wacky1980

had the wife paint me a skullface because i didn't have time to do a proper costume this year. so this was me pretending to be a real dj last night:

took wife out for dinner tonight because we ended up having no kids for a couple hours. we each had a black & blue ny strip, topped with melted blue cheese crumbles. i had a french onion soup side, wife had a salad. and we shared crab cakes for an appetizer. i've never been the person who leaves a restaurant thinking "that was the best meal i ever ate" and today was definitely not an exception. but it was good enough that i don't have any complaints.

of course

never had o'so night rain, but i've seen it on people's lists. a really good, malty porter is kinda hard to find these days. i really like edmund fitzgerald from great lakes. another season of making small batches and zeroing in some recipes, and i'll be ready to start sending out samples. not sure how this cherry porter will turn out, but i'm hopeful. it's got a pretty big grain bill for the batch size, and should clock in over 7% abv if we nail the mash and it ferments out properly (it ought to, because i replaced the english ale yeast from the recipe with a belgian ale yeast that's supposed to be good up to like 10%). damn, i get excited from just talking about it.

our first several beers were ... not good. it's one of those things. anyone can play poker, but it takes a lot of practice to be good at playing poker. we've been doing this for 4 years now, and we've got the process down pretty well, but always improving our equipment and technique. we took a bit of a break from brewing over the last year while my wife and i built our new location from the ground up (literally). but now that we're into the off-season and i have my weekends and evenings back for the most part, i plan on really diving back in. eyeing approx $2500 in equipment upgrades this winter. i'd like to be able to brew 1/2 barrel batches by the spring. it's enough work to make one 5-gallon batch of beer, so if you can double or triple (or more) the batch size in a single session, you end up with a lot more product for pretty much the same amount of work. the idea is to scale up the home-brewing to the point where we can apply for a license and convert the new location into a commercial brewery/brewpub.

it's time to start brewing some beer once again. we're blowing out the cobwebs tonight with a brown ale extract kit. nothing too difficult, mostly just to remember how to ride that bike. then if the weekend plays out like we hope it will, i've got ingredients coming to make a chocolate cherry porter: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/choc-full-o-cherry-porter/ might even try to barrel-age it. it will depend on whether it's ready for xmas or not. if it's not ready to bottle at least 3 weeks before the holidays, it won't be done in time. so if that happens, there's no deadline on it, and it won't hurt to age it a couple more months in a barrel. after that, i want to try doing a black ipa. it's a tough style to pull off, but i built a recipe over the summer that might be decent. and i have like 5+ pounds of hops in the freezer that need to get used up soon.

I'm almost embarrassed to realize how much it meant to me that my parents actually showed up for something that's been a really big fucking deal in my life for the last 2 years. And I didn't realize it until they blew it off like, oh it's no big deal. This sucks.

just got home from winning the team music trivia competition. my team won again, now 4 years in a row. i left the wife to hang out with the team at the bar while i came home to relieve the sitter. all the boys are asleep except for the 11yo, who's up playing fortnite with his online friends. thinking of cracking open one more cocktail for the night before crashing out...

humihingi ako ng paumanhin, hindi ako nagsasalita ng espanyol. anong kulay ang keso?

only vaguely related, but i saw a dude dressed like a shocker one halloween. the pinkie was even brown on the tip.

Making poop on the company dime.

the roof is on fire isn't all euphamisms for fuckin'. there's like a half a verse dedicated to it. the rest is just oxymorons and pop culture references.

hbd gramps!

hold my caulk while i take a drink of this beer.

i own a switch not sure i've heard of any games for it called ni no kuni. sounds kinky tho.

lol, cafeteria menu. Roast pork loin with pineapple glaze = pork fritter with salad dressing mashed potatoes in brown gravy = box taters and powdered gravy + pork fritter drippings

generic mac n cheese with cubed up spam mixed in. is it sad? yes. is it delicious? absolutely.

no one cooks this for one person, unless it's a tv dinner or you ordered out.

it's fun. you should try it on sometime.

ehhhh...neither? if i had to pick one, it would be between atwa and prison song. probably atwa. but i'm still picking neither.

this implies mexican superman exists. "mira mira! es un parajo! es un avion! es excelente hombre!" got a nice ring to it.

i saw boat loads of local / bar bands growing up. my parents were always volunteers at local events. we're talking semi trailer stages, beer gardens, $300 performance charges. kids with bedroom amps and practice drum kits. stage lights made from paint cans. it was actually pretty awesome.

we're only talking national tours? not like, "so-and-so, the city's most popular cover band" right? first concert would have been bush back when they did their 16 stone tour (mid 90's?), but i gave my ticket to a friend because i was not excited about going to that show. never did regret that pass. took my girlfriend to see collective soul a couple years later, maybe '98 or '99. it was a decent enough show, but i wasn't really into that band either.

bears have more points in the first half tonight than the entire first two games of the season. and haven't also given up that many more tonight. this skins team sure does suck!

too much time on my feet this weekend. got a little blister on the side of a toe. and whenever i take a step, the neighbor toe keeps rubbing on it. and it's god damn annoying. so of course, i've been trying to favor that side of the foot by walking all weird. now i'm getting muscle cramps from walking funny on that foot. guess it's time to whip out the moleskin and take this thing seriously.