It drives me nuts when...

...some jackass is trying to look smart by using big words, but doesn't know what they mean, so he uses them incorrectly.

...when people place large, "professionally" designed signs outside of their business that say "Congradulations class of 2007". (If you don't know why this is annoying, I'm not going to tell you."

...some idiot has to slow down to a crawl and swing out in the other lane to make a right hand turn with his compact car!

Because I have some new toys...

My present to me...

I bought myself a brand new Paiste PST 5 16" thin crash cymbal, to replace the ancient and shitty Camber 16" crash that cracked a couple of weeks ago. (That I was still using anyway until a large chunk of it flew off and stuck in my bandanna while I was playing earlier today.) It sounds fantastic. I really want to get a 14" too, but I need to wait until I have the cash for another stand and the cymbal.

I also got a Tama add on cymbal clamp, so that I could attach my 12" Wuhan china cymbal to one of the good Pearl stands while still using the main mount on the stand for the new crash.

Hopefully my mom will be purchasing a nice used Paiste 10" splash that I can throw up on the other stand as well. (Saw one for $30 at the local Guitar Center)

Happy Birthday to me!

I'm 25 this year! OK, OK, I'm really 32. Blah.

On the upside, my wife got me a brand new digital camera! Now I can post pictures and annoy my readers twice as much!

And on that note, I wish to finally share a picture of the messed up way my cat sleeps in her bed.

Again with the Mr. Beer!

Yeah, so I just got done ordering a dozen 22oz bottles, 2 dozen 12 oz bottles, another Mr. Beer brewing keg, a UME mix for making some dark beer out of a pale ale mix I have here, and some raspberries for my wheat ale. I guess I like this home brewing thing just a little.

Thank you for the birthday money, Mr. and Mrs. Becht. It has purchased me quite a bit of beer.

Mr. Beer! Mr. Beer!

So, I bottled up my first batch of home-made beer today! It's an Oktoberfest Lager that I darkened a bit by using a good amount of brown sugar. Of course I taste-tested it while I was filling up the bottles, and it actually tastes pretty damn good, even without the carbonation or the final conditioning phase.

I threw it all in some 22oz glass bottles, capped them off, put them in a case (in case some of them explode), and stored them in my second basement so they can carbonate.

Now I'm already working on my second batch of beer. It's a Canadian Draft brew mix, but it's getting darkened up by the addition of blueberries! It also has a cup of honey. This beer actually smelled good while I was brewing it. (My first beer smelled like rotting socks...) I can't wait until this ferments and is ready to bottle, although this is going to take considerably longer than the last batch.

The New World

I just got a chance to watch this movie today.

I can't remember the last time I was this eager for a movie to be over. I actually fast forwarded through the second half of the movie, just to see if anything interesting started to happen. Nope. There is very little dialogue, very little action, and a shitload of very pretty, but very boring cinematography.

Avoid this movie like the plague, unless you want something to fall asleep to.