April 12, 2007
Brewing Competition Tonight
I was out at the store the other day, and saw the below flier. So the neighbor and I are taking a 12-pack of the Turner Field IPA and we’ll see how we can do.
The beer has already been praised by a few people. It’s a pretty simple IPA, with 10 lbs of Pale base malt, 1 lb Crystal 20, and 1 lb Vienna. That’s a pretty light base for an IPA, and the lightness of the color bears it out, along with a relatively low mash temperature, keeping it to a light body as well. Hops, which of course should be present in an IPA, was an ounce of Chinook for bittering, 2 oz Tomahawk for aroma, and 2 oz Tomahawk as dry-hop (the Tomahawk & Chinook hops, of course, lead to the name Turner Field IPA, because that’s where the Braves play).
For those of you who know a little bit about brewing, you can guess the flavor profile I was supposed to hit with this one. And it was exactly as advertised. Big hoppy aroma, and the first sip gives you that nice citrus punch. It’s got only a moderate bitterness behind it, though, and that’s backed up with a nice refreshing sweet malty profile to round it out. It’s not sweet enough to feel like it’s coating your tongue, but not so dry that the bitterness overwhelms the malt. It’s about a 6% beer, so the alcohol content is well-balanced.
Overall, it’s really just a nice, well-balanced IPA. It’s too bad that it’s technically my neighbor’s batch (even though I taught him to brew and designed the recipe), because that means he might get top billing on the trophy when we win 
Good Eats Beer Show
I came across the episode of Good Eats related to homebrewing on Google Video today… This was the show that got me thinking about brewing. Although there are a few things that AB does in his brewing process that no experienced brewer would do, it’s a rough approximation of brewing from extract. A few minutes in, where the homebrew store clerk is telling him that all-grain is a day-long process, that’s what I’m currently doing (although it’s more like 5-6 hours, not a full day).
I’m finally getting to the point where I’m consistently making decent beer. In fact, my neighbor’s batch (for which I formulated the recipe) is so good that we might enter it into a homebrew competition tonight, if he can get his wife and kids to let him leave the house
April 11, 2007
It’s All About Revenue
If you’ve ever been cruising through a small town and saw a cop, you immediately do one thing: check your speedometer. Everyone knows the cops tend to ticket people from out of town whenever they can get away with it, right? Of course, if you pay attention, you know that usually what “everyone knows” tends to be wildly untrue.
By examining 29,752 speeding citations issued in April and May 2001 in Massachusetts, they found that who and where you are matters as much as how fast you’re going. An out-of-town driver stopped by a police officer in any given area has a 51 percent chance of getting slapped with a fine, versus 30 percent for a local, and the average fine for an out-of-towner is $5 higher. Local police are 10 percent more likely to fine out-of-town drivers and 20 percent more likely to fine out-of-staters, while state troopers ticket out-of-state drivers at a rate 28 percent higher than in-staters. The poorer the town (in terms of property-tax receipts), the more likely its cops are to target drivers passing through; fines also increase the farther away drivers live, since distance makes them less likely to contest the ticket.
So there you go, now you have data to back up your wild theories.
Of course, the odd thing is that I drove my truck with no physical license plates on it for three years, and was never pulled over. You’d think that at some point a cop would have seen a truck sans-plates, and decide to investigate. I have to think they probably thought I was an illegal immigrant, and just didn’t want the paperwork of dealing with me…
Hat Tip: Cafe Hayek
My Kid Won’t Be An Academic
Or if he will, he won’t publish much:
Alphabetic name ordering on multi-authored academic papers, which is the convention in the economics discipline and various other disciplines, is to the advantage of people whose last name initials are placed early in the alphabet. As it turns out, Professor A, who has been a first author more often than Professor Z, will have published more articles and experienced a faster growth rate over the course of her career as a result of reputation and visibility. Moreover, authors know that name ordering matters and indeed take ordering seriously: Several characteristics of an author group composition determine the decision to deviate from the default alphabetic name order to a significant extent.
I’m guessing little Wyatt Warbiany won’t be at the head of any alphebetic lists…
He’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way, by being better than everyone else.
SWAT Teams Busting Up Poker Games
I know a couple of my readers have regular poker games they attend. Watch out next time, you might have black-clad, heavily-armed men busting down your door.
And people actually wonder why I am a libertarian…
April 10, 2007
Italians & Their Mothers
I saw this…
Mammas pick their sons’ brides on Italy reality TV
Often seen as mommy’s boys, Italian men are now letting their mothers choose their future wives live on television.
Italy’s state TV aired the first episode of a new reality show this week in which the mothers of five single men have to pick out prospective brides from a selection of candidates.
Must.Avoid.The.Joke…. Ah, screw it.
Why do Italian men grow moustaches? (answer below the fold)
Quote Of The Day
I recently came across NoFX, a band that doesn’t exactly take a kind view towards government. One quote from a song really sums up my thoughts on the average American’s idea of freedom:
The sad truth is
you’d rather follow the school into the net
’cause swimming alone at sea
is not the kind of freedom that you actually want—NoFX, Re-Gaining Unconsciousness
April 9, 2007
Some Quizzes…
I’m a radical (surprise, surprise):
|
You Are 68% Politically Radical |
 You’re political views are just plain weird. A little far left, a little far right, and a whole lot of radical. |
And for all of you who think I’m a right-wing radical, I was only 32% Republican:
|
You Are 32% Republican |
 You’re a bit Republican, and probably more conservative than you realize. If you’re still voting Democrat, maybe it’s time that you stop. |
But the fact that I’m 96% Capitalist should help clue you in to what questions I did and didn’t agree with on the Republican quiz:
|
You Are 96% Capitalist, 4% Socialist |
 You’re a capitalist pig – and proud of it. You believe that business makes the world great… And you’d never be ashamed of being rich! |
April 8, 2007
Smoke-Filled Rooms
As many of you know, I’m a former smoker. It’s now been nearly three and a half years since I’ve had a cigarette. After the weekend I’ve just had, though, I feel like I smoked a pack.
One of my fraternity brothers just moved to Huntsville, AL. So we decided to get together, people drove in from Charlotte, Indianapolis, and we chose to hang out at a friend’s house in Chattanooga for the weekend. Good times were had by all, beverages were consumed, bars were visited, etc.
But I had to get the hell out. The house, bars, and restaurants were full of cigarette smoke. With the weather, there wasn’t even a chance to be outside. So in the span of two days, I got to the point where my lungs and throat hurt.
I’m not a fan of smoking bans in any sense. But if the choice comes to do anything like that again, I won’t be going back to Chattanooga for it. I’ll be pushing hard to make sure it happens down here in Atlanta, where I control my house (and can make people smoke outside), and where the bars are largely smoke-free.
I have never wanted to be one of those self-righteous ex-smokers, the type who are so proud that they quit that they’ve got to make everyone else around them quit. And for the most part, I’m pretty tolerant of smoke. But enough is enough, there’s a point at which it gets in the way of enjoying myself. I’ll never argue to make it illegal, but eventually I have to choose to remove myself from that situation.
April 5, 2007
EEP!
Interview — Blogging vs. Pamphleteering
One of the regular readers over at The Liberty Papers is doing a college paper on the similarities between bloggers & pamphleteers. He was looking for an expert to interview, and when he couldn’t find one, he contacted me. With his permission, I’m posting his questions and my answers below the fold.
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April 4, 2007
Just a thought…
I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t understand my sense of humor.
Does that mean I’m not funny?
No Lambic! Cheezborger Saison!
Since the discussion of lambic in the comments to my grocery post, I decided it might be a good idea to break out something other than an IPA for once. So here’s what I’m drinking:
It’s a Hennepin Farmhouse Ale, in the Saison style. Most beers are fermented at very specific temperatures, to ensure that the flavor is tightly controlled. Lagers are at refrigerator temps, most ales are in the 60-68 deg F, with most Belgians up in the mid 70’s, where the yeast throw off some funky stuff. Saison’s are up in the 90’s, where the character of the yeast really starts to impart a quite unique character.
The Hennepin site (linked above) mentions some food pairings. I think I’m going to wait until after I finish this bottle before I start cooking my three-alarm tacos, because I don’t think those flavors will quite meld…
Springtime For Histamine
It’s springtime in the southeast. Always a fan of fresh air, and with the beautiful weather, I’ve been leaving my windows open, to make use of the nice temperate weather (and because I’m a cheap bastard and don’t want to pay a heating/cooling bill).
Well, about 10 days ago, I swept the floors. And then today, I had to sweep them again. Below is what I swept together in a 12′x13′ room.
Now, some of you wonder how I could let my house get so dusty. Okay, I’ve been living as a bachelor for the last 4 weeks, so I doubt you really bothered to wonder. But this isn’t dust. Dust isn’t yellow.
Yep, that’s a pile of pollen on my floor. Atlanta at this time of year is covered in yellow. So a bit of advice, if you’re plagued by allergies, don’t move here. Thankfully I have none [allergies], so I’ve been doing just fine.
Trivia question: Who (other than Sober John, I guarantee he picked up on it even before I thought to write it) can name the reference in the title?
Intelligent Design
If human beings were intelligently designed, why are our knees and backs so prone to failure?
I mean, the central nervous system is elegant and all, but I’ve known quite a few people that have picked up a heavy object in their mid-20’s, and are now consigned to a life of pain. Knees and backs were not intelligently designed, unless God’s a sadist. What’s the deal?
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Good luck, bruh. Although I find it strange that you would give out what appears to be the entire recipe for your competition brew.
Comment by Sober John — April 13, 2007 @ 11:58 am
Not really… Having a recipe gets you part of the way, but a great recipe can be poorly brewed and a bad recipe can end up tasting good. This one just all came together.
Plus, I’m not worried about releasing a recipe 2 hours before the competition, because it takes 5 hours of brewing and over a month of fermenting for it to be ready anyway.
Comment by Brad Warbiany — April 13, 2007 @ 2:25 pm