Bob\'s Eclectic Boogaloo

Quick Note

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 02:24:24 +0000

Just a quick note (as the subject would suggest)...

I'm busy as hell - photography, music, web design, set-building... oh yeah, and work, but I just wanted to mention that I've updated the tasty treats page again. Nothing spectacular, but it at least merits a two-line review of the latest entry:

Otter Creek Brewery Stovepipe Porter - This beer is aptly named. It tastes just like you licked the inside of a stovepipe. Not that I'm complaining - I actually liked it. It just bears a distinct similarity.

GT lost horribly to Louisville this evening. I was angry at first, when CBS switched coverage to MSSt/Duke, but now I'm kind of glad. It must have been truly horrible to watch.

Bye.

Fun with numbers

Sat, 12 Mar 2005 14:33:30 +0000

My friendly neighborhood coffee shop (which at this point it would be appropriate to say is a block away and I don't drive to) happens to also sell beer and wine. My new beverage of choice there is a Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout - recently added to this page.

I had noticed that I could only really drink about 2 of these before getting that warm fuzzy feeling, but usually attributed it to not having enough to eat prior to imbibing. Last night I was adventurous and went for a third. The resulting physical manifestations of my beverage choice made me come home and just wander over to the Brooklyn Brewery website. It turns out that this otherwise innocuous blend of hops and malted barley contains 8.7% alcohol (ABV). Sorry you won't be able to get it, Matt. Maybe I should break some laws and mail some to you.

Now, you may be saying "Hey, the wine/rum/vodka/4-horesmen-of-the-apocalypse I drink has more alcohol than that!" While that may be true, most people who aren't out to commit serious physical harm to themselves simply wouldn't consume the fluid volume that someone drinking beer would. Allow me to paint a picture for your reference.

Budweiser - 5.0% ABV. Your typical hard lemonade/Bacardi Silver/etc. - 5.0% ABV. Guinness Draught - 4.2% ABV. Guinness (the usual beverage of choice) has LESS THAN HALF of the alcohol of the BCS. Wow. Next time, I'll just have to imagine that the beer I'm drinking is one Guinness and that I shotgun another before I get then next bottle.

Of course, if one were driving, this would be considerably more of a concern. We would have to take into account that not only does Guinness have half of the alcohol, but that it takes twice as long to finish 6 as it does to finish 3, thus emphasizing the effects.

Okay, so this post is what happens when there's nothing on TV on a Saturday morning (which is a crying shame - whatever happened to Dirk the Daring, Turbo Teen, Kidd Video? - BRING BACK SATURDAY SUPERCADE!).

Trivial Pursuits

Wed, 9 Mar 2005 04:08:20 +0000

Okay, so I guess I'll post on here again. I'm not really making any progress on the personal site, so I might as well use this really easy tool, even though everything has changed from the last time I've logged in.

Updates: I've decided that unless I can do those things I really enjoy, then I won't be enjoying life. Hence, the following actions have been undertaken in the past few weeks:

1) I've been taking more pictures and putting them, both new and old, on my website.

2) I broke the bass bone out of its case after a 2-year hiatus, started practicing, and joined a band. You're now reading the web log of a founding member of the Resurrection Horns - affiliated with a band known as Soul Reflection much as the JB's were affiliated with James Brown - i.e., we're part of the band with the ego to call ourselves by our own special name.

3) I did team trivia again for the first time in years. More on this below...

4) I've been on dates. Not great dates, or even good dates, but dates, nonetheless. I intend to increase both quality quantity of production in this area. Stay tuned.

Alright, trivia:

Okay, so I hadn't done any kind of team trivia since the last time Matt and I did trivia at the poorly-managed-Cajun-themed-doomed-to-fail Beer Garten II. I'm guessing that was something like 2-3 years ago. A few weeks ago, I was accosted by a co-worker to come to team trivia and use my powers over the realm of useless knowledge for good or for awesome. Apparently there is only 1 place in Providence for trivia: Ri-Ra. This is a chain Irish pub similar to Fado, but more expensive (Guinness is $4.50 per Imperial) and not as sweet.

It was unfortunate that the gap in quality between Fado and Ri-Ra is similar to the gap in quality between Atlanta trivia and Providence trivia: this version is enjoyable, but still pales in comparison to the real thing. There were 6 rounds of 10 questions/round, and the game was over in an hour. No music between questions, no increasing point values, and no "please please; take someone else's car."

Oh, we won. This trivia is easier than I'm used to, but some of the questions were broken, so it evens out. The DJ is still always right here - unfortunately.

Prize for winning - not bar cash - not a free pitcher - not a free round - not a gift certificate to some crappy fast food place. We won 4 pint glasses each. Sam Adams glasses - with footballs formed in the bottoms. I'm guessing that they're leftovers from the 2001 NFL season that they dug out of the basement. Yippee. Oh well, at least the waitress was Irish and had the requisite accent. She was over 40, but could have been over 90 and I'd have brought her home.

Complaints notwithstanding, it was fun. Then we walked outside. It turns out that I live on Hoth. The wind was blowing hard - ice and snow was carving canals in my skin and drilling craters into my eyeballs, and everything was white-out conditions. What a glorious 15-mile drive home.

Alright, I guess that's enough for now. Maybe more later...

So I haven\'t posted since when?

Tue, 4 Jan 2005 02:16:06 +0000

Dec. 20, apparently. Well, I can explain. I\'m actually looking at a major overhaul at my polter.net site, to include web-logging possibility. In fact, it\'s all functional over there, and I\'ve ported all of my previous posts. Take a look. Anyway, that\'s all fine and good, except I don\'t like the look of my site, so I\'m revamping that as well before really taking to posting a lot. I have a new look ready to go, but there are some issues with Internet Explorer. Really, when AREN\'T there issues with Internet Explorer (damn you, Bill Gates!)? I guess I can\'t blame them: I can\'t believe anybody in the web browser market finds time to make their software standards-compliant.

Anyway, there\'s really not much going on anyway. I spent a not-so-quiet New Year\'s Eve at home. I was alone, but the restaurant downstairs had an annoying DJ until 2:00 a.m., hence not-so-quiet.

I just got done watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Twice. In a row. It\'s a great movie (duh). I\'m that guy. There are a few people that make up that girl, but I\'m definitely that guy. Which reminds me of a dream I had last night about a certain ex. I don\'t think her husband would be too happy about that one.

Oh, and I saw House of Flying Daggers this weekend. Incredible movie. GO SEE THIS MOVIE, even if you have to drive an hour and pay for parking like I did. Of course, if you\'re reading this, you\'re probably in Atlanta, which means it\'s playing at at least 3 theaters, including the Magic Johnson one (that\'s the only one that stuck out in my mind). This is basically Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but with better plot and cinematography. I know. Go see it.

Alright, that\'s it for now. I didn\'t intend to write this much. Looks like I\'ve got to port another posting. Damn.

Props, my brother

Mon, 20 Dec 2004 23:38:42 +0000

So my brother has started posting his own Dennis Miller-esque rants on a different web journal site. I have to say that for as much sarcastic wit as I like to think I possess, he\'s got me beat by a mile. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he\'s cursed. No, really. He\'s super intelligent, but has a learning disability; he plays guitar better than anyone I personally know, but has some strange here-to-fore-unseen disease that represents itself as demonic arthritis; and he gets a cush job sitting on his crack all day, only to slip on ice 2 weeks into it and suffer some kind of weird brain damage. And Dave, if you\'re reading this, I\'m sure you appreciate me airing all of your dirty laundry. Just think of it as sympathy points, man. All you have to do is pay me to post a picture, and tons of chicks will line up just wanting to make your day a little better.

Anyway, he\'s a funny kid, so bookmark his page. Or, do what I do:
Step 1: Download Mozilla Thunderbird (more on this later)
Step 2: Set up the .RSS feed directly into your email/newsreader
Step 3: Have news webpages and weblog sites (except for this one until it\'s fixed) come to you.

Now I just need to find a god to anger.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

Mon, 20 Dec 2004 03:48:52 +0000

Well, I\'ve done it. I\'ve semi-officially decommissioned my personal website in favor of Tabulas. Until the time comes when I learn how to do this XML magic you call RSS, or weblogging, I\'ll just have to stick to templates and easy cut-and-paste ways of putting content into the ether. Not that anybody reads it no matter where I put it. What I need is a marketing strategy.

Triple Chocolate Cake

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 03:09:07 +0000

On to matters of the organ below the heart (no, not that one). Let\'s see what we can pull from Mama Holt\'s recipe collection...

I\'ll resist the temptation to post recipes for my cheescake (you\'ve got to sweet-talk me first) or RAT Poison (you know what I\'m talking about), but this is almost as good. Even better is the fact that it uses 0 eggs for you cholesterol-intolerant.

Crap You\'re Going To Need:
1 box Devil\'s Food Cake mix
1 small box of non-instant chocolate pudding
2 c milk
1 large bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
ice or whipped cream (optional)

What You\'re Going To Do:
1. Make the pudding according to the directions on the box. You\'re going to need the milk for this, as well as probably a pot and a stirring implement, but I\'m not one to dictate.
2. When you\'re done with the cooking part, take it off of the stove and pour in the box of cake mix. Don\'t add eggs or any other crap: just the powdery devil\'s-food goodness and the proto-pudding. Mix.
3. Pour the mixture into a greased and floured cake pan. I use a 13.5\"x8.75\"x1.75\" Pyrex^Â® dish, but do what feels right.
4. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top. You really could have gone for the smaller bag, but that would leave you unable to devour the rest of them in a Cookie Monster-esque orgy.
5. Bake for 30 minutes at 350. I\'m really going to be a stickler about this. I hate to harsh your mellow, but except for various altitudinal adjustments, you should really be right on these numbers.
6. After allowing to cool, you can top this with ice cream, whipped cream (my favorite), or a combination of both.

Try to eat this in at least n sittings where n>1.

Bohemian Rap-soda

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 02:27:12 +0000

So I don\'t know what the title of this entry alludes to, other than the fact that I had a local brand of soda during my day of reading and writing in a local coffee shop; reading which included an article in Wired about hip hop legend Afrika Bambaataa.

I finished Crytonomicon today. It is definitely in my list of Top books (another list for my content pages!). As I\'ve mentioned before, it appeals the that huge throbbing nerd in me. After 918 pages, I\'m inappropriately interested in cryptography, at least for the next 2 days. In that span, I anticipate becoming an expert, devising my own crypto-system, and breaking PGP. A man\'s got to have dreams. Speaking of which...

No, we won\'t go there.

I\'m going to start a new book now: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I can\'t even really remember what it\'s supposed to be about, but it looked good when I bought it. It\'s 782 pages, so I should finish it in 4.26 weeks instead of 5. Wish me luck.

I think I might actually get some sort of Holiday missive sent out to all of those people who are wondering what the hell happened to me. Yes, I am that arrogant to think people still wonder.

So I did the whole Santa thing last week. It didn\'t suck at all. In fact, it was a significant amount of fun. There were a grand total of 0 beard-pullings or shin-kickings. Maybe I\'ll get a nice picture up soon.

But this got me to thinking: I kind of don\'t like the festivity of Christmas. I mean, I\'ve never been into the religious side (a full explanation would take too long), but I realized that I don\'t really like carols or decorations or any of that... other than the trees and lights. Those can stay. Then, today I realized that I actually do like 1 Christmas album. I can listen to the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack ALL DAY. In fact, I did because it played at the café all day. From Vince Guaraldi\'s piano stylings to the out-of-tune singing on \"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,\" it is all pretty smooth.

Based on my new kitchen layout/computer setup, I need a cordless keyboard. Just sayin\'s all.

I guess I need to do laundry tomorrow. I might as well take that time to do some writing, whether on my holiday missive, or on some music reviews I\'ve been needing to send out for TAP.

Operation A.H.A.B.

Tue, 7 Dec 2004 02:34:51 +0000

Okay, so I\'m a huge nerd, but I\'m thinking of the next 25 days until the end of the holiday season in terms of a military operation:

Phase I of Operation AHAB was put into operation today at approximately 1600 hours GMT, and will cease no later than 1500 GMT on 12 December. If Phase I is successful, Phase II will follow and continue until no later than 0559 GMT on 1 January. If either phase is unsuccessful, make preparations for SOS on 31 December.

If any of that made any sense, then congratulations, you\'re me! If you\'re curious, just ask. Personally, I just enjoy all of the insinuations, parallels, and hidden meanings just in the name AHAB.

(Yes, I\'m a freak. I\'m not even really obsessing over the objective. It just makes it more of a game when I start going all Sun-Tzu in the old cabeza.)

For a hint as to what this is really all about, check out the Music of the Moment