Hefe IV Forgot to post this earlier...

On the14th of this month I tried another Hefeweizen homebrew. I got some advice from the Head brewer up at the Travers Brewing Company (which may be under new managment very soon). With his advice and a little luck I was able to brew a super good Hefe. This is not just a daddy who is proud of his baby. This one really is good. I would take the F-ing Pepsi Challange with this stuff.

I gave it a name that is totally...lame.
Hefeweizen IV.

Have a good weekend.  ¶ 22:43 3 comments

  Emulation You may have seen the link on the side of my blog that points toward a website that will re-skin your Windows XP to look like OS X. It works pretty well and your computer will look a lot like a Mac, but it still really is not a Mac. If you are crazy, which I did say I am prone to in my first post, then this will satisfy for a while. But, as with all crazyness, eventually the monster will get hungry again.

Now, before I go totally Captain Cuckoo Bananas, I found out about PearPC. This is an emulation, see how it ties into the title of today's entry, program that emulates a PowerPC chip on your x86 chip (which pretty much all of you have). All you need after that are some OS X installation iso files and you are ready to make a tiny portion of your harddrive pretend to be a Mac.

I was able to aquire iso files to install OS X 10.3 Panther. While Panther does not have all of the latest wiz bang features of Tiger it is still a quite serviceable version of OS X. I was able to do a full install and then get all of the online updates to bring me up to 10.3.9. I can even map my windows harddrive onto my Mac and access all of my files.

Yes, it is quite slow, due to the emulation but it is a fine way to get familiar with how to get around in OS X before I really go Captain Cuckoo Bananas.

...and Kzoo Jason, I was able to find the terminal in under 10 minutes.  ¶ 22:17 1 comments

  Postseason Football I got my football wish yesterday. While there are many reasons that I do not like the Patriots - none of them being that they are so successful - and there really was no team going into the weekend that I particulary was rooting for, I still enjoyed watching the Patriots go down.

I was at my friend's house watching the Indy-Pittsburg game, and he is a big Pittsburg fan, I was secretly rooting for Indy. How can you not love Manning...those Mastercard ads are fantastic. Sadly he must figure out how to win the big games. Elway eventually did so there is hope.

I couldn't care less about the two NFC games. Will it be the Seahawks or the Panthers? The answer is that I do not care.

Appendix:
Reasons to hate the Patriots.

• Belichick - one time coach of my sad team, Cleveland Browns. During his tenure in Cleveland he was horrid, never talked to the press, and fueled Model's move to Baltimore. Plus everyone thinks he is a genius. Evidence he is not...tenure in Cleveland.
• Tom Brady - U of M (MU as I prefer) grad. That should be enough for anyone who reads this blog.
• Patriots win Super Bowl following 9/11. I am not a conspiricy theorist but it was a bit much for me. Especially with the whole Patriot-Raider snow bowl game that they should not have won.
• Patriots attitude that they will always win and that the breaks will go their way.

I could go on but it seems a bit petty making a list of why you do not like something.  ¶ 20:55 2 comments

  Reading I have recently found that I am re-dedicating myself to reading. I know, my previous post said that we are, mostly, Americans and so TV is the art du jour.

I find that in addition to my usual glut of internet news I am quite willing to come home from work and read from 5 to 8. Why stop at 8? Simple. That is when the TV starts. Still American...can't help it.

And it is not 3 hours of more internet. We are talking books, even if I am re-reading, magazines - the ones that I subscribe to but usually only read 10% of, and anything else I find.

Fear not though, I am sure this is simply a phase and I will soon be back to "normal".  ¶ 21:00 4 comments

  Speed Bumps This is something that I intended to blog quite a while ago but kept forgetting.

My city thought it necessary to install speed bumps, or as the signs say "SPEED HUMP", on what was my route to work. I would not really mind if speed bumps simply reduced the speed of the car to the posted limit, but most times it requires you to slow down to something like 5MPH. In effect they have added an additional stop sign at each speed bump. As we know cars efficiencies are highest when they have to start and stop often, so with gas prices at their current level it is so progressive of the city to make us use more gas.

Thanks Grand Rapids.  ¶ 20:26 3 comments

  Back to Work So this was the first week back for most of us and even if you only had a single week off that first week back can be a real killer. How can it be that a single set of five days off makes you so reluctant to do what is rather simple for most of the year. I suppose like most things in life after a while even the most painful things can be tolerated. Makes me hope that I really do not have to wait another 32 years (2 more than I have actually live total) to retire.

I was in the laundry room yesterday and lifted the keg of Saucy Winter Ale. That baby is nearly empty. Seems like it was quite a success...even if I think that I drank most of it. So now it is time for another batch...which should mean that the Bock Your Brains Out should be next. That would be perfect, except that 8 April is the annual Siciliano's Brew Party and this year there is an amauter homebrew competition and sadly a bock is not one of the catagories of competition. So I maybe I should make what I have named Hefeweizen IV and a beta release name. I do enjoy a true Bavarian wheat, but many others do not share my passion. But screw them...I come first in beer...or in this case bier.

This coming week makes for the return of first runs of most of the regular prime time TV. Make sure you catch "how i met your mother", "scrubs" (but you could also watch "house"), "lost", and "the o.c." although I will understand if you watch "my name is earl". You should probably actually do something other than watch TV but most of you are Americans.  ¶ 20:07 2 comments

  Buckeyes Win Tressel continues his impressive career at The Ohio State University winning the Fiesta Bowl for the 3rd time in 4 years.

(click picture for the fight song)  ¶ 22:31 0 comments

  New Year's Our group had our annual New Year's party again this year. We gathered in Kzoo to rid the world of beers (36 this year), rum, vodka, whisky, and other non-potent beverages that were mixed with them. The Saucy Winter Ale also traveld down to the Zoo and met a warm reception. Needless to say this gave way to a wonderful time. Glad to say that everyone remained no hurl even with all of the consumption.

So I bet you want some pictures.


  ¶ 22:09 4 comments