Tweets for 2008-09-04
September 4, 2008
- @icelander My game of “how little of the conventions can I watch” seems to be going quite well, thank you. #
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Like crack, only more addictive
September 3, 2008
I think that after the elections–or maybe before, depending on the next 60 days or so–I’m going to need a detox. The whole nomination of Sarah Palin is just too much for me to take. It’s one…scandal…after…another. It’s like crack. I just can’t get enough of this nonsense. And if this is how I feel, Mr. Cynical himself, imagine how the press must be feeling. They have been ravenous about this, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re eating her alive, they’ve certainly eating the story alive. It’s just too much!
Because I’m not clearly backing one candidate, this whole election is playing out completely for entertainment value for me. I know who I’ll probably be voting for (in absence of a dark horse candidate from a third party) and who I’ll most likely not be voting for, but that’s about it. My PoliSci degree has earned me the right to sit on the sidelines, point and laugh, and just generally have a good time while people yell and scream and foam at the mouth and try and convince me that physical proximity is the same as experience. That’s my personal favorite for this year so far. But the election ain’t over yet.
This past weekend was a lot of fun. Mostly. Friday night Hane and I went out and had drinks with some friends of ours at a place we’ve been curious to go to for awhile, and now that we’ve been, I don’t think we need to go back. Wearing sandals in that bathroom was a bit risky. Afterwards the two of us went to the Goodfoot Lounge, a place we went to a number of times last summer when they had a bitchin’ outside area (no more), and because we were a little smokey already we didn’t mind being inside with the smokers. It was totally worth it, anyways–their food is great, they always have good beer on tap, and they make their drinks pretty much the strongest around. A rum and Coke there is a splash of Coke with your rum.
Saturday was a bit more strenuous, and we took the MAX out to Beaverton with our bikes to help my sister move. Five hours and broken bodies later (neither of us could move or lift anything anymore), we headed back. Originally, we were going to try and ride all the way back, but we could barely make it back to the transit center, and instead of trying to ride MAX back and then riding bikes back to our apartment, e caught a bus that dropped us off six blocks from our apartment. Much better.
Despite the fact that it wasn’t raining, snowing, and sleeting, in that order and repeating the way it was on my last moving day, Heathr’s move was much more difficult. For starters, all her furniture is bulky and heavy, and she has so much stuff. Heather has more stuff than Hanne and me combined, and it was a hell of a move. Oh, and with my move we only went down stairs. Boy was that nice.
After we got home, we were both too tired to do anything, so we went to a good Mexican restaurant nearby and rewarded ourselves with chips and salsa and a couple of pitchers of margaritas. Expensive, but quite refreshing. And the food was good, too. Pretty much exactly what we wanted. This particular restaurant usually has a waiting list to get in on a Friday or Saturday night, and I’ve waited upwards of 30 minutes in the past to get a table, but when we arrived a little after 5 PM, we were quite literally the only ones there. I have never seen that place empty before. People started showing up about 20 minutes after we got there, but it was still freaky. Did the place get a bad review? Had there been a health scare? Kinda weird being the only people sitting in a place.
I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already, but that’s a short week for you. My Pints to Pasta 10k race is this weekend, but I’ve pretty much abandoned my “no beer during the week” plan in my final week. I think I actually gained weight after implementing my plan, either because I was compensating somehow or because I was overdoing my booze consumption on the weekends. Frankly, I’d rather drink a beer or two every night and not feel like I have to drink to “make up” for the week on the weekend. I stopped doing that in college. No, I don’t mind drinking a beer or two. Maybe I should just call my experiment a failure and move on.
Besides, going off booze during the week means that I would have missed a night like last night: a bottle of Belgian Trippel Ale consumed while making a fresh, yard-grown tomato sauce over pasta with garlic bread and a bottle of wine on the side. I don’t like missing opportunities like that, and I don’t mind admitting that I now have trouble cooking without a pint of beer sitting on a counter somewhere in the kitchen. Hmmm. Maybe I shouldn’t go to cooking school.
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Tweets for 2008-09-01
September 1, 2008
- Isn’t it a law that you can’t be sick on a day off? Dammit. #
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Tweets for 2008-08-31
August 31, 2008
- Drinking booze and watching Pulp Fiction. Dear God, I first watched that movie half my life ago?!? WTF? #
- Oog. Tired and boozed. Time for bed. #
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Tweets for 2008-08-30
August 30, 2008
- Dead tired after helping my sister move all day. #
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Tweets for 2008-08-29
August 29, 2008
- Finally got a new pair of iPhone headphones, plus I picked up an Airport Express for multi-room iTunes streaming. Shamelessly geeky, I am. #
- Whew, though for a moment my wireless Airport Express wouldn’t work with my wired PC. Turns out I’m just an idiot, so problem solved. #
- Yay, all the phone systems are down. #
- Just made the starter for the fresh hop Imperial IPA I’ll be brewing the weekend. Going to be a (hic) blast! #
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A big, big beer
August 29, 2008
While I was scheduled to leave work today at 2 PM to make up for staying until 6 PM earlier in the week (as opposed to taking the overitme pay), I found myself leaving closer to 1 PM since I’d skipped my lunch. When the phones all go down at 11 AM for around two hours, you tend to skip lunch. Psssh, lawyers on conference calls billing at $300/hour. How much money could the firm actually be out?
At least I got out of there early.
I got the email I was hoping for today from the gy who runs the wine shop saying he had hops for me. I went down to pick them up, and they smell great. I wish I knew the types, but I’ll make do. I’m going to make a big beer this weekend, probably close to about 8-9% alcohol if I’m lucky. That is, of course, if my cooler will hold that much grain and water all at once….
For now, though, I’m sitting outside with Hanne and enjoying the sunshine. We’re headed to have a few drinks with friends in a couple of hours, but until then I’m going to enjoy the weather.
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Tweets for 2008-08-28
August 28, 2008
- Miracle fruit + raw lemons = lemonade in your mouth! #
- The new Dandy Warhols CD, which I finally got around to picking up, kicks ass. Much better than their last one. #
- @kfinsand I was there on Tuesday night for Oakshire, but I’ve been on a self-imposed beer embargo during the week to train for a race! #
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The basics, with a surreal twist
August 28, 2008
I wasn’t feeling too well Monday of last week, so I stayed home from work and took it easy. In my case, this involved watching movies for most of the day, staring somewhat ironically with “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and continuing with “Good Night, and Good Luck” and then finally “Requiem for a Dream.” That last one is one twisted movie, and I think I’m going to leave it at that. If you’ve seen it, you know exactly what I mean, and if you haven’t, let’s just say you’ll probably never see a more accurate and shocking portrayal of addiction committed to film. It was pretty disturbing, and I don’t think I’ll be watching that movie again for awhile.
Aside from haunting surreal movies, things are going quite well overall. Hanne’s now back in classes, the beginning of the end so to speak. This is her last year of law school, and so she’s got a lot of work ahead of her, both in terms of the piles of schoolwork that she has to look forward to as well as the job search that she’s trying to convince me isn’t making her somewhat nervous. She’s submitting her CV into what amounts to the shark tank that is the legal community, not because they’ll devour her, but because they have a tendency to rip you to shreds. Her experience and grades will likely get her a number of interviews (and quite possibly a recommendation from a federal judge that would get her an interview even without potential employers even looking at her grades once they see that and her class position), but she’s probably not going to hear back from a lot of them. It sucks, but that’s how law firms seem to work.
Last weekend I had a craving to cook for Hanne. We’ve been cooking a lot more recently, trying to use up the produce we get from our biweekly Organics to You box, but without being able to drink a beer while I’m cooking it just doesn’t feel…right. I’ve associated beer and cooking for so long that I’m actually craving beer while I cook. I know that people say that when you start craving alcohol you might have a problem, but the thing is, I could easily drink beer while I cook and then not while I eat or after dinner. There’s just something soothing about beer with cooking. It might be that it soothes my nerves of timing the meal, or it might be that it helps my mind organize things, or it might just be that it makes something I tremendously enjoy even more enjoyable, but I missed it enough that I cooked a very expensive meal for Hanne. A 3 lb. pork loin cut specially for me by the New Seasons butcher, a delicious “wet” green bean dish, sauteed potatoes with balsalmic vinegar, and a nice stainless steel roasting pan purchased especially for cooking the meal…that I then went and scratched by cutting the meat in the pan. Sigh. OK, so maybe cooking while drinking beer does have its limitations. On the other hand, it’s stainless steel, so I can probably just buff it out. Probably hurt the knife more than the meat, after all.
I picked up soemthing recently that I’ve wanted to try ever since I first read about it. There’s a particular fruit called the “Miracle Fruit” that came to my attention via a New York Times article Hanne forwarded to me, and this little fruit that’s native to Africa has some interesting properties: it changes how food tastes. Specifically, it binds to your taste buds and makes sour foods sweet. It’s particularly good for people who like sweet foods but can’t eat them for health reasons (diabetics, especially), but a new movement called “flavor tripping” has started where people gather a bunch of different foods, eat the fruit, and then try as much as they can.
The fruits themselves only grow in warm, humid climates and they’re quite expensive to boot, but I picked up a couple of boxes of pills made from the fruit and corn starch. Hanne and I tried them last night, and though we didn’t have a wide array of things to try, we were able to suck on wedges of lemon and lime easily and they tasted like lemonade and 7up, respectively. I’ve never been able to suck on raw lemon or lime without wincing before. Tabasco sauce, while still spicy and peppery, tasted like a sweet BBQ sauce. I was even able to eat a spoonful of (balsalmic) vinegar. It was really, really trippy. We need to gather some additional things to try and give that another go.
I’m really looking forward to this weekend, mostly because it’s a three-day weekend and I’ll have three whole days to decompress. Of course, I’m not sure what compressed me in the first place, but let’s not get caught up on semantics. On Saturday my sister is moving and Hanne and I will probably head over to help her, but the rest of the weekend is wide, wide open and I’d like to keep it that way. Maybe I’ll even cook again! Less beer this time, though. I might brew this weekend, as the guy who runs my local wine shop said he had some fresh hops from his yard to give me. That would be fantastic, and I’d love to make a fresh hop beer. Dried hops give a very strong bitterness (depending on the variety, of course), but fresh hops provide a much sweeter aroma. If I can identify what hops they are I could enter my beer into Bridgeport Brewing’s Hop Harvest Homebrew Challenge, but if I don’t know what they are I’ll use them as a finishing hop, add in some processed hops, and make a fresh hop Imperial IPA. That would be phenominal.
Speaking of beer, I bottled the beer I brewed for Dan’s visit this week, and straight from the fermenter, it was quite good. He arrives in three weeks, so it should have just enough time to bottle condition and carbonate. I’m really looking forward to trying it.
Hmmm, I just escorted my coworker downstairs on his way to the emergency room. I think I’ll leave it there, as I’m not sure I have anything else that can top that.
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Tweets for 2008-08-26
August 26, 2008
- Bottling my Irish Red Ale. Smells like…victory. #
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Tweets for 2008-08-24
August 24, 2008
- Pork roast with apple chutney, potatoes sauteed with balsamic vinegar, and green beans with onion and cheery tomatoes. Oh yeah, and booze. #
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Tweets for 2008-08-23
August 23, 2008
- @boyasunder Heh, thanks Ryan. Feel free to address technical questions my way if you get no/slow IS response. #
- Off to see a baseball game at PGE Park. Go Beavs! #
- Just popped a pork roast into the oven. Going to be a badass meal. #
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Tweets for 2008-08-16
August 16, 2008
- Didn’t make it to @baileystaproom, but it’s sure nice here @pdxgreendragon. Mmm…Lucky Lab sour cherry. #
- I hate people who say they’ll meet you at <x> bar, but flake out and leave you to drink on your own. #
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