house on tablets. 

The final push for me to want the shield was plex had a lifetime plex pass sale recently, $75 for apps, and early access to features and the ability to back up your phones pictures to your media server was too good of a deal.  After I bought my subscription I found a video on running emulators for classic games on the Shield too. We still have our old Nintendo and Super NES, but I never got a N64 and I really miss classic Mario Kart.  The new ones don't have the same soul... So I'm not encouraging anyone to look for the app called happychick on a .hk based website that would allow you to play emulators on your android device, but if you did do those things you might look at this really cool bluetooth gaming controller that works really well with the emulator (allegedly) 

finally, full disclosure.

Philip K. Dick

I'm not sure why, but I never really read much in the "Sci-fi" genera when I was younger.  I read some of the expanded Star Wars universe, but really that was it for Science Fiction.  As an adult I've sort of stumbled into the genera largely by accident, but I'm enjoying my time here.

The first book for me was from Richard Paul Russo's Carlucci 3-in1[?]. It was in the book bin at work and caught my eye, so I gave it a whirl.  It's 3 books rolled into one and pretty excellent, thought my disclaimer will be the first book stands head and shoulders above the other 2.  The sci-fi book I read last year was Betahuman[?] by Ian Wood, I read it because it was written by a High School friend of mine.  It's a debut novel, written during nanowrimo follows familiar story arc's but manages to add something to the genera as far as I'm concerned.  Really other than smoothing out some of the dialogue, it doesn't need any work.  The last Sci-fi book I read last year was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?[?] from Philip K. Dick.  I watched Blade Runner sometime last year so I was interested to read the book, but Adam Savage prattling on and on about his Blade Runner replica's in 2 separate video's this year really drove me to take the plunge.  The movie doesn't even hold a candle to the sun that is this book.  There are so, so many things that the movie doesn't even try to take on that draw together the plot that Blade Runner failed to make any sense of. If you liked the movie, but thought it was missing something I think you will love the book.

Any how I'm deep in the middle of a Philip K. Dick benge trying to read The Man in the High Castle[?] and I have a few more to follow, but if there is something I just have to read in the genera let me know.

Shut up and play the hits

LCD Soundsystem probably isn't for everyone, but I was surprised by how many of their songs I had heard and liked, but didn't know it was them.  I decided to try and watch their concert documentary Shut Up And Play The Hits[?] for some reason or another and just finished.  I don't know that I would have made it through 3 dvd's of it if I had gone through netflix or bought this, but the 1:48 minute avi I found floating about on the internet was pretty good.  I have a strange love of concert/music documentaries (see Under Great Northern Lights and It might get Loud[?]) so this spoke to my quirky love of music.

Anybody got some other good concert documentaries I should watch?

Progress and such

I'm about halfway finished reading Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy[?] which was always the next book on my list after Rise of the Meritocracy. It is so well written. It flows like a running narrative, but woven in there is a critique of America building to a final point. I hope that he has some excellent recommendations for alternative models, but the picture he's painting is spot on and has a great eye for history.

If you've read Rise of the Meritocracy and think that Young's warning should be payed warning, Twilight of the Elites is Christopher Hayes ringing the alarm bells and shouting.  Even if you're not an American, it's a pretty fascinating look inside of the body politic of America and how we came to feel like a bloated and rotting corpse in just 236 or so years.

In unrelated news I'm gonna get my beer brewing on this weekend, so I can get something in that beautiful and sadly empty oak barrel!  It will remain sadly empty for about 2 more weeks while the beer finishes fermenting to be ready for the barrel.  The style is going to be American Strong and the hops I plan on using are Cascade but that is about all I've managed to make my mind up on.  I'm waffling back and forth about using extract and sugar to bump the OG up, or just tough it out and try for higher efficiencies with the all grain.

I also started a batch of sauerkraut 2 days ago, that should be ready to eat in a few more days.  It's a pretty simple recipe and pretty traditional, but I needed to do something for the fall.  If I'm still feeling frisky I've got my sourdough that needs some attention this weekend.  In all it will be a busy long weekend!

Mason Jars in the kitchen

So on some of our Culinary adventures in the last few months I've taken to using Mason Jars a fair amount.  I'm sure that this article from Popsci was related since it's in my draft folder, so I thought I would share.

I've been making a Strawberry Banana Spinach smoothie for breakfast and one quart sized mason jar is an excellent serving size for one.  Turns out that many blenders fit the narrow mouth mason jars just fine, so you can throw in the ingredients blend and go.  I thought that was pretty solid.




That was the only one from the popsci article I found interesting, but we have also been making summer porridge in the mason jars and got Regular Mouth Mason Jar Plastic Lids[?] to make it easier to carry to work.  The recipes I've been following come from YummyLife, but I'm sure you could free form something in a pinch.

I found this Big Red Kitchen blog post while I was looking for some more ideas for this particular short and semi-useless article, and am going to try her once a week mason jar style cooking.  The blog's author is doing crossfit and a mom, that wanted meals that she could heat and serve during the week to free up time in the evening.  I empathize with the author about how much time each week it takes to make meals, and the creativity that it takes to come up with something every weeknight.

I'm a fan of lists, so this 31 uses for mason Jars was interesting (and a touch hippy, but hey if the shoe fits).

Bonus link for kicks Thedecoratedcookie also had a mason jar meal that looked pretty acceptable.

And finally a Local, up in my neck of the woods NWedible on fermenting in a mason jar.

Electronics cross post

Just a cross post to let people know I did an actual post on that other dumb blog about Electronics kits for kids.

So as all parents tend to do, I project the things that I wish that I had done onto my child and have been very excited about the prospect of teaching someone very young about electronics.

I previously had been interested in the Snap Circuits series[?] or here[?] of educational toys, but I'm sort of afraid that they are too limited (though very safe for little hands).  The Little Bits electronics kit looks more polished and will give a more compact finished product, but I'm concerned about the tiny pieces ending up in kids mouths.  Snap Circuits advertises as for ages 8 and up, where as Little Bits doesn't specifically have an age group.

Both of these options have some great opportunities to teach not only responsibility (with somewhat dangerous parts), but hopefully pique my child's interest in electronics.

Ikea is still fairly awesome

So, I've been re-designing my living room for a little while now to make room for my little boy.  I wanted him to have some open space to tear around in, and put stuff that little finger would find way to interesting away and out of reach.  I posted about the inspiration before, but we pulled the trigger on it on Sunday and bought the cabinets.  The countertop I want to use to finish it up is out of stock and won't be in for quite 4-6 weeks.  It turns out to be fine for my purposes as I need to build a toekick box for the cabinets and figure out how to get all the wires to the areas they need to be (the cable and ethernet jack are far from the TV ect.)  A few weeks ago we mounted the TV to the wall, and after examining the stud placement I think I can get all the components fished through the walls so they come out behind the tv and the rest of the wires will be hidden behind the cabinets in a 3 ¼" void.  The board I will use to create the spacer will serve as the cleat for the countertop once its in and if I'm feeling really fancy I may end up with an electrical outlet similar to this one on the wall or embedded into the countertop.

USB Wall outlet [?]

Prometheus and other thoughts

So I'll go ahead and assume you don't live under a rock and have seen the mounting publicity of the upcoming sure to be a blockbuster blah blah blah Prometheus.

Here's the thing the first two ad spot's I saw for it told a much more interesting story than what the actual movie is going to be about.  Pro-tip it's an aliens horror movie.  So yeah, not going to watch it.  Where it a movie about this,



or this



Instead we get this.




I suppose my disconnect is one is a genuine look at where we could go with AI, and the effects on society should be have the capacity to understand ourselves enough that we could create in the image of ourselves a copy indistinguishable. Bladerunner, started on it and even offered the possibility that we could love the artificial life we created. The premise of their love was so flimsy that the story fell apart in my opinion, but the idea was there. The hard part about movie love is that love is very hard to nail down and show it becoming anything other than infatuation. I know that there are more than a dozen movies and books dedicated to this theme, but I find it fulfilling and interesting every time.

Sound off in the comments if you have a great movie on the subject or book.  On of my favorite look at the future is the novel The Destroying Angel by Richard Paul Russo.  It's the first novel in a series of 3, I found this as the book Carlucci 3-in1[?] or my friends first novel Betahuman [?] .

W is for Watermelon Kegs

Gizmodo shared this link from Watermelon.org on how to make a very (very, very) fancy spodie they call the watermelon keg.  In addition to a fancy cut watermelon filled with booze you need a Chrome Spigot[?] ($27 + shipping!!) to pull this off, but I feel like we can all agree that this is the coolest party drink you will ever have made so it may be worth the money.

image via Watermelon.org

Turntable Art

I saw this article on Makeblog the other day, and really enjoyed the outcome.  The art generated by the two turntables spinning and playing their record out reminds me of those sand art sculptures that where popular in the 80's.

Image via Makeblog

Anybody else have one of these Sand drawing Pendulum's as a kid?

Image via Amazon[?]

Rotary Tumbler

I remember from my childhood having a Rock Tumbler[?] when I was a kid and really enjoying the idea of polished stones.  It must have been a fad in the late 80's or early 90's but for some reason I was really into it for about a month, and then the first batch came out of the tumbler and I was all, meh.  What does this all have to do with?  Well make posted a project about making a rotary tumbler from printer parts and I for some reason got all nostalgic and super excited about making one.

During the course of finding a tumbler on Amazon, and reading reviews about tumblers I remembered my own experience and am now sad that everything from my childhood must have actually been really lame.  I'm almost afraid to watch an episode of He Man or god help me The Snorks (oh shit I did just watch an episode there is not god) or any other show that I was obsessed with as a child.

Vacuum ziploc bags

My family has started buying and sharing a side of grass feed beef and we just had to make room in the chest freezer for a mountain of meat.  It seems like a lot upfront, but my wife and I hardly bought meat over the summer last year so it feels like it makes sense for us.  While I was re-arranging the freezer I saw my huge pile of frozen pumpkin and frozen blackberries.  I had meant to put some of the berries into one of the hard cider batches I have going, but with 8 gallons waiting to be bottled and a boat load of beers I want to brew I don't see this happening soon.  Maybe I'll make a fruity session ale for the summer heat, but before that I have got to make my Pumpkin Cranberry sour ale.  This beer needs to happen, those that have been following may have read about it a while back.

Any way this rambling ass post was really about the pumpkin and blackberries I have stored in Ziploc vacuum storage bags.  I read about them on a Lifehacker post about sous vide cooking, and was excited about a lower cost vacuum sealing product.  My aunt and uncle claim to have ruined 3 of the fancy ones you see at Costco was they tried to seal up fish for storage (my uncle fishes a lot).  The beauty of the pump that comes with the Ziploc product is it's manual and when I bagged the blackberries I just stuck a paper towel down between the flap and the pump to catch the excess liquid from the berries as I tried to work the air out.  It worked great and the pumpkin and berries both looked good when I checked them recently.

I can only find the gallon size bags at my grocery stores, but Amazon has the quart size.  I like them and they are way cheaper than the electric ones, and so far are holding up well in my freezer.  I'll try to remember to get pictures when it comes time to thaw them for beer making so see if they kept fresh.  I know they are doing better than the standard freezer bag we put our yearly blueberry picking harvest into last June.  The berries that are left all have ice in the bags, vs the blackberries I froze in August have none.

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Bond box set?

Anyone else see the Bond 50 Box Set?  I have no reason to own this, truthfully, but the pre-order saves you $100 off the retail price so it could be a great gift for the Bond nerd in your life sometime down the road.

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Merry Christmas indeed

A few months ago my food processor died, and sometime before that my stick blender died so I was basically down to my blender for fast spinning choppy items in the kitchen.  My local grocer had a promotion that involved collecting stamps for food you buy and it could be used for getting free or discounted Cuisinart appliances.  Most of them seemed to relate to coffee and since I don't drink the stuff, and my wife only drinks it when the nice people at Starbucks make it we where mostly meh.  They did have a Cuisinart Immersion Hand Blender and it looked to be pretty solidly made so we decided to get that one.  I'm solidly impressed with this little thing, it has a 200watt motor and is really pretty powerful.  It doesn't feel cheaply made at all, and I believe that it will last longer than the last one I owned.

It's fairly well rated over at Amazon and I can see why.  I kind of wish I had the old fashioned malt cup to go with mine because I really use it most of the time to make milkshakes.  I'm eating one right as I type this in fact!

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Beer books for random interest

I have a huge glut of links for books related to beer, if this isn't interesting to you move along nothing to see here.

Homebrewers Companion is a general purpose book that has A-Z on brewing beer and gives you an introduction to beer, beer science, the equipment and process of making beer.  There are plenty of other books in this vein, this is the one that I started with so it's the one I recommend.

Clone Beers  sounds like a pretty simple premise, a book that has the extract, mini-mash and all grain equivilents of 150 commercial beers.  If you see it on the store shelves and want to try your hand at making it (and fail at using the internet to search for these yourself) a handy book has those covered for you.

Brew Ware seems like a book that I should own but the reviews make it sound out of date. I'm mostly using this as a placeholder to look for an updated version of this book.

Brew Like a Monk is a future looking book for me.  It is about informing you about the Belgium style of brewing.  I think the style I brew is more in the British tradition of brewing, and the contrast to the way the two schools approach their beers is radically different.  Beer as we know it that descended from the English tradition evolved because of taxes and regional flavor preferences.  The Belgium tradition was more about the yeast and what it could do, and coaxing the flavors out of the

Designing Great Beers is another future looking book, it's for that time in my life where I stop modifying recipes and take the plunge to creating my own beers. I look forward to the creative process, and hope that in a few years when I feel confident enough to try my own recipes parts of this book will feel like old knowledge for me.

The Homebrewer's Garden . Nuff said.

The Science of Beer is a popcorn type of book. There probably won't be a lot of knowledge to glean from it, but the read will be fun. It's sort of a history book on when advances in technology made parts of brewing better or more efficient.

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Cider Syrup

image via Saveur (credit MacKenzie Smith)

So another gem from the people out in Brooklyn. I'm kind of a cider whore as it is, so if someone posts a way to use it that I hadn't thought of you know it's gonna get crazy for me. This is boiled cider, or cider syrup. They do exactly what you imagine it is they do and boil apple cider down until it is the consistancy of maple syrup and use it for cooking and making cocktails. Saveur turned me onto the idea no doubt with their cider syrup and whiskey toddy, but this blog really made the idea sing. They call it cider molasses, and use it on ice cream or in tea, and the idea that I'm most excited to try mixed with soda water on the rocks.  The picture is whiskey and cider syrup, with a very fancy ice cube.

Thanksgiving is at my house this year, and one thing I am working coming up with is a desert to wow the family.  Barring that I may try to wow them with awesome drink options, either way I believe that will be some boiled cider in my house soon.


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Die by the drop ---updated--

This is the seed artist for my favorite indie channel on Slacker. Not the best or only song, but a great song none the less. Jack White rocks my goddamn socks off, but put him together with Alison Mosshart and I'm in love.

 

 Some people die just a little, sometimes you die by the drop.

 If this is your kick you should look into It Might Get Loud Jack White, Jimmy Page and The Edge (from that shitty Irish band you've heard of), guitar and music ideology it's and orgy of rock and roll guitar.

You might also watch The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights. This is pretty close to spiritual as far as tour videos go.  Between the interviews and where they toured this band loves what they do and loves music. If you are kind of a fan I promise you will be hooked for life watching this and sad they decided to be done.

------Update-----
So because this appears to be not availible in so many countries here is a totally legit download link.


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Beer Brewing Reprise

A couple of people asked for a simple recipe for beer with household items.

I wrote a post on how I got started not that long ago, but I will reprise and expand on it here. Also for a more thorough and well thought out introduction to brewing Check out John Palmers How to brew.

Here's the deal, you need some equipment.  Period.

At the very (very very least) you want a pot big enough to boil whatever size batch you are going to be making, keep in mind that when you add hops (unless you buy pre-hopped extract) this boil with get a crazy kick of head coming at you.  You will need a vessel that you can attach an airlock to for fermenting into, and you will need something to put the final beer into when you are done.

Most homebrew stores sell for 5 gallon batches, most recipes you read are divisible by 5 gallons.  5 gallons gives you +/- 50 beers or just more than 2x24 packs.  Normal people use bottles that are cappable, so you will need caps and a capper.  When you do an extract brew you normally get 6lbs(or so) of LME(liquid Malt Extract) 1-2lbs of specialty grains (this give you mouth feel and color) and 2-4oz of hops for boiling and some yeast (normally one package of whatever they recommend).  When you go to bottle you need to add (approximately) 3/4 of extra sugar (normally corn sugar because it is flavorless) to your beer before you bottle it to give the yeast something to eat so your beer will be carbonated.  Are you getting all of this?

Sadly you need equipment for 5 gallons it is bigger than almost any normal person's biggest pot (I used a 7.5 gallon pot for my extract brews) My LHBS sells them for $40ish for acceptable pots.  Some hombrew stores sell intro kits that comes with everything you need (except a pot) and mine included a free recipe of your choice. My kit was $100 came with one food grade bucket that is about 7 gallons and has a spigot.  The value of this spigot cannot be overstated, I use this bucket every time I brew and bottle it is that useful.  It also came with a 5 gallon glass carboy (the glass portion of this is somewhat rare as the carboys can be pretty expensive on their own) and airlock.  The kit also came with a racking cane (that I wish was an auto-siphon but beggars cannot be choosers) a clamping hose for racking, a bottle wand and shorter hose for bottling and lastly an Red Barron capper.  I think it came with a Hydrometer (for measuring your ABV% but it did not come with a beaker (tall skinny lab tool for samples).

Every piece of equipment listed has a use, and is part of the brewing process.

So come brew day you follow the same basic idea you start with 3-5 gallons of water and add your specialty grains normally in a muslin bag and cook them at whatever the temperature your recipie calls for (normally the a 154°F aka Saccharification temperatures for about 10-30 minutes). At this stage I call it making tea, you are getting the grains to the temperature that they give you the best and easiest sugar they have. After you're done making tea you kick up your temperatures rinse the grains and add your extract and bring you kettle to a boil. Once you see what is known as the hot break (when the little foamy head on your boil parts) and you start seeing a "rolling boil" you start your timer for 60 minutes and follow the recipe for hop additions. Normally you have a 60 minute and a 10 minute addition for simple recipes. When you add your hops watch out, this is when you are most likely to have boil overs, the hops piss off your boil and I don't know why.

At the end of the boil you wait for the temperature to drop to around 180°F naturally (you don't have to but it's kind of like letting meat rest before you cut it). I do this by putting the kettle on the floor of my garage and the cement acts as an immense heat sink but you have to move it round a bit. From here on out everything you do is basically trying to not fuck up the work you just did, if your beer is going to get infected it will happen during this stage. Now depending on how much water you have left in your kettle you add cold (like in your fridge overnight cold) water or ice to get your wort (the stuff you just boiled is now known as wort) down to yeast pitching temperatures. If your city has chlorine in the water you probably want to use bottled or filtered water (you probably want to any way) but getting your wort chilled quickly is the name of the game. You are trying to get from 180°F to ~80°F in about 15 minutes, this is known as the cold break. The point of this is to keep your beer from getting chill haze (cloudy when it is cold). There are some smart people that will tell you about the protein in your beer and how slow cooling affects the way that it coils, but you just need to know your beer will look cloudy if you don't chill it fast enough. Once it's cold enough you dump it into your primary fermenter (for me the food grade bucket) trying to splash it in there to get a lot of oxygen in it for the yeast to proigate. If you boil pot isn't big enough to boil the whole 5+ gallons you will do this first and then add cold water and ice to get to your 5 gallons total batch.

Now you pitch your yeast. Some yeast calls for you to re-hydrate them in warm water other people do fancy things with stir plates and yeast nutrient, for you if you ask the brewstore they have some yeast that comes in a smack pack (yeast in a pouch that has nutrients surrounding it) that will get you up and running very fast or there are yeasts that you can just pitch without re-hydrating. Whatever yeast you pick make sure you follow the package directions not what is written in your recipe, the people that packed your yeast know more about yeast than the people writing recipes on the internet. From there you attach your airlock and try to maintain the temperatures that are recommended on your yeast pack for several days until vigorous fermentation has completed (trust me you will know the difference). At that point some people choose to rack off (transfer from one vessel to another) so your beer isn't sitting on the trub (deflocculated yeast, proteins, and if you used hop pellets hops too). The trub is believed to cause off flavors in your beer, but you can and some brewers do leave it in one vessel for the duration of the fermentation. Temperature is important for your beer as too hot and you stress the yeast out (really really to hot and you could kill it) and too cold you cause it to go dormant. Some yeast does better in hotter environments and some does better in cold environments (lager yeasts) so if you cannot regulate your temperatures you should consider brewing for the season and use yeast to match the temps you can achieve. There is a whole lot to be said for yeast and keeping it happy, I'm reading a book that is dedicated to how to use and cultivate yeast Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation[?]. This is probably overkill for most everybody but the most interested in brewing.

Other things I use but there are alternatives for Star San and PBW (powdered brewery wash). Both are chemicals, my LHBS(local home brew store) sells the PBW in a measured for 5 gallon size that is great for cleaning bottles. You can use your primary fermenter if you are supper cheap, but I worry about all the gunk that comes from the bottle affecting my flavors so I use a cheapo home depot bucket for my cleaning. PBW cannot be understated as the coolest stuff, use gloves as it hurts my hands to use, but that could also be the hot as fuck water I use. You put the bottles in and the labels basically fall off no scrubbing needed (except for Deschutes stupid bottles the glue they use is awful). This stuff kills like everything including leftover yeasties from the beer you drank out of those bottles. You will need to rinse these bottles after you get the gunk off of them caution and time are well spent here getting clean bottles to put that beer you have worked so hard on. As a side note I've heard anecdotal evidence that the twist off style caps are prone to breaking if you plan on re-using bottles stick to the type you have to use a bottle opener on. After you are done I mix up a batch of Star San (this also is measured as a 5 gallon batch, but a little goes a very long way so I make it and put it into clean 1 gallon plastic jugs. You can try to eyeball the mix down to a more reasonable size batch but because I brew often the 5 gallons is handy to have around. I didn't mention it above but Star San is a part of basically every stage of my brewing process. It is a no-rinse sanitizer and I rinse every vessel and every instrument that touches my beer with it prior to use. It does not kill your yeast, won't add flavor to your beer, and is safe for consumption so don't be afraid of it, and use it everywhere. I have thus far not gotten an infected batch (even when my hands where in the chilled wort) and I attribute this to a liberal use of Star San.

After you have cleaned and sanitized your beer bottles (pro-tip if you clean them in your kitchen sink use your dishwasher as a drying rack for your beer bottles. Don't run them in the dishwasher if you have jet dry as it will leave a film on your bottles, but I use the washer as a drying rack.) Now that you have clean bottles you can transfer it into the bottles, cap and wait for them to carbonate. If you want to know your ABV% you take a hydrometer reader before you pitch your yeast, and before you put it in your bottles. The difference between your original gravity and your final gravity gives you the % of alcohol in the beer.

Hope this was helpful and not overly redundant, but if you want to work with household items I will try to think up the barest of minimum things you need. The trouble is you are going to be doing half or less batches and you have to scale them manually and this is a huge pain in the ass. Also if you don't have equipment to measure you don't know if it is pansy or good beer, and you won't know what to tweak for the next batch. In short I think bucking up and getting the starter kit I outlined in the previous post and doing 5 gallon batches. I know someone that has a lot less equipment then I do and he brews more often, and drinks more so it can be done with less equipment than I use, but the equipment I use has purpose and I use it to make the best beer I can. That said the beer that I am the most proud of and I though tasted the best was an extract beer so it can be done (it was a $75 5 gallon batch of beer so you know it was expensive).

Damn my mess

I looked about last night to try and find my recipes and notes from my beer brewing sessions, just to go through them in my head and try to remember all the things that I had screwed up and come up with some lessons learned on my journey.  Keyword here was try and find, because of all the shit I have that is related to beer and cheese making (don't get me started on the next damn project I am looking into Charcuterie) I was not able to find the damn folder with my notes and recipes.

I have some of the gravities written on my whiteboard, but didn't find the papers.  Hope is not lost, I really only glanced about and all of the recipes that I was working with came from my LBS recipes folder so I could always just go get new copies, the only thing I will have lost is my session notes.  That makes me a little sad, but in all it is a recoverable offense.

In other and related news I had previously downloaded Beer Tools to give it a try (it is a recipe management and brewing assistant piece of software).  The software is fine, and it does give you a very nice looking little handout to print up that tells you what your beer will be like based on the ingredients and processes you add to it, but for some reason I found the process a little tedious and for $30 I wanted it to be less cumbersome.  I realize that software requires work in to get value out, but man I was not feeling it.  Until now.  If I had my recipes stored in there I wouldn't be looking for them now would I?  I'm torn, $30 is a drop in the bucket at this point but for the planning your brew session it seems like it would be easier and cheaper to use Beer Calculus and do a better job of keeping track of the damn notes, also you could print to PDF and keep a digital copy of your brew session for future reference.

If I don't find my recipes I may invest in the Beer Tools, just so I won't loose my session notes again.

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Club Bing

So one of the things that Microsoft started doing a few years ago as part of promoting Bing was start the website Club Bing.  It is really just a bunch of word games that you play for tickets.  Every game has some allotment of tickets you can earn, but I mostly play Chictionary, Word Slugger or Spelling Bee (note they are all the same game, with different skins) because they have the highest payout of tickets for time spent on a puzzle.  No the name of the game is to make words using the letters you get each round.  It is like an anagram, it's mostly stupid and would take forever for most people to complete each puzzle.  I finish each puzzle in between 1.5 minutes to 3 minutes.  How the F do I do that?  Well my friends that is what anagramssolved is for.

Now a sane person might ask why use a website to help you win a stupid word game from Microsoft?  Well it's the tickets you see, Since I have been playing I have won enough tickets for an Xbox360, and a digital picture frame.  If you get the daily maximum you can get the top prizes in about 90 days of playing (500 tickets max/day).  If the top prizes are what you are after then you want to keep your time played to a minimum, and get max yield on tickets.  Hence the anagram solver.  In a little over an hour you can get the daily max tickets and get on with your day.  The free xbox was enough to prove it to me, but at the beginning the prize department couldn't keep track of their shit so I actually ended up with 2 xboxes shipped to me.  I wouldn't count on that happening to anyone ever again and the 360 will likely never be the top prize again, but some of the stuff could be sold.  The Kitchenaide mixer retails for about $200 on amazon, but closer to $300 in stores.

What do you think, waste of time or interesting way to get free stuff?


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