fun.
tomorrow i get to see animal collective play at merriweather post pavilion. now, if you are not from the mid-atlantic area you may be saying, "what? merriweather post pavilion is the name of their landmark 2009 album!" and of course you would be correct. it is also the name of the large amphitheater just outside of baltimore that the band named the album after.
it's probably been 7ish years since i last saw the ac at a tiny b'more club called the ottobar (the 2nd version - i was never able to make it to the original ottobar club) so this will be a huge step up in venues - for better and worse as ottobar was one of my favorite clubs to attend. i am particularly eager to see what kind of visual/light extravaganza will be in tow, especially after seeing footage from their coachella gig a couple months back.
oh yeah, we have pit tickets.
mind candy.
flux.
i think i've figured out arsenals plan this summer: fabregas is leaving. now some may say duh but they usually then try to find outside replacements for him under 35mil. the problem is you can't.
all of the rumors so far regarding arsenals transfer activity so far deal with wingers, not attacking midfielders. we're looking at 2-3 wingers. really? assuming fabregas leaves what does our current lineup look like? walcott can play rw/rs and even lw in a pinch. vela appears to be given another chance up front and at lw. arshavin can play either wing plus am and in the whole, same with nasri. nasri has plainly said he prefers, and excels, when in the center am role.
let's assume nasri is cescs replacement.
we know we can't count on walcott to be healthy year round, neither rvp. that leaves as thin up top and at wings. gervinho is a rw/rs. alvarez is a *w/am who can play anywhere in an attacking formation. add in the likes of chamakh and we suddenly seem to have quality depth in every forward position. song still needs backup/competition but i think wilshire, ramsey and diaby fill up the rest of holes plus the likes of landsbury, frimpong, etc and there is your carling cup squad.
that just leaves defense and i ain't touching that one with a 50' pole...
Labels: arsenal
perfunctory.
have you ever been late? no, not that late. oh, you mean pregnant? lol. no, no, no... have you ever delayed doing/going/performing/*ing something because you just couldn't be arsed earlier? and then when you do finally get around to *ing it you curse and gnash teeth and pull hair and moan and...
yeah, didn't think so.
with me it's often music. is it stupid, cliche shtick? is it popular? is it a difference of palate? likes and dislikes do change over time. why didn't you/me/i/we like this widget earlier? why now? this has happened over expanses of time from mere hours to years. that's a big swing but it goes both ways.
sometimes i'm one of the few way ahead of the curve...
ahead... behind... on time?
does it all average out in the end?
are we all just, average?
Labels: median
brew-your-own.
i hate sticking to standard recipes. why do something that every tom/dick/harry has done as well when you can make a few simple modifications and get something completely different? my spiced brown ale from a few months back was me going through several brown ale recipes, picking out some of the things that tend to stand out over them all then adding a few tweaks and extra ingredients to the party.
this last time i brewed up a double ipa based on the surly furious. i even bought the recipe kit - i swore i woudn't buy a recipe kit after that first disastrous failure back in sept 2010 - though this time i had a bit more faith in the ingredients as it was a new addition to their catalog and the brewery itself devised it. of course, being me, i had to tweak some things. recipe called for 2.5gal boil and i changed it to 3.5gal; this increased the hop utilization giving me a bit higher ibu. i also decided to add 1lb of local honey at about 10minutes from end of boil to up the abv a tad, dry it out a bit and hopefully give it a touch more sweetness to balance out the higher ibus. of course, all of my rationals behind my tweaks were strictly theoretical and pulled out of my ass, though i did perform some perfunctory reading to lead me to those ideas... none of it was from experience, yet it gained me exactly what i had lacked; experience.
brew day went well enough, even if a touch time compressed due to a event we had to leave for, and i left wort cooling on my counter for 6-7+ hours till we arrived back home that night to transfer to primary. i have to admit i had that slight nagging feeling i was setting myself up for diacetyl issues by not cooling it quickly but only time would tell in the long run. a couple of weeks later and i'm getting a little antsy about racking to secondary to dry-hop. gravity seemed to have stalled for over a week at 1.030 which is kind of high... had my hydrometer broken? after a few more days (3 weeks in primary) the gravity had fallen 1.020 and i knew it was readyish to transfer as calculations said it would finish at about 1.017. moved it to my glass carboy and added the almost 9ounces of hops. god damn the smell of hops is insatiable! could i wait the 7-10 days needed till bottling?
racking to the bottling bucket i quickly learned a few things: 1)do not dry-hop again by simply throwing quantities of pellets willynilly in the fermenter, 2)use a fine strainer bag instead of a mesh bag for filtration, 3)hops suck up and absorb a ridiculous amount of liquid and 4)the siphon and bottling wand will get clogged with hop debris. i ended up with maybe 3.5gals of beer with more than a few bottles with more than wanted floating debris: 27 12oz bottles and 2x 32oz growlers.
i am confident my next attempt at dry-hopping will result in a much larger final yield... thanks experience!
i have now tried it twice and will be taking a growler to the homebrew meeting tomorrow. the spiced brown went over well with 1 of the club leaders even trying to convince me to enter it into a competition in a few months (i cant due to submission requirements at the competition).
hopefully i can save at least a 12 for the phish shows early june...
Labels: homebrewing
.
unless you are completely unplugged you heard about the new radiohead release, the king of limbs. i saw the notice, added it to my what cue for the ratio boost, watched the lotus flower video and fb/tweeted about thoms wiggle/dance before i left for work.
who didn't?
did you listen to it during the day or did you wait/try for a proper listening environment after work? try a must, tempting links/streams were everywhere. i was the recipient of timing this weekend - an empty house - and wanted to take full advantage. i even completely avoided all talk of it and saved it all for tonight. get home, change clothes, walk/feed shadow, crack open a nice bottle and settle down in my favorite listening chair. ahhhh....
i've had a few listens and my general thoughts from the first time through appear validated so far. little by little is the only track that will not be going into my "must play" playlist, but i still like that track. ed had said this was going to be departure and you wonder how much less guitar con they do but this harkens back to elements of the kid a/amnesiac era recordings and then goes beyond. it evolvs to a point during the give up the ghost/separator ending that just completely bubbles over and explooges in your lap.
a friend of mine described it:
One thing that strikes me as very unique about how Radiohead mixes their recent albums is how heavy/thick they sound. Basically saying "we don't care if your speakers can't handle all that low end and low mid-range. ours can.". They mix it how they think it should sound and doing a fantastic job at doing so.
generally the producer/mastering goes the route of lcd (lowest common denominator) as you want it to sound acceptable on as many types of devices as possible. i'm glad i waited and didn't listen to this at work as tracks such as feral and give up the ghost would have been rattling around cheap plastic! anyone remember some of those cure cd/album covers in late 80s/90s "this is mixed to be played loud" things?
that. crank it.
i wish my first listen had been over headphones...
Labels: radiohead
ber.
last sunday i brewed a batch of spiced brown ale. it will either become the liquid form of a gingersnap crossed with a snickerdoodle or it will be absolute garbage. who knows which... yet. i need to take another hydrometer reading to see if my fermentation is complete, though honestly, i don't think it is as it is still bubbling slightly.
maintaining a constant fermentation temperature is harder than you may think.
Labels: homebrewing
immagonna...
stop me if you've heard this before.
for each of the last 2 years i have successfully held onto and met my new years resolutions: 2009-quit smoking, 2010-loose weight. i have no idea what, if any, resolutions were made previously. it seems as if my weight loss plan has hit a snag, or more truthfully, plateaued. i have long known that actual exercise/movement is a key and it appears as if my body has realized this as well.
i'm not talking about hitting a gym as i'm too lazy and a tightwad for that nonsense. i have a feeling that something as simple as walking the dog more often and actually breaking out the set of disc-golf discs i've owned but not used for a couple years will help.
Labels: resolutions