Missing Pages

A couple months back my buddy Como mentioned an add-on for Firefox called 'Foxmarks'. Basically, it keeps a copy of your bookmarks online so you can keep them the same on multiple computers and have a backup should you do something stupid and lose them all.

Fast forward to me doing something stupid and losing them all; I installed the newest beta of Firefox over the old one, found that it wasn't compatible with some things I already use, and removed it. But when I uninstalled, it took all the preferences, including my bookmarks from the old version with it.

I've remembered about half of the bookmarks and managed to find them again, I guess the other half weren't important enough to remember anyways.

Now I'm using Foxmarks.

Also, thanks to Christielli I found out that this weekend coming is apparently the May long weekend already. The May 2-4 being a full week before May 24th is about as logical as the placement of religious holidays. No idea what I'm gonna do. Well, some idea.

Enough

10-15 cm of wet, heavy snow last night, another 10-15 forecast tonight, this shit can stop any time. I'll take a -15 degree weather with not a cloud in the sky to this any day. Of course, the positive side of zero for an extended period of time would gain an even better reception. And if the city could stop plowing 4 foot deep snowbanks up onto the sidewalk that would be great. Between the way the Chinese elm on the corner has to be trimmed back for hydro, leaving half a tree leaning towards the house for the day it falls, and the snowbanks plowed up on the sidewalk every winter, it would be fantastic if the city just claimed their three feet of property space and re-routed the sidewalk.

Anyways, enough of the bitterness. With some help from Steve, I've got another batch of homebrew on the go; this time the Coopers Home Brew Lager. The 'Real Ale' overall didn't disappoint, but I am not one of those people who can settle on one beer to call their own until their death. Or even until liver problems cause me to ease up. As I had hoped from the start, the $22 and time spent to make roughly 3 cases of homebrew turned out to be a great option in the face of spending $30 a case from the store. It was good enough even that Steve decided to go in for a quarter of the latest batch. Three quarters of three cases in three weeks time for me should be more than enough anyways.

Nachos and Chili

Chili is followed closely by pizza as the most popular superbowl serving. Ironic given the prime sport interest of most in Mexico and Italy, a game actually played predominantly with...feet!

No comment there on the watered down, over smoothed, flavourless, North American beer that will be consumed in even greater volumes than chili. My homebrew doesn't fit the flavourless, over smoothed, or North American characters, but high volume consumption is a given.

Pats, 35; Giants, 31; me....who can predict?

Update: 9/11 still has its carry-over in the sports world as well. God bless America in the middle of baseball games still, and every year since, a depiction of the Declaration as part of the Superbowl leadup. One has to wonder how many of the viewers out there actually pay attention to, or think about the words contained within, particularly in the beer and food atmosphere described above. Showing it under that setting likely has more tendency to incite blind patriotism, rather than critical thought and well considered patriotism.

Anyways, the Patriots of New England are about to take the field, enough rambling.

Elect Me Vice President in Charge of Volcanoes

I just finished reading Cat's Cradle, the first Vonnegut book I've ever read, and loved the cynical quasi-sci-fi feel, and will be on the lookout for more at the used bookstores as soon as I finish reading the rest of the stack of books I've accumulated. Today's post title is brought to you by chapter 9.

I've been playing a lot of online poker lately, finally giving in to the temptation to play for real money (and so to play 'real' poker). It lacks the interaction of sitting around with buddies to play a game, but then it makes you care less about the money you're taking in if you win, after all the ideal buddy game sees everyone at even money in the long run anyways. By that definition though, even the poker I've played with friends haven't really been 'buddy games'. What I mean though is that there isn't the same ability to read people, or feign strength or weakness. And trash talk in a chat window inevitably comes off as some blend of obvious, lame or immature. Again, I suppose to so much different from home games, just with less feeling.

Anyways, after having any and all plans for my weekend dissolve, I spent most of the day yesterday playing poker while Carolyn worked and actually made money in the more traditional sense. When you play electronically, you end up getting a sense of unjustness in the way the cards are dealt cause there's no physical deck there to reinforce the real logic. But yesterday was a day where I felt I was getting the short end of the deck. Despite playing for real money, I'm still playing in the lowest stakes games on the site, and getting realistic play is still a bit of a challenge. Suffice it to say, its very hard to 'bluff' people out when you don't have cards (as was most often the case) and when you do have the best cards, its almost inevitable that they will be in with a crap hand that ends up getting the cards they need to make theirs better.

All that said, I am at a pace now of winning just enough to keep playing a few games at a time, kind of like winning a free ticket in the lottery. Its annoying, and I think its time to move to slightly higher stakes so at least I make better players beat me for my money, rather than beat me with luck.

/end poker

I've also been looking at a site tracking some local blogs, which I have from time to time looked for over the years. Infact, I've thought for a while of maybe trying to create something along the 'ist' line of local blogs for the Waterloo area (see Gothamist,LAist, or Torontoist). But between living in the shadow of London and Toronto which actually have venues capable of/willing to host decent music acts and the like, its been more of a whim than anything. However, seeing some of the quality of blogging out there (clearly far superior than anything you'll find here), if someone could get them all on board, there could be the makings for a decent collective blog. Anyways, probably another whimsical idea (my homebrew is going down rather smoothly at the moment), but look for some updated links to some local bloggers in the near future.

Better Than Buck-A-Beer

For years I've had hundreds of dollars worth of homebrew equipment sitting in the basement collecting dust. At a time, my parents were all over homebrewed beer, wine, and brandy, using equipment mostly acquired for free from an old family friend.

By the time I was almost 19, the equipment hadn't been touched in 7 or 8 years, and I decided to try to resurrect it with an old malt kit at least as old. I knew enough at the time that I would need fresh brewers yeast to actually ferment the beer, but aside from that neglected the past due date.

I managed to stomach half a beer from that batch before pouring the rest of it down the drain. Another 5 years later, I decided to give it a go again, and this time I'm somewhat more pleased. I bottled the 23L batch today, and even right out of the fermenter it tastes alright. A couple weeks of bottle fermentation and it should be a great source of cheap thrills. The only problem being that I managed to screw some part of the process up, and the estimate for final alcohol content by volume is around 3.2%.

Still, at a third of the price of the cheapest piss-water from the beer store, I'll take it and try to get more out of it on the next run.

Oktoberfest Sucks

Have I mentioned lately how much I love the admin around the university? Really I do. I love how none of their multiple online systems seem to interact with one another. I love how the different departments of the admin themselves don't interact. I love them not putting my paycheque through on the scheduled pay date, with a MasterCard bill sitting and collecting interest. I love the vagueness of the responses when I ask for some clarification in trying to track down just what happened to my money. And I especially love being told that my pay request would be in on a specific date, that being today, and still not finding it there.

Other people get charged twice for their tuition because no-one cross checks things.

And still others are forced to write petitions to stay in school only to be informed, after being told that the petition was denied, that a completely different term from the one that the petition was written for was actually considered. Was there any kind of outline of the whole petition process to be found anywhere on line, or were people more forthcoming on the phone, this kind of thing could be avoided. But instead, the administration around the university just continues to build great report with those that ever have dealings with them.

And then there are the people swarming to the city for North America's biggest beer festival. Driving like idiots. Staggering around like idiots. Closing streets. Its an overrated sham, like every other year. I don't understand why people need an excuse to drink beer in the first place; but then they wait until the price on it is jacked up, and the stuff being served is old stock being cleared off in mass quantities. Don't get me started on sitting through the awful music, along with accordion accompanied covers of otherwise tolerable songs.

Am I bitter? Just a little bit. But at least not watered down like all those $6 cups of beer that in no way actually taste like a good German brew.

Who's Idea Was This Whole Work Thing Anyways

I'm feeling kind of dead after putting in a ton of hours already this week, but I'm sure I'll find some energy somewhere for tomorrow's Logan Day festivities. Its funny/sad that I was complaining about my thesis in the post from this time last year, and its still not done.

Anyways, the bar night is gonna be held in the former stripper room at the Huether again, and promises to be a good time. Dodging thesis supervisors at the day's activities might not be as much fun, but I did finally legitimately start looking at my project again, so I have that.

I could write a much better thesis on how much the Edge replays garbage music in a given work day after spending the past 3 listening to it while doing field work. But we all already know this. I swear if I hear that goddamned Silversun Pickups song one more time I am going to go postal. Most. Annoying. Vocals. Ever....and the rhythm isn't much better.

Although it did remind me to go check out the Barry Bonds homerun ball vote that was also discussed frequently on the radio in the past few days. Awesome on Marc Ecko for having the money, stupidity, and yet brilliance to pull this off; though I'm sure its not hurting the marketing department either.

Go Vote. That is all.

I Say Taco, You Say Tuesday; Taco

You know you've let yourself become grossly out of shape when you pull a muscle in your shoulder reaching across your room to hit the snooze button on your alarm clock. Those 8 extra minutes before shoving off to work this morning seemed glorious at the time, but the pull that I felt all day long while moving desks, monitors and CPUs wasn't quite as much to be celebrated.

It was nice to be actually hard at it though after a pretty dry first day back in the working world. Being around the University again has been good to, and has gotten up a little bit of motivation to get my thesis officially done and move on to the grad school application process.

Taco Tuesday today at the Bomber though was more of a disappointment. What used to be something like $3 for a well stuffed taco has become a shell with lettuce that leaves you searching for anything more than a biteful of meat (or beans for those hopping on and off the vegetarian train) for $4.75; the extra cost presumably to help cover last year's Boston Pizza style makeover of the bar. The first thing a student going to a student bar wants after all is a nice wood finish, not cheap food and drink on their student budget. Never mind the loss of the couches and projector on which student requests for movies could be made throughout the afternoon.

Being that I'm working again, I am in no position to complain too much, but I'll be looking for something more fulfilling, and more quickly served with the same $4.75 for the rest of the term; likely some cold barley sandwiches at Kickoffs.

Beer, the Cause of, and Solution to All Life's Problems

It would seem that some time between going out for some beer on Thursday night and now I lost my camera. While I remember having it on the patio, and taking pictures while up there, the point after that is somewhat of a blur. What confuses me is that I had less than a pitcher of beer, which is generally nowhere near enough to make me leave my camera on the patio table. Yet I still have barely any recollection of the night.

After this morning checking all the usual key and wallet drop locations around the house, where my camera also ends up getting emptied from my pocket, I have no other explanation though besides that I left it at the bar, or it fell out in the backseat of my buddy's car who is now gone to be A Ho at Boise State University for a few weeks.

While I'd love to take it all as a sign that I finally need to get myself the digital SLR I want, I simply don't have the money for those kinds of things at the moment. And so its off to do another sweep of the house.

Dusty Springcleaning

When I undertook the notion of renovating my room, I neglected the lack of space elsewhere in the house for my crap. Two days later I think I've cleared out all that is going to find a temporary home elsewhere, without moving bulky furniture up or down stairs.

In cleaning up the attic so that I can clear the wool insulation (with a high proportion of high R factor mouse droppings) away from my ceiling to rip it down, I am across a bunch of old crap my parents had stored away and time forgot. My dad was a notorious packrat, and so amongst the crap he left behind I found a yellowed copy of a newspaper from the first day of the 1990 Gulf War, and a box of 24 empty Coca Cola World Series commemorative cans with the scores from the games in the Jays 1992 title over the Braves.

Amongst the other random boxes, I found a box of my mom's old dolls, all of them staring up to greet me as I removed the lid, and a number of old beer coasters from brews that likely are no longer available to add to my bottle collection.

But a trip to the LCBO to feed the thirst of inhaling two days of dust and spiderwebs provided me with four new flavours to explore during poker tonight. Two germans, a french, and finally a true aussie. Maybe a review with their names pending.

St. Patty's Gong Show

Actually, contrary to most expectations, St. Patty's this year wasn't much of a show at all. There was no hitting the Bomber beer tent before noon to have my recommended yearly intake of green food colouring. There was no group sabotage of otherwise drinkable beer with salt and pepper shakers. There wasn't even a noon 'til midnight binge, barely removing myself from the same chair at the BarleyWorks this year. Instead, some 'retro' EA Sports game on PS2, some Belgian and German wheat beers (since I dropped the ball on getting myself a substantial quantity of, or in fact, any Harp or Smithwick's), and some movies.

Not very Irish of me, I'm aware, but I have my health to show for it today. Will I use the lack of feeling like I got punched in the liver to get to work on the final presentation for my thesis I am expected to make on Thursday? Probably not. Will I watch more of round 2 of college hoops, and pretend like I knew what was going on beyond the top 4 or 5 teams in the country before this tournament started? More than likely. Will I listen to the Jays game, and think about ways in which Gustavo 'DUI' Chacin's career could now parallel Boomer Wells'? You bet.

There's still one week til the Fantasy Baseball Draft, get signed up!

Update: I was listening to the Ongoing History of New Music archives earlier this week, in particular to a two part show on Tool, when Alan Cross played a sample of a lullaby version of one of their songs. Curious, I looked it up and found that, not only are there some hilarious renditions of Tool, but a bunch of other bands from Bjork to Metallica and a bunch in between. Check out some of the samples here.

Playing Nostradamus

Colts 27 - Bears 13. You heard it here first.

Also, in the year 2104, a global peril will lead to much agonizing in government. The fortune teller/miraculous prophet game isn't all that hard to play.

With that said its time to settle in for an afternoon of sports. First to watch the born again Raptors take on the Clippers, and then later to watch the one sporting event that men and women everywhere are forced to come together for every year in the name of celebration: competitive ice dancing.

Really, the Superbowl should be a competitive game this year, particularly given the windy and rainy forecast which will likely pull the teams closer together than what I feel their actual talent should predict. As long as the zebras don't go and blow it like last year, it should be a good game. Though I don't particularly care who wins, I think Peyton Manning deserves a ring, especially after finally showing he has what it takes to put the team on his back when it really counts, as he did to the Patriots 2 weeks ago.

The smell of chili is already drifting through the house, and the beer is stocked. No matter the outcome (which is never really the concern of millions of Superbowl parties anyways) it will be a glorious Sunday.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

I finally got around to moving my ever growing beer bottle collection out of my room to make way for the also consistently expanding collection of textbooks. For the most part my work with those beer bottles is done, while with my textbooks it seems like an impossibly long time until they can be shoved off to the side somewhere.

The bottles aren't lined up around the top of the wall yet like I want. Nor do they set the mood around a small basement bar with a permanent keg fridge and tap like I also want. But the best things in life aren't free, so such grand schemes will have to wait. For now they'll have to stay crammed together with other beers of the same national origin, begging me to add new friends to their group.

The society thus far are strongly Belgian, with large minorities of Germans and Poles peacefully coexisting. That's not to say that some of them haven't combined to create their own little Auschwitz's in my stomach before. I need to add to the Dutch and Czech minorities, with some attention to the dry Asians out East. The problem is that the turnover on new selection at the liquor stores in town is less than spectacular, even when visiting multiple stores.

The easy, and infact ideal solution would seem to be to travel the world and get some of these things straight from the tap, but I don't see a windfall of money blowing in from the horizon. If it wasn't all regulated by the provincial government, it might be easy to go to a private liquor store with a request. Hell, if alcohol sales were privatized here, I'd consider opening my own store for import beers. The grocery stores are allowed to sell wine in their booths after the checkouts, why the hell shouldn't I be able to sell good beers?

In the mean time I'll have to sit down relax and wait on some new stock. Until then I'll take one down and pass it around...to myself...98 bottles of beer on the wall.

Fun Fact Friday...Part One?

Charles Darwin was formally educated in Theology, and married his first cousin. He also apparently invented irony.

Darwin didn't study African or European swallows; he studied finches, at least so far as the H.M.S. Beagle was concerned. His wife was English as well and, being his first cousin, was clearly open-minded. Thus, the European swallow may have been an inevitable 'hobby study'.

Schneider Weisse is still a delicious winter beer.

It is the weekend.

I am out of Schneider Weisse.